Jacobites, or the fear on the part of the Hanoverians, was by any means
allayed, and as by the existing Statute of 6 William and Mary,
Parliament would be dissolved at the close of the year, and a new
election held in the spring of 1717, there seemed great probability of a
renewal of the contest, or at least of very serious riots during the
election time. With this in view, the ministers proposed that the
existing Parliament should be continued for a term of seven instead of
three years. This, which was meant for a temporary measure, has never
been repealed, and is still the law under which Parliaments are held. It
has been often objected to this action of Parliament, that it was acting
arbitrarily in thus increasing its own duration. "It was a direct
usurpation," it has been said, "of the rights of the people, analogous
to the act of the Long Parliament in declaring itself indestructible."
It has been regarded rather as a party measure than as a forward step in
liberal government. We must seek its vindication in the peculiar
conditions of the time. It was useless to look to the constituencies for
the support of the popular liberty. The return of members in the smaller
boroughs was in the hands of corrupt or corruptible freemen; in the
counties, of great landowners; in the larger towns, of small
place-holders under Government. A general election in fact only gave
fresh occasion for the exercise of the influence of the Crown and of the
House of Lords--freedom and independence in the presence of these two
permanent powers could be secured only by the greater permanence of the
third element of the Legislature, the House of Commons. It was thus
that, though no doubt in some degree a party measure for securing a more
lengthened tenure of office to the Whigs, the Septennial Act received,
upon good constitutional grounds, the support and approbation of the
best statesmen of the time. It was upon these grounds that Lord Somers
declared that the measure would be the greatest possible support to the
liberty of the country, and Speaker Onslow, with a clear view of the
tendency of the Act, believed that it would emancipate the House of
Commons from its former dependence on the Crown and the House of Lords.
It was however probably the more far-sighted only who saw the advantages
to which the Septennial Act would lead. It was meant for a temporary
Act, and the reasons for its necessity, as set forth in the preamble,
are the expenses of frequent elections, the constant renewal of party
animosities, and the probability, "at this juncture, when a restless and
Popish faction are designing and endeavouring to renew" the rebellion
within and invasion without, of an election being likely to prove
destructive to the peace and security of the Government. At the same
time it is plain that men's eyes were being opened to the threatened
loss of independence of the Lower House, for a private Bill was
introduced, and subsequently carried through in a modified form by
Government, to forbid the holders of pensions withdrawable at will from
sitting in the House.
No sooner was the great question which had held the Whig party together
settled by the suppression of the insurrection, than certain elements of
disunion which already existed in the Cabinet began to make themselves
felt, and a train of circumstances began, which ended in the disruption
of the ministry. The tumult of pardon and execution had scarcely
subsided, when the King, to the great dislike of his ministers, giving
way to those natural inclinations which were for many years to be the
chief weakness of our Hanoverian Princes, insisted upon the repeal of
the clause of the Act of Settlement which restrained the King from
leaving England, and hurried to his hereditary dominions. Stanhope
accompanied him as representative of the English ministry, Townshend
being left at home. This separation of the ministry of itself afforded
room for intrigue, and the state of affairs both at home and abroad
supplied a more than usually appropriate occasion for it, for the
hereditary family quarrel had already broken out between George and his
eldest son. It was impossible, however, to ignore his claims to the
regency during his father's absence, nor would Townshend permit them to
be overlooked. The King was with difficulty persuaded to put the
Government in his hands, with the inferior title of Guardian of the
Realm and Lieutenant, and under considerable restrictions. The minister
in England was thus at once put, in some sort, in opposition to the
King, and in a position which gave great opening for the intrigues of
his enemies who surrounded the King; for a clique, consisting of the
King's Hanoverian courtiers, Bernsdorf, Bothmar, George's private
Secretary Robethon, and Madame de Schulenberg, Duchess of Kendal, the
royal mistress, were full of animosity to the minister. Like the Scotch
followers of James I., they regarded England as a sort of promised land,
and took umbrage at the attempts of the English ministry to check their
rapacity. The mistrust thus engendered was rapidly increased by
subsequent events, chiefly connected with the affairs of the Continent.
[Sidenote: First signs of the breaking up of the Cabinet.]
[Sidenote: George and Stanhope go to Hanover.]
[Sidenote: Negotiations with France.]
As the King entered Hanover with Stanhope, the minister was met by the
Abbé Dubois, an agent of the Regent Orleans, and negotiations began for
the establishment of friendly relations with France, which mark an
entire change in the politics of Europe. To complete the security of the
new succession, it was regarded as necessary that the Pretender should
be removed beyond the Alps, and that all hope of assistance to his cause
from France should cease. Open hostilities to gain this end seemed out
of the question. Austria was much irritated by the Barrier Treaty, by
which the Dutch were secured a line of fortresses in the Austrian
Netherlands, garrisoned by the Dutch, but paid by Austria. The Emperor,
too, was naturally jealous of the increasing power of the Princes of the
Empire, three of whom had acquired kingdoms; the Elector of Saxony was
King of Poland, the Elector of Brandenburg King of Prussia, the Elector
of Hanover King of England. The temper of Austria thus forbade all hope
of re-establishing the Grand Alliance. The withdrawal of support from
the Pretender had to be sought by peaceful means; and the Regent, intent
on his personal aims, was willing to surrender the cause of the Stuarts,
and to destroy the works at Mardyke as the price of peace with England.
On these terms negotiations for a treaty, in which Holland was to share,
were begun.
[Sidenote: Danger of Hanover from Charles XII.]
The German objects of the King rendered its speedy conclusion an object
of the first importance. After his defeat at Pultowa, Charles XII. had
withdrawn to Bender, where he had vainly attempted to rouse the Turks to
assist him against the Russians. In his absence, Russia, Poland, and
Denmark, the countries which in turn he had conquered, combined against
his deserted country; and the King of Prussia, for his own ends no
doubt, but with some appearance of keeping the balance between the
parties, succeeded in neutralizing Pomerania, and in obtaining the
sequestration into his own hands of the strong town of Stettin. This
arrangement by no means pleased Charles, who hastened home from Bender,
hoping by an alliance with England to keep his enemies at bay. The
accession of the house of Hanover destroyed this hope. The Elector of
Hanover had obtained from Denmark Bremen and Verden, part of the spoils
of Charles, and was pledged by his own interests to oppose him. He
insisted upon an English fleet being sent to the Baltic, though the
question was obviously one of German interest only. Not content with
opposing Sweden, George eagerly desired that the fleet should be used
against Russia, for that country had invaded Mecklenburg, and intended
apparently to appropriate it. Again it was evident that the question was
chiefly of German interest. Townshend placed the English view of the
affair before the King--it did not matter much who possessed
Mecklenburg, but to attack Russia, the chief opponent of Sweden, was to
leave Charles XII. free for dangerous designs in favour of the Stuarts,
in which he was now almost openly engaged. Fortunately diplomacy induced
the Czar to withdraw, and the question was thus solved.
But while eager for war with Sweden and Russia, George was naturally
anxious for the conclusion of the peace with France, and thought himself
purposely thwarted by his minister, when the peculiarities of the Dutch
constitution threw delays in the way of its completion, and Townshend
refused to break faith and conclude the treaty without the accession of
the Dutch. The King's dislike for Townshend, excited by his opposition
to his German plans, was sedulously fomented both by his Hanoverian
courtiers and by the Earl of Sunderland, who, thoroughly discontented
with his subordinate position in the ministry as Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland, had joined the King at Hanover, and had entered busily into the
intrigues going on there. A letter from Townshend, in which, in order to
allow the longer absence of the King, he recommended that additional
powers should be given to the Prince in England, brought matters to a
crisis. Townshend was dismissed from his office, and offered in exchange
the viceroyalty of Ireland. For the sake of the party, and upon some
sort of apology from the King, Townshend accepted his new office, and
the quarrel was temporarily healed.
[Sidenote: Dismissal of Townshend.]
[Sidenote: The Triple Alliance. Jan. 1717.]
During this brief reconciliation, the negotiations which had been
carried on at the Hague and Hanover were completed, and a Triple
Alliance was signed in January 1717, by which the clauses in the Treaty
of Utrecht having reference to the Protestant succession in England, to
the French succession, and to the renunciation of the Spanish King to
his claims on the French throne, were guaranteed.
[Sidenote: Changes in the ministry. April.]
But Walpole and the other friends of Townshend took an early opportunity
of showing their discontent at the treatment of their leader, and it
became necessary to dismiss them. The direction of the Government thus
fell into the hands of Stanhope, as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Sunderland and Addison became Secretaries of State, and James Craggs
Secretary at War. The occasion of the final schism was a demand for a
supply to oppose the intrigues of the King of Sweden. The lukewarmness
of Walpole's support was so marked that his friends and those of
Townshend voted against Government, and the supplies were carried by a
majority of four only. The fraction of the Whigs who thus left office at
once passed into vigorous opposition; yet the crisis was one which
should have overpowered party feeling.
[Sidenote: Danger to England from Charles XII. and Alberoni.]
The state of Europe was such as to threaten difficulty, even danger, to
England. Two statesmen of unusual ability were at work in Europe; to
both of them the fall of the new Government in England was an object,
and when their intrigues for a moment brought them together, there was
a brief interval of real danger. These were Charles XII. of Sweden, and
Alberoni, the Prime Minister of Spain.
[Sidenote: Charles XII.]
Charles had found himself thwarted in his schemes for re-establishing
his power by the opposition of the English King. The same opposition had
checked the Czar in his ambitious schemes on Mecklenburg. In union with
his minister, Görtz, an adventurer who had passed into his service from
that of the Prince of Gotthorp, Charles determined on a new combination
of the North to suit the altered politics of Europe. He allied himself
with his old enemy the Czar, and despatched Görtz to Holland, to see
what he could do in France and England. In each of those countries he
found it possible to enter into communication with a large discontented
minority. In France, the Duke of Maine, irritated at the loss of the
position which the late King's will would have given him, had put
himself at the head of the older and graver statesmen, who clung to the
old policy of enmity with England. In England, the Jacobites were still
looking out for foreign support. To both countries Görtz sent an
agent,--while Spaar was, if possible, to produce a change of government
in France, Gyllenborg was instructed in England to promise the Tories
the assistance of 12,000 men under the personal command of the King of
Sweden. In seeking assistance for his plans, Görtz had come across
another intrigue tending in the same direction. He found in Alberoni a
man whose views were for the time identical with his own, and Spanish
money found its way largely both to the Pretender and to the Swedish
agents. Fortunately the English Government obtained information of what
was going on. Justly holding that his ambassadorial rights were
forfeited by his treason, they apprehended Gyllenborg and seized his
papers, and persuaded Holland to act in the same manner with regard to
Görtz. The papers thus seized afforded full justification for what they
had done. But though thwarted in this scheme, both Charles and the Czar
continued to act in unison with Spain against the interests of England.
It was to meet this plot that the supply was demanded which caused the
final schism in the English ministry. The death of Charles in September
1718, at the siege of Friedrichshalle, whither he had gone in his haste
to secure Norway, the possession of which was a part of his bargain with
Russia, prevented the Northern branch of the intrigue from bearing
fruits, and a revolution in Sweden, which changed it into little more
than an oligarchical republic, removed it for more than sixty years from
the scene of history.
[Sidenote: Alberoni.]
Alberoni's plots were of more importance. He was one of those statesmen
who owe their rise to the democratic character of the Roman Church. The
son of a market gardener, of a singularly undignified exterior, he had
found means to make himself indispensable to the Duke of Vendome during
the war of the Spanish succession, and had subsequently established his
position in Spain by bringing about the marriage of Philip with
Elizabeth of Parma. His object was entirely patriotic; he desired to
replace Spain in the list of great European nations. For this purpose he
set to work with remarkable success to revive the industry and wealth of
the country. But his views reached further than this; he aimed at the
destruction of the Treaty of Utrecht. By that treaty Austria had gained
almost all that Spain had lost. It was therefore against Austria that
his designs were chiefly directed. Knowing of the irritation which
existed between Austria and England with regard to the Barrier Treaty,
and believing that France would be unwilling to do anything to the
disadvantage of a Bourbon kingdom of its own creation, he supposed that
Austria would be without allies. To secure friendship with England, he
even granted her great commercial advantages. The defensive alliance
between England and Austria, in 1716, was the first blow to his plan.
The subsequent conclusion, in 1717, of the Triple Alliance opened his
eyes to the probable policy of France. It was then that he threw himself
into the intrigues of the Jacobites and the party of the Duke of Maine,
and put himself into communication with Charles of Sweden. Alberoni's
chief object was to destroy the Austrian power in Italy. Conscious that
Spain had gained in strength by the loss of her widespread foreign
dependencies, he had no intention of conquering that country. But he
wished to restrict the Austrian power there, firstly, by the
establishment of younger branches of the Spanish house in Sicily (at the
instant belonging by the Treaty of Utrecht to Victor Amadeus of Savoy),
and in the duchies of Parma and Tuscany, where the reigning houses were
drawing towards extinction, and to which Elizabeth Farnese had claims;
and, secondly, by the increase of the territory of Savoy, which he
designed to compensate for the loss of Sicily by the cession of a
portion of Lombardy. The possession of Sicily was therefore of the first
importance to him. But Austria had already been negotiating with the
powers of the Triple Alliance for the exchange of that island for
Sardinia. Alberoni himself desired to wait till Spain had acquired more
power at home, but the apprehension by the Austrians of a newly
appointed Spanish inquisitor roused the anger of Philip V., and,
against his will, Alberoni was hurried into war. To prevent the exchange
of Sicily he at once took possession of Sardinia, and would probably
have proceeded to attack Sicily, when the Powers of the Triple Alliance
intervened.
[Sidenote: Opposition of the Triple Alliance.]
Their offer of mediation involved the renunciation on the part of
Austria of all claims on the Spanish monarchy, which had never hitherto
been dropped,--on the part of Spain of all claims on the Italian
provinces. The exchange of Sicily for Sardinia was to be carried out,
and Parma and Tuscany to be given to Don Carlos. Enraged at this offer,
the work of men, as he said, "who cut and pared countries as they would
Dutch cheeses," Alberoni at once set to work all the apparatus his
intrigue had prepared. The anger of Savoy was aroused at the loss of
Sicily; the Turks, already at war with Austria, were subsidized and
urged to further exertions; Ragotski, Prince of Transylvania, was
brought forward to demand his hereditary dominions, to hamper Austria on
the east; the Spanish envoy in France busily stirred up faction there;
Charles XII. and the Czar were urged to immediate action; and an
expedition against England, headed by Ormond or the Pretender himself,
was set on foot. The whole of Europe seemed involved. The mediating
Powers found themselves likely to be drawn into war. Stanhope was
removed from his position as First Lord of the Treasury, and made
Secretary of State for the Southern Department, which included foreign
affairs, and on June 4, 1718, Admiral Byng set sail from England for the
Mediterranean.
[Sidenote: Formation of the Quadruple Alliance. August 1718.]
[Sidenote: Fall of Alberoni. Dec. 1719.]
The crisis was so threatening that the Austrian Emperor, who had refused
to accede to the mediation of the Powers, yielded. England procured for
him the Treaty of Passowitz, which secured him from the Turks, bought
off at the expense of the Venetians, from whom they had conquered the
Morea; and a Quadruple Alliance between England, France, Austria, and
Holland was formed on the basis of the old project of mediation, with
this difference, that Parma and Tuscany were to be held by Don Carlos
only as fiefs of the Empire. Without open declaration of war, France and
England had virtually joined the Austrian alliance. Alberoni, however,
persisted in his schemes, but fortune had turned against him. The
Spanish fleet, not knowing whether it was peace or war, was fallen upon
and destroyed by Byng off Cape Passaro; Savoy, yielding to the pressure
of the Quadruple Alliance, accepted Sardinia in exchange for Sicily; the
death of Charles XII. broke up the Northern Alliance; the conspiracy in
France was discovered when approaching maturity, the Spanish ambassador
and the Duke and Duchess of Maine apprehended; of the Pretender's
expedition, scattered in the Bay of Biscay, two frigates only reached
Loch Alsh in Scotland. A few hundreds of the Highlanders gathered to
their standard, but the appearance of English troops put them to flight;
the chiefs escaped to Spain, the Highlanders were allowed to fly
unmolested to their hills, the Spanish troops were taken prisoners of
war. War having now been regularly declared, the French crossed the
Pyrenees, and again and again defeated the Spanish troops; and at length
Philip was compelled to dismiss his great minister, and on the 19th of
January 1720 acceded to the terms of the Quadruple Alliance.
[Sidenote: European peace. 1720.]
The affairs in the North of Europe were settled in a similar high-handed
fashion. There too a nation, struggling to regain its old preponderance,
had to be crushed. The death of Charles XII., and the revolution which
followed it, put an end to any chance of Sweden's regaining its position
in Europe. The new Government fell back upon the old policy of the
country; Bremen and Verden were allowed to remain in the hands of
George, and an alliance with England and France was entered into. As a
necessary consequence the late allies of Sweden again became its
enemies. But the friendship of France and England drove them to peace.
Orders were even issued to the English Admiral of the Baltic to fall
upon the fleet of the Czar without declaration of war, unless with
Denmark, his ally, he consented to a cessation of hostilities. Too weak
to resist, Denmark accepted a sum of money and retired from the contest;
and the Czar, now standing alone, withdrew, though still in arms, to
await a better opportunity for action. The foreign policy of Stanhope
had thus been successful, and though unjust and domineering, secured for
Europe a peace of twelve years.
[Sidenote: Stanhope's home policy.]
Meanwhile the minister had carried out with consistency the politics of
his party at home. In acting thus he was met with considerable
difficulties. On the one hand he had to manage and repress the
meddlesome and rapacious German coterie which surrounded the King, on
the other he was met by a strong opposition headed by that party of the
Whigs which had left office with Townshend.
[Sidenote: Opposition of Walpole.]
[Sidenote: Trial of Oxford. June 1717.]
[Sidenote: Repeal of the Schism Act. Jan. 1719.]
In all the chief measures of his administration he found an eager and at
times a successful antagonist in Walpole. It was chiefly through his
instrumentality that the impeachment of Oxford came to an untimely end.
The Lords were persuaded to refuse to listen to any evidence in support
of the charge of misdemeanour before they had heard that on the graver
charge of treason. They knew that it was impossible for the Commons to
support the more important charge. A quarrel between the Houses ended in
the refusal of the Lower House to proceed to the impeachment. The Lords
gravely assembled on the appointed day in Westminster Hall, sat there
for a quarter of an hour, and then, as no accusers appeared, declared
the impeachment at an end. Again, Walpole, regardless of party ties,
vehemently upheld the charges of peculation brought against Lord Cadogan
by the Jacobites in the House headed by Shippen. And again, with great
inconsistency, he opposed the repeal of the Schism Act. The Act for
restraining Occasional Conformity passed in the last reign, and the
Schism Act of 1714, by which it had been followed, pressed very heavily
on the Dissenters; and Stanhope, whose views appear in some respects to
have been more liberal than those in vogue at the time, went so far in
his wish to relieve them as even to dream of mitigating the severity of
the Test and Corporation Acts. However, wisely yielding to the advice of
Sunderland, he confined himself to an attempt to get the Schism Act
repealed, and succeeded, after much opposition, in both Houses; but his
narrow majorities show that a more extensive measure would have been
useless. The Test Act continued in force, though rendered practically
nugatory after the beginning of George II.'s reign by a Bill of
Indemnity passed almost every year in favour of those who had evaded it.
[Sidenote: The Peerage Bill rejected. Dec. 1719.]
On the two last named occasions Walpole's opposition had been useless.
On the more important question of the limitation of the power of the
Crown to create Peers by the Peerage Bill, he fortunately proved too
strong for the minister. Like the Septennial Act, the Peerage Bill was
introduced partly on theoretical, partly on party grounds. The
Revolution had been an aristocratic rather than a popular movement. The
power or rather the influence of the Crown had not been destroyed, but
was in abeyance, the Hanoverian monarchs being as it were in a state of
tutelage to the Whig party, whose strength was in the Upper House.
Popular in language, but aristocratic in feeling, this party regarded
political liberty as best secured by its own predominance, rendered
permanent by such institutions as a Septennial Parliament and an
exclusive hereditary nobility. It feared alike the power of the King and
the power of the people, and already the adoption of the Treaty of
Utrecht, carried by the popular will and by a large creation of Peers,
had shown the possibility of a union between King and people which might
sooner or later destroy its influence. To guard against such a danger
was the primary object for which Stanhope introduced his Peerage Bill.
But temporary party interests had as much weight with him as general
theory. Stanhope and his friends, especially Sunderland, were in dread
of the conduct which might be pursued by the Prince of Wales when he
came to the throne. He was on bad terms with his father, and regarded
Sunderland as the chief cause of the royal jealousy. It was generally
believed that his accession would be followed by a creation of peers
from among his own favourites. Thus both on public and party grounds the
ministry thought it desirable to limit the royal prerogative. As was
natural, the Tories, in their dislike to restrictions on the royal
prerogative, and the party of Walpole, who opposed it because it was a
Government measure, made common cause against the Bill. By its
enactments the Crown was to be restrained from the creation of more than
six beyond the existing number of 178 English peerages (the power of
creating a new peerage whenever an old one became extinct being
reserved), no new peerage was to be created with remainders except to
the original recipient and his heirs male; while, to place the Peerage
of Scotland on the same footing, the sixteen representative Peers of
that country were to give way to twenty-five hereditary Peers nominated
by the Crown. The Bill met with little opposition in the House of Lords,
but was thrown out by a large majority in the Lower House, where Walpole
pointed out "that one of the most powerful incentives to virtue would be
taken away, since there would be no arriving at honour but through the
winding-sheet of a decrepit lord, or the grave of an extinct noble
family."
[Sidenote: Strength of the ministry.]