With means the most inadequate and low;
Most master of himself, and least encumbered,
When overmatched, entangled and outnumbered.”
In June, 1705, this remarkable man arrived in Lisbon with five thousand
Dutch and English soldiers. There the Archduke embarked with a large
train of attendants, whom Peterborough entertained munificently during
the voyage at his own expense. From Lisbon the armament proceeded to
Gibraltar, and, having taken the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt on board,
steered towards the north-east alone the coast of Spain.
The first place at which the expedition touched, {113}after leaving
Gibraltar, was Alter, in Valencia. The wretched misgovernment of Philip
had excited great discontent throughout this province. The invaders
were eagerly welcomed. The peasantry flocked to the shore, bearing
provisions, and shouting, “Long live Charles the Third.” The
neighbouring fortress of Dénia surrendered without a blow.
The imagination of Peterborough took fire. He conceived the hope of
finishing the war at one blow. Madrid was but a hundred and fifty miles
distant. There was scarcely one fortified place on the road. The troops
of Philip were either on the frontiers of Portugal or on the coast of
Catalonia. At the capital there was no military force, except a few
horse who formed a guard of honour round the person of Philip. But the
scheme of pushing into the heart of a great kingdom with an army of only
seven thousand men, was too daring to please the Archduke. The Prince of
Hesse Darmstadt, who, in the reign of the late Kino-of Spain, had been
Governor of Catalonia, and who overrated his own influence in that
province, was of opinion that they ought instantly to proceed thither,
and to attack Barcelona. Peterborough was hampered by his instructions,
and found it necessary to submit.
On the sixteenth of August the fleet arrived before Barcelona; and
Peterborough found that the task assigned to him by the Archduke and the
Prince was one of almost insuperable difficulty. One side of the city
was protected by the sea; the other by the strong fortifications of
Monjuich. The walls were so extensive that thirty thousand men would
scarcely have been sufficient to invest them. The garrison was as
numerous as the besieging army. The best officers in the Spanish service
were in the town. The hopes {114}which the Prince of Darmstadt had
formed of a gen-end rising in Catalonia, were grievously disappointed.
The invaders were joined only by about fifteen hundred armed peasants,
whose services cost more than they were worth.
No general was ever in a more deplorable situation than that in which
Peterborough was now placed, he had always objected to the scheme
of besieging Barcelona. His objections had been overruled. He had to
execute a project which he had constantly represented as impracticable.
His camp was divided into hostile factions, and he was censured by all.
The Archduke and the Prince blamed him for not proceeding instantly to
take the town; but suggested no plan by which seven thousand men could
be enabled to do the work of thirty thousand. Others blamed their
general for giving up his own opinion to the childish whims of
Charles, and for sacrificing his men in an attempt to perform what was
impossible. The Dutch commander positively declared that his soldiers
should not stir: Lord Peterborough might give what orders he chose; but
to engage in such a siege was madness; and the men should not be sent to
certain death where there was no chance of obtaining any advantage.
At length, after three weeks of inaction, Peterborough announced his
fixed determination to raise the siege. The heavy cannon were sent on
board. Preparations were made for reembarking the troops. Charles and
the Prince of Hesse were furious; but most of the officers blamed their
general for having delayed so long the measure which he had at last
found it necessary to take. On the 12th of September there were
rejoicings and public entertainments in Barcelona for this great
deliverance. On the following morning {115}the English flag was flying
on the ramparts of Monjuich.
The genius and energy of one man had supplied the place of forty
battalions.
At midnight Peterborough had called on the Prince of Hesse, with whom
he had not for some time been on speaking terms. “I have resolved, sir,”
said the Earl, “to attempt an assault; you may accompany us if you think
fit, and see whether I and my men deserve what you have been pleased to
say of us.” The Prince was startled. The attempt, he said, was hopeless,
but he was ready to take his share; and, without further discussion, he
called for his horse.
Fifteen hundred English soldiers were assembled under the Earl. A
thousand more had been posted as a body of reserve at a neighbouring
convent, under the command of Stanhope. After a winding march along the
foot of the hills, Peterborough and his little army reached the walls
of Monjuich. There they halted till daybreak. As soon as they were
descried, the enemy advanced into the outer ditch to meet them. This was
the event on which Peterborough had reckoned, and for which his men were
prepared. The English received the fire, rushed forward, leaped into the
ditch, put the Spaniards to flight, and entered the works together
with the fugitives. Before the garrison had recovered from their first
surprise, the Earl was master of the outworks, had taken several pieces
of cannon, and had thrown up a breastwork to defend his men. He
then sent off for Stanhope’s reserve. While he was waiting for this
reinforcement, news arrived that three thousand men were marching from
Barcelona towards Monjuich. He instantly rode out to take a view of
them; but no sooner had he left his troops than they were seized with
a panic. Their situation {116}was indeed full of danger; they had been
brought into Monjuich they scarcely knew how; their numbers were
small: their general was gone: their hearts failed them, and they were
proceeding to evacuate the fort. Peterborough received information of
these, occurrences in time to stop the retreat. He galloped up to the
fugitives, addressed a few words to them, and put himself at their head.
The sound of his voice and the sight of his face restored all their
courage, and they marched back to their former position.
The Prince of Hesse had fallen in the confusion of the assault; but
every thing else went well. Stanhope arrived; the detachment which had
inarched out of Barcelona retreated; the heavy cannon were disembarked,
and brought to bear on the inner fortifications of Monjuich, which
speedily fell. Peterborough, with his usual generosity, rescued the
Spanish soldiers from the ferocity of his victorious army, and paid the
last honours with great pomp to his rival the Prince of Hesse.
The reduction of Monjuich was the first of a series of brilliant
exploits. Barcelona fell; and Peterborough had the glory of taking, with
a handful of men, one of the largest and strongest towns of Europe. He
had also the glory, not less dear to his chivalrous temper, of saving
the life and honour of the beautiful Duchess of Popoli, whom he met
flying with dishevelled hair from the fury of the soldiers. He availed
himself dexterously of the jealousy with which the Catalonians regarded
the inhabitants of Castile. He guaranteed to the province in the capital
of which he was now quartered all its ancient rights and liberties,
and thus succeeded in attaching the population to the Austrian cause.
{117}The open country now declared in favour of Charles. Tarragona,
Tortosa, Gerona, Lerida, San Mateo, threw open their gates. The Spanish
government sent the Count of Las Torres with seven thousand men to
reduce San Mateo. The Earl of Peterborough, with only twelve hundred
men, raised the siege. His officers advised him to be content with this
extraordinary success. Charles urged him to return to Barcelona; but no
remonstrances could stop such a spirit in the midst of such a career.
It was the depth of winter. The country was mountainous. The roads were
almost impassable. The men were ill-clothed. The horses were knocked up.
The retreating army was far more numerous than the pursuing army. But
difficulties and dangers vanished before the energy of Peterborough. He
pushed on, driving Las Torres before him. Nules surrendered to the mere
terror of his name; and, on the fourth of February, 1706, he arrived in
triumph at Valencia. There he learned that a body of four thousand men
was on the march to join Las Torres. He set out at dead of night from
Valencia, passed the Xucar, came unexpectedly on the encampment of the
enemy, and slaughtered, dispersed, or took the whole reinforcement. The
Valencians could scarcely believe their eyes when they saw the prisoners
brought in.
In the mean time the Courts of Madrid and Versailles, exasperated and
alarmed by the fall of Barcelona and by the revolt of the surrounding
country, determined to make a great effort. A large army, nominally
commanded by Philip, but really under the orders of Marshal Tessé,
entered Catalonia. A fleet under the Count of Toulouse, one of the
natural children of Lewis the Fourteenth, appeared before the port
of Barcelona. {118}The city was attacked at once by sea and land. The
person of the Archduke was in considerable danger. Peterborough, at
the head of about three thousand men, inarched with great rapidity from
Valencia. To give battle, with so small a force, to a great regular army
under the conduct of a Marshal of France, would have been madness. The
Earl therefore made war after the fashion of the Minas and Empecinados
of our own time. He took his post on the neighbouring mountains,
harassed the enemy with incessant alarms, cut off their stragglers,
intercepted their communications with the interior, and introduced
supplies, both of men and provisions into the town. He saw, however,
that the only hope of the besieged was on the side of the sea. His
commission from the British government gave him supreme power, not only
over the army, but, whenever he should be actually on board, over
the navy also. He put out to sea at night in an open boat, without
communicating his design to any person. He was picked up, several
leagues from the shore, by one of the ships of the English squadron. As
soon as he was on board, he announced himself as first in command, and
sent a pinnace with his orders to the Admiral. Had these orders been
given a few hours earlier, it is probable that the whole French fleet
would have been taken. As it was, the Count of Toulouse put out to sea.
The port was open. The town was relieved. On the following night
the enemy raised the siege and retreated to Roussillon. Peterborough
returned to Valencia, a place which he preferred to every other in
Spain; and Philip, who had been some weeks absent from his wife, could
endure the misery of separation no longer, and flew to rejoin her at
Madrid.
At Madrid, however, it was impossible for him or for {119}her to remain.
The splendid success which Peterborough had obtained on the eastern
coast of the Peninsula had inspired the sluggish Galway with emulation.
He advanced into the heart of Spain. Berwick retreated. Alcantara,
Ciudad Rodrigo, and Salamanca fell, and the conquerors marched towards
the capital.
Philip was earnestly pressed by his advisers to remove the seat of
government to Burgos. The advanced guard of the allied army was already
seen on the heights above Madrid. It was known that the main body was at
hand. The unfortunate Prince fled with his Queen and his household.
The royal wanderers, after travelling eight days on bad roads, under a
burning sun, and sleeping eight nights in miserable hovels, one of which
fell down and nearly crushed them both to death, reached the Metropolis
of Old Castile. In the mean time the invaders had entered Madrid in
triumph, and had proclaimed the Archduke in the streets of the imperial
city. Arragon, ever jealous of the Castilian ascendency, followed the
example of Catalonia. Saraoossa revolted without seeing an enemy. The
governor whom Philip had set over Carthagena betrayed his trust, and
surrendered to the Allies the best arsenal and the last ships which
Spain possessed.
Toledo had been for some time the retreat of two ambitious, turbulent,
and vindictive intriguers, the Queen Dowager and Cardinal Porto Carrero.
They had long been deadly enemies. They had led the adverse factions
of Austria and France. Each had in turn domineered over the weak and
disordered mind of the late King. At length the impostures of the priest
had triumphed over the blandishments of the woman; Porto Carrero had
remained victorious; and the Queen had fled in shame and mortification,
from the court where {120}she had once been supreme. In her retirement
she was soon joined by him whose arts had destroyed her influence. The
cardinal, having held power just long enough to convince all parties of
his incompetency, had been dismissed to his See, cursing his own folly
and the ingratitude of the House which he had served too well.
Common interests and common enmities reconciled the fallen rivals. The
Austrian troops were admitted into Toledo without opposition. The Queen
Dowager flung off that mournful garb which the widow of a King of Spain
wears through her whole life, and blazed forth in jewels. The Cardinal
blessed the standards of the invaders in his magnificent cathedral, and
lighted up his palace in honour of the great deliverance. It seemed that
the struggle had terminated in favour of the Archduke, and that nothing
remained for Philip but a prompt flight into the dominions of his
grandfather.
So judged those who were ignorant of the character and habits of the
Spanish people. There is no country in Europe which it is so easy
to overrun as Spain: there is no country in Europe which it is more
difficult to conquer. Nothing can be more contemptible than the regular
military resistance which Spain offers to an invader; nothing more
formidable than the energy which she puts forth when her regular
military resistance has been beaten down. Her armies have long borne too
much resemblance to mobs; but her mobs have had, in an unusual degree,
the spirit of armies. The soldier, as compared with other soldiers, is
deficient in military qualities; but the peasant has as much of those
qualities as the soldier. In no country have such strong fortresses been
taken by surprise: in no country have unfortified towns made so furious
and {121}obstinate a resistance to great armies. War in Spain has, from
the days of the Romans, had a character of its own it is a fire which
cannot he raked out; it burns fiercely under the embers; and long after
it has, to all seeming, been extinguished, bursts forth more violently
than ever. This was seen in the last war. Spain had no army which could
have looked in the face an equal number of French or Prussian soldiers;
but one day laid the Prussian monarchy in the dust; one day put the
crown of France at the disposal of invaders. No Jena, no Waterloo, would
have enabled Joseph to reign in quiet at Madrid.
The conduct of the Castilians throughout the War of the Succession was
most characteristic. With all the odds of number and situation on their
side, they had been ignominiously beaten. All the European dependencies
of the Spanish crown were lost. Catalonia, Arragon, and Valencia had
acknowledged the Austrian Prince. Gibraltar had been taken by a few
sailors; Barcelona stormed by a few dismounted dragoons. The invaders
had penetrated into the centre of the Peninsula, and were quartered at
Madrid and Toledo. While these events had been in progress, the nation
had scarcely given a sign of life. The rich could hardly be prevailed on
to give or to lend for the support of war; the troops had shown neither
discipline nor courage; and now at last, when it seemed that all was
lost, when it seemed that the most sanguine must relinquish all hope,
the national spirit awoke, fierce, proud, and unconquerable. The people
had been sluggish when the circumstances might well have inspired hope;
they reserved all their energy for what appeared to be a season of
despair. Castile, Leon, Andalusia, Estremadura, rose at once; every
peasant {122}procured a firelock or a pike; the Allies were masters
only of the ground on which they trod. No soldier could wander a hundred
yards from the main body of the invading army without imminent risk of
being poniarded. The country through which the conquerors had passed to
Madrid, and which, as they thought, they had subdued, was all in arms
behind them. Their communications with Portugal were cut off. In the
mean time, money began, for the first time, to flow rapidly into the
treasury of the fugitive king. “The day before yesterday,” says the
Princess Orsini, in a letter written at this time, “the priest of
a village which contains only a hundred and twenty houses brought a
hundred and twenty pistoles to the Queen. ‘My flock,’ said he, ‘are
ashamed to send you so little; but they beg you to believe that in this
purse there are a hundred and twenty hearts faithful even to the death.’
The good man wept as he spoke; and indeed we wept too. Yesterday another
small village, in which there are only twenty houses, sent us fifty
pistoles.”
While the Castilians were everywhere arming in the cause of Philip, the
Allies ware serving that cause as effectually by their mismanagement.
Galway staid at Madrid, where his soldiers indulged in such boundless
licentiousness that one half of them were in the hospitals. Charles
remained dawdling in Catalonia. Peterborough had taken Requena, and
wished to march from Valencia towards Madrid, and to effect a junction
with Galway; but the Archduke refused his consent to the plan. The
indignant general remained accordingly in his favourite city, on the
beautiful shores of the Mediterranean, reading Don Quixote, giving
balls and suppers, trying in vain to get some good {123}sport out of the
Valencia bulls, and making love, not in vain, to the Valencian women.
At length the Archduke advanced into Castile, and ordered Peterborough
to join him. But it was too late. Berwick had already compelled
Galway to evacuate Madrid; and, when the whole force of the Allies
was collected at Guadalaxara, it was found to be decidedly inferior in
numbers to that of the enemy.
Peterborough formed a plan for regaining possession of the capital.
His plan was rejected by Charles. The patience of the sensitive and
vainglorious hero was worn out. He had none of that serenity of temper
which enabled Marlborough to act in perfect harmony with Eugene, and
to endure the vexatious interference of the Dutch deputies. He demanded
permission to leave the army. Permission was readily granted; and he set
out for Italy. That there might be some pretext for his departure, he
was commissioned by the Archduke to raise a loan in Genoa on the credit
of the revenues of Spain.
From that moment to the end of the campaign the tide of fortune ran
strong against the Austrian cause. Berwick had placed his army between
the Allies and the frontiers of Portugal. They retreated on Valencia,
and arrived in that province, leaving about ten thousand prisoners in
the hands of the enemy.
In January, 1707, Peterborough arrived at Valencia from Italy, no longer
bearing a public character, but merely as a volunteer. His advice was
asked, and it seems to have been most judicious. He gave it as his
decided opinion that no offensive operations against Castile ought to be
undertaken. It would be easy, he said, to defend Arragon, Catalonia, and
Valencia, against Philip. The inhabitants of those parts of {124}Spain
were attached to the cause of the Archduke; and the armies of the House
of Bourbon would be resisted by the whole population. In a short time
the enthusiasm of the Castilians might abate. The government of Philip
might commit unpopular acts. Defeats in the Netherlands might compel
Lewis to withdraw the succours which he had furnished to his grandson.
Then would be the time to strike a decisive blow. This excellent advice
was rejected. Peterborough, who had now received formal letters of
recall from England, departed before the opening of the campaign; and
with him departed the good fortune of the Allies. Scarcely any general
had ever done so much with means so small. Scarcely any general had ever
displayed equal originality and boldness. He possessed, in the highest
degree, the art of conciliating those whom he had subdued. But he was
not equally successful in winning the attachment of those with whom he
acted. He was adored by the Catalonians and Valencians; but he was hated
by the prince whom he had all but made a great king, and by the generals
whose fortune and reputation were staked on the same venture with
his own. The English government could not understand him. He was so
eccentric that they gave him no credit for the judgment which he really
possessed. One day he took towns with horse-soldiers; then again he
turned some hundreds of infantry into cavalry at a minute’s notice. He
obtained his political intelligence chiefly by means of love affairs,
and filled his despatches with epigrams. The ministers thought that it
would be highly impolitic to intrust the conduct of the Spanish war to
so volatile and romantic a person. They therefore gave the command to
Lord Galway, an experienced veteran, a man who was in war {125}what
Moliere’s doctors were in medicine, who thought it much more honourable
to fail according to rule, than to succeed by innovation, and who would
have been very much ashamed of himself if he had taken Monjuich by means
so strange as those which Peterborough employed. This great commander
conducted the campaign of 1707 in the most scientific manner. On the
plain of Almanza he encountered the army of the Bourbons. He drew up his
troops according to the methods prescribed by the best writers, and in
a few hours lost eighteen thousand men, a hundred and twenty standards,
all his baggage and all his artillery. Valencia and Arragon were
instantly conquered by the French, and, at the close of the year, the
mountainous province of Catalonia was the only part of Spain which still
adhered to Charles.
“Do you remember, child,” says the foolish woman in the Spectator to
her husband, “that the pigeon-house fell the very afternoon that our
careless wench spilt the salt upon the table?”
“Yes, my dear,” replies the gentleman, “and the next post brought us an
account of the battle of Almanza.” The approach of disaster in Spain had
been for some time indicated by omens much clearer than the mishap of
the saltcellar; an ungrateful prince, an undisciplined army, a divided
council, envy triumphant over merit, a man of genius recalled, a pedant
and a sluggard intrusted with supreme command. The battle of Almanza
decided the fate of Spain. The loss was such as Marlborough or Eugene
could scarcely have retrieved, and was certainly not to be retrieved by
Stanhope and Staremberg.
Stanhope, who took the command of the English army in Catalonia, was a
man of respectable abilities, {126}both in military and civil affairs,
but fitter, we conceive, for a second than for a first place. Lord
Mahon, with his usual candour, tells us, what we believe was not known
before, that his ancestor’s most distinguished exploit, the conquest
of Minorea, was suggested by Marlborough. Staremberg, a methodical
tactician of the German school, was sent by the emperor to command
in Spain. Two languid campaigns followed, during which neither of the
hostile armies did any thing memorable, but during which both were
nearly starved.
At length, in 1710, the chiefs of the Allied forces resolved to venture
on bolder measures. They began the campaign with a daring move, pushed
into Arragon, defeated the troops of Philip at Almenara, defeated
them again at Saragossa, and advanced to Madrid. The King was again a
fugitive. The Castilians sprang to arms with the same enthusiasm which
they had displayed in 1700. The conquerors found the capital a desert.
The people shut themselves up in their houses, and refused to pay any
mark of respect to the Austrian prince. It was necessary to hire a few
children to shout before him in the streets. Meanwhile, the court
of Philip at Valladolid was thronged by nobles and prelates. Thirty
thousand people followed their King from Madrid to his new residence.
Women of rank, rather than remain behind, performed the journey on foot.
The peasants enlisted by thousands. Money, arms, and provisions, were
supplied in abundance by the zeal of the people. The country round
Madrid was infested by small parties of irregular horse. The Allies
could not send off a despatch to Arragon, or introduce a supply of
provisions into the capital. It was unsafe for the Archduke to hunt
{127}in the immediate vicinity of the palace which he occupied.
The wish of Stanhope was to winter in Castile. But he stood alone in the
council of war; and, indeed, it is not easy to understand how the Allies
could have maintained themselves, through so unpropitious a season, in
the midst of so hostile a population. Charles, whose personal safety was
the first object of the generals, was sent with an escort of cavalry to
Catalonia in November; and in December the army commenced its retreat
towards Arragon.
But the Allies had to do with a master-spirit. The King of France
had lately sent the Duke of Vendome to command in Spain. This man was
distinguished by the filthiness of his person, by the brutality of
his demeanour, by the gross buffonery of his conversation, and by the
impudence with which he abandoned himself to the most nauseous of all
vices. His sluggishness was almost incredible. Even when engaged in a
campaign, he often passed whole days in his bed. His strange torpidity
had been the cause of some of the most serious disasters which the
armies of the House of Bourbon had sustained. But when he was roused
by any great emergency, his resources, his energy, and his presence of
mind, were such as had been found in no French general since the death
of Luxembourg.
At this crisis, Vendome was all himself. He set out from Talavera with
his troops, and pursued the retreating army of the Allies with a speed
perhaps never equalled, in such a season, and in such a country. He
marched night and day. He swam, at the head of his cavalry, the flooded
stream of Henares, and, in a few days, overtook Stanhope, who was at
Brihuega {128}with the left wing of the Allied army. “Nobody with me,”
says the English general, “imagined that they had any foot within
some days’ march of us; and our misfortune is owing to the incredible
diligence which their army made.” Stanhope had but just time to send
off a messenger to the centre of the army, which was some leagues from
Brihuega, before Vendome was upon him. The town was invested on every
side. The walls were battered with cannon. A mine was sprung under one
of the gates. The English kept up a terrible fire till their powder
was spent. They then fought desperately with the bayonet against
overwhelming odds. They burned the houses which the assailants
had taken. But all was to no purpose. The British general saw that
resistance could produce only a useless carnage. He concluded a
capitulation; and his gallant little army became prisoners of war on
honourable terms.
Scarcely had Vendôme signed the capitulation, when he learned that
Staremberg was marching to the relief of Stanhope. Preparations were
instantly made for a general action. On the day following that on which
the English had delivered up their arms, was fought the obstinate and
bloody fight of Villa-Viciosa. Staremberg remained master of the field.
Vendome reaped all the fruits of the battle. The Allies spiked their
cannon, and retired towards Arragon. But even in Arragon they found
no place of rest. Vendome was behind them. The guerrilla parties were
around them. They fled to Catalonia; but Catalonia was invaded by a
French army from Roussillon. At length the Austrian general, with
six thousand harassed and dispirited men, the remains of a great and
victorious army, took refuge in Barcelona, {129}almost the only place in
Spain which still recognised the authority of Charles.
Philip was now much safer at Madrid than his grandfather at Paris. All
hope of conquering Spain in Spain was at an end. But in other quarters
the House of Bourbon was reduced to the last extremity. The French
armies had undergone a series of defeats in Germany, in Italy, and in
the Netherlands. An immense force, flushed with victory, and commanded
by the greatest generals of the age, was on the borders of France. Lewis
had been forced to humble himself before the conquerors. He had even
offered to abandon the cause of his grandson; and his offer had been
rejected. But a great turn in affairs was approaching.
The English administration which had commenced the war against the House
of Bourbon was an administration composed of Tories. But the war was a
Whig war. It was the favourite scheme of William, the Whig King. Lewis
had provoked it by recognising, as sovereign of England, a prince
peculiarly hateful to the Whigs. It had placed England in a position
of marked hostility to that power from which alone the Pretender could
expect efficient succour. It had joined England in the closest union
to a Protestant and republican state, to a state which had assisted in
bringing about the Revolution, and which was willing; to guarantee the
execution of the Act of Settlement. Marlborough and Godolphin found that
they were more zealously supported by their old opponents than by
their old associates. Those ministers who were zealous for the war
were gradually converted to Whiggism. The rest dropped off, and were
succeeded by Whigs. Cowper became Chancellor. Sunderland, in spite of
the very just antipathy of Anne, was made Secretary {130}of State. On
the death of the Prince of Denmark a more extensive change took place.
Wharton became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and Somers President of the
Council. At length the administration was wholly in the hands of the Low
Church party.
In the year 1710 a violent change took place. The Queen had always been
a Tory at heart. Her religious feelings were all on the side of the
Established Church. Her family feelings pleaded in favour of her exiled
brother. Her selfish feelings disposed her to favour the zealots of
prerogative. The affection which she felt for the Duchess of Marlborough
was the great security of the Whigs. That affection had at length turned
to deadly aversion. While the great party which had long swayed the
destinies of Europe was undermined by bedchamber women at St. James’s,
a violent storm gathered in the country. A foolish parson had preached
a foolish sermon against the principles of the Revolution. The wisest
member of the government were for letting the man alone. But Godolphin,
inflamed with all the zeal of a new-made Whig, and exasperated by
a nickname which was applied to him in this unfortunate discourse,
insisted that the preacher should be impeached. The exhortations of the
mild and sagacious Somers were disregarded. The impeachment was brought;
the doctor was convicted; and the accusers were ruined. The clergy came
to the rescue of the persecuted clergyman. The country gentlemen came
to the rescue of the clergy. A display of Tory feelings, such as England
had not witnessed since the closing years of Charles the Second’s reign,
appalled the Ministers and gave boldness to the Queen. She turned
out the Whigs, called Harley and St. John to power, and dissolved
the Parliament. The {131}elections went strongly against the late
government. Stanhope, who had in his absence been put in nomination
for Westminster, was defeated by a Tory candidate. The new Ministers,
finding themselves masters of the new Parliament, were induced by the
strongest motives to conclude a peace with France. The whole system of
alliance in which the country was engaged was a Whig system. The general
by whom the English armies had constantly been led to victory, and for
whom it was impossible to find a substitute, was now, whatever he might
formerly have been, a Whig general. If Marlborough were discarded it
was probable that some great disaster would follow. Yet, if he were
to retain his command, every great action which he might perform would
raise the credit of the party in opposition.
A peace was therefore concluded between England and the Princes of
the House of Bourbon. Of that peace Lord Mahon speaks in terms of the
severest reprehension. He is, indeed, an excellent Whig of the time of
the first Lord Stanhope. “I cannot but pause for a moment,” says he, “to
observe how much the course of a century has inverted the meaning of our
party nicknames, how much a modern Tory resembles a Whig of Queen Anne’s
reign, and a Tory of Queen Anne’s reign a modern Whig.”
We grant one half of Lord Mahon’s proposition: from the other half
we altogether dissent. We allow that a modern Tory resembles, in many
things, a Whig of Queen Anne’s reign. It is natural that such should be
the case. The worst things of one age often resemble the best things of
another. A modern shopkeeper’s house is as well furnished as the house
of a considerable merchant in Anne’s reign. Very plain people now
{132}wear finer cloth than Beau Fielding or Beau Edgeworth could have
procured in Queen Anne’s reign. We would rather trust to the apothecary
of a modern village than to the physician of a large town in Anne’s
reign. A modern boarding-school miss could tell the most learned
professor of Anne’s reign some things in geography, astronomy, and
chemistry, which would surprise him.
The science of government is an experimental science; and therefore it
is, like all other experimental sciences, a progressive science. Lord
Mahon would have been a very good Whig in the days of Harley. But
Harley, whom Lord Mahon censures so severely, was very Whiggish when
compared even with Clarendon; and Clarendon was quite a democrat when
compared with Lord Burleigh. If Lord Mahon lives, as we hope he will,
fifty years longer, we have no doubt that, as he now boasts of the
resemblance which the Tories of our time bear to the Whigs of the
Revolution, he will then boast of the resemblance borne by the Tories of
1882 to those immortal patriots, the Whigs of the Reform Bill.
Society, we believe, is constantly advancing in knowledge. The tail is
now where the head was some generations ago. But the head and the tail
still keep their distance. A nurse of this century is as wise as a
justice of the quorum and custalorum in Shallow’s time. The wooden
spoon of this year would puzzle a senior wrangler of the reign of George
the Second. A boy from the National School reads and spells better than
half the knights of the shire in the October Club. But there is still as
wide a difference as ever between justices and nurses, senior wranglers
and wooden spoons, members of Parliament and children at charity
{133}schools. In the same way, though a Tory may now be very like what a
Whig was a hundred and twenty years ago, the Whig is as much in advance
of the Tory as ever. The stag, in the Treatise on the Bathos, who
“feared his hind feet would o’ertake the fore,” was not more mistaken
than Lord Mahon, if he thinks that he has really come up with the Whigs.
The absolute position of the parties has been altered; the relative
position remains unchanged. Through the whole of that great movement,
which began before these party-names existed, and which will continue
after they have become obsolete, through the whole of that great
movement of which the Charter of John, the institution of the House of
Commons, the extinction of Villanage, the separation from the see of
Rome, the expulsion of the Stuarts, the reform of the Representative
System, are successive stages, there have been, under some name or
other, two sets of men, those who were before their age, and those who
were behind it, those who were the wisest among their contemporaries,
and those who* gloried in being no wiser than their great grandfathers.
It is delightful to think, that, in due time, the last of those who
straggle in the rear of the great march will occupy the place now
occupied by the advanced guard. The Tory Parliament of 1710 would have
passed for a most liberal Parliament in the days of Elizabeth; and there
are at present few members of the Conservative Club who would not have
been fully qualified to sit with Halifax and Somers at the Kit-cat.
Though, therefore, we admit that a modern Tory bears some resemblance
to a Whig of Queen Anne’s reign, we can by no means admit that a Tory of
Anne’s reign resembled a modern Whig. Have the modern Whigs passed laws
for the purpose of closing the {134}entrance of the House of Commons
against the new interests created by trade? Do the modern Whigs bold the
doctrine of divine right? Have the modern Whigs laboured to exclude all
Dissenters from office and Power? The modern Whigs are, indeed, at the
present moment, like the Tories of 1712, desirous of peace, and of close
union with France. But is there no difference between the France of
1712 and the France of 1832? Is France now the stronghold of the “Popish
tyranny” and the “arbitrary power” against which our ancestors fought
and prayed? Lord Mahon will find, we think, that his parallel is, in
all essential circumstances, as incorrect as that which Finellen drew
between Macedon and Monmouth, or as that which an ingenious Tory lately
discovered between Archbishop Williams and Archbishop Vernon.
We agree with Lord Mahon in thinking highly of the Whigs of Queen Anne’s
reign. But that part of their conduct which he selects for especial
praise is precisely the part which we think most objectionable. We
revere them as the great champions of political and of intellectual
liberty. It is true that, when raised to power, they were not exempt
from the faults which power naturally engenders. It is true that they
were men born in the seventeenth century, and that they were therefore
ignorant of many truths which are familiar to the men of the nineteenth
century. But they were, what the reformers of the Church were before
them, and what the reformers of the House of Commons have been since,
the leaders of their species in a right direction. It is true that they
did not allow to political discussion that latitude which to us appears
reasonable and safe; but to them we owe the removal of the Censorship.
It is true that they did not carry {135}the principle of religious
liberty to its full extent; but to them we owe the Toleration Act.
Though, however, we think that the Whigs of Anne’s reign, were, as a
body, far superior in wisdom and public virtue to their contemporaries
the Tories, we by no means hold ourselves bound to defend all the
measures of our favourite party. A life of action, if it is to be
useful, must be a life of compromise. But speculation admits of no
compromise. A public man is often under the necessity of consenting
to measures which he dislikes, lest he should endanger the success of
measures which he thinks of vital importance. But the historian lies
under no such necessity. On the contrary, it is one of his most sacred
duties to point out clearly the errors of those whose general conduct he
admires.
It seems to us, then, that, on the great question which divided England
during the last four years of Anne’s reign, the Tories were in the
right, and the Whigs in the wrong. That question was, whether England
ought to conclude peace without exacting from Philip a resignation of
the Spanish crown?
No Parliamentary struggle, from the time of the Exclusion Bill to the
time of the Reform Bill, has been so violent as that which took place
between the authors of the Treaty of Utrecht and the War Party. The
Commons were for peace; the Lords were for vigorous hostilities. The
queen was compelled to choose which of her two highest prerogatives
she would exercise, whether she would create Peers or dissolve the
Parliament. The ties of party superseded the ties of neighbourhood and
of blood. The members of the hostile factions would scarcely speak to
each other, or bow to each other. The women appeared at the theatres
{136}bearing the badges of their political sect. The schism extended to
the most remote counties of England. Talents, such as had seldom before
been displayed in political controversy, were enlisted in the service
of the hostile parties. On one side was Steele, gay, lively, drunk
with animal spirits and with factions animosity, and Addison, with his
polished satire, his inexhaustible fertility of fancy, and his graceful
simplicity of style. In the front of the opposite ranks appeared a
darker and fiercer spirit, the apostate politician, the ribald priest,
the perjured lover, a heart burning with hatred against the whole
human race, a mind richly stored with images from the dunghill and the
lazar-house. The ministers triumphed, and the peace was concluded.
Then came the reaction. A new sovereign ascended the throne. The Whigs
enjoyed the confidence of the King and of the Parliament. The unjust
severity with which the Tories had treated ‘Marlborough and Walpole
was more than retaliated. Harley and Prior were thrown into prison;
Boling-broke and Ormond were compelled to take refuge in a foreign land.
The wounds inflicted in this desperate conflict continued to rankle for
many years. It was long before the members of either party could discuss
the question of the peace of Utrecht with calmness and impartiality.
That the Whig Ministers had sold us to the Dutch; that the Tory
Ministers had sold us to the French; that the war had been earned
on only to fill the pockets of Marlborough; that the peace had been
concluded only to facilitate the return of the Pretender: these
imputations and many others, utterly unfounded, or grossly exaggerated,
were hurled backward and forward by the political disputants of the
last century. In our time the question may be discussed without
{137}irritation. We will state, as concisely as possible, the reasons
which have led us to the conclusion at which we have arrived.
The dangers which were to be apprehended from the peace were two;
first, the danger that Philip might be induced, by feelings of private
affection, to act in strict concert with the elder branch of his house,
to favour the French trade at the expense of England, and to side with
the French government in future wars; secondly, the danger that the
posterity of the Duke of Burgundy might become extinct, that Philip
might become heir by blood to the French crown, and that thus two great
monarchies might be united under one sovereign.
The first danger appears to us altogether chimerical. Family affection
has seldom produced much effect on the policy of princes. The state of
Europe at the time of the peace of Utrecht proved that in politics
the ties of interest are much stronger than those of consanguinity or
affinity. The Elector of Bavaria had been driven from his dominions by
his father-in-law; Victor Amadeus was in arms against his sons-in-law;
Anne was seated on a throne from which she had assisted to push a
most indulgent father. It is true that Philip had been accustomed from
childhood to regard his grandfather with profound veneration. It was
probable, therefore, that the influence of Lewis at Madrid would be
very great. But Lewis was more than seventy years old; he could not live
long; his heir was an infant in the cradle. There was surely no reason
to think that the policy of the King of Spain would be swayed by his
regard for a nephew whom he had never seen.
In fact, soon after the peace, the two branches of the {138}House of
Bourbon began to quarrel. A close alliance was formed between Philip and
Charles, lately competitors for the Castilian crown. A Spanish princess,
betrothed to the King of France, was sent back in the most insulting
manner to her native country; and a decree was put forth by the Court of
Madrid commanding every Frenchman to leave Spain. It is true that, fifty
years after the peace of Utrecht, an alliance of peculiar strictness was
formed between the French and Spanish governments. But both governments
were actuated on that occasion, not by domestic affection, but by common
interests, and common enmities. Their compact, though called the Family
Compact, was as purely a political compact as the league of Cambrai or
the league of Pilnitz.
The second danger was that Philip might have succeeded to the crown of
his native country. This did not happen: but it might have happened; and
at one time it seemed very likely to happen. A sickly child alone stood
between the King of Spain and the heritage of Lewis the Fourteenth.
Philip, it is true, solemnly renounced his claim to the French crown.
But the manner in which he had obtained possession of the Spanish crown
had proved the inefficacy of such renunciations. The French lawyers
declared Philip’s renunciation null, as being inconsistent with the
fundamental law of the realm. The French people would probably have
sided with him whom they would have considered as the rightful heir.
Saint Simon, though much less zealous for hereditary monarchy than most
of his countrymen, and though strongly attached to the Regent, declared,
in the presence of that prince, that, he never would support the
claims of the House of Orleans against those of the King of Spain.
“If {139}such,” he said, “be my feelings, what must be the feelings
of others?” Bolingbroke, it is certain, was fully convinced that the
renunciation was worth no more than the paper on which it was written,
and demanded it only for the purpose of blinding the English Parliament
and people.
Yet, though it was at one time probable that the posterity of the Duke
of Burgundy would become ex tinct, and though it is almost certain that,
if the posterity of the Duke of Burgundy had become extinct, Philip
would have successfully preferred his claim to the crown of France, we
still defend the principle of the Treaty of Utrecht. In the first place,
Charles had, soon after the battle of Villa-Viciosa, inherited, by the
death of his elder brother, all the dominions of the House of Austria.
Surely, if to these dominions he had added the whole monarchy of Spain,
the balance of power would have been seriously endangered. The union
of the Austrian dominions and Spain would not, it is true, have been
so alarming an event as the union of France and Spain. But Charles was
actually Emperor. Philip was not, and never might be, King of France.
The certainty of the less evil might well be set against the chance of
the greater evil.
But, in fact, we do not believe that Spain would long have remained
under the government either of an Emperor or of a King of France. The
character of the Spanish people was a better security to the nations of
Europe than any will, any instrument of renunciation, or any treaty. The
same energy which the people of Castile had put forth when Madrid was
occupied by the Allied armies, they would have again put forth as soon
as it appeared that their country was {140}about to become a French
province. Though they were no longer masters abroad, they were by no
means disposed to see foreigners set over them at home. If Philip had
attempted to govern Spain by mandates from Versailles, a second Grand
Alliance would easily have effected what the first had failed to
accomplish. The Spanish nation would have rallied against him as
zealously as it had before rallied round him. And of this he seems to
have been fully aware. For many years the favourite hope of his heart
was that he might ascend the throne of his grandfather; but he seems
never to have thought it possible that he could reign at once in the
country of his adoption and in the country of his birth.
These were the dangers of the peace; and they seem to us to be of no
very formidable kind. Against these dangers are to be set off’ the evils
of war and the risk of failure. The evils of the war, the waste of life,
the suspension of trade, the expenditure of wealth, the accumulation of
debt, require no illustration. The chances of failure it is difficult at
this distance of time to calculate with accuracy. But we think that an
estimate approximating to the truth may, without much difficulty, be
formed. The Allies had been victorious in Germany, Italy, and Flanders.
It was by no means improbable that they might fight their way into the
very heart of France. But at no time since the commencement of the war
had their prospects been so dark in that country which was the very
object of the struggle. In Spain they held only a few square leagues.
The temper of the great majority of the nation was decidedly hostile to
them. If they had persisted, if they had obtained success equal to their
highest expectations, if they had gained a series of victories as splendid
{141}as those of Blenheim and Ramilies, if Paris had fallen, if
Lewis had been a prisoner, we still doubt whether they would have
accomplished their object. They would still have had to carry on
interminable hostilities against the whole population of a country which
affords peculiar facilities to irregular warfare, and in which invading
armies suffer more from famine than from the sword.
We are, therefore, for the peace of Utrecht. We are indeed no admirers
of the statesmen who concluded that peace. Harley, we believe, was a
solemn trifler, St. John a brilliant knave. The great body of their
followers consisted of the country clergy and the country gentry;
two classes of men who were then inferior in intelligence to decent
shopkeepers or farmers of our time. Parson Barnabas, Parson Trulliber,
Sir Wilful Witwould, Sir Francis Wronghead, Squire Western, Squire
Sullen, such were the people who composed the main strength of the Tory
party during the sixty years which followed the Revolution. It is true
that the means by which the Tories came into power in 1710 were most
disreputable. It is true that the manner in which they used their power
was often unjust and cruel. It is true that, in order to bring
about their favourite project of peace, they resorted to slander and
deception, without the slightest scruple. It is true that they passed
off on the British nation a renunciation which they knew to be invalid.
It is true that they gave up the Catalans to the vengeance of Philip,
in a manner inconsistent with humanity and national honour. But on the
great question of Peace or War, we cannot but think that, though
their motives may have been selfish and malevolent, their decision was
beneficial to the state. {142}But we have already exceeded our limits.
It remains only for us to bid Lord Mahon heartily farewell, and
to assure him that, whatever dislike we may feel for his political
opinions, we shall always meet him with pleasure on the neutral ground
of literature.