OXFORD'S FALL; BOLINGBROKE'S FLIGHT.
[Sidenote: 1714--Formation of King George's Cabinet]
King George did not make the slightest concealment of his intentions
with regard to the political complexion of his future government. He
did not attempt or pretend to conciliate the Tories, and, on the other
hand, he was determined not to be a puppet in the hands of a "Junto" of
illustrious Whigs. He therefore formed a cabinet, composed
exclusively, or almost exclusively, of pure Whigs; but he composed it
of Whigs who at that time were only rising men in the political world.
He was going to govern on Whig principles, but he was not going to be
himself governed by another "Junto" of senior Whig statesmen, like that
which had been so powerful in the reign of William the Third. He acted
with that shrewd, hard common-sense which was an attribute of his
family, and which often served instead of genius or enlightenment or
intelligence, or even experience. A man of infinitely higher capacity
than George might have found himself puzzled as to his proper policy
under conditions entirely new and unfamiliar; but George acted as if
the conditions were familiar to him, and set about governing England as
he would have set about managing his household in Hanover; and he
somehow hit upon the course which, under all the circumstances, was the
best he could have followed. It is not easy to see how he could have
acted otherwise with safety to himself. It would have been idle to try
to conciliate the Tories. The more active spirits among the Tories
were, in point of fact, conspirators on behalf of the Stuart cause.
The {92} colorless Tories were not men whose influence or force of
character would have been of much use to the king in endeavoring to
bring about a reconciliation between the two great parties in the
State. The civil war was not over, or nearly over, yet, and there were
still to come some moments of crisis, when it seemed doubtful whether,
after all, the cause supposed to be fallen might not successfully lift
its head again. As the words of Scott's spirited ballad put it, before
the Stuart crown was to go down, "there are heads to be broke." For
George the First to attempt to form a Coalition Cabinet of Whigs and
Tories at such a time would have been about as wild a scheme as for M.
Thiers to have formed a Coalition Cabinet of Republicans and of
Bonapartists, while Napoleon the Third was yet living at Chiselhurst.
[Sidenote: 1714--The Treaty of Utrecht]
The Tories had been much discredited in the eyes of the country by the
Peace of Utrecht. The long War of the Succession had been allowed to
end without securing to England and to Europe the one purpose with
which it was undertaken by the allies. It was a war to decide whether
a French prince, a grandson of Louis the Fourteenth, and whose
accession seemed to threaten a future union of Spain with France,
should or should not be allowed to ascend the throne of Spain. The end
of the war left the French prince on the throne of Spain. Yet even
this fact would not in itself have been very distressing or alarming to
the English people, however it might have pained others of the allied
States. The English people probably would never have drawn a sword
against France in this quarrel if it had not been for the rash act of
Louis the Fourteenth in recognizing the chevalier, James Stuart, as
King of England on the death of his father, James the Second. But
England felt bitterly that the Peace of Utrecht left France and Louis
not only unpunished, but actually rewarded. All the campaigns, the
victories, the sacrifices, the genius of Marlborough, the heroism of
his soldiers, had ended in nothing. Peace was secured at any price.
It was not that {93} the people of England did not want to have a peace
made at the time. On the contrary, most Englishmen were thoroughly
tired of the war, and felt but little interest in the main objects for
which it had been originally undertaken. Most Englishmen would have
agreed to the very terms which were contained in the Treaty,
disadvantageous as these conditions were in many points. But they were
ashamed of the manner in which the Treaty had been brought about, more
than of the Treaty itself. France lost little or nothing by the
arrangement; she sacrificed no territory, and was left with practically
the same frontier which she had secured for herself twenty years
before. Spain had to give up her possessions in Italy and the Low
countries. The Dutch got very little to make up to them for their
troubles and losses, but they could do nothing for themselves, and the
English statesmen were determined not to continue the war. Yet, on the
whole, these terms were not altogether unsatisfactory to the people of
England. The war was becoming an insufferable burden. The National
Debt was swollen to a size which alarmed at that time and almost
horrified many persons, and there seemed no chance whatever of the
expulsion of Philip, the French prince, from Spain. All these
considerations had much influence over the public mind, and possibly
would of themselves have entirely borne down the arguments of those who
contended that an opportunity was now come to England of bringing
France, so long her principal enemy and greatest danger, completely to
her feet. Marlborough's victories had, indeed, made it easy to march
to Paris, and dictate there such terms of peace as would keep France
powerless for generations to come. But the English people were
disgusted by the manner in which the Treaty of Utrecht had been brought
about. In order to secure that arrangement it was absolutely necessary
to destroy the authority of Marlborough, and the Tory statesmen set
about this work with the most shameless and undisguised pertinacity.
Through the influence {94} of Mrs. Masham, a cousin of the Duchess of
Marlborough, introduced by the Duchess herself to the Queen, the Tory
statesmen contrived to get the Whig ministry dismissed, and a ministry
formed under Harley and Bolingbroke. These statesmen opened secret
negotiations with France. They were determined to bring about a peace
by any sort of arrangement. They betrayed England's allies by entering
into secret negotiations with the enemy, in express violation of the
conditions of the alliance; they sacrificed the Catalonian populations
of Northern Spain in the most shameless manner. The Catalans had been
encouraged to rise against the French prince, and England had promised
in return to protect them, and to secure them the restoration of all
their ancient liberties. In making the peace the Catalans were wholly
forgotten. The best excuse that can be made for the Tory ministers is
to suppose that they positively and actually did forget all about the
Catalans. Anyhow, the Catalans were left at the mercy of the new King
of Spain, and were treated after the severest fashion of the time in
dealing with conquered but obstinate rebels.
[Sidenote: 1714--Degradation of Marlborough]
In order to make such a peace it was necessary to remove Marlborough.
Some accusations were pressed against him to secure his removal. He
was charged with having taken perquisites from the contractors who were
supplying the army with bread, and with having deducted two and one
half per cent. from the pay which England allowed to the foreign troops
in her service. Marlborough's defence would not have been considered
satisfactory in our day; and indeed it is impossible to think of any
such accusation being made, or any such defence being needed, in times
like ours. Imagination can hardly conceive the possibility of such
charges being seriously made against the Duke of Wellington, for
example, or the Duke of Wellington condescending to plead custom and
usage in reply to them. But in Marlborough's day things were very
different, and Marlborough was able {95} to show that, as regarded some
of the accusations, he had only done what was customary among men in
his position, and what he had full authority for doing; and, as
regarded others, that he had applied the sums he got to the business of
the State as secret service money, and had not made any personal
profit. He did not, indeed, produce any accounts; but, assuming his
defence to be well founded, it is quite possible that the keeping of
accounts might have been an undesirable and inconvenient practice. At
all events it was certain that Marlborough had not done any worse than
other statesmen of the time, in civil as well as in military service,
had been in the habit of doing; and considering all the conditions of
the period, the defence which he set up ought to have been satisfactory
to every one. It probably would have satisfied his enemies but that
they were determined to get rid of him. They were, indeed, compelled
to get rid of him in order to make their secret treaty with France, and
they succeeded. Marlborough was dismissed from all his employments,
and went for a time into exile. The English people, therefore, saw
that peace had been made by the sacrifice of the greatest English
commander who, up to that time, had ever taken the field in their
service. The treaty had been obtained by the most shameless intrigues
to bring about the downfall of this great soldier. No matter how
desirable in itself the peace might be, no matter how reasonable the
conditions on which it was based, yet it became a national disgrace
when secured by means like these. Nor was this all: the Tory statesmen
finding it imperative for their purpose to have a majority in the House
of Lords, as well as in the House of Commons, prevailed upon the Queen
to stretch her royal prerogative to the extent of making twelve peers.
All these new peers were Tories; one of them was Mr. Masham, husband of
the woman who had assisted so efficiently in the degradation of the
Duke of Marlborough. When they first appeared in the House of Lords, a
Whig statesman ironically asked them {96} whether they proposed to vote
separately or by their foreman?
[Sidenote: 1714--The new Ministry]
Never, perhaps, has a mean and treacherous policy like that which
brought about the Treaty of Utrecht had so splendid a literary defence
set up for it. Swift, with the guidance of Bolingbroke, and put up,
indeed, to the work by Bolingbroke, devoted the best of his powers to
defame Marlborough, and to justify the conduct of the Tory ministry.
No matter how clear one's own opinions on the question may be, it is
impossible, even at this distance of time, to study the writings of
Swift on this subject without finding our convictions sometimes shaken.
The biting satire, which seems only like cool common-sense and justice
taking their keenest tone; the masterly array, or perhaps we should
rather say disarray, of facts, dates, and arguments; the bold
assumptions which, by their very case and confidence, bear down the
reader's knowledge and judgment; the clear, unadorned style, made for
convincing and conquering--all these qualities, and others too, unite
with almost matchless force to make the worse seem the better cause.
It is true that the mind of the reader is never impressed by Swift's
vindication of the Tories, as it is always impressed by Burke's
denunciation of the French Revolution. Swift does not make one see, as
Burke does, that the whole soul and conscience of the author are in his
work. Swift is evidently the advocate retained to conduct the case;
Burke is the man of impassioned conviction, speaking out because he
cannot keep silent. Still, we have all of us been sometimes made to
question our own judgment, and almost to repudiate our own previously
formed impressions as to facts, by the skill of some great advocate in
a court of law; and it is skill of this kind, and of the very highest
order, that we have to recognize in Swift's efforts to justify the
policy of the Treaty of Utrecht. To make out any case it was necessary
to endeavor to lower Marlborough in the estimation of the English
people, just as it was necessary to destroy his power in order to get
the ground open for the {97} arrangement of the treaty. Swift set
himself to this task with a malignity equal to his genius. Arbuthnot,
hardly inferior as a satirist to Swift, wrote a "History of John Bull,"
to hold up Marlborough and Marlborough's wife to ridicule and to
hatred. He depicted the great soldier as a low and roguish attorney,
who was deluding his clients into the carrying on of a long and costly
lawsuit for the mere sake of putting money into his own pocket. He
lampooned England's allies as well as England's great general; he
described the Dutch, whom the Tory ministers had shamefully betrayed,
as self-seeking and perfidious traitors, for whose protection we were
sacrificing all, until we found out that they were secretly juggling
with our enemies for our destruction. No stronger argument could be
found to condemn the conduct of the Tory ministers than the mere fact
that Swift and Arbuthnot failed to secure their acquittal at the bar of
public opinion. All the attacks on Marlborough were inspired by
Bolingbroke, and it has only to be added that Marlborough had been
Bolingbroke's first and best benefactor.
The King appointed Lord Townshend his Secretary of State. The office
was then regarded as that of First Lord of the Treasury is now; it
carried with it the authority of Prime-minister. James Stanhope was
Second Secretary. Walpole was at first put in the subordinate office
of Paymaster-general, without a seat in the Cabinet; a place in
Administration which at a later period was assigned to no less a man
than Edmund Burke. Walpole's political capacity soon, however, made it
evident that he was fitted for higher office, and we shall find that he
does not remain long at the post of Paymaster-general. The Duke of
Shrewsbury had resigned both his offices: that of Lord Treasurer, and
that of Viceroy of Ireland. Lord Sunderland accepted the Irish
Viceroyalty, and the Lord Treasurership was put into commission, and
from that time was heard of no more. Next to Walpole himself, the most
notable man in the administration--the man, that is to say, who became
best known to the world afterwards--was {98} Pulteney, now Walpole's
devoted friend, before long to be his bitter and unrelenting enemy.
Pulteney, just now, is still a very young man, only in his thirty-third
year; but he is the hereditary representative of good Whig principles,
and has already distinguished himself in the House of Commons as a
skilful and fearless advocate of his political faith; he is a keen and
clever pamphleteer; in later days, if he had lived then, he would
doubtless have been a writer of leading articles in newspapers. His
style is polished and penetrating, like that of an epigrammatist. He
has travelled much for that time, and is what was then called an
elegant scholar. The eloquent and silver-tongued Lord Cowper was
restored to the office of Lord Chancellor, which he had already held
under Queen Anne, and by virtue of which he had presided at the
impeachment of Sacheverell. When Cowper was made Lord Keeper of the
Great Seal by Anne in 1705, he was in the forty-first year of his age,
but looked very much younger. He wore his own hair at that time, an
unusual thing in Anne's days, and this added to his juvenile
appearance. The Queen insisted that he must have his hair cut off and
must wear a heavy wig; otherwise, she said, the world would think she
had given the seals to a boy. Cowper was a prudent, cautious, clever
man, whose abilities made a considerable impression upon his own time,
but have carried his memory only in a faint and feeble way on to ours.
He was a fine speaker, so far as style and manner went, and he had a
charming voice. Chesterfield said of him that the ears and the eyes
gave him up the hearts and understandings of the audience. The Duke of
Argyll became Commander-in-chief for Scotland. In Ireland, Sir
Constantine Phipps was removed from the office of Chancellor, on the
ground of his Jacobite opinions; and it is a curious fact, worth noting
as a sign of the times, that the University of Oxford unanimously
agreed to confer on him an honorary degree almost immediately after--on
the day, in fact, of the King's coronation.
{99}
[Sidenote: 1714--Lord Townshend]
Lord Townshend, the Prime-minister, as we may call him, was not a man
of any conspicuous ability. He belonged to that class of competent,
capable, trustworthy Englishmen who discharge satisfactorily the duties
of any office to which they are called in the ordinary course of their
lives. Such a man as Townshend would have made a respectable Lord
Mayor or a satisfactory Chairman of Quarter Sessions, if fortune had
appointed him to no higher functions. He might have changed places
probably with an average Lord Mayor or Chairman of Quarter Sessions
without any particular effect being wrought on English history. Men of
this stamp have nothing but official rank in common with the statesmen
Prime-ministers--the Walpoles and Peels and Palmerstons; or with the
men of genius--the Pitts and Disraelis and Gladstones. Lord Townshend
had performed the regular functions of a statesman in training at that
time. He had been an Envoy Extraordinary, and had made treaties. He
was a brother-in-law of Walpole. Just now Walpole and he are friends
as well as connections; the time came when Walpole and he were destined
to quarrel; and then Townshend conducted himself with remarkable
forbearance, self-restraint, and dignity. He was an honest and
respectable man, blunt of speech, and of rugged, homespun intelligence,
about whom, since his day, the world is little concerned. Such name as
he had is almost absorbed in the more brilliant reputation of his
grandson--the spoiled child of the House of Commons, as Burke called
him--that Charles Townshend of the famous "Champagne Speech;" the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, of whom we shall hear a good deal later
on, and who, by the sheer force of animal spirits, feather-headed
talents, and ignorance, became, in a certain perverted sense, the
father of American Independence.
The Second Secretary of State, James, afterwards Earl, Stanhope, was a
man of very different mould. Stanhope was one of the few Englishmen
who have held high position in arms and politics. He had been a
brilliant {100} soldier; had fought in Flanders and Spain; had
distinguished himself at Barcelona, even under a commander like
Peterborough, whose daring spirit rendered it hard for any subaltern to
shine in rivalry; had been himself raised to command, and kept on
winning victories until his military genius found itself overcrowed by
that of the great French captain, the Duke de Vendôme. His soldier's
career came to a premature close, as indeed his whole mortal career did
not very long after the time at which we have now arrived. Stanhope
was a man of scholarly education, almost a scholar; he had abilities
above the common; he had indomitable energy, and was as daring and
resolute in the council as in the field. He had a domineering mind,
was outspoken and haughty, trampling over other men's opinions as a
charge of cavalry treads down the grasses of the field it traverses.
He made enemies, and did not heed their enmity. He was single-minded,
and, what was not very common in that day, he was free from any love of
money or taint of personal greed. He does not rank high either among
statesmen or soldiers, but as statesman and soldier together he has
made for himself a distinct and a peculiar place. His career will
always be remembered without effort by the readers of English history.
[Sidenote: 1714--Coronation of the King]
A new Privy Council was formed which included the name of Marlborough.
The Duchess of Marlborough urged her husband not to accept this office
of barren honor. It is said that the one only occasion on which
Marlborough had ventured to act against the dictation of his wife was
when he thus placed himself again at the disposal of the King. He
never ceased to regret that he had not followed her advice in this
instance as in others. His proud heart soon burned within him when he
found that he was appreciated, understood, and put aside; mocked with a
semblance of power, humiliated under the pretext of doing him honor.
Much more humiliating, much more ominous, however, was the reception
awaiting Oxford and Bolingbroke. From the moment of his arrival, the
King showed himself {101} determined to take no friendly notice of the
great Tories. Oxford found it most difficult even to get audience of
his Majesty. The morning after the King's arrival, Oxford was allowed,
after much pressure and many entreaties, to wait upon the Sovereign,
and to kiss his hand. He was received in chilling silence. Truly, it
was not likely that much conversation would take place, seeing that
George spoke no English and Oxford spoke no German. But there was
something in the King's demeanor towards him, as well as in the mere
fact that no words were exchanged, which must have told Oxford that his
enemies were in triumph over him, and were determined to bring about
his doom. Even before George had landed in England he had sent
directions that Bolingbroke should be removed from his place of
Secretary of State. On the last day of August this order was executed
in a manner which made it seem especially premature, and even
ignominious. The Privy Council, as it stood, was then dissolved, and
the new Council appointed, which consisted of only thirty-three
members. Somers was one of this new Council, but in name alone; his
growing years, his increasing infirmities, and the flickering decay of
his once great intellect, allowed him but little chance of ever again
taking an active part in the affairs of the State. Marlborough was
named a member of it, as we have seen. The Lords Justices ordered that
all despatches addressed to the Secretary of State should be brought to
them. Bolingbroke himself had to wait at the door of the Council
Chamber with his despatch-box, to receive the commands of his new
masters.
France, tired of war, recognized the new King of England. The
coronation of the King took place on October 20th; Bolingbroke and
Oxford were both present. We learn from some of the journals of the
day that it had rained on the previous afternoon, and that many of the
Jacobites promised themselves that the rain would continue to the next
day, and so retard, if only for a few hours, the hateful ceremony. But
their hopes of foul weather {102} were disappointed. The rain did not
keep on, and the coronation took place successfully in London; not,
however, without some Jacobite disturbances in Bristol, Birmingham,
Norwich, and other places.
[Sidenote: 1714--Flight of Bolingbroke]
The Government soon after issued a proclamation dissolving the existing
Parliament, and another summoning a new one. The latter called on all
the electors of the kingdom, in consequence of the evil designs of men
disaffected to the King, "to have a particular regard to such as showed
a firmness to the Protestant Succession when it was in danger." The
appeal was clearly unconstitutional, according to our ideas, but it was
made, probably, in answer to James Stuart's manifesto a few weeks
before, in which the Pretender reasserted his claims to the throne, and
declared that he had only waited until the death "of the Princess, our
sister, of whose good intentions towards us we could not for some time
past well doubt."
The general elections showed an overwhelming majority for the Whigs.
The not unnatural fluctuations of public opinion at such a time are
effectively illustrated by the sudden and complete manner in which the
majority was transferred, now to this side, now to that. Just at this
moment, and indeed for long after, the Whigs had it all their own way.
Only a few years ago their fortunes had seemed to have sunk to zero,
and now they had mounted again to the zenith. The King opened
Parliament in person; the Speech was read for him by the Lord
Chancellor, for the very good reason that George could not pronounce
English. That Speech declared that the established Constitution,
Church and State, should be the rule of his Government. The debate on
the Address was remarkable. In the House of Lords the Address
contained the words, "To recover the reputation of this kingdom."
Bolingbroke made his last speech in Parliament. He objected to these
words, and proposed an amendment, with an eloquence and an energy
worthy of his best days, and with a front as seemingly fearless as
though his fortunes were at the full. He contended that to talk of
{103} "recovering" the reputation of the kingdom was to cast a stigma
on the glory of the late reign. He proposed to substitute the word
"maintain" for the word "recover." His amendment was defeated by
sixty-six votes to thirty-three: exactly two to one. In the House of
Commons the Address, which was moved by Walpole, contained words still
more significant. The Address spoke of the Pretender's attempts "to
stir up your Majesty's subjects to rebellion," declared that his hopes
"were built upon the measures that had been taken for some time past in
Great Britain," and added: "It shall be our business to trace out those
measures whereon he placed his hopes, and to bring the authors of them
to condign punishment." These words were the first distinct intimation
given by the Ministers that they intended to call their predecessors to
account. Stanhope stated their resolve still more explicitly in the
course of the debate. Bolingbroke sat and heard it announced that he
and his late colleague were to be impeached for high-treason. He put
on an appearance of serenity and philosophic boldness for a time, but
in his heart he had already taken fright. For a few days he went about
in public, showing himself ostentatiously, with all the manner of a man
who is happy in his unwonted ease, and is only anxious for relaxation
and amusement. He professed to be rejoiced by his release from office,
and those of his friends who wished to please him offered him their
formal congratulations on his promotion to a retirement that placed him
above the petty struggles and cares of political life. He visited
Drury Lane Theatre on March 26, 1715, went about among his friends,
chatted, flirted, paid compliments, received compliments, arranged to
attend another performance at the same theatre the following evening.
That same night he disguised himself as a serving-man, slipped quietly
down to Dover, escaped from thence to Calais, and went hurriedly on to
Paris, ready to place himself and his talents and his influence--such
as it might be--at the service of the Stuarts.
There seems good reason to believe that the Duke of {104} Marlborough,
by a master-stroke of treachery, avenged himself on Bolingbroke at this
crisis in Bolingbroke's fortunes, and decided the flight to Paris.
Bolingbroke sought out Marlborough, and appealing to the memories of
their old friendship, begged for advice and assistance. Marlborough
professed the utmost concern for Bolingbroke, and gave him to
understand that it was agreed upon between the Ministers of the Crown
and the Dutch Government that Bolingbroke was to be brought to the
scaffold. Marlborough pretended to have certain knowledge of this, and
he told Bolingbroke that his only chance was in flight. Bolingbroke
fled, and thereby seemed to admit in advance all the accusations of his
enemies and to abandon his friends to their mercy. One of
Bolingbroke's biographers appears to consider that on the whole this
was well done by Marlborough, and that it was only a fair retaliation
on Bolingbroke. In any case, it is clear that Bolingbroke acted in
strict consistency with the principles on which he had moulded his
public and private life; he consulted for himself first of all. It may
have been necessary for his own safety that he should fly from the
threatening storm, It is certain that he had bitter and unrelenting
enemies. These would not have spared him if they could have made out a
case against him. No one but Bolingbroke himself could know to the
full how much of a case there was against him. But his flight, if it
saved himself, might have been fatal to those who were in league with
him for the return of the Stuarts. If he had stood firm, it is
probable that his enemies would not have been able to prevail any
further against him than they were able to prevail in his absence
against Harley, whom his flight so seriously compromised. Nobody needs
to be told that the one last hope for conspirators whose plans are
being discovered is for all in the plot to stand together or all to fly
together. Bolingbroke does not seem to have given his associates any
chance of considering the position and making up their minds.
[Sidenote: 1715--The Committee of Secrecy]
A committee of secrecy was struck. It was composed {105} of twenty-one
members, and the hearts of Bolingbroke's friends may well have sunk
within them as they studied the names upon its roll. Many of its
members were conscientious Whigs--Whigs of conviction, eaten up with
the zeal of their house, like James Stanhope himself, and Spencer
Cowper and Lord Coningsby and young Lord Finch and Pulteney, now in his
period of full devotion to Walpole. There were Whig lawyers, like
Lechmere; there were steady, obtuse Whigs, like Edward Wortley Montagu,
husband of the brilliant and beautiful woman whom Pope first loved and
then hated. There was Aislabie, then Treasurer of the Navy, afterwards
Chancellor of the Exchequer, who came to disgrace at the bursting of
the South Sea Bubble, and who would at any time have elected to go with
the strongest, and loved to tread the path lighted by his own
impressions as to his own interests. Thomas Pitt, grandfather to the
great Chatham, the "Governor Pitt" of Madras, whose diamonds were
objects of admiration to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, was a member of the
committee; and so was Sir Richard Onslow, afterwards speaker of the
House of Commons, and uncle of the much more celebrated "Speaker
Onslow." From none of these men could Bolingbroke have much favor to
expect. Those who were honest and unselfish would be ill-disposed
towards him because of their honesty and unselfishness; those who were
not exactly honest and certainly not unselfish, would, by reason of
their character, probably be only too anxious to help the winning party
to get rid of him. But the names that must have showed most formidable
in the eyes of Bolingbroke and his friends were those of Robert Walpole
and Richard Hampden. Two years before this time the persistent enmity
of Bolingbroke had sent Walpole to the Tower, branded with the charge
of corruption and expelled from the House of Commons. Now things are
changed indeed. Walpole is chairman of the committee, and "Hast thou
found me, oh, mine enemy?" St. John had threatened Hampden, who was a
lineal descendant of the {106} Hampden of the Civil War, with the
Tower, for daring to censure the Ministry of the day, and was only
deterred from carrying out his threat by prudent counsellors, who
showed him that Hampden would be only too proud to share Walpole's
imprisonment. These were men not likely to forget or to forgive such
injuries.
At first the Tories seem scarcely to have believed that the Whigs would
push their policy to extremities. The eccentric Jacobite Shippen
publicly scoffed at the committee, and declared in the Mouse of Commons
that its investigations would vanish into smoke. Such confidence was
quickly and rudely shattered. June 9th saw a memorable scene. On that
day Robert Walpole, as chairman of the Committee of Secrecy, rose and
told the House of Commons that he had to present a report, but that he
was commanded by the committee to move in the first instance that a
warrant be issued by the Speaker to apprehend several persons who
should be named by him, and that meantime no member be permitted to
leave the House. Thereupon the lobbies were cleared of all strangers,
and the Sergeant-at-arms stood at the door in order to prevent any
member from going out. Then Walpole named Mr. Matthew Prior, Mr.
Thomas Harley, and other persons, and the Speaker issued his warrant
for their arrest. Mr. Prior was arrested at once; Mr. Harley a few
hours afterwards.
[Sidenote: 1715--"Most contagious treason"]
Prior was the poet, the friend and correspondent of Bolingbroke. He
had been much engaged in the negotiations for the Treaty of Utrecht,
and had at one time actually held the rank of English Envoy. He had
but lately returned from Paris; had arrived in London just before
Bolingbroke's flight. Thomas Harley, cousin of Lord Oxford, had also
been concerned in the negotiations in a less formal and more underhand
sort of way. When the arrests had been ordered, Walpole informed the
House that the Committee of Secrecy had agreed upon their report, and
had commanded him to submit it to the House of Commons. The report,
which Walpole himself, as {107} chairman of the committee, had drawn
up, was a document of great length; it occupied many hours in the
reading. But the time could not have seemed tedious to those who
listened. The report was an indictment and a State paper combined. It
arrayed with the utmost skill all the evidences and arguments, all the
facts and all the passages of correspondence, necessary to make out a
case against the accused statesmen. It carried with it, beyond
question, the complete historical condemnation of Oxford and
Bolingbroke in all that related to the Treaty of Utrecht. Never was it
more conclusively established for the historian that Ministers of State
had used the basest means to bring about the basest objects. It was
made clear as light that the national interests and the national honor
had been sacrificed for partisan and for personal purposes. Objects in
themselves criminal for statesmen to aim at had been sought by means
which would have been shameful even if employed for justifiable ends.
Had Bolingbroke and Oxford been endeavoring to save the State by the
arts which they employed to sacrifice it, their conduct would have
called for the condemnation of all honest men. But as regards the
transactions with James Stuart there was ample ground shown for
suspicion, there was good reason to conjecture or to infer, but there
was no positive evidence of intended treason. A historian reading over
the report would in all probability come to the conclusion that Oxford
and Bolingbroke had been plotting with James Stuart, but he would not
see in it satisfactory grounds for an impeachment. No jury would
convict on such evidence; no jury probably would even leave the box for
the purpose of considering their verdict. In the course of the events
that were soon to follow it was placed beyond any doubt that
Bolingbroke and Oxford had all along been trying to arrange for the
return of the Stuarts. They were not driven to throw themselves in
despair into the Stuart cause by reason of harsh proceedings taken
against them by their enemies in England; they had been "pipe-laying,"
to use an expressive {108} American word, for the Stuart restoration
during all the closing years of Queen Anne's reign. The reader must
decide for himself as to the degree of moral or political guilt
involved in such transactions. It has to be remembered that nearly
half--some still say more than half--of the population of these
countries was in favor of such a restoration, and that Anne herself
unquestionably leaned to the same view. What is certain is that Oxford
and Bolingbroke were planning for it. But what seems equally clear is
that the report of the Secret Committee did not contain satisfactory
evidence on which to sustain a charge of treason. Swift is not a
trustworthy witness on these subjects, but he is quite right when he
says that the allegations were "more proper materials to furnish out a
pamphlet than an impeachment."
[Sidenote: 1715--"An intricate impeach is this!"]
Bolingbroke's friends must have felt deeply grieved at his flight when
they heard the statement of the case against him. Even as regards the
Treaty of Utrecht, it seems questionable whether the historical
conviction assuredly obtained against him by the contents of the report
would, in the existing condition of politics and parties, have been
followed by any sort of judicial conviction, whether in a court of law
or a trial by Parliament.
The day after the reading of the report gave Walpole his long-desired
revenge; he impeached Bolingbroke of high-treason. There was a dead
silence in the House when he had finished. Then two of Bolingbroke's
friends, Mr. Hungerford and General Ross, mustered up courage to speak
a few words for their lost leader. The star of the morning, the Tory
Lucifer, had fallen indeed! Lord Coningsby got up and made a clever
little set speech. Walpole had impeached the hand, and Lord Coningsby
impeached the head; Walpole had impeached the clerk, and Coningsby
impeached the justice; Walpole had impeached the scholar, and Coningsby
impeached the master. This head, this justice, this master, was, of
course, the Lord Oxford. As a piece of dramatic declamation {109}
Coningsby's impeachment was telling enough; as a historical
presentation of the case against the two men it was absurd. Through
all Anne's later years Oxford had been nothing and Bolingbroke
everything. On the very eve of the Queen's death Bolingbroke had
secured his triumph over his former friend by driving Oxford out of all
office. Had Oxford been first impeached, and the speech of Lord
Coningsby been aimed at Bolingbroke, it would have been strikingly
appropriate; as it was, it became meaningless rhetoric. Next day
Oxford went to the House of Lords, and tried to appear cool and
unconcerned, but, according to a contemporary account, "finding that
most members avoided sitting near him, and that even the Earl Powlet
was shy of exchanging a few words with him, he was dashed out of
countenance, and retired out of the House."
Impeachments were now the order of the day. The loyal Whigs of the
Commons were incessantly passing between the Upper House and the Lower
with articles of impeachment, and still further articles when the first
were not found to be strong enough for the purpose. Stanhope impeached
the Duke of Ormond; Aislabie impeached Lord Strafford--not of
high-treason, but of high crimes and misdemeanors; Strafford was
accused of being not only "the tool of a Frenchified ministry," but the
adviser of most pernicious measures. Strafford's part in the
negotiations had not been one of any considerable importance. He had
been sent as English Plenipotentiary to the Congress at Utrecht.
Associated with him as Second Plenipotentiary was Dr. John Robinson,
then Bishop of Bristol, and more lately made Bishop of London, the
churchman on whom the office of the Privy Seal had been conferred by
Harley, to the great anger of the Whigs. It was said that Strafford,
in his high and mighty way, had refused flatly to accept a mere poet
like Prior for his official colleague. Strafford had, in reality,
little or nothing to do with the making of the Treaty. The
negotiations were carried on between Bolingbroke and {110} the Marquis
de Torcy, French Secretary of State and nephew of the great Colbert;
and when these wanted agents they employed men more clever and less
pompous than Strafford. Aislabie, in bringing on his motion, drew a
curious distinction between Strafford and Strafford's official
colleague. "The good and pious Prelate," he said, had been only a
cipher, and "seemed to have been put at the head of that negotiation
only to palliate the iniquity of it under the sacredness of his
character." He was glad, therefore, that nothing could be charged upon
the Bishop, and complacently observed that the course taken with regard
to Dr. Robinson, who was not to be impeached, "ought to convince the
world that the Church was not in danger." There was some wisdom as
well as wit in a remark made thereupon by a member of the House in
opposing the motion--"the Bishop, it seems, is to have the benefit of
clergy."
[Sidenote: 1715--Ormond's hesitation]
The motions for the impeachment of Bolingbroke and Oxford were carried
without a division. This fact, however, would be little indication as
to the result of an impeachment after a long trial, and after the minds
of men had cooled down on both sides; when Whigs had grown less
passionate in their hate, and Tories had recovered their courage to
sustain their friends. Even at the moment the impeachment of the Duke
of Ormond was a matter of far greater difficulty. Ormond had many
friends, even among the most genuine supporters of the Hanoverian
succession. He was the idol of the High-Church party; at all events,
of the High-Church mob. Had he acted with anything like a steady
resolve he would, in all probability, have escaped even impeachment.
To some of the most serious charges against him, his refusal, for
instance, to attack the French while the secret negotiations for the
Treaty of Utrecht were going on, he could fairly have pleaded that he
had acted only as a soldier taking positive instructions and carrying
them out. His clear and obvious policy would have been to take the
quiet stand of a man conscious of innocence, and {111} therefore not
afraid of the scrutiny of any committee or the judgment of any tribunal.
But Ormond hesitated. Ormond was always hesitating. Many of his
influential supporters urged him to seek an audience of the King at
once, and to profess to George his unfailing and incorruptible loyalty.
Had he taken such a course it is not at all unlikely that the King
might have caused the measures against him to be abandoned. Ormond's
friends, indeed, were full of hope that they could, in any case, induce
the Ministry not to persevere in the proceedings against him. On the
other hand, he was urged to join in an insurrection in the West of
England, towards which, beyond doubt, he had already himself taken some
steps. The less cautious of his friends assured him that his
appearance in the West would be welcomed with open arms, and would
bring a vast number of adherents round him, and that a powerful blow
could be struck at once against the Hanoverian succession. Ormond,
however, took neither the one course nor the other. To do him justice,
he was far too honorable for the utter perfidy of the first course, and
it is doing him no injustice to say that he was too feeble for the
daring enterprise of the second. It is believed that Ormond had an
interview with Oxford before his flight, and that he urged Oxford to
attempt an escape in terms not unlike those with which William the
Silent, in Goethe's play, endeavors to persuade Egmont not to remain in
the power of Philip the Second. Then Ormond himself fled to France.
He lived there for thirty years after. He led a pleasant, easy,
harmless life, and was completely forgotten in England for years and
years before his death. More than twenty years after his flight he is
described by vivacious Mary Wortley Montagu as "one who seems to have
forgotten every part of his past life, and to be of no party." He was
a weak man, with only a very faint outline of a character; but he was
more honorable and consistent than was common with the men of his time.
When he had once taken up a cause or a principle he held to it. {112}
He was the very opposite to Bolingbroke. Bolingbroke was genius and
force without principle. Ormond had principle without genius or force.
[Sidenote: 1715--Oxford committed to the Tower]
Two, then, of the great accused peers were beyond the reach of the
House of Lords. Oxford alone remained. On July 9, 1715, articles of
impeachment were brought up against him. The impeachment does not seem
to have been very substantial in its character. The great majority of
its articles referred to the conduct of Oxford with regard to the
Treaty of Utrecht. One article accused him of having abused his
influence over her Majesty by prevailing upon her to exercise "in the
most unprecedented and dangerous manner" her prerogative by the
creation of twelve Peers in December, 1711. A motion that Oxford be
committed to the Tower was made, and on this motion he spoke a few
words which were at once ingenious and dignified. He asserted his
innocence of any treasonable practice or thought, and declared that
what he had done was done in obedience to the positive orders of the
Queen. He asked the House what might not happen if Ministers of State,
acting on the immediate commands of their sovereign, were afterwards to
be made accountable for their proceedings. Then in a few words he
commended his cause to the justice of his brother peers, and took leave
of the House of Lords, as he put it, "perhaps forever." Such an
impeachment would have been impossible in more recent days. If Oxford
had been accused of treasonable dealings with the Stuarts, and if
evidence could have been brought home to him, there indeed might have
been a reasonable ground for impeachment. But there was no sufficient
evidence for any such purpose, and to impeach a statesman simply
because he had taken a political course which was afterwards
disapproved by the nation, and which was discredited by results, was
simply to say that any failure in the policy of a Minister of the Crown
might make him liable to impeachment when his enemies came into power.
The Peace of Utrecht, bad as it was, had been condoned, or rather {113}
approved of, by two successive Parliaments. Shrewsbury, who was now in
high favor, had been actively concerned in its promotion. It was a
question of compromise altogether, on which politicians were entitled
to form the strongest opinions. No doubt the enemies of the Tory party
had ample ground for condemning and denouncing the Peace. But the part
which a statesman had taken in bringing about the Peace could not,
according to our modern ideas, form any just ground of ministerial
impeachment. Much more reasonably might the statesmen of a later day
have been impeached who, by their blundering and obstinacy, brought
about the armed resistance and the final independence of the North
American colonies. It is curious, in our eyes, to find Oxford
defending his conduct on the ground that he had simply obeyed the
positive orders of his sovereign. The minister would run more risk of
impeachment, in our days, who declared that he had acted in some great
public crisis simply in obedience to his sovereign's orders, than if he
were to stand accountable for the greatest errors, the grossest
blunders, committed on the judgment and on the responsibility of
himself and his colleagues.
Oxford was committed to the Tower, whither he went escorted by an
immense popular procession of his admirers, who cheered vociferously
for him and for High-Church together. He may now be said to drop out
of our history altogether. He was destined to linger in long
confinement, almost like one forgotten by friends and enemies. We
shall have to tell afterwards how he petitioned for a trial, and was
brought to trial, and in what fashion he came to be acquitted by his
peers. The remainder of his life he passed in happy quietude among his
books and curious manuscripts; the books and manuscripts which formed
the original stock of the Harleian Library, afterwards completed by his
son. Harley lived until 1724, and was not an old man even then--only
sixty-three. It is not necessary that in this work we should concern
ourselves much more about him. Despite all the {114} praises of his
friends, some of them men of the highest intellectual gifts, like Swift
and Pope, there does not seem to have been any great quality,
intellectual or moral, in Harley. He had a narrow and feeble mind; he
was incapable of taking a large view of anything; he was selfish and
deceitful; although it has to be said that sometimes that which men
called deceit in him was but a lack of the capacity to look straight
before him and make up his mind. He often led astray those who acted
with him merely because his own confusion of intellect and want of
defined purpose were leading himself astray. Perhaps the most
dignified passage in his life was that which showed him calmly awaiting
the worst in London, when men like Bolingbroke and Ormond had chosen to
seek safety in flight. Yet even the course which he took in this
instance seems to have been rather the result of indecision than of
independent self-sufficing courage and resolve. He does not appear to
have been able to decide upon anything until the time had passed when
movement of any kind would have availed, and so he remained where he
was. Many a man has gained credit for courage, and has seemed to
surround himself with dignity, because at a moment of alarm, when
others did this or that, he was unable quite to make up his mind as to
what he ought to do, and so did nothing, and let the world go by.
[Sidenote: 1715--Sir Henry St. John]
On September 17, Norroy, King at Arms, came solemnly down to the House
of Lords and razed the names of Ormond and of Bolingbroke from the roll
of peers. Bolingbroke had some consolation of a sham kind. He had
wished and schemed to be Earl of Bolingbroke before his fall, and now
his new king, James of St. Germains, had given him the patent of
enhanced nobility. If he ceased to be a viscount in the eyes of
English peers and of English heralds, he was still an earl in the
Pretender's court. Bolingbroke had too keen a sense of humor not to be
painfully aware of the irony of the situation. Nor was he likely to
find much satisfaction in the peerage {115} which the Government had
just conferred upon his father, Sir Henry St. John, by creating him
Baron of Battersea and Viscount St. John. Sir Henry St. John was an
idle, careless _roué_, a haunter of St. James's coffee-houses, living
in the manner and in the memories of the Restoration, listlessly
indifferent to all parties, leaning, perhaps, a little to the Whigs.
He had no manner of sympathy with his son or appreciation of his
genius. When the son was made a peer the father only said, "Well,
Harry, I thought thee would be hanged, but now I see thee wilt be
beheaded." The father himself was once very near being hanged. In his
wild youth he had killed a man in a quarrel, and was tried for murder
and condemned to death, and then pardoned by the King, Charles II., in
consideration, it is said, of a liberal money-payment to the merry
monarch and his yet more merry mistresses.
{116}