Barkilphedro’s growing influence at Queen Anne’s court

Barkilphedro’s growing influence at Queen Anne’s court rests on a useful combination of information and insinuation. He secretly reports on the conduct of Duchess Josiana and Lord David Dirry-Moir, but his standing with the Queen expands beyond that employment: after she smiles at his private mockery of a dead courtier, he reads her response as permission to exercise his malice more freely. He becomes not merely an observer at court, but a favored flatterer whose ability to sting others helps make him indispensable.

Informant to three powerful figures

Barkilphedro’s position is unusual because he serves several principals at once. Duchess Josiana has Lord David watched through Barkilphedro, trusting him with the task; Lord David, in turn, has Duchess Josiana discreetly observed by the same man. Queen Anne also relies on Barkilphedro, secretly receiving information about the actions and conduct of both Josiana and Lord David. The novel emphasizes the peculiar leverage of a man who can whisper in three ears: he is placed between two women and Lord David, able to carry information across relationships whose participants do not share the same view of his services.

For Queen Anne, this arrangement makes Barkilphedro a confidential source on people close to her. Josiana is the Queen’s bastard sister, while Lord David is described as her future brother-in-law. Barkilphedro’s work therefore reaches into the private conduct of the royal family’s intimate circle. The text does not present the Queen’s surveillance as open inquiry. It is secret, personal, and mediated through a subordinate whose usefulness depends on being trusted by the people he watches as well as by the sovereign who receives his reports.

The sea-bottle office and royal access

Barkilphedro’s approach to court is connected to his appointment as a special officer responsible for objects and messages cast ashore by the sea. He desires and obtains a post whose holder is expected to be a confidential man. The office gives him duties beyond collecting or registering finds: he is to keep records in communication with the court and report to the monarch, when the contents warrant it, on the strange and consequential papers recovered from the water. Such messages may contain wills, farewells, evidence of falsified ship logs, accounts of crimes at sea, or legacies to the Crown. The novel presents the office as a channel through which private revelations can enter royal knowledge.

The procedure for opening the bottles combines official safeguards with room for individual discretion. A bottle cannot be unsealed without two Admiralty jurors sworn to secrecy; the jurors and the office-holder jointly sign the official report. Because the jurors are bound to silence, however, the process still leaves Barkilphedro some latitude over whether a fact is suppressed or brought to light. His authority is thus neither unlimited nor merely clerical. He occupies a point where secrets are handled, ordered, and potentially conveyed to the monarch, and the rules themselves give him discretion in what becomes visible.

The office also grants access to the palace. Its holder ranks as a clerk after the two grooms of the almonry and may enter by the humble entrance, even reaching the bedchamber. The post’s stated purpose is to bring significant maritime discoveries to the sovereign and account for the opening of the bottles; its practical consequence is that Barkilphedro has a recognized route into royal space. The narrator calls the collected messages the ocean’s black cabinet, a phrase that links the obscurity of the sea’s disclosures to the hidden workings of court. The story also recalls that Elizabeth asked her jetsam officer what Neptune had written when he brought her a paper from the sea, establishing the office’s old association with confidential royal reporting.

The Queen’s response to his flattery

Barkilphedro’s official access does not by itself explain why Queen Anne comes to favor him. His advance depends on how he uses that access. The narrator characterizes him as cheerful and accommodating, but lacking deep devotion and showing little inclination to defend anyone. He flatters the Queen not through simple praise but by turning his wit against her neighbors. The account compares this method to flattery at the court of Louis XIV: the favored ruler is amused by ridicule directed elsewhere.

A small encounter reveals how Barkilphedro learns what Queen Anne will tolerate. The Queen laments the death of her Lord Steward, William Cavendish, Duke of Devonshire, whom she had greatly liked. She remarks on the contrast between the man’s virtues and his limited intellect. Barkilphedro quietly makes a French quip at the dead Duke’s expense. The Queen smiles. He notices the response and concludes that biting mockery pleases her; from then on, he takes that smile as license to direct his curiosity and spite more widely.

The scene gives their relationship its decisive turn. The Queen’s smile is not described as a formal grant of authority, but Barkilphedro treats it as an opening. His malice becomes a courtly service: he can entertain the sovereign by making others its target. The narrator says that once Anne has experienced his flattery, she will have no other flatterer. His influence grows through the combination of her approval and his willingness to penetrate situations where another courtier might hesitate. The Queen’s response rewards not loyalty to the people around her, but the skill of making their weaknesses useful to her amusement.

Influence through discretion and insinuation

Barkilphedro’s standing at court remains a power exercised indirectly. He whispers, watches, enters private spaces, and carries information; the text does not depict him as holding sovereign authority himself. Instead, his importance comes from his ability to make himself useful to people who possess it. The Queen comes to depend on him, and other great figures entrust him with discreditable commissions when they need them done. His confidence with the Queen therefore forms part of a larger courtly position, but it has a distinct basis: she values him as a flatterer whose sharpness can be turned against those around her.

The narrative presents this ascent as gradual and covert. Barkilphedro advances underground, gaining ground by making himself necessary rather than by openly contesting rank. The contrast between his modest clerical standing and his growing influence is central to the relationship. Palace access, secret reports, and the Queen’s smile allow a subordinate to become a hidden mechanism of court life. The sovereign receives information and amusement; Barkilphedro gains room to observe, meddle, and insinuate. Their connection is consequently both personal and political: Queen Anne’s preference empowers him, while his services help shape what reaches her and how those around her are exposed.