Chapter V: The Collector of the Harleian Mss (1)

‘A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried,
Above all pain, all passion, and all pride,
The rage of power, the blast of public breath,
The lust of lucre, and the dread of death.—
POPE, _Epistle to Robert, Earl of Oxford, in the Tower_.

‘Whether this man ever had any determined view besides that of
raising his family is, I believe, a problematical question in the
world. My opinion is that he never had any other.... Oxford fled
from Court covered with shame, the object of the derision of the
Whigs and of the indignation of the Tories.’—BOLINGBROKE, _Letter to
Sir W. Wyndham_.

_The_ HARLEY _Family.—Parliamentary and Official Career of Robert_
HARLEY, _Earl of Oxford.—The Party Conflicts under Queen_
ANNE.—_Robert_ HARLEY _and Jonathan_ SWIFT.—HARLEY _and the Court
of the Stuarts.—Did_ HARLEY _conspire to restore the
Pretender?—History of the Harleian Library.—The Life and
Correspondence of Humphrey_ WANLEY.

[Sidenote: BOOK I, Chap. V. THE COLLECTOR OF THE HARLEIAN MSS.]

Robert HARLEY was the eldest son of Sir Edward HARLEY, of Brampton Bryan, in Herefordshire, by his second wife, Abigail, daughter of Nathaniel STEPHENS, of Essington, in Gloucestershire. He was born at his father’s town-house in Bow Street, Covent Garden, in the year 1661.

[Sidenote: THE HARLEY FAMILY.]

The HARLEYS had been a family of considerable note in Herefordshire during several centuries. Many generations of them had sat in the House of Commons, sometimes for boroughs, but not infrequently for their county. Sir Edward sided with the Parliamentarians during the Civil Wars. He was, however, one of those moderate statesmen who, in the words of a once-celebrated clerical adherent and martyr of their party, Christopher LOVE, judged it ‘an ill way to cure the body politic, by cutting off the political head.’ In due time he also became one of those ‘secluded members’ of the Long Parliament who published the ‘Remonstrance’ of 1656, and who were then as strenuous—though far less successful—in opposing what they deemed to be the tyranny of the Protector, as they had formerly been in opposing the tyranny of the King. Sir Edward HARLEY promoted the restoration of CHARLES THE SECOND, and sat in all the Parliaments of that reign. He distinguished himself as a defender of liberty of conscience in unpropitious times; and he won, in a high degree, the respect of men who sat beside him in the House of Commons, but were rarely counted with him upon a division.

The first public act of Robert HARLEY of which a record has been kept is his appearance with his father, in 1688, at the head of an armed band of tenantry and retainers, assembled in Herefordshire to support the cause of the Prince of ORANGE, when the news had come of the Prince’s arrival in Torbay.

[Sidenote: HARLEY’S PARLIAMENTARY CAREER.]

In the first Parliament of WILLIAM and MARY Robert HARLEY sat for Tregony. To the second he was returned by the burgesses of New Radnor. The first reported words of his which appear in the debates were spoken in the course of a discussion upon the heads of a ‘Bill of Indemnity.’ ‘I think,’ said he on this occasion, ‘that the King in his message has led us. He shews us how to proceed for satisfaction of justice. There is a crime [of which] God says, He will not pardon it. [Sidenote: Grey’s _Debates_, vol. ix, p. 247.] ’Tis the shedding of innocent blood. A gentleman said that the West was “a shambles.” What made that shambles? It began in law. It was a common discourse among the Ministers that “the King cannot have justice.”’ The debate on the Bill of Indemnity of 1690 may be looked upon as, in some sort, the foreshadowing of a long spell of political conflict, in which Robert HARLEY was to take a conspicuous share. Twenty seven years afterwards the strife of parties was to enter on a new stage. Some of the men who acted as the political Mentors of the new member of 1689–90 were to live long enough to clamour for his execution as a traitor, and, on their failure to produce any adequate proof that he was guilty, were to console themselves by insisting on his exclusion from the ‘Act of Grace’ of 1717.

HARLEY won his earliest distinctions in political life by assiduous, patient, and even drudging labour on questions of finance. [Sidenote: MS. Harl. 7524, f. 139, seqq.] During six years, at least, he worked zealously as one of the ‘Commissioners for stating the Public Accounts of the Kingdom.’ In parliamentary debates on the public establishments and expenditure he took a considerable share. As a speaker he had no brilliancy. His usual tone and manner, we are told, were somewhat listless and drawling. But occasionally he would speak with a certain pith and incisiveness. [Sidenote: Grey’s _Debates_, vol. x, p. 268.] Thus, in November, 1692, in a discussion on naval affairs, he said—‘We have had a glorious victory at sea. But although we have had the honour, the enemy has had the profit. They take our merchant ships.’ Again, in the following year, when supporting the Bill for more frequent Parliaments, he spoke thus:—‘A standing Parliament can never be a true representative. Men are much altered after they have been here some time. They are no longer the same men that were sent up to us.’

Of the truth of that saying, in one of its senses, HARLEY became himself a salient instance. Bred a Whig, and during his early years acting commonly with the Whigs, his party ties were gradually relaxed. By temper and mental constitution he was always inclined to moderate measures. As the party waxed fiercer and fiercer, and as its policy came to be more and more obviously the weapon of its hatreds, HARLEY soon lay open to the reproach of being a trimmer. The growing breach became evident enough in the course of the debates on the treason of Sir John FENWICK, in November, 1696. [Sidenote: HIS SPEECH ON THE ATTAINDER OF FENWICK.] He then argued, with force and earnestness, that atrocity in a crime is no justification or excuse for violence and unscrupulousness in a prosecutor. Some of his applications of that sound doctrine are very questionable. But it is to his honour that he preached moderation with consistency. He did not bend it to the exigencies of the party he was approaching, any more than to those of the party from which he was gradually withdrawing himself.

Meanwhile he had signalised his powers in another way. By long study he had acquired a considerable knowledge of parliamentary law and precedent. He had taken his full share in the work of committees. In February, 1701, he was proposed for the Speakership, in opposition to Sir Thomas LITTLETON. He had a large body of supporters, nor were they found exclusively in the Tory ranks. The King sent for LITTLETON, and told him that he thought it would be for the public service that he should give way to the choice of Mr. HARLEY in his stead. But the election was carried by a majority of only four votes. ‘It is a great encouragement to his party,’ wrote TOWNSHEND to WALPOLE, who was then in the country, ‘and no small mortification to the Whigs.’ HARLEY retained the Speakership until the third session of the first Parliament of Queen ANNE.

Whatever may have been the ‘mortification of the Whigs’ at his elevation, it is certain that at this time HARLEY laboured zealously for the establishment of the Protestant succession to the throne. [Sidenote: HARLEY AND THE ACT OF SUCCESSION.] [Sidenote: 1701. March.] In the preparation, facilitating, and passing of that measure he took so influential a part that, afterwards, he was able to say, in the face of his opponents, when they were most numerous and most embittered, ‘I had the largest hand in settling the succession of the House of Hanover.’ The assertion met with no denial.

It is evident, too, that the qualities for which he was already reviled by extreme partisans on both sides were—in their measure—real qualifications, both for the office of Speaker and for the special task of that day. The party leaders who were then most eagerly followed were men bent on crushing their adversaries as well as conquering them. It was inevitable that by such men HARLEY’S moderation towards opponents should be regarded as more cajolery. And of that unhappy quality he was destined, at a later day, to acquire but too much.

[Sidenote: THE SECRETARYSHIP OF STATE, 1704.]

On the 27th of April, 1704, Mr. Speaker HARLEY was sworn of the Privy Council. On the 18th of May he received the seals as one of the Principal Secretaries of State. [Sidenote: _Privy Council Register_, Anne, vol. ii, p. 102.] He had scarcely entered on the duties of his office before he was busied with precautionary measures in Scotland against an anticipated Jacobite insurrection, as well as with a large share of the foreign correspondence. But just at that busy time he found means to begin—though he could not then complete—an act of charity which is memorable both on the recipient’s account and on the score of some well-known political consequences which eventually grew thereout.

At the time when HARLEY became a member of the GODOLPHIN administration Daniel DE FOE lay in Newgate, under a conviction for seditious libel, committed in the publication of his famous tract, _The Shortest Way with the Dissenters_. [Sidenote: HARLEY’S PROTECTION OF DE FOE, 1704.] The new Secretary sent a confidential person to the prison with instructions to visit DE FOE, and to ask him, in the Minister’s name, ‘What can I do for you?’ DE FOE’S characteristic reply must be given in his own words:—‘In return for this kind and generous message I immediately took pen and ink, and writ the story of the blind man in the Gospel, ... to whom our blessed Lord put the question, “What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?” who—as if he had made it strange that such a question should be asked, or as if he had said, “Lord, dost thou see that I am blind, and yet ask me what thou shalt do for me?”—my answer is plain in my misery, “Lord that I may receive my sight.” I needed not to make the application.’

[Sidenote: De Foe, _Appeal to Honour and Justice_, p. 11.]

DE FOE then adds:—‘From this time, as I learned afterwards, this noble person made it his business to have my case represented to Her Majesty, and methods taken for my deliverance.’ But the bigots who had caused a malicious prosecution succeeded in delaying the successful issue of the Secretary’s efforts during four months. With HARLEY the sufferer had had no previous acquaintance. The one designation under which he ever afterwards spoke of him was ‘my first benefactor.’ And the gratitude was lifelong.

In part, HARLEY owed his new office to the personal credit which he had won with the Queen during his Speakership; and in part, also, to the friendship of MARLBOROUGH. On receiving the news of his appointment the Duke wrote to him, from the Camp:—‘I am sensible of the advantage I shall reap by it, in having so good a friend near Her Majesty’s person to present in the truest light my faithful endeavours for her service.’ [Sidenote: Marlborough to Harley; 13 June, 1704.] But their intercourse, if it ever attained to true cordiality at all, was cordial for a very short time. Brief confidence was followed by long distrust. HARLEY strove to strengthen himself by the use of channels of Court influence which were utterly inimical to the MARLBOROUGH connection. His efforts to make himself independent of that connection did not, however, lessen the prodigality of his assurances of friendship and fidelity.

His political position thus became that of a man who was exposed to the attacks of many bitter enemies among the statesmen with whom he had begun his career, without being able to rely upon any hearty support from those with whom he now shared the conduct of affairs. He might count, indeed, on assailants from the ranks both of the extreme Whigs and the extreme Tories, whilst from most of his own colleagues of the intermediate party he would have to meet the greater danger of a lukewarm defence. In such a position the attack was not likely to be long waited for.

Easiness of nature, and a tendency to alternate fits of close application with fits of indolence, always characterised him. And those qualities had an incidental consequence which opened to his opponents a tempting opportunity. HARLEY was habitually less careful of official papers than it behoved a Secretary of State to be.[34] He was also at all times prone to place a premature and undue confidence in his dependants. In 1707, William GREGG, one of the clerks in his office, abused his confidence by secretly copying some letters of the highest importance and by selling the copies to the Court of France.

[Sidenote: THE CRIME OF WILLIAM GREGG, AND THE USE MADE OF IT BY
HARLEY’S ENEMIES.]

The treachery was discovered by the Secretary himself, and such steps were taken to lessen the mischief as the case admitted. Much excitement naturally followed upon the publicity of the crime. The least scrupulous of HARLEY’S enemies conceived a hope that the traitor who had served the public enemy for a bribe might also be tempted to ruin his master for another and greater bribe. Means were found to convey to GREGG strong assurances of a certain escape, and of a wealthy exile, if he would but declare that he had copied the despatches, and forwarded the transcripts, by the Secretary’s direction. Pending the attempt, they circulated throughout the country a report that such a declaration had actually been made, and that the Secretary was to be impeached. But the clerk, instead of betraying his master, exposed his temptors. [Sidenote: Appendix to Gregg’s Trial, &c., in _State Trials_, vol. xii, pp. 694 seqq.] His first emphatic declaration of HARLEY’S innocence was repeated immediately before his death in these words:—‘As I shall answer it before the judgment seat of Christ, the gentleman aforesaid [_i. e._ HARLEY] was not privy to my writing to France, neither directly nor indirectly.’

HARLEY himself, and also his nearest friends, were wont to speak of this affair as one that had brought his life into real peril. It is certain that the incident and its consequences helped materially to make his continuance in office impossible. But he struggled hard.

Meanwhile, the dissensions in the Ministry were daily increasing. [Sidenote: DISMISSED FROM OFFICE. Feb., 1708.] They became so bitter as to lead to personal altercations at the Council Board, even when the Queen herself was present. On one such occasion (February, 1708) GODOLPHIN and MARLBOROUGH went together to the Queen a little before the hour at which a Cabinet Council had been summoned. They told her they must quit her service, since they saw that she was resolved not to part with HARLEY. ‘She seemed,’ says Bishop BURNET, ‘not much concerned at the Lord GODOLPHIN’S offering to lay down; and it was believed to be a part of HARLEY’S new scheme to remove him. But she was much touched with the Duke of MARLBOROUGH’S offering to quit, and studied, with some soft expressions, to divert him from that resolution; but he was firm; and she did not yield to them.’ [Sidenote: Burnet, _History of his own Time_, vol. v, pp. 343, 344 (edit. 1823).] So they both went away, without attending the Council, ‘to the wonder of the whole Court.’

When the Council met, it became part of HARLEY’S duty as Secretary to deliver to the Queen a memorial relating to the conduct of the war. The Duke of SOMERSET rose, as the Secretary was about to read it, and with the words ‘If Your Majesty suffers that fellow’ (pointing to HARLEY) ‘to treat affairs of the war without the General’s advice, I cannot serve you,’ abruptly left the Council. [Sidenote: Swift to Archbishop King, 12 Feb. 1708. Comp. Burnet, as above.] ‘The rest,’ according to BURNET, ‘looked so cold and sullen that the Cabinet Council was soon at an end.’

Whilst a result which—for the time—had thus become so plainly inevitable, remained still doubtful, HARLEY had imposed on himself the humiliating task of assuring the Duke of MARLBOROUGH of the honesty of his former professions of attachment. [Sidenote: HARLEY’S DISMISSAL FROM THE SECRETARYSHIP. Feb., 1708.] ‘I have never writ anything to you,’ said he, ‘but what I really thought and intended.’ And then he went on to say:—‘I have for near two years seen the storm coming upon me, and now I find I am to be sacrificed to sly insinuations and groundless jealousies.’ These words were written in September, 1707. On the 10th of February in the following year, MARLBOROUGH had, at length, the satisfaction of writing from St. James’ to a foreign correspondent:—‘Mr. Secretary HARLEY has this afternoon given up the seals of office to the Queen. Between ourselves he richly deserves what has befallen him.’[35] [Sidenote: Marlborough to Count Wratislaw, 10 Feb., 1708.] Among the two or three friends who went out with HARLEY was Henry ST. JOHN.

For the next two years and a half, HARLEY’S principal occupation was to prepare the way for a return, in kind, of the defeat thus inflicted upon him. [Sidenote: THE INTRIGUE AGAINST THE GODOLPHIN MINISTRY. 1708–1710.] Some of the steps by which he achieved his end are among the most familiar portions of our political history. But from the necessities of the case it has been, and probably it must continue to be, one of those portions in which the basis of truth can scarcely, by any researches that are now possible, be separated from the large admixture of falsehood built thereon by party animosities.

His own correspondence shows that strong hopes of success in the effort were entertained within eight months of his dismissal. It shows also that the channel employed, unsuccessfully, in 1708, was that which became an effectual one in 1710.

Early in October, HARLEY received from the Court an unsigned letter in which these passages occur:—‘The Queen stands her ground and refuses to enter into any capitulation with the [Whig Lords]. She has not hitherto consented to offer or hear of any terms. The Lord T[reasure]r desired she might allow him to treat with ’em, and the Duke of S[OMERSE]T was employed to persuade her, but she was inflexible. The Lord Treasurer offered to resign the Staff, but she would neither take the Staff nor advice from him, and he went to Newmarket without getting any powers or leave to treat.... [Sidenote: Harley Corresp. in MS. Harl. 7526, f. 237.] Your friend cannot answer for the event.... I will add no more but that your friend thinks your being here is very necessary, and that Her Majesty ... would be the better of assistance and good advice.’

It was not, however, until the 8th of August, 1710, that the GODOLPHIN Ministry was dismissed. Two days afterwards, HARLEY was made Chancellor of the Exchequer; the Treasury being put into commission.

[Sidenote: THE CHANCELLORSHIP OF THE EXCHEQUER. 1710, August.]

He entered upon that office amidst enormous obstacles. His enemies were unable to deny that his exertions to overcome the difficulties in his path were marked by financial ability, and by a large measure of temporary success. But as little can it be denied that the immediate triumph laid the groundwork of public troubles to come.

His own account of the situation of affairs, and of the methods taken to improve it, must, of course, be read with the due allowance. The pith of it lies in these sentences:—‘The army was in the field. There was no money in the Treasury. None of the remitters would contract again. The Bank had recently refused to lend the Lord Treasurer GODOLPHIN a hundred thousand pounds. The Army and Navy Services were in debt nearly eleven millions. The Civil List owed £600,000. The annual deficit was, at least, a hundred and twenty-four thousand pounds. The new Commissioners of the Treasury, nevertheless, made provision, within a few days of their appointment, for paying the Army by the greatest remittance that was ever known. [Sidenote: _Letter to the Queen_, June 9, 1714. (_Parl. Hist._, vol. vii, App.)] When Parliament met, on the 27th of November, funds had been prepared for the service of the year, and a plan was submitted for easing the nation of nine millions of debt.’

HARLEY was scarcely warm in his new office before he made the acquaintance of SWIFT, then full of ambitious though vague schemes for the future, and very angry with the leaders of the Whig party for the coolness with which his proffers, both of counsel and of service, had lately been received.

[Sidenote: EARLY INTERCOURSE WITH SWIFT. 1710–1711.]

At the time of his introduction to HARLEY, SWIFT’S immediate business in London consisted in soliciting from the Government a remission of first-fruits to the clergy of Ireland. His nominal colleagues in that trust were the Bishops of Ossory and Killaloe, but the whole weight of the negotiations rested upon SWIFT’S shoulders. His treatment of it soon displayed his parts. The Minister saw that he was both able and willing to render efficient political service. To the intercourse so begun we owe a life-like portraiture of HARLEY, under all his aspects, and in every mood of mind. Nor is the depicter himself anywhere seen under stronger light than in those passages of his journal which narrate, from day to day, the rise and fall of the Government founded on the unstable alliance between HARLEY and ST. JOHN.

Of their first interview SWIFT notes:—‘I was brought privately to Mr. HARLEY, who received me with the greatest respect and kindness imaginable.’ Of the second:—‘We were two hours alone.... He read a memorial I had drawn up, and put it into his pocket to show the Queen; told me the measures he would take, ... told me he must bring Mr. ST. JOHN and me acquainted; and spoke so many things of personal kindness and esteem for me, that I am inclined half to believe what some friends have told me, that he would do everything to bring me over.’ [Sidenote: _Journal to Stella_; in Works, 2nd Edit., vol. ii, pp. 33; 37; 80.] When the promised interview with Secretary ST. JOHN comes to be diarized in its turn:—‘He told me,’ says SWIFT, ‘among other things, that Mr. HARLEY complained he could keep nothing from me, I had the way so much of getting into him.’ I knew that was a refinement.... It is hard to see these great men using me like one who was their betters, and the puppies with you in Ireland hardly regarding me.’ Not many weeks had passed before SWIFT’S pen was at work in defence of the measures of the Government with an energy, a practical and versatile ability, of which, up to that date, there had been scarcely an example, brilliant as was the roll of contemporary writers who had taken sides in the political strife. SWIFT’S defects, as well as his merits, armed him for his task.

Nor had he been long engaged upon it before he marked, very distinctly, the character both of the rewards to which he aspired, and of the personal independence which he was determined to maintain, in his own fashion.

One day, as he took his leave of HARLEY, after dining with him, the Minister placed in his hand a fifty pound note. He returned it angrily. And he met HARLEY’S next invitation by a refusal. Then comes this entry in his diary:—‘I was this morning early with Mr. LEWIS, of the Secretary’s office, and saw a letter Mr. HARLEY had sent to him desiring to be reconciled; but I was deaf to all entreaties, and have desired LEWIS to go to him and let him know I expect further satisfaction. If we let these great Ministers pretend too much there will be no governing them. He promises to make me easy if I will but come and see him. But I will not, and he shall do it by message, or I will cast him off.’ [Sidenote: _Journal to Stella_, p. 169.] The desired concession was made, and in a day or two we find our journalist recording, characteristically enough, that he ‘sent Mr. HARLEY into the House to call the Secretary [ST. JOHN], to let him know I would not dine with him if he dined late.’ And then:—‘I have taken Mr. HARLEY into favour again.... I will cease to visit him after dinner, for he dines too late for my head.... [Sidenote: _Ib._, pp. 178; 182.] They call me nothing but “Jonathan,” and I said I believed they would leave me Jonathan as they found me, and that I never knew a Ministry do anything for those whom they make companions of their pleasures.’

SWIFT was one of the first bystanders who took note of the seeds of dissension which were already growing up between HARLEY and ST. JOHN, and who foresaw the coming parallel between the fate of the new Government and that of its predecessor. On the 4th of March, 1711, he wrote:—‘We must have a Peace, let it be a bad or a good one; though nobody dares talk of it. The nearer I look upon things the worse I like them. I believe the Confederacy will soon break to pieces, and our factions at home increase. The Ministry is upon a very narrow bottom, and stands like an isthmus between the Whigs on one side, and the violent Tories on the other. They are able seamen, but the tempest is too great, the ship too rotten, and the crew all against them.... [Sidenote: _Ib._, p. 196.] Your Duchess of SOMERSET, who now has the key, is a most insinuating woman, and I believe they [the Whigs] will endeavour to play the same game that has been played against them.’

The game was suddenly interrupted, though only for a while. An attempt to assassinate HARLEY gave him a renewed hold upon power and popularity. But its unexpected consequences embittered the jealousies which already menaced his administration with ruin.

[Sidenote: GUISCARD’S ATTEMPT ON THE LIFE OF HARLEY. 1711, March.]

Antoine de GUISCARD was a French adventurer, whose private life had been marked by great profligacy. He had taken an obscure part in the insurrection of the Cevennes—rather as a recruiting agent than as a combatant. In that character he had met with encouragement to raise a refugee regiment in England. Hopes had also been held out to him that a British auxiliary contingent would be landed on the southern coast of France. In the course, however, of some preliminary inquiries into the position of the insurrectionists, it was found that such an invasion would have little chance of any useful result, and the project was abandoned. Meanwhile, a pension of £400 a year had been bestowed on the emissary.

But ere long it was discovered that GUISCARD had profited by opportunities, afforded him in the course of the discussions about the proposed expedition, to make himself conversant with many particulars of military and naval affairs, and that it was his habit to send advices into France. Some of his letters were seized. Their writer was arrested on the 8th of March, 1711, and was taken, immediately, before a Committee of the Privy Council.

When examined as to his illicit intercourse with France he persisted in mere denials. At length, one of his letters was shown to him by HARLEY, and he was closely pressed as to his motives in writing it. He then addressed himself to Secretary ST. JOHN, and begged permission to speak with him apart. The Secretary answered, ‘You are here before the Council as a criminal. Whatever you may have to say must be said to all of us.’ The man persisted in refusing to reply to any further questions, unless his request was granted. Seeing that nothing more could then be obtained from him, the Lord President rose to ring the bell for a messenger, that the prisoner might be removed in custody.

At that moment the prisoner pulled a penknife from his pocket, turned towards HARLEY, near to whom he stood, and stabbed him in the breast. He repeated the stroke, and then rushed towards ST. JOHN. But between the prisoner and the Secretary there stood a small table, over which he stumbled. ST. JOHN drew his sword, and, with the words ‘The villain has killed Mr. HARLEY,’ struck at him, as did also the Duke of ORMOND and the Duke of NEWCASTLE. Lord POWLETT cried out ‘Do not kill him.’ Presently the assassin was in the hands of several messengers, with whom, notwithstanding his wounds, he struggled so desperately that more than one of them received severe injuries. When at length overpowered, he said to ORMOND, ‘My Lord, why do you not despatch me?’ ‘That,’ replied the Duke, ‘is not the work of gentlemen. ’Tis another man’s business.’

HARLEY’S wound was so severe that for several days there was a belief that it would prove mortal. It entailed a lingering illness.[36] Before his recovery, his assailant died in prison. The coroner’s inquest ascribed GUISCARD’S death to bruises received from one of the messengers who strove to bind him, but SWIFT tells us that he died of the sword-wounds.

[Sidenote: _Journal to Stella_, pp. 202–214.]

That keen observer had seen, long before this attempted assassination, the latent personal jealousies between HARLEY and ST. JOHN. [Sidenote: HARLEY BECOMES LORD HIGH TREASURER.] He had recognised in those jealousies the gravest peril of HARLEY’S government. GUISCARD’S crime had now made HARLEY the most popular man in the country, and it had doubled his favour with the Queen. On his recovery, he received the congratulations of the House of Commons, expressed with more than usual emphasis. [Sidenote: _Journals of H. of Commons_, 1711. 27 April.] By the Queen he was raised to the peerage (24 May, 1711) as Earl of OXFORD and Earl MORTIMER. Five days afterwards (29 May) he was made Lord High Treasurer. [Sidenote: _Council Register_, Anne, vol. v, p. 249.] His elevation intensified the jealousy of ST. JOHN into something which already closely resembled hatred, although years were to elapse before the mask could be quite thrown aside. It is amusing to read the philosophical reflection with which the Secretary sent the news to Lord OSSORY:—‘Our friend Mr. HARLEY is now Earl of OXFORD and High Treasurer. This great advancement is what the labour he has gone through, the danger he has run, and the services he has performed, seem to deserve. [Sidenote: St. John to Lord Ossory; 1711, 12 June (_Corresp._ i, 148).] But he stands on slippery ground, and envy is always near the great to fling up their heels on the least trip which they make.’

The Earl of OXFORD had not long obtained the Treasurer’s staff before he received some characteristic exhortations from the Jacobite section of his Tory supporters of the use which he ought to make of it. ATTERBURY came to him, on the part of some of the Treasurer’s ‘particular friends,’ to acquaint him how uneasy they were that he had neither dissolved the Parliament, nor removed from office nearly so many Whigs as those particular friends wished to see removed. ‘I know very well,’ replied the Earl, ‘the men from whom that message comes, and I am also very sensible of the difficulties I have to struggle with. If, in addition, I must communicate all my measures, it will be necessary for me to assure Her Majesty that I can no longer do her any service.’

[Sidenote: OXFORD AND THE OCTOBER CLUB.]

These hot-headed politicians had already formed their famous ‘October Club.’ They were about a hundred and fifty in number, and for a few months their proceedings made a great noise. The Treasurer found means to deal with them in a more effectual fashion than that in which they had endeavoured to deal with the administration. ‘By silent, quiet steps, in a little time,’ says a writer who watched the process and aided it, ‘he so effectually separated these gentlemen, that in less than six months the name of “October Club” was forgotten in the world.... [Sidenote: De Foe, _Secret History of the White Staff_.] With so much address was this attempt overthrown, that he lost not the men, though he put them by their design.’

Those brief sentences indicate, I think, the fatality of the position in which OXFORD now placed himself. He had ardently desired to gain the control of affairs, at a period of exceptional difficulty. And, at the best, his capacity and energies would have been barely equal to the task in times of exceptional ease. Some of the very qualities, both of mind and heart, which made him beloved by those who lived with him, weakened him as a statesman. He was surrounded by adepts in political intrigue, some of whom combined with an experience not less than his own, far greater powers of mind, an unbending will, and an utter unscrupulousness as to the use of means. He vainly flattered himself that he could beat these men at their own weapons. His temporary success laid a foundation for his eventual ruin.

[Sidenote: OXFORD AND THE COURT OF THE STUARTS.]

To gain the aid of the Jacobite Tories in Parliament he held out hopes which it was never his intention to realise. He carried on an indirect correspondence with the Stuart Court in a way sufficiently adroit to induce that Court to instruct its adherents to support the negotiations for the Peace with France. He would commit himself to nothing until Peace was made. The conclusion of a Peace was the one measure on which he was firmly bent. He had contended that the true interests of Britain demanded the ending of an exhausting war many years before. And whatever the demerits and shortcomings of the Treaty of Utrecht, it had at least the merit of making the quiet succession of the House of Hanover possible.

In March, 1713, the French agent in England, the Abbé GAUTIER, wrote to the Marquis de TORCY an account of an interview he had obtained with the Lord Treasurer:—‘M. Vanderberg’ [_i. e._ Lord OXFORD], he says, ‘sent for me, seven or eight days ago, to tell me something of importance. Indeed, he opened his mind to me, making me acquainted with his feelings towards Montgourlin [_i. e._ the Pretender], and the desire he had to do him service, as soon as the Peace shall be concluded.... It will not be difficult, because the Queen is of his opinion. But, in the mean time, it is essential that Montgourlin should make up his mind; that he should declare that it is not his intention to continue to reside where he now is. He must say, publicly, and especially before his family, that when the Peace is made he means to travel in Italy, in Switzerland, in Bavaria, even in Spain. [Sidenote: Gautier to De Torcy; 1713, March. [Printed in _Edin. Review_, from notes of Mackintosh.]] This is to be done, that it may be believed in England that his choice of a residence is not dictated by a mere desire to be near his relatives, and to be close at hand should measures have to be taken on an emergency.’

After the communication of this statement to the Pretender he made repeated attempts to enter into correspondence with Queen ANNE. By OXFORD these attempts were uniformly and effectually foiled.

To the insincerity of OXFORD’S advances—such as they were—to the Jacobite emissaries, there can be no witness more competent, none more unexceptionable, than the Duke of BERWICK. His testimony runs thus:—‘We wrote,’ he says, ‘to all the Jacobites to support the government; a step which had no small share in giving to the Court party so large a majority in the House of Commons that it carried everything its own way.... After the Peace, the Treasurer spoke with not a whit more of clearness or precision than before it.... [Sidenote: _Mémoires du Maréchal Duc de Berwick_ (in Petitot’s _Collection_, tom. lxvi, pp. 219 seqq.)] He was merely keeping us in play; and it was very difficult to find a remedy. To have broken with him would have spoiled all; for he had the reins in his hand. He governed the Queen at his will.’ [Sidenote: _Ib._, pp. 224, 225.] In all his advances, adds the Duke, in another passage, ‘OXFORD’S only motive had been to win over Jacobites to side with the Tories, and to get a sanction for the Peace.’

Whilst these intrigues were still in action, one, at least, of the Jacobite agents was clear-sighted enough to detect the secret of the Treasurer’s scheme. [Sidenote: Original in Nairne MSS., vol. 4. (Macpherson, _Original Pagers_, vol. ii, p. 269.)] A confidential agent of the Earl of MIDDLETON, Secretary to the Pretender, wrote in February, 1712—‘[The Earl of OXFORD] is entirely a friend to [the Elector of HANOVER], notwithstanding the disobliging measures that spark has taken.... [OXFORD’S] head is set on shewing that he is above resentment, and that he [the Elector] has been put into a wrong way.’

In matters of Church policy at home the Earl followed like indirect courses, and with the like result—a momentary success which prepared the way for final defeat.

[Sidenote: HARLEY’S CONDUCT ON THE CONFORMITY BILL.]

No measure could possibly be more repugnant to OXFORD’S declared convictions than the famous ‘Bill against Occasional Conformity,’ brought into the House of Lords by the Earl of NOTTINGHAM, at the close of the year 1711. It was part of a policy to which his very nature was antagonistic. But he was in vain entreated, by men who had been his life-long adherents, to oppose it. The passage of that Bill was the price, and, as it seems, the only price for which NOTTINGHAM and his band of followers would give their support to the foreign policy of the Government.

The growth of the internal dissensions in the administration kept pace with the growth of its external perils. Personal objects of the pettiest kind were made occasions of quarrel. In the summer of 1712, ST. JOHN, who had set his heart on the restoration in himself of that family Earldom of BOLINGBROKE which in the previous year had become extinct on the death of a distant relative, was made a Viscount. On the announcement of his creation he burst into open menaces of vengeance against the Treasurer, and renewed them with greater violence towards the close of the year, when he found himself excluded from another coveted dignity. An election of Knights of the Garter made, to use Lord OXFORD’S own words about it, ‘a new disturbance which is too well remembered.’ Just as the breach with BOLINGBROKE had become plainly irreconcilable, the Treasurer found a new and equally bitter enemy in another old friend. He defeated a rapacious attempt made by Lady MASHAM on the Treasury. The first offence in that kind would never have been forgiven. But ere long it was repeated.

In both Houses of Parliament, OXFORD’S veiled and vacillating policy was fast alienating men who had long supported him, and who to the last retained more confidence in him than in his brilliant rival. The crisis, however, was brought about, not by the increased strength of Parliamentary opposition, but by bed-chamber intrigues, such as those which he had himself stooped to employ six years before against GODOLPHIN and MARLBOROUGH.

Meanwhile the Minister played into the hands of his opponents by exhibiting great irresolution. He dallied and procrastinated with urgent business. He relaxed in his attention to the Queen. At an unwary moment he even gave her personal offence, the results of which were none the less bitter for the absence of design. He showed more concern about comparatively distant perils than about those which were close at hand.

At the beginning of 1714 the best informed of the Jacobites had become fully convinced that OXFORD was their enemy. They saw, to repeat the words of the Duke of BERWICK, that he had been only keeping them in play. [Sidenote: OXFORD’S CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE COURT OF HANOVER.] But at the Court of Hanover he was far from being regarded as an assured friend. Over-subtlety had been rewarded with almost universal distrust.

[Sidenote: 1714, April.]

When in April of that year he sent to Hanover renewed protestations of fidelity, expressed in terms of unusual energy, they were looked upon by some of the Elector’s advisers as mere professions.[37] If now read side by side with contemporary documents, drawn up by secret emissaries of the Pretender, they acquire a stamp of sincerity which it is hard to doubt.

To Baron WASSENAER DUYVENWORDE Lord OXFORD wrote thus:—‘I do in the most solemn manner assure you that, next to the Queen, I am entirely and unalterably devoted to the interests of His Electoral Highness of Hanover.... I am ready to give him all the proofs of my attachment to his interest, and to set in a true light the state of this country; for it will be very unfortunate for so great a Prince to be only Prince over a party, which can never last long in England.’ He then goes on to add that the one thing which would, under existing circumstances, imperil the Hanover succession is the sending into England of any member of that family without the Queen’s consent. Such an act would, in his judgment, ‘change the dispute to the Crown and the Successor, whereas now it is between the House of Hanover and the Popish Pretender.’

[Sidenote: Oxford to Wassenaer; MS. Sloane, 4107. (B. M.)]

He repeated the advice in another and not less urgent letter, after the occurrence of the visit made to the Lord Chancellor HARCOURT by the Hanoverian Resident, to ask for a writ of summons for the Duke of CAMBRIDGE. But he also advised Queen ANNE to consent to the issue of such a writ. He was opposed by a majority of his colleagues, under the leadership of BOLINGBROKE, as well as by the persistent unwillingness of the Queen herself.

It is instructive to read the comments on the political situation in England at this moment, of a German diplomatist resident in London (as Minister from the Elector Palatine) who was devotedly attached to the Hanoverian succession.

‘Some people,’ wrote Baron von STEINGHENGS to Count von der SCHULENBERG, on the 12th of May, ‘have been at work for a whole year to deprive the Lord Treasurer of the conduct of public affairs. I have been aware, almost from the beginning, of the different channels which have been made use of to carry this point. But I should never have expected that they would fire the mine before the end of this session, and I am much mistaken if the authors have not reason one day to regret their over-haste. For I do not know my man, if he does not cut out a good deal of work for them, particularly if a certain intrigue which is on the tapis succeeds. As for the rest, you may rely upon his sentiments; and he never succeeded in persuading those who doubted them more than by his declaration made in a full House on the 16th of last month on the question of danger to the Protestant succession, having in it given much greater hold upon himself than there was any need for, if he was not acting in good faith.... The party of the Hanoverian Tories has visibly been strengthened by it.’ [Sidenote: Von Steinghengs to Count von der Schulenberg, May 1⁄12 1714 (in Kemble’s _State Papers_, p. 493).] And to this the writer adds, in a postscript, ‘It is of extreme importance both for the Whigs and for the House of Hanover to take steps to keep him there, and to engage him by some sort of political confidence to be assured of his fortunes under that House.’ In another letter to the same correspondent, Baron von STEINGHENGS notes a fact which by many of our historians has been too much neglected. [Sidenote: Same to same, June 14 (Kemble, p. 507).] ‘To make the English Ministry,’ he wrote, ‘alone responsible ... for the exorbitant power which the Peace of Utrecht has given to France is ... to ignore entirely the incredible obstacles which the enemies of that Ministry threw, both at home and abroad, in the way of making the Peace such as it might have been.’

But although ‘the mine was fired’ before the end of May, July had nearly ended before the effectual explosion came. [Sidenote: OXFORD’S DISMISSAL AND THE QUEEN’S DEATH. 1714, July 27, August 1.] BOLINGBROKE’S triumph lasted exactly four days. ‘The Earl of OXFORD was removed on Tuesday. The Queen died on Sunday. What a world is this! And how does Fortune banter us!... I have lost all by the death of the Queen, but my spirit.’ Such were the words in which BOLINGBROKE announced to SWIFT his victory,—and its futility. In a few more days the spirit vanished, like the triumph. The victor was a fugitive.

BOLINGBROKE’S hatred to OXFORD lasted to the close of his life. He survived his old comrade twenty-seven years. The final year of that long period brought no relenting thought, no spark of charitable feeling.

[Sidenote: DID OXFORD CONSPIRE TO BRING BACK THE PRETENDER?]

To the question ‘Did Lord OXFORD, during his tenure of office, conspire to enthrone the Pretender?’ it ought always to have been a sufficient answer that there was, as yet, not a tittle of _evidence_ of any such conspiracy on his part. That accusation had never any support beyond surmise and conjecture. Men who were in possession of every imaginable resource and appliance to back their search failed to adduce even a shadow of evidence in proof of the charge they would fain have fastened upon him. And in 1869 the matter still stands, in the main, where it stood in 1717.

After many examinations of the most secret correspondence of the Stuarts and their adherents, and after the publishing of extensive selections from it—made at intervals which spread over eighty years,—not a scrap of direct and valid testimony has been found to sustain the charge. Every passage, save one, which bears at all on OXFORD’S intercourse with Jacobite emissaries, up to the year 1715, tends to show that what they asserted about his intentions on the Pretender’s behalf was built on wishes, hopes, and guesses—on anything rather than knowledge. Every passage, save one, tends to show that he was using the Jacobites for his own purposes, without the least idea of aiding theirs. Every passage, save one, is in entire harmony with the terms of that incompatible charge by means of which BOLINGBROKE justified to himself his life-long hostility, when writing the _Letter to Sir William Wyndham_. The significance of that charge, coming from such a source, can scarcely be exaggerated. ‘OXFORD would not,’ wrote BOLINGBROKE, ‘or he could not, act with us, and he resolved that we should not act without him, as long as he could hinder it.... At the Queen’s death, he hoped ... to deliver us up, bound as it were, hand and foot, to our adversaries. On the foundation of this merit he flattered himself that he had gained some of the Whigs, and softened, at least, the rest of the party to him. [Sidenote: Bolingbroke, _Letter to Sir W. Wyndham_.] By his secret negotiations at Hanover, he took it for granted that he was not only reconciled to that Court, but that he should, under his present Majesty’s reign, have as much credit as he had enjoyed under that of the Queen.’

[Sidenote: Gautier to De Torcy; 14 December, 1713. [Printed in _Edinb.
Review_, from the Notes of Sir James Mackintosh, in vol.
lxii, pp. 18, seqq.]]

The solitary passage in the correspondence of the Jacobite agents which goes directly to the issue is the assertion made by GAUTIER, in a letter to DE TORCY, that OXFORD said to him, in December, 1713, ‘As long as I live, England shall not be governed by a German.’ In that notable statement lies the pith of a mass of letters which report the hopes, beliefs, conjectures, and imaginings, of their respective writers, as to what Lord OXFORD would do for the Pretender,—whenever that prince could be brought to change, or, at least, to disguise his religion.

OXFORD was present, as a Privy Councillor, at the proclamation of King GEORGE THE FIRST. [Sidenote: OXFORD’S RECEPTION BY GEORGE I.] It was noted by some of the bystanders that his demeanour was buoyant and joyous. When the King reached Greenwich, the Earl went thither with more than usual pomp and retinue. He was received with marked coldness, if not with open contempt.

There is little need, in a sketch of this kind, to tell, at length, the story of an impeachment which was stretched over two years, and had no result save that of breaking down, by two years of imprisonment, the health of the defeated statesman. Few and brief words on that head will suffice.

[Sidenote: HIS IMPEACHMENT. 1715–1717.]

Out of twenty-two articles of impeachment, fourteen accuse the Earl of OXFORD of betrayal of duty, either in the conduct of the negotiations for Peace, or in instructions given for handling the British Army—pending those negotiations—in such a way as to injure the common cause of the Allies, by promoting the conclusion of a treaty ‘on terms fatal to the interests of the Kingdom.’ [Sidenote: 1715. June 24.] The fifteenth article charges him with inserting false statements in the Queen’s Speeches and Messages to Parliament; the sixteenth with improperly advising the Queen to make a creation of Peers. [Sidenote: _State Trials_, vol. xv, Coll. 1052, seqq.] Other articles allege misconduct in the management of an expedition to Canada; the appropriation of sums of ‘Secret Service Money’ to corrupt purposes; and treasonable intercourse with ‘Irish Papists.’

Whilst these charges were still in preparation the Venetian Resident in London wrote a despatch to his Senate in which we have an interesting glimpse, behind the curtain, at the process:—‘The Whigs,’ he says, ‘seek to annihilate the Tories utterly, and to place them under the yoke. They want to impeach even the Duke of SHREWSBURY.’... After enlarging on nascent dissensions amongst the Whigs themselves, as to the lengths to which they might safely carry their party resentments, he proceeds to assert that the more cautious men among them ‘have now, when it is well nigh too late, become aware that the Tory party, recently dominant, was a mixed party. [Sidenote: _Correspondence of Joseph Querini_; from extracts by T. D. Hardy, in _Report on Archives of Venice_, pp. 98, 99.] Some were in favour of the Pretender; some for the House of Hanover. Had His Majesty made this distinction on his accession to the Crown he would have excluded the former, but not the latter. By favouring the Whigs alone, he lost all the others at once.’ In brief, GEORGE THE FIRST had made himself exactly what OXFORD had warned him against becoming, the ‘King of a party.’

When the Earl at length appeared before his peers to answer to his impeachment, he began by denying ‘that at any time or place in the course of those negotiations,’ now incriminated, ‘he conferred unlawfully or without due authority with any emissaries of France.’ He affirmed that he neither promoted nor advised any private, separate, or unjustifiable negotiation, and that he himself had no knowledge ‘that any negotiation relating to Peace was carried on without communication to the Allies.’

On the specific charge that he had traitorously given up Tournay to France, his defence is twofold:—‘I used my best offices,’ he asserts, ‘to preserve that town and fortress to the States General. I believe that at this time they are continued to the States General as part of their barrier.’ And then he adds:—‘But I deny that for a Privy Councillor and Minister of State to advise the yielding of any town, fort, or territory, upon the conclusion of a Peace, is, or can be, High Treason by any law of this realm.’

On the whole matter of the Peace, he asserts that ‘its terms and preliminaries were communicated to Parliament. They were agreed on with the concurrence of Parliament. The Definitive Treaty was afterwards approved of by both Houses. Solemn thanks were rendered to God for it in all our churches and also in the churches of the United Provinces. Her Majesty received upon its conclusion the hearty and unfeigned thanks of her people from all parts of her dominions.’

[Sidenote: _State Trials_, vol. xv, c. 1137 seqq.]

[Sidenote: _Commons’ Journals_, 9 June, 1715.]

It might well have been thought that even in those evil days it would be difficult to induce a Committee of partisans to report to the House of Commons that ‘large sums issued for the service of the war were received by the Earl of OXFORD, and applied to his Lordship’s private use,’ without the possession of some plausible show of proof. There was not so much as a decent presumption, or colourable inference, to back the assertion. When the matter came to be probed, it appeared that a royal gift of £13,000 had been received by the Earl in what were known as ‘tin tallies,’ and that the sum had been a charge upon the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall.