Anne—Josiana

Queen Anne and Duchess Josiana are sisters whose bond becomes entangled with inheritance, royal authority, and an imposed marriage. After Gwynplaine is recognized as the legitimate heir to the Clancharlie estates and dignities, Anne directs that he replace Lord David Dirry-Moir as Josiana’s husband. The arrangement is at once a restoration of hereditary right and a personal exercise of the Queen’s power over her sister’s future.

Kinship, inheritance, and the succession

Anne’s decision follows the discovery that Gwynplaine is Lord Fermain Clancharlie, the legitimate son of Linnæus, Lord Clancharlie. Josiana had been given the Clancharlie estates, and Anne says she does not wish to wrong her sister. Her solution is to reinstate the rightful heir while making him Josiana’s husband: the inheritance and the marriage are treated as parts of one royal settlement.

The narrator emphasizes that Gwynplaine’s right is clear and direct, not a doubtful descent requiring litigation before the House of Lords. The Queen, assisted by the Lord Chancellor, can recognize and admit the new peer. This legal simplicity makes the personal consequence appear equally straightforward in Anne’s plan: the restored lord is to take David’s place as Josiana’s intended husband. The relationship between the sisters is therefore mediated by the Crown’s handling of property and title, rather than presented as a private family discussion.

Anne’s mixture of concern and calculation

Anne frames the arrangement as a repair of an abuse committed by her father, King James II, and as a defense of the peerage’s privileges. Restoring Gwynplaine, in her view, is both just and politically proper. Yet her motives are not exclusively disinterested. She is pleased by the prospect of a hideous husband for Josiana and a favorable step for Lord David, and she anticipates enjoying the resulting comedy. The narrator pointedly presents mischief and kindness as combined in her decision.

Anne knows that Gwynplaine is deformed, but Barkilphedro has not told her the nature or degree of that deformity, and she has not asked. She treats his appearance as irrelevant to the hereditary right she is restoring: a face cannot invalidate a title. At the same time, that refusal to inquire lets her contemplate a marriage whose humiliating effect on Josiana is part of its attraction. The Queen’s language of duty and justice thus coexists with a desire to gratify herself at her sister’s expense.

The plan is kept within a narrow circle while Anne is at Windsor, away from the public and the wider court intrigues. Barkilphedro, who had first tasted the contents of Hardquanonne’s flask, is delighted by the result. That secrecy and his involvement place the sisters’ relationship within a court maneuver: Anne makes the royal decision, while information delivered through the court helps set it in motion.

The marriage order and Josiana’s position

The Queen’s letter makes the arrangement explicit. It announces that Gwynplaine will be admitted and installed in the House of Lords, substitutes him for Lord David Dirry-Moir in relation to Josiana’s estates, and commands Josiana to marry him. Anne presents the command as being issued both as her sister and as Queen. Kinship and sovereignty are joined in a single instruction, but the wording gives Josiana no role in choosing the match.

By the time the order is read, Josiana has already declared her desire for Gwynplaine. She calls the Queen her sister and speaks of King James II as her father, placing their relationship within the same royal family history that now governs the marriage arrangement. Her declaration to Gwynplaine is passionate and self-abasing; the royal letter, by contrast, recasts him as a legitimate lord and prescribed husband. The contrast is sharp: Josiana approaches him through private desire, while Anne assigns him to her through rank, property, and command.

The letter’s arrival and the limits of the record

Gwynplaine reads the Queen’s letter aloud to Josiana. She listens intently, then snatches the document from his hands and murmurs Anne’s name. She also picks up the parchment she had thrown down, the report containing the Matutina crew’s confession. These gestures show her confronting the royal announcement alongside the evidence behind Gwynplaine’s restored identity, but the passage does not give her an explicit answer to Anne or establish whether she accepts the marriage.

The sisters’ relationship consequently remains unresolved at the point where the order becomes personal. Anne’s act can be understood as protection of Josiana’s inheritance and restoration of a dispossessed heir, but it also overrides Josiana’s freedom to determine her own marriage. Their bond is defined by this tension: a Queen invokes sisterhood while exercising royal command, and a sister must receive that command as both a family decision and an instrument of state.