Chapter XXXIII (2)

Of the two questions which had occupied the last days of William of Orange, the one still remaining was noisily disputed, but without real or serious danger; the other, involving the honor and happiness of England and Scotland, had been regulated after long negotiations and alternate difficulties. The union of the two kingdoms was the object of the last message of the dying king to parliament, and was the last thought which had pre-occupied that clear and far-seeing mind, even to the very gates of death.

Party violence in Scotland, the jealousy of the feebler kingdom against the predominance of her ancient rival, and the religious questions, always inflammable, had more than once disturbed the conferences. The order of the succession to the throne, regulated by the English parliament, had been contested. The Scotch commissioners had attempted to assimilate the projected measure to an act of federation and not of union. The firm resolution of some wise minds, the prudent and moderate management of Lord Somers, at the head of the English commissioners, finally triumphed over all obstacles. The financial questions were difficult to regulate in regard to a poor country whose products were not over abundant. A uniform system of taxes was established upon equitable bases; Scotland was at first exempted from certain taxes, and a considerable sum was fixed upon as an indemnity for the new charges which were to be levied upon her. {123} The representation of Scotland in the united parliament of Great Britain was appropriate to her historic dignity as an independent kingdom, rather than in proportion to her population: forty-five commoners and sixteen Scotch peers were to sit in parliament. The national sentiment exacted an Act of Security for the Presbyterian Church, everywhere troubled and anxious. The opposing passions of the Jacobites as well as of the Cameronians, excited popular movements, and many disturbances took place in Edinburgh. Even to the last moment, the vote on the Act of Union remained doubtful in the Scotch Parliament.

On the 16th of January, 1707, its partisans finally triumphed, at Edinburgh. Early in March the English Parliament, in its turn, passed the bill. The queen desired to give her assent to this great measure of national interest in person. She came to Westminster.

"I consider this union," said she, "as a matter of the greatest importance to the wealth, strength, and safety of the whole island; and, at the same time, as a work of so much difficulty and nicety in its own nature, that till now all attempts which have been made towards it in the course of above a hundred years have proved ineffectual. I therefore make no doubt but it will be remembered and spoken of hereafter, to the honor of those who have been instrumental in bringing it to such a happy conclusion. I desire and expect from all my subjects, of both nations, that from henceforth they act with all possible respect and kindness to one another, that so it may appear to all the world they have hearts disposed to become one people. This will be a great pleasure to me, and will make us all quickly sensible of the good effects of this union."

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On the 23rd of October, 1707, the Parliament of Great Britain met for the first time. The work was accomplished: there had been bitter and continued opposition, not without corruption and rancor, but finally wise and powerful reasons of patriotic policy and morality triumphed, to the great and increasing advantage of both countries. Without losing any of their distinctive and persistent qualities, the English and the Scotch have equally served, since then, the honor and prosperity of their common country, without ever becoming either confounded or separated. The primitive thought of the union was the last title of glory of King William III. It was to the honor of the councillors of Queen Anne, Lord Somers in particular, that they accomplished the work, and affixed the seal to the undertaking, in spite of all violence and all obstacles.

It was during the reign of Queen Anne, and in the full enjoyment of free institutions, without despotic or revolutionary interruptions, that the two great parties were formed, which have, since then, divided and disputed the government of Great Britain. The Tories, above all, attached to conservative principles and to the established Church, and the Whigs, on the other hand, partisans of progress and constant defenders of tolerant measures, succeeded each other in power, without violent shocks, under the authority of a queen personally favorable to the Tories and sincerely devoted to the Anglican Church. The intrigues of the court and the influence of the Duchess of Marlborough--long dominant, but finally supplanted in the favor of the queen, by Lady Masham, played their parts in the ministerial revolutions. The state of the parties, in the country and in Parliament, changed more often and more completely than was generally conceded or believed. Four ministries succeeded to power during the twelve years of Anne's reign. {125} The first cabinet, which remained Whig in principle and in majority, even when Godolphin became Lord Treasurer, was overthrown soon after the declaration of war, in 1702. The Duke of Marlborough, already powerful, inclining sometimes towards the Tories and sometimes towards the Whigs, and solely occupied with military interests and his personal grandeur, embarrassed the new Tory ministry, and the enthusiastic majority that the new elections had assured it in Parliament, by his demands for the subsidies necessary for the prolongation of hostilities. The animosity of the party opposed to the revolution of 1688, manifested itself in the first address from the House of Commons to Queen Anne, congratulating her Majesty on having, by the hands of the Duke of Marlborough, _raised up_ with honor the ancient reputation and glory of England. At the same time, and in order to boldly testify their attachment to the Anglican Church, the Tories presented a bill against _Occasional Conformity_, ordering prosecutions against all those who habitually frequented dissenting worship, although _occasionally conforming_ to the rites of the established Church, as exacted by law from all public functionaries. The queen was favorable to the bill, although Prince George of Denmark was among the delinquents. After having sustained numerous checks, the bill--as dangerous to the Church as it was unjust--was presented anew by the last Tory ministry of Queen Anne, and finally passed in 1711. During seven years it preserved the force of law. The queen, on her part, gave to the Church a touching testimony of sympathy, by renouncing the revenues from the "first fruits," recently given to the crown, in order to donate the same to the poor clergymen. The fund from which indigent curates are still to-day sustained bears the significant name of "Queen Anne's Bounty."

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The Tories, with Lord Nottingham at their head, returned to their first principles; they were, in reality, hostile to the war. Violent and exacting, they wished to exclude from the council the Dukes of Somerset and Devonshire, the only Whig representatives. Upon the refusal of the queen, Nottingham retired, and the influence of Marlborough caused him to be replaced by Harley; the latter took with him St. John. That moderate ministry soon underwent a grave transformation by the entrance into power of Lord Sunderland.

In 1708, the Whigs having a majority in the new house, and always the true partisans of the war, firmly seized the power. The five Lords of the Junta, Somers, Oxford, Wharton, Halifax and Sunderland, found themselves reunited in the same cabinet with the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Cowper. Robert Walpole, who had been a member of the house since 1700, but who had as yet occupied only insignificant positions, replaced St. John as secretary of state. This was the beginning of a rivalry which was to last throughout their lives.

During two years the Whig ministry governed with a power which seconded the victories of the Duke of Marlborough. It was nevertheless constantly threatened by the want of personal liking of the queen, as well as by the intrigues of the court, which secretly undermined the influence of the Duchess of Marlborough. Handsome, imperious and brilliant, as well as arrogant and ambitious, Sarah Jennings had for a long time maintained over Queen Anne an authority which increased as her favors multiplied. That domination which she exercised to the very last over her illustrious husband, was slowly declining with the queen. Marlborough had for some time succeeded in maintaining his power by changing from the Whigs to the Tories, and from the Tories to the Whigs. He was sustained at first by the Whigs, formerly his adversaries; a Tory ministry that was to cause his fall was preparing.

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Weary of the violences and inequalities of the temper of her haughty favorite, the queen had found some consolation in the affection of a young and adroit woman, a relative of the Duchess of Marlborough. Abigail Hill was simply a waiting-maid to the queen, who had married her, at the suggestion of her protectress, to a Mr. Masham, a poor gentleman of the chamber. At first she was not even admitted to the royal dressing-room. It was little by little, and through chance indiscretions, that the Duchess of Marlborough recognized that she was being supplanted in the confidence of the queen, who was naturally capricious. Notwithstanding her long fidelity to the duchess, the queen could not endure restraint. Mrs. Masham secretly introduced Harley; the anger of the duchess was to serve the ambition of the former Secretary of State, and the aspirations of the Tories towards power.

An unfortunate trial, begun against an insolent and declamatory clergyman. Dr. Sacherevel, embittered religious passions. The High Church and the fashionable world were ardent and pronounced in favor of the accused. His sermon upon the "_False Brethren_," had not formally attacked the revolution of 1688, but had extolled the absolutism of the prerogative in sustaining the doctrine of non-resistance. His suspension for three years, by the House of Lords, was equivalent to an acquittal. "This fatal trial makes me sick," said Godolphin; "the life of a galley-slave would be a paradise for me." The Tories triumphed. "The ministers have a curate to roast," ironically said St. John, "and they have made so great a fire that they have roasted themselves."

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On the 8th of August, 1710, after many significant changes in the cabinet. Lord Godolphin received by a messenger from the royal stables, a note from the queen, praying him to break the white rod--his insignia of office. The queen appeared before Parliament to dissolve it; the Chancellor, Lord Cowper, endeavored to speak, but Anne silenced him. The power passed from the powerful junta of the Whigs, and Harley was named Chancellor of the Exchequer; Lord Rochester became President of the Council, and St. John Secretary of State.

The Duchess of Marlborough, disgraced without being dismissed, no longer saw the queen. Anne, overwhelmed by reproaches and insults, left the chamber where the duchess insisted upon remaining. Some months later the humility and prayers of the great general were unavailing to maintain the duchess in her position at court; he was obliged to pick up from the floor the golden key--the sign of office of the mistress of the robes--that his wife had flung away in her anger.

"She has conducted herself strangely," avowed the duke, "but there is nothing to be done, and it is necessary to endure many things to obtain peace in the household."

The day of grandeur of the Duke of Marlborough had passed; his administration of the funds of the army was condemned by Parliament. He defended himself ably, with that bold moderation which habitually characterized him. He was accused of having taken moneys from the contractors of supplies: he replied, declaring it was the custom in the Low Countries, and that although it was true, that no English general had ever before exercised this right, yet it had been for the simple reason, that no English general had ever before been commander-in-chief in the Low Countries. Walpole, unjustly included in the same condemnation, would not defend himself, and in consequence was confined in the Tower, as a prisoner, until the end of the session.

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The elections of 1713 were not favorable to the ministry; the country was uneasy and suspicious; the cabinet was divided. The perfidious ability and moderation of the Earl of Oxford were opposed to the bold ambition of Bolingbroke, and that marvellous eloquence, the memory of which remained so powerful among his contemporaries and successors, that Pitt, when asked what he would prefer to recover from the shades of the past, replied: "One of the lost decades of Titus Livius, and a speech of Bolingbroke."

The secret rivalries suspected by public opinion, and the violence of party struggles, manifested themselves upon all sides, through the press, now almost absolutely free from restraint, and directed during the reign of Anne by men of great talents, nearly all of whom were engaged in the political contests. Addison and Steele were members of the House of Commons, and also at the same time, publishers of _The Spectator_. Addison had even occupied a place in the Whig ministry. Swift, the intimate friend of Harley and Bolingbroke, employed in the defence of their policy all his bitter and sarcastic wit, without, however, being able to obtain--owing to the legitimate repugnance of the queen--the ecclesiastical preferments which he desired.

Defoe arduously defended the principles of the revolution of 1688, in brilliant pamphlets whose renown, for a time, exceeded the popularity of his Robinson Crusoe. The poet Prior was actively employed in diplomatic negotiations by Bolingbroke. Isaac Newton alone withdrew from politics, after having taken an unimportant part, and thenceforth consecrated his life to the study of the laws of nature. Pope, however, took no part in the struggles of the day, but devoted himself purely to literature.

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The intrigues increased and multiplied in all directions. The Earl of Oxford hesitated between the Stuarts and the Protestant succession, but was disposed to rely upon the Duke of Marlborough, who courted his favor. Bolingbroke was resolved to supplant the prime minister, and was at the same time imprudently engaged in the Jacobite plots. The Queen was ill, and low-spirited; she may even have felt remorse and doubts. The ecclesiastical advancements had been of a character favorable to the fallen house. The Dean of Christ Church, Francis Atterbury, able, restless, and an enthusiastic Jacobite, was appointed Bishop of Rochester. It was in accord with him that Bolingbroke, the notorious sceptic and libertine, presented to Parliament an act of schism, forbidding the right to teach to all persons who had not accepted the test and furnished proof that they had partaken of the communion within a year. "I am agreeably surprised that some men of pleasure are, on a sudden, become so religious as to set up for patrons of the Church," said Lord Wharton. The bill was passed, but was never enforced.

The Church of England had for some time been urging the Pretender to return to her bosom, and had even flattered herself that she would succeed in the illustrious conquest. The illusions and imprudence of the Jacobites were increasing: they began to speak openly of a restoration. The majority in Parliament, as well as in the country, remained firmly attached, nevertheless, to the Protestant succession. The nation was anxious and disturbed. On the 12th of April, 1714, the Hanoverian minister, Baron Schutz, who had come to an understanding with the chief of the Whigs, called upon the Chancellor, Sir Simon, afterwards Lord Harcourt, and demanded of him, in the name of the Elcctress Sophia, the summons for her son, the elector, to the House of Lords, in his quality as Duke of Cambridge. {131} The queen, being at once consulted, peremptorily and angrily refused. Schutz was obliged to leave London. Anne wrote personally to the electress absolutely forbidding the prince, her son, to set foot on English soil. Some days later, on the 28th of May, 1714, the prince became the heir presumptive to the crown of England by the death of his mother. "I would die happy if there could be written upon my coffin: Here lies Sophia, Queen of England," said the electress.

Upon the advice of the House of Lords, alarmed at the ardor of the Jacobites, the queen consented to issue a proclamation offering a reward of £5,000 to any one who would arrest the Pretender if he should set foot upon the soil of England. The peers were preparing to vote an address of thanks, when Bolingbroke entered the house; he was taken unawares. "The best measure of defence for the Protestant succession," said he, "would be to arraign for high treason all who are enrolled in the service of the Pretender." They took him at his word, and the house placed him at the head of the committee appointed to draw up the bill. "Neither the proclamation nor the bill will do us any harm," said Bolingbroke to the French envoy, D'Iberville. He had undertaken, with the Duke of Ormond, to reorganize the army in the interests of Marlborough, with the ultimate view of delivering it into the hands of the Jacobites. By one of those deliberate calculations, which often resemble a ruse, the Lord Treasurer did not furnish the necessary funds in time. Oxford had lost the confidence of the queen; he had quarrelled with Lady Masham. "You have never rendered her Majesty a service, and you are not now in a position to render her one," angrily said the favorite. Oxford did not reply; he clung tenaciously to the remnants of his power. "The least indisposition of the queen causes us great alarm," wrote Swift; "when she recovers, we act as if she was immortal."

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On the 27th of July, after a stormy interview with the queen, and surrounded by his most desperate enemies, Lord Oxford delivered the white rod into the hands of her Majesty. It was publicly rumored, and the Duke of Berwick affirms it in his Memoirs, that the Court of St. Germain had insisted upon the dismissal of the minister. "Come and see me," wrote Oxford to Swift, on the day following; "if I have not, at other times, wearied you, hasten to one who loves you. I believe that in the mass of souls ours were made for each other. I send you an imitation of Dryden, which occurred to me on my way to Kensington: To wear out with love, and to shed one's blood is approved of on high; but here below examples prove that to be an honest man, brings misfortune."

From the doubtful political honesty of Harley, Queen Anne passed, it was believed, to the imprudent and bold intrigues of Bolingbroke. From France there was suggested a bold and daring stroke: "The queen," said the Duke of Berwick, "should go to Westminster with her brother, and present him to the two houses as her successor." When dying, James II. had pardoned his daughter, charging Mary of Modena to say to her that he prayed God to convert her and to confirm her in the resolution to repair to his son the wrong which had been done to himself. It was upon this favor of the queen that the Jacobites counted, notwithstanding a letter of the Pretender declaring himself irrevocably attached to the Catholic faith. Bolingbroke had foreseen the value of the death of the queen. Scarcely had the power fallen into his hands when he assured the Abbé Gautier that he should hold the same sentiments regarding the prince, provided he took measures which were agreeable to the honest people of the country.

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The day following the sudden death of Queen Anne, the French envoy D'Iberville, wrote to Louis XIV.: "My Lord Bolingbroke is overwhelmed with grief; he has assured me that all his precautions were so well taken, that in six weeks' time things would have been in such a state that we would have had nothing to fear from that which has just happened."

The Whigs, as well as Bolingbroke, had also taken their measures; they awaited the Duke of Marlborough, still in the Low Countries. On the 14th of July, Bolingbroke wrote to Lord Strafford: "The friends of Marlborough announce his arrival; I hold it for certain, without knowing whether it is owing to the bad figure which he makes abroad, or in the hope of making a good one among us. I have reason to believe that certain persons who would move heaven and earth sooner than renounce their power or make a good use of it, have recently made overtures to him, and are in some measure in accord with his creatures." Contrary winds detained the Duke at Ostend, but General Stanhope disembarked at the Tower of London.

The queen had been seriously disturbed by the altercation which had taken place in her presence at the time of the dismissal of the Earl of Oxford. "I shall never survive it," said she to her physicians. On the morning of the 30th of July, 1714, she had an attack of apoplexy. As a strong indication of public opinion, stocks rose at the news of her illness, and declined when the physicians announced a gleam of hope. The privy council assembled at Kensington; the Dukes of Argyle and Somerset had not been called, but being secretly informed by their friends, they presented themselves. The Duke of Shrewsbury thanked them for their readiness and invited them to seats. Prudent, often hesitating, always reserved, the Duke of Shrewsbury had at last chosen his side, and had not forgotten the part he took in the revolution of 1688. {134} The great Whig lord proposed to fill the office of lord treasurer, which remained vacant. In the pressing danger of her Majesty, they suggested the name of Shrewsbury. Bolingbroke, concealing his spite and anger, found himself constrained to enter the royal chamber with the two other secretaries of state, Bromley and Lord Mar, in order to propose to the dying queen the choice which was to destroy all his ambitious hopes. "Nothing could be more agreeable to me," murmured the queen; and extending to him the white rod, she said, "use this for the good of my people." Lord Shrewsbury wished to resign the important offices that he already held. "No, no," replied Anne; then she sank into a lethargy which prevented her from articulating a word.

On the 1st of August, 1714, an embargo was put upon all the ports; the order of embarkation was given to a fleet, and considerable forces were called to London. The Elector of Hanover had been requested to pass into Holland, and the entire privy council was convoked, when Queen Anne expired, without having regained her consciousness, and without having been able to receive the sacraments or to sign her will.

The regency was instantly established, and the fleet put to sea, to receive the new sovereign. Atterbury alone dared to propose to Bolingbroke the proclamation of James III. at Charing Cross. He desired to walk at the head of the heralds in his episcopal robes. Bolingbroke, as well as all the other ministers, had signed the measures taken in favor of the Protestant sovereign. "Behold the best cause in Europe lost for want of boldness," cried the Bishop. "The Earl of Oxford was dismissed on Tuesday," wrote Bolingbroke to Swift; "the queen died on Sunday. What a world this is, and how fortune mocks us!"

[Image] Shrewsbury Invested With The White Rod.

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Other blows were in reserve for this adroit and artful intriguer; imprudent and chimerical, always ready to attempt new adventures, and counting upon the resources of his fertile genius. "The Tories seem resolved not to be crushed," wrote he, on the 3rd of August, "and this suffices to prevent its being done. I have lost all by the death of the queen, except my energy of spirit; and I protest to you that I feel it expanding within me. If you wish, in a month, all the world shall say that the Whigs are a lot of Jacobites."