The Queen's Favourites aka Courting Her Highness (v5) by Jean Plaidy

quiet Hill about the virtues of the Prince.
    Hill said that she had a friend who was a page in the Prince’s household and she had already heard from him of the wonderful kindness and extraordinary good qualities of the Prince.
    Anne was pleased. Who was he? She would tell the Prince what a good and loyal servant he had.
    “His name is Samuel Masham, Your Highness.”
    “Is it then? You must remind me of that, Hill. For I shall never remember.”
    Anne felt sleepy as she always did when talking to Abigail Hill. Abigail was so quiet and so restful. Just the kind of woman she liked to have about her after one of Sarah’s stormy visits. Of course she loved dear Mrs. Freeman as she would never love another woman; more than she loved dear George who was the kindest of husbands; Sarah came second only to her beloved boy; but it was pleasant to let the placid Hill soothe her now and then.
    She dropped off to sleep when Abigail was talking.
    Abigail stood looking at her and then tiptoed from the room.
    She told Samuel Masham about this relationship with the Princess. He was very interested; in fact he was interested in anything that concerned Abigail, and Samuel interested Abigail; he was so like herself. He knew a great deal about what was going on and no one would have guessed it.
    They often walked together in the Park or along the river. Abigail was glad that they were so inconspicuous in their dress and insignificant in their persons because this gave them an opportunity to do what other more notorious people never could. They could even walk through the streets of the city without attracting much attention, as few people attached to the Court could hope to do. They were once among a crowd and saw a pickpocket caught in the act and dragged to a nearby sewer to be ducked there. Ducking was a common enough event. Prostitutes were ducked if they lived in a respectable street and annoyed their neighbours; nagging wives were ducked; complacent husbands were treated to a serenade on iron pots and pans and old tin kettles; bailiffs, the enemies of all, if caught unaware, were taken to a trough and made to drink against their will until they were reduced to a state of great discomfort. Mob law ruled in the streets; and it was astonishing how self-righteous the people were in judging the sins of others. This way of life, which Abigail and Samuel were able to witness, was unknown to people such as Sarah Churchill whose lives were bounded by the Court and their own country houses.
    Samuel and Abigail had been watching the fate of a quack doctor whose pills had failed to achieve what he had claimed for them; he was divested of his garments and tipped into a ditch and his clothes thrown in after him; and as they wandered away Samuel remarked on the great love in human nature to rule.
    “Did you see their faces?” he asked. “Each one of those people enjoyed playing judge to that poor quack. There is very little difference in these people and those in high places.”
    Abigail nodded. She and Samuel were in such accord that words between them were not always necessary.
    “I heard,” went on Samuel, “that the Marlboroughs’ daughter Anne has been secretly married to the Earl of Sunderland’s son, Charles Spencer.”
    “Is that so,” said Abigail. “I knew that Lady Marlborough was in favour of the match, but I did not think the Earl would agree to it.”
    “It is Lady Marlborough who decides what shall be done in that household … and not only in that household.”
    “I wonder if Anne married willingly. She is more gentle than her sisters but she has spirit, and I do not believe she would easily be forced to do anything that was very much against her inclination.”
    “The marriage is a secret as yet but I heard it said that the Earl of Sunderland was very eager for an alliance between his family and the Churchills and that he promised them that he would guide his son in all things.”
    “But Charles Spencer once denounced