THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE (_continued_).
Negotiations for Peace--The Ministry becomes
Whig--Harley--Marlborough and Charles of Sweden--The Allies in
Spain--Battle of Almanza--The French Triumphant in Spain--Attack
on Toulon--Destruction of Shovel's Fleet--Jacobitism in
Scotland--First Parliament of Great Britain--Abigail
Hill--The Gregg Affair--Retirement of Harley and St. John
from the Ministry--Attempted Invasion of Scotland--Campaign
of 1708--Battle of Oudenarde--Capture of Lille--Leake takes
Sardinia and Minorca--Death of Prince George of Denmark--The
Junto--Terrible Plight of France--Marlborough's Plans for
1709--Louis Negotiates with Holland--Torcy's Terms--Ultimatum
of the Allies--Rejection of the Terms--Patriotism of the French
Nation--Fall of Tournay--Battle of Malplaquet--Meeting of
Parliament--Dr. Sacheverell's Sermons--His Impeachment resolved
upon--Attitude of the Court--The Trial and Sacheverell's
Defence--The Riots--Dispersal of the Rabble--The Sentence--Bias
of the Queen--The Tories in Power--Renewed Overtures for
Peace--Their Failure--The Campaigns in the Netherlands and in
Spain--Brihuega and its Consequence--Marlborough's Reign at an
End--Unpopularity of Marlborough--Dismissal of the Duchess--Triumph
of the Tories--Guiscard's Attack on Harley--Popularity of
Harley--Marlborough's Last Campaign--Failure of the Attack on
Quebec--The Ministry determine to make Peace--Overtures to
the Pretender--He refuses to Change his Religion--Gualtier's
Mission to Versailles--Indignation of the Dutch--The Basis of
Negotiations--Signing of the Preliminaries--Excitement Abroad
and at Home--Prorogation of Parliament--Strengthening of the
Ministry--Debates in the two Houses--The Whigs adopt the Occasional
Conformity Bill--Creation of Peers--Dismissal of Marlborough from
his Employments--Walpole expelled the House.
The great event of the Union of the kingdoms has carried us somewhat
past the course of general events. After the last disastrous campaign
Louis XIV., humbled to a degree that he was hitherto unacquainted
with, employed the Elector of Bavaria to propose a congress to the
Duke of Marlborough and the States-General. He had already presented
a memorial to the Dutch Government through the Marquis D'Alègre, and
he besought the Pope to use his influence to this end. The terms which
Louis offered in the moment of his alarm were such as well merited
the attention of the Allies. He proposed to cede either Spain and the
West Indies to King Charles, or Milan, Naples, and Sicily; to grant
to the Dutch a barrier of fortified towns on the frontiers of the
Spanish Netherlands; and to indemnify the Duke of Savoy for the ravages
committed on his territories. Never since the commencement of the war
had the Allies such an opportunity of closing the war triumphantly.
They could thus balance the powers of France and Austria by dividing
the Spanish monarchy, and give to the Dutch all they asked--a secure
frontier. But the great doubt was whether Louis was in earnest, or
only seeking to gain time during which he might continue to divide
the Allies. And the Allies were by no means eager to accept Louis's
offers. The Dutch were greatly elated by Marlborough's astonishing
victories, and Marlborough himself was in no humour to stop in
the mid-career of his glory. He is said to have induced the Grand
Pensionary Heinsius--who was now as much devoted to him as he had
formerly been to King William--to keep the Dutch high in their demands,
whilst Marlborough induced the English Court to demand indemnity for
the immense sums which England had expended in these wars. In these
circumstances the offers of France were declined on the plea that
England could not enter into any negotiations except in concert with
the Allies. Had the English people known of the offers, there would
have probably been a loud demand for peace; but they were kept secret,
and the attention of the nation being then engrossed by the question of
the Union, the matter was passed over,--not, however, without exciting
fresh resentment against Marlborough amongst the Tory leaders.
During the Session of 1706-1707 the Ministry grew more completely Whig.
Through the influence of Lady Marlborough rather than of the Duke,
who was much averse from the free principles and free language of his
son-in-law the Earl of Sunderland, that nobleman was made one of the
Secretaries of State in the place of Sir Charles Hedges. This change
was equally repugnant to Harley, the other Secretary, who was now the
only Tory Minister left in the Cabinet. The three Tory Commissioners of
the Board of Trade--Prior the poet being one--were removed, and three
Whigs were introduced. Sir James Montague, the brother of the Earl of
Halifax, was made Solicitor-General; and Sir George Rooke and the few
remaining Tory Privy Councillors had their names erased. Harley was
thus left, apparently without support, a Tory in a Cabinet all except
himself Whig. But Harley was that kind of man that he not only managed
to maintain his place, but eventually ruined and scattered the whole
Whig party. He was by no means a man of genius, though he affected
the company of such men. Pope, Swift, Bolingbroke, Arbuthnot, and
Prior, were his friends and associates. His intellect was narrow and
commonplace, but it was persevering; and though he was a wretched and
confused speaker, yet he continually acquired more and more influence
in the House of Commons, and ultimately raised himself to the peerage,
and for many years to the chief direction of the national affairs. The
secret of this was that he had made himself master of the laws and
practices of Parliament, and on all disputed questions could clear up
the point past dispute, so that he came to be regarded as far more
profound than he was.
The Duke of Marlborough, relying on the support of the Whig Cabinet,
which the influence of his contriving wife had created, set out in the
month of April for the Continent. The condition to which his successes
had reduced France was such that the Allies were in the highest
spirits. The French Treasury was exhausted; and, in the absence of
real money, Louis endeavoured to supply the deficiency by mint bills,
in imitation of the Bank of England bills; but they were already
at a discount of fifty-three per cent. The lands lay uncultivated,
manufacturers were at a pause for want of capital, the people were
perishing with famine, and nothing could be more deplorable than the
state of France. Nothing could have saved Louis at this crisis but want
of unity amongst the Allies, and already the artful Louis had contrived
to get in the wedge of disunion. The Emperor, allured by the prospect
of the evacuation of Italy, and of seizing Naples for himself, had
come to a secret understanding with the French king, which was equally
treacherous and suicidal; for the direct result, as any man but the
stolid Emperor would have foreseen, was to liberate the French forces
from the North of Italy to reinforce those in the Netherlands and those
endeavouring to drive his brother Charles from Spain.
Marlborough, on his part, did everything that he could to keep the
Allies together, and to combine them into a victorious strength; but
it had always been his misfortune, as it had been that of William, to
have to suffer from their regard to their own petty jealousies rather
than to the grand object in view. He set out directly from the Hague to
visit Hanover, and stimulate the young Elector to active assistance.
He then set out to pay a visit to Charles XII. of Sweden, who was
encamped at Alt Ranstadt, only a few marches from the Court of Hanover.
The Swedish military madman, neglecting the Czar Peter, who was making
continual inroads on his Finnish and Esthonian territories, and was now
actually laying the foundations of a new capital and seaport on the
shores of the Baltic, had pursued, with blind and inveterate hatred,
Augustus, the Elector of Saxony, who had presumed to allow himself, in
spite of the Swedish king, to be elected King of Poland. Marlborough's
flattery appeared to produce the intended effect. The rough Swede
assured him that he had a great regard for the Queen of England, and
for the objects of the Grand Alliance, and should do nothing contrary
to it; that he detested the domineering spirit of the French, and that
no good need be expected till they were reduced to the condition they
were in at the peace of Westphalia; that he had come into Saxony to
demand certain satisfaction, and that when he had obtained it he should
go away, and not sooner. But notwithstanding Charles's profession, he
continued to harass and alarm the Emperor until he had obtained from
him all that he chose to demand, when he marched away into Poland to
encounter the Czar. Marlborough himself returned by way of the Courts
of Prussia and Hanover to the Hague, giving everywhere the utmost
satisfaction by his arrangements with Charles XII., who had made every
neighbouring Court uneasy lest he might turn his erratic arms against
them.
But the campaign in the Netherlands this year bore no relation to the
great expectations formed of it. No grand action was fought there; and
in Spain the adroit manœuvre of Louis, by which, through his treaty
with the selfish and short-sighted Emperor, he had liberated his troops
from Italy to throw them upon that country, and the want of unity
between Charles and his auxiliaries, quite changed the face of affairs.
The Whigs had studiously left the reinforcements in Spain insufficient,
from the idea that it was better to continue to distract the attention
of Louis in that direction than by a bold and vigorous effort to drive
him from the country. They had a vain idea of conquering France, and
thought this more easy to achieve while the French arms were demanded
in various quarters. But the astute Louis was not so readily dealt
with. He contrived, as we have seen, to amuse the Allies in Flanders
without coming to blows. He coped without difficulty with the Germans
on the Rhine; and, though fiercely attacked at Toulon by the Savoyards,
he defeated the Allies in Spain, to the great astonishment of Europe.
By this time the opinion formed of King Charles when he was in England
by those who had opportunity of observing him, was now become that of
all who had come near him in Spain--that he was a very poor creature.
The Earl of Peterborough, who had been travelling about with little
success to borrow money for such a contest, and had returned to Spain,
but without any command, did not hesitate to say that people were
great fools to fight for such a couple of simpletons as Charles and
Philip. Charles was surrounded by a set of Austrians who were utterly
incapable of commanding, and who made it equally impossible for any one
else to command. The great plan of the campaign was to march boldly
on Madrid; but Charles was, as before, too timid to venture on such a
step. He remained in Catalonia, and ordered the Earl of Galway with
the Dutch and English forces, and Das Minas, with the Portuguese, to
defend the frontiers of Aragon and Valencia; and thus he contrived to
wait for fresh troops from England, or from Italy, where they were no
longer wanted. Whilst Das Minas and Galway, who was only second in
command, were laying siege to Velina, in Valencia, and were in want
of almost everything--food, clothes, and ammunition--they heard that
the Duke of Berwick was hastening, by forced marches, to attack them.
They therefore drew off towards the town of Almanza, and there fell in
with the enemy, who proved to be considerably stronger than themselves.
They came to an engagement, however, on the 14th of April. The battle
began about two in the afternoon, and the whole force of each army was
engaged. The centre of the Allies, consisting of Dutch and English,
fought most valiantly, and repeatedly threw back the forces of the Duke
of Berwick. For six long and bloody hours they maintained the fight;
but the two wings were beaten and dispersed; the Portuguese horse on
the right at the first charge, but the Dutch and English on the left,
only after a brave but unequal resistance. When the gallant centre was
thus exposed on both flanks, they formed themselves into a square, and
retired from the field, fighting doggedly as they went. But at length
their ammunition was spent, they were worn out with fatigue, and they
surrendered, to the extent of thirteen battalions. The Portuguese,
part of the English horse, and the infantry who guarded the baggage,
retreated to Alcira, where the Earl of Galway joined them with about
two thousand five hundred horse, and they escaped. It was a complete
triumph for the French and Spaniards. The Allies lost five thousand
men, besides the wounded and the large force which surrendered.
Nothing now could stop Berwick, who won great reputation by this
decisive action. He marched into Valencia, taking town after town,
whilst Saragossa at the same time surrendered, without a shot, to the
Duke of Orleans. Berwick marched for the Ebro, which he crossed on the
4th of June, and at length pursued and shut up the flying confederates
in Lerida. Charles was too inert or too dastardly to lead his troops
thither, though they lay at no great distance; and the place was taken
by storm, and given up to all the licence of the soldiery. After this
Manilla surrendered so late as the 17th of December, and with that the
campaign closed. The Duke of Orleans returned to Paris, and the Duke of
Berwick remained with the army till towards spring, when Louis sent for
him in haste into France, ordering him to quit Spain unknown to Philip,
lest he should endeavour to detain him. The Earl of Galway and Das
Minas embarked at Barcelona for Lisbon, leaving General Carpenter with
the English forces remaining in Catalonia, the only portion of Spain
now left to the pusillanimous Charles.
The operation, however, which most alarmed the French Court was
that of the Duke of Savoy against Provence. This had been planned
by Marlborough and Prince Eugene, and would undoubtedly have had a
brilliant success had not the Emperor been secretly planning his
attempt on Naples, instead of sending all his forces into Italy to
the support of this enterprise. The Duke of Savoy and Prince Eugene,
though abandoned by this selfish and small-souled Emperor, on whose
account the great Powers of Europe were expending so much life and
wealth, crossed the Alps by the Col de Tende with twenty thousand men,
whilst Sir Cloudesley Shovel appeared on the coast of Provence with the
united fleet of England and Holland to support them. Eugene crossed
the Var on the 10th of July, Sir John Norris and his English sailors
clearing the way for him in their gunboats. But the French were fast
marching towards Toulon from various quarters, Villars having been
despatched with a large force, as we have stated, from the army of
Flanders. The Duke of Savoy, on the other hand, instead of pushing on
to Toulon with all speed, halted his army to rest, and then marched
leisurely forward. By this means, not only had the French been able to
collect a very powerful army, but had had time to strengthen greatly
the fortifications of Toulon. When the practised eye of Prince Eugene
took a survey of the formidable heights of Toulon, and of the great
force on the outworks, with the power of the batteries, he advised
the duke not to attempt the siege of the place with the forces at his
command. The duke, however, would persist, and an assault was made on
the outworks on the hill of St. Catherine, and on two small forts near
the harbour. These were carried, but at a great cost of life, including
that of the gallant Prince of Saxe-Gotha. But fresh French troops
kept pouring in; it was impossible to maintain even this advantage.
On the 15th of August the hill of St. Catherine was recovered by the
French, and the Savoyards were even attacked in their own camp. On
this an order was given to bombard the place, both from sea and land,
in retaliation for the ravages committed by the French on Turin; the
bombardment, especially from the sea, was made with terrible effect.
A great part of the city was demolished, and the English and Dutch
sailors destroyed eight ships of the line in the harbours, and utterly
ruined two batteries. In the night of the 25th of August the army of
Savoy retired; on the 31st it crossed the Var without any pursuit of
the French, and then laid siege to Susa, an old and strong town at the
foot of the Alps, which surrendered after a fortnight's investment.
[Illustration: WRECK OF SIR CLOUDESLEY SHOVEL'S FLEET. (_See p._ 577.)]
Sir Cloudesley Shovel, leaving a squadron with Sir Thomas Dilkes in
the Mediterranean, sailed for England, and on the night of the 22nd of
October, 1707, closed his career in a sudden and melancholy manner.
By some miscalculation his vessels got amongst the rocks of Scilly.
His own ship struck on a rock about eight o'clock at night, and went
down, drowning him and every soul on board. Three other vessels shared
the same fate, only the captain and twenty-four men of one of them
escaping. Sir Cloudesley Shovel had risen from a humble origin in
Suffolk, had raised himself to the head of the maritime service of
his country by his bravery, skill, and integrity. His body, when cast
ashore, was stripped by the wreckers and buried in the sand, but was
afterwards discovered and interred in Westminster Abbey.
Meanwhile disaffection was rife in Scotland, where there had been
for some time a very zealous emissary of the Court of St. Germains,
one Colonel Hooke. Colonel Hooke transmitted to Chamillard, the
Minister of Louis XIV., flaming accounts of this state of things
in Scotland, and represented that never was there so auspicious an
opportunity of introducing the king of England (the Pretender) again
to his ancient throne of Scotland--a circumstance than which nothing
could be more advantageous to France. A civil war created in Great
Britain must completely prevent the English from longer impeding the
affairs of Louis on the Continent. All the power of England would be
needed at home; and on the Elder Pretender succeeding in establishing
himself on the throne of the United Kingdom, France would be for
ever relieved from the harassing antagonism of England--the only
real obstacle to the amplest completion of all France's plans for
Continental dominion. These accounts were very highly coloured, as
from most quarters, particularly from the Duke of Hamilton, Hooke only
met with discouragement. From others, however, Hooke received more
encouragement. He obtained a memorial to Louis XIV., signed by the
Lord High Constable the Earl of Errol, by the Lords Stormont, Panmure,
Kinnaird, and Drummond, and by some men of smaller note. The leading
men did not sign. They were not willing to endanger their necks without
some nearer prospect of invasion. Hooke, indeed, pretended that the
lords who did sign, signed as proxies for many others, such as the
Earls of Caithness, Eglintoun, Aberdeen, and Buchan, Lord Saltoun,
and others. With this memorial Hooke went back to St. Germains, and
what the document wanted in weight he made up by verbal assurances of
the impatience of all Scotland for the arrival of the king. But the
truth appears to be that France expected a stronger demonstration on
the part of Scotland, and Scotland on the part of France, and so the
adventure hung fire. It was not till the following year that sufficient
spirit could be aroused to send out an armament, and not till upwards
of twenty of the Jacobite lords and gentlemen, including the Duke of
Hamilton, in spite of all his caution, had been arrested.
The first Parliament of Great Britain met on the 23rd of October,
1707. The queen, in her speech, endeavoured to make the best of the
last unfortunate summer's military operations. The retreat of the
Imperialist troops on the Rhine was freely admitted, but it was
considered an encouraging circumstance that the command there was now
in the hands of the Elector of Hanover, and it was announced that
measures were taken for strengthening the forces in that quarter.
Little could be said of the proceedings in the Netherlands, and less of
those in Spain, including the fatal battle of Almanza; but the most was
made of the attack upon, and the bombardment of, Toulon. But the speech
promised renewed vigour in every quarter, and called for augmented
supplies. The deficiencies of military and naval action--for we had
also suffered a considerable defeat at sea from the celebrated French
Admiral, Du Guai Trouin, off the Lizard Point, in which two ships of
the line were taken and a third was blown up--an endeavour was made to
cover by allusions to the happy event of the Union. The Commons, in
their Address, seized on this point of congratulation, and declared
it a "mark of the Divine goodness that her Majesty had been made the
glorious instrument of this happy Union, which would so strengthen the
kingdom as to make it a terror to all its enemies." The Lords joined
with the Commons in an affectionate Address to her Majesty, declaring
that the only means of obtaining an honourable peace was the entire
recovery of Spain. To support these assurances by deeds the Commons
voted the enormous sum of six millions for the supplies.
Meanwhile the influence of the Marlboroughs at Court was on the wane,
and that partly through their own shortsightedness. The Duchess of
Marlborough had introduced into the palace, when she was Groom of
the Stole, Mistress of the Robes, and more queen than the queen
herself, a poor relation of her own, one Abigail Hill. Abigail, from
whose position as a bedchamber woman, and from whose singular rise
and fortunes all women of low degree and intriguing character have
derived the name of Abigails, being placed so near the queen, soon
caught her eye, took her fancy, and speedily became prime favourite.
Harley, the Tory Minister, being also her cousin, as was the Duchess
of Marlborough, with equal tact discovered her to be a useful tool for
him. The Duchess of Marlborough, trusting to her long absolute sway
over the mind of Queen Anne, begun when she was a princess; to the
firm establishment of the Whig faction in power, her own work, because
the Tories had opposed the five thousand pounds a year which the queen,
at the instigation of the duchess, demanded for Marlborough before he
had even won the battle of Blenheim; and finally, relying on the great
services which Marlborough had now rendered, had become intolerable
in her tyranny over the queen. The Marlboroughs all this time were
making use, not only of their position to enjoy power, but to scrape
up money with an insatiable and unblushing avarice. The time was now
approaching, however, for the queen's liberation from the heavy yoke of
Sarah Marlborough. The duchess, in the midst of power and pride, had
still for some time felt the ground mysteriously gliding from under her
feet.
She found that Abigail Hill was, in reality, no longer Abigail Hill;
that she had for a whole year been privately married to Mr. Masham,
Groom of the Bedchamber to the Prince of Denmark; and that the queen
herself had honoured this secret marriage by her presence at Dr.
Arbuthnot's lodgings, at which time Anne, the duchess now remembered,
had called for a round sum from the privy purse. In short, the duchess
herself tells us that in less than a week after the inquiries she
discovered that her cousin "was become an absolute favourite."
At this crisis an unlucky incident for the cunning Harley occurred.
He had in his office one William Gregg, a clerk, who was detected in
a treasonable correspondence with Chamillard the French Minister.
He was arrested and thrown into the Old Bailey. The Whigs hoped to
be able to implicate Harley himself in this secret correspondence.
There had just been an attempt to get Lord Godolphin dismissed from
his office, and he, the Duke of Marlborough, Sunderland, and their
party, now seized eagerly on this chance to expel Harley and his acute
coadjutor, St. John, from the Cabinet. Seven lords, including these,
and all Whigs, were deputed to examine Gregg in prison, and are said
to have laboured hard to induce Gregg to accuse Harley; but they were
disappointed. Gregg remained firm, was tried, condemned, and hanged.
Alexander Valiere, John Bara, and Claude Baude, the secretary of the
ambassador to the Duke of Savoy, with that Minister's consent, were
also imprisoned on the charge of carrying Gregg's correspondence to
the governor and commissioners of Calais and Boulogne. On the scaffold
Gregg was said to have delivered a paper to the ordinary, clearing
Harley altogether; but this was not produced till Harley was once more
in the ascendant. The lords deputed to examine Gregg and the smugglers
Bara and Valiere, declared that Gregg had informed them that Harley had
employed these men to carry correspondence, and that all the papers in
the office of Harley lay about so openly that any one might read them.
Both these assertions, and the paper said to have been left by Gregg,
had much that is doubtful about them. The one statement proceeded from
the Whigs, evidently to destroy Harley; the Gregg paper, on the other
hand, not being produced till Harley was out of danger, was quite as
evidently the work of Harley to clear his character. The charges,
however, were sufficient to drive Harley and St. John from office for
the time. When the Council next met, the Duke of Somerset rose, and
pointing to Harley said rudely to the queen that if she suffered that
fellow to treat of affairs in the absence of Marlborough and Godolphin,
he could not serve her. Marlborough and Godolphin continued to absent
themselves from the Council, and the queen was compelled to dismiss
Harley. With him went out St. John, the Secretary of War; and Mr.
Robert Walpole, a young man whose name was destined to fill a large
space of history under the Georges, was put into his place.
Whilst things were on this footing, the nation was alarmed by an
attempt at invasion. Louis XIV. had at length been persuaded that
a diversion in Scotland would have a very advantageous effect by
preventing England from sending so many troops and supplies against
him to the Continent. Early in February, therefore, an emissary was
sent over to Scotland in the person of Charles Fleming, brother of
the Earl of Wigtown. He was to see the leading Jacobites, and assure
them that their king was coming; and that as soon as the French fleet
appeared in sight they were to proclaim the king everywhere, raise the
country, seize arms, and open up again their previous communications
with persons within the different forts and garrisons--thus proving
that they had tampered with the troops and garrisons of Scotland, and
that, as asserted by different historians, the regular troops in that
country, about two thousand five hundred, were not to be trusted by
the English. They were also to seize the equivalent money, which was
still lying in the Castle of Edinburgh. On the earliest intimation of
these designs, the suspected Scottish nobles, including the Duke of
Hamilton and twenty-one others, lords or gentlemen, were secured. The
Habeas Corpus Act was suspended; the Pretender and his abettors were
declared traitors; and all Popish recusants were ordered to remove ten
miles from the cities of London and Westminster. The alarm was not an
empty one. The Pretender, who had now assumed the name of the Chevalier
de St. George, was furnished with a fleet and army, which assembled at
Dunkirk. The fleet, under the command of Admiral Forbin, consisted of
five ships of the line and twenty frigates. It was to carry over five
thousand troops, under the command of General de Gace, afterwards known
as Marshal de Matignon. Before the expedition, however, could sail,
the Chevalier was taken ill of the measles, and the postponement of
the expedition ruined its chances. A powerful fleet under the command
of Admiral Sir George Byng, with squadrons under Sir John Leake and
Lord Dursley, was sent to blockade the port of Dunkirk, and prevent
the sailing of the French expedition. The French were astonished at
the appearance of so large a fleet, imagining that Leake had gone
to Lisbon with his squadron; and Count de Forbin represented to the
French Court the improbability of their being able to sail. A storm,
however, drove the English ships from their station. The French fleet
then ventured out on the 17th of March, but was soon driven back by the
same tempest. On the 19th, however, it again put out, and made for the
coast of Scotland. But Sir George Byng had stretched his ships along
the whole coast, to the very Firth of Forth; and on the French squadron
approaching the Forth, it perceived the English ships there before
it, and stood off again. Byng gave chase and took the _Salisbury_, a
ship of the line, having on board old Lord Griffin, two sons of Lord
Middleton, a French lieutenant-general, various other French and Irish
officers, and five companies of French soldiers. In the night Forbin
altered his course, and thus in the morning was out of the reach of
the English. The Chevalier was impatient that Forbin should proceed
to Inverness, and there land him and the troops; but the wind was so
violent and dead against them that Forbin contended that they would
all be lost if they continued the attempt, and the Chevalier, having
entered the Firth of Forth, reluctantly returned to Dunkirk.
Such was the alarm in London owing to these circumstances that there
was a heavy run on the Bank, increased to the utmost by all who were
disaffected to the Government. The Commons also suspended the Habeas
Corpus Act, and the country was alive with military preparations.
The Allies and France prepared for a vigorous campaign in the
Netherlands. Notwithstanding the low state of Louis XIV.'s funds and a
series of severe disasters which had attended his arms, he put forth
wonderful energies for the maintenance of his designs. He assembled at
least one hundred thousand men in the Netherlands, under the command
of the Duke of Burgundy, the Duke of Vendôme, the Duke of Berwick--who
had been so suddenly called from Spain--Marshal Boufflers, and the
Old Pretender, who sought here to learn martial skill, which he
might employ in attempting to regain his crown. On the other hand,
Marlborough went to the Hague towards the end of March, where he was
met by Prince Eugene, and the plan of the campaign was concerted
between them, the Pensionary Heinsius, and the States-General. Eugene
then returned to Vienna to bring up reinforcements, and Marlborough
proceeded to Flanders to assemble the army, and be in readiness for the
junction of Eugene. Before Eugene and Marlborough parted, however, they
had gone together to Hanover, and persuaded the Elector to be contented
with merely acting on the defensive, so that he might spare a part
of his forces for the projected operations in Flanders. His son, the
Electoral Prince--afterwards George II. of England--took a command of
cavalry in the Imperial army under Marlborough.
[Illustration: SARAH DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH. (_After the Portrait by
Sir Peter Lely._)]
The Duke of Vendôme, on the 25th of May, posted his army at Soignies,
whilst Marlborough was encamped at Billinghen and Halle, only three
leagues distant. The French then moved towards Braine-la-Leuvre, and
Marlborough, supposing that they meant to occupy the banks of the Dyle
and cut him off from Louvain, made a rapid night march, and on the 3rd
of June was at Terbank, Overkirk occupying the suburbs of Louvain.
There, as the Allies were yet far inferior in numbers, they imagined
the French would give them battle; but such were not the French plans.
They had advanced only to Genappe and Braine-la-Leuvre, and now sought
by stratagem to regain the towns they had lost in Flanders. They knew
that the Allies had drawn out all their forces, and that few of these
towns had any competent garrisons. The inhabitants of many of these
places had a leaning to France, from the heavy exactions of the Dutch,
and the popularity of the Elector of Bavaria and the Count de Bergeyck,
who was a warm adherent of the Bourbons. The French, therefore,
resolving to profit by these circumstances, despatched troops to
Ghent, Bruges, and Ypres, and were soon admitted to these places.
They next invested Oudenarde; but Marlborough, being now joined by
Eugene, made a rapid march to that town, and took up a strong position
before it. The French, however, unwilling to come to an engagement,
passed the Scheldt, and attempted to defeat the Allies by attacking
them whilst they were in the act of passing it after them. The Allies,
however, effected their transit, and came to an engagement with the
enemy between the Scheldt and the Lys on the 11th of July. The French
amounted to one hundred thousand, the Allies to little more than
eighty thousand. The latter, however, had this great advantage--that
the commanders of the Allies were united, those of the French were
of contrary views. The Duke of Vendôme was prevented from attacking
the Allies during their passage of the river by the remissness of the
Duke of Burgundy. When it was already three o'clock in the afternoon,
and the Allies were safe over, then Burgundy was eager for an attack,
and the Duke of Vendôme as averse from it, the proper opportunity
having been lost. The wiser general was eventually overruled, and
Major-General Grimaldi was ordered to attack Count Rantzau, who was
posted on a marshy plain near the village of Eyne, with a muddy rivulet
in front of him, with the king's Household Troops. But these troops,
when they saw the nature of the rivulet, would not charge, and filed
off to the right. Rantzau then crossed the rivulet himself, and, whilst
General Cadogan assaulted the village of Eyne, attacked and drove
before him several squadrons of the enemy. In this attack the Electoral
Prince of Hanover greatly distinguished himself by his gallant charge
at the head of Bülow's dragoons. He had his horse killed under him,
and Colonel Laschky killed at his side. Several French regiments were
completely broken, and many officers and standards were taken by the
Hanoverians. The general engagement, however, did not take place till
about five o'clock, when the Duke of Argyll came up with the infantry.
Overkirk and Tilly, who led on the left of the Allies, were the first
to make the French give way, when they were attacked in flank by the
Dutch infantry under the Prince of Orange and Count Oxenstjerna, and
completely routed their right. After that the whole line gave way. In
vain Vendôme exerted himself to check their flight and reform them;
they fled in wild confusion along the road from Oudenarde towards
Ghent, and Vendôme could do nothing but protect their rear. Their
greatest protector, however, was the night, which stopped the pursuit
of the Allies. As soon as it was light the pursuit was resumed; but
this was checked by the French grenadiers, who were posted behind the
hedges that skirted the road, and the French army reached Ghent at
eight in the morning, and encamped on the canal on the other side of
the city at Lovendegen, after one of the most thorough defeats that
they had ever sustained. They lost three thousand men, were deserted by
two thousand more, and had seven thousand taken, besides ten pieces of
cannon, more than a hundred colours and standards, and four thousand
horses. The loss of the Allies was not inconsiderable, amounting to
nearly two thousand men.
After resting a couple of days on the field of battle, a detachment
was sent to level the French lines between Ypres and the Lys; another
to lay the country under contributions as far as Arras, which ravaged
the country and greatly alarmed Paris itself by carrying the war
into France. This alarm was heightened by the Allies next advancing
upon the city of Lille, which was considered the key to Paris and to
half of France. Lille was very strongly defended by batteries and
entrenchments, and by a garrison of twenty-one battalions of the best
troops in France, commanded by Boufflers. This daring act combined
all the skill and chief leaders on each side for the attack or the
defence. The Dukes of Burgundy, Vendôme, and Berwick hastened to
the relief of the place. Marlborough, Eugene, the Prince of Orange,
Augustus, King of Poland, and the Landgrave of Hesse, were engaged in
the siege. All the art and valour on both sides were put forth. The
French endeavoured to cut off the supplies of the Allies coming from
Ostend; but Major-General Webbe, who guarded these supplies with a body
of six thousand men, defeated an attacking party of twenty-two thousand
French under the Count de la Motte, near Wynendale, killing six
thousand of them, and accomplishing one of the most brilliant exploits
of the whole war. After a stubborn and destructive defence Boufflers
capitulated for the town on the 22nd of October, but contrived to hold
the citadel till the 9th of December.
Lille, important as it was, was not won, it is said, without a loss of
at least twelve thousand of the Allies, whilst Boufflers was reckoned
to have lost half his garrison. During the siege Eugene had to hasten
to the rescue of Brussels. After the fall of Lille the Allies reduced
Ghent, Bruges, and all the towns they had lost; and the French, greatly
humiliated, abandoned Flanders, and retired into their own territories,
the French Court being filled with consternation at these terrible
reverses. The Duke of Berwick was highly incensed at the management of
the campaign by Vendôme and Burgundy. He states that during the siege
of Lille Marlborough, through him, made propositions for peace, which
were, however, haughtily rejected by the not yet sufficiently humbled
Louis. Marlborough would probably have been glad to have procured peace
now, that he might watch the critical state of affairs at home, where
Harley and Mrs. Masham were steadily driving their mines beneath the
feet of the Whigs, and where the whole body of Tories were constantly
endeavouring to misrepresent his proceedings in the war, continually
prognosticating defeats from alleged blunders, which, nevertheless,
were as regularly refuted by the most brilliant successes.
The campaign in Catalonia had begun in favour of the French, but
there, too, had ended decidedly in favour of the Allies. There the
Earl of Galway was superseded by General Stanhope, an able and active
officer; and Count Stahremberg, the Imperial general, was a man of
like stamp. But before the Imperial troops had arrived in the English
fleet commanded by Sir John Leake, the Duke of Orleans had besieged
and taken Tortosa and Denia, the garrison of the latter place being
detained prisoners, contrary to the articles of capitulation. No
sooner, however, did Generals Stanhope and Stahremberg get into the
scene of action than they put a stop to the progress of the French,
and maintained the rest of the province intact. They soon, moreover,
planned a striking enterprise. Sir John Leake carried over to Sardinia
a small body of troops under the command of the Marquis D'Alconzel,
assaulted and took Cagliari, and received the submission of the whole
island, which acknowledged King Charles, and sent a very timely supply
of thirty thousand sacks of corn to the army in Catalonia, where it
was extremely needed. General Stanhope then, with the consent of
Count Stahremberg, set sail for Minorca with a few battalions of
Spaniards, Italians, and Portuguese, accompanied by a fine train of
British artillery directed by Brigadier Wade and Colonel Petit. They
landed on the 26th of August at Port Mahon, and invested St. Philip,
its chief fortress. They so disposed their forces that the garrison,
which consisted only of one thousand Spaniards and six hundred French
marines, under Colonel Jonquiere, imagined that there were at least
twenty thousand invaders, and, in consequence, surrendered after some
sharp fighting, in which Brigadier Wade, at the head of a party of
grenadiers, stormed a redoubt with such fury as amazed the garrison. On
the 30th of September not only Port Mahon but the whole island was in
the hands of the English, the garrison of Port Fornelles having also
submitted to the attack of Admirals Leake and Whitaker. The inhabitants
were delighted with the change, King Philip having so heavily oppressed
them and deprived them of their privileges.
On the 28th of October the Prince of Denmark, the husband of the queen,
died at Kensington Palace, in his fifty-fifth year. George of Denmark
was a man not destitute of sense, but of no distinguished ability. He
was a good-natured _bon-vivant_, who was, however, fond of the queen,
who was very much attached to him. They lived together in great harmony
and affection, having no jars or jealousies. They had several children,
who all died early, their son, the Duke of Gloucester, arriving at
the greatest age. Anne was supposed to have a strong conviction that
the death of all her children was a judgment on her for her desertion
of her father and the repudiation of her brother the Prince of Wales,
whom, though she was the first to brand as a supposititious child, she
came to recognise as her own brother.
On the death of the prince his offices were quickly divided amongst
the expectant Whigs. The Earl of Pembroke took his office of Lord High
Admiral, resigning the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland and the Presidency
of the Council. But he soon found the business of the Admiralty too
arduous for him, and it was put into commission, the Chief Commissioner
being Lord Orford, that mercenary Russell whom the Whigs had so long
been endeavouring to restore to that post. The post of Warden of the
Cinque Ports and Constable of Dover Castle was separated from that of
Admiral to accommodate Lord Dorset. Lord Somers was again brought into
the Cabinet as President of the Council. Even the witty and wicked Lord
Wharton was promoted to the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland. As Marlborough
and Godolphin had a great fear and distrust of Wharton, this astonished
many, but was accounted for by those more in the secrets of Court by
Wharton being in possession of an autograph letter of Godolphin's
to the Court of St. Germains, by which that Minister, and probably
Marlborough, too, was greatly in his power.
But though the Whig Junto, as it was called, were now apparently
omnipotent in the Government, that was far from being the case.
Harley and Mrs. Masham had the ear of the queen as much or more than
ever. They were continually closeted with her, and laboured hard to
disconcert all the measures of the Whigs; the fierce and implacable
Duchess of Marlborough, raging with jealousy of the influence of Mrs.
Masham, who had supplanted her, did perhaps still more than Harley
himself, by her impolitic anger and insolence, to render the queen only
the more desirous to be rid of the Marlborough pest. Nothing but the
duke's continued victories made the countenance of the duchess at Court
possible.
Dreadful as was the condition to which the fiendish ambition of Louis
XIV. had reduced Flanders, Spain, the North of Italy, and many parts
of Germany, that of his own country and subjects was still more
deplorable. Trade, agriculture, everything had been shrivelled up by
the perpetual demands of these incessant wars. The wealthy classes were
become as poor as the rest; the middle classes were ruined; the common
people were drained off to the army if men, and sank into beggary if
women, children, or old people. All credit was at an end; the Treasury
of the king was empty; and his chief banker, Bernard, was bankrupt, as
were hundreds of the same class of men. The most violent and spasmodic
exertions had been made to raise the supplies for the armies in the
different fields, and still of late nothing had come but tidings
after tidings of disastrous and murderous defeats. The farmers of the
taxes were out in all parts of France endeavouring to extort those
levies which the ordinary tax-gatherers had demanded and distrained
for in vain. The people of France were under a perpetual visitation
of these officers; and though they were ill prepared to pay once, had
frequently to pay more than once, the same taxes being demanded by
different officers, the regular tax-collector, or the agents of those
to whom they were farmed out. The Ministers themselves, Chamillard,
Pontchartrain, and others of the proud servants of the Grand Monarque,
were compelled to make journeys through the provinces to raise money
for the necessities of the State in any way that could be devised. Such
was the terrible condition of France: the people starving, ruined,
and hopeless, and yet the daily victims of an incessant visitation of
tax-gatherers, who, whilst they failed to procure the necessary sums
for the war, were actively plundering and embezzling on their own
account. Nothing but the immeasurable pride of the haughty but now
defeated king could cause him to hold out; and even this chance seemed
scarcely left him, for the enemy was on the frontiers of France--had,
in fact, already crossed them, and laid the country under contribution
in Picardy, and another campaign might see them in full march on Paris.
The Duke of Marlborough had not, as usual, visited England at the end
of the campaign in 1708, which did not terminate till actual winter.
He continued at the Hague, his enemies said, merely to look after his
own interests; for, by various modes which we have already mentioned,
he was making immense sums by his command. But although we may be quite
satisfied that Marlborough would never neglect his own interests, these
interests equally, or perhaps more pressingly, demanded his presence in
England. Harley and the Tories, he knew, were actively though secretly
engaged in ruining his credit with the queen, and the conduct of his
wife was not of a kind to counteract these efforts. But Marlborough's
interests were inseparably linked to his reputation, and that
reputation now demanded his most vigilant attention at the Hague. He
saw the triumphant position of the Allies, and the miserable condition
of France. It is asserted, therefore, that he and Prince Eugene had
planned boldly to march, on the opening of the next campaign, into
France, and carry the war to the gates of Paris. There is no more doubt
that they could have done this than that the Allies did it in 1814,
and again in 1815. The whole of the wars against France had been too
timidly carried on. With the forces which were at William's command,
the war might have been made offensive instead of defensive, and Louis
have found his own territories subjected to the ravages which he had
committed on those of the States and the German Empire. Now there was
nothing to prevent the victorious arms of Marlborough from penetrating
to the French capital and humbling the troubler of Europe, or to
prevent the Allies from there dictating their own terms of peace.
Nothing, indeed, but the subtle acts of Louis, and the timid policy of
the Dutch.
And already Marlborough was aware that Louis, compelled to open his
eyes to his critical situation, was beginning to tamper with the
Dutch for a separate peace. Some of his own nearest kinsmen, and
especially his grandson the Duke of Burgundy, had spoken very plainly
to Louis. They had asked him whether he meant irretrievably to ruin
France in order to establish his grandson on the throne of Spain.
They had laid fully before him the wasted condition of France, and
the rapidly-growing ascendency of the Allies. The pride of the old
king was forced to stoop, and he consented to sue for peace. He could
not, however, bring himself to seek this of the Allies all together,
but from Holland, whom he hoped by his arts to detach from the
Confederation. He despatched Bouillé, the President of the Council, to
Holland, who met Buys and Vanderdussen, the Pensionaries of Amsterdam
and Gouda, at Woerden, between Leyden and Utrecht, and Bouillé offered
to make terms with the Dutch very advantageous to them. Vanderdussen
and Buys replied that he must first of all put into their hands certain
fortified towns necessary for the security of their frontier. To this
Bouillé would not listen. The Dutch communicated the French proposals
to their Allies, and told the French Minister that they could enter
into no negotiations without them. Prince Eugene hastened from Vienna
to the Hague, and he and Marlborough consulted on the propositions with
Heinsius, Buys, and Vanderdussen; and it was unanimously decided that
they could not be accepted.
It was now near the end of April, and the Allies saw that it would
not do to allow Louis to amuse them with offers which came to
nothing, when they should be marching towards his capital. Whilst,
therefore, Bouillé despatched the news of the rejection of his offers
to Versailles, Marlborough made a hasty journey to England, to take
the opinion of his Government as to the terms of the treaty. The
receipt of Bouillé's despatch at the French Court produced the utmost
consternation. The king was fixed in his proud determination to offer
no ampler terms; his Minister represented that it was impossible to
carry on the war. There was no alternative, and at length Bouillé was
instructed to amuse the Allies with the proposal to repurchase Lille
and to yield up Tournay, till the Marquis de Torcy could arrive to
his assistance. De Torcy, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, set off
for the Hague, not openly as the French Plenipotentiary, but merely
furnished with a courier's passport, and ran many risks of being seized
on the way. At Brussels he had a narrow escape, but he reached the
Hague late at night on the 6th of May. De Torcy now offered much more
enlarged terms. Louis was willing to destroy the fortifications of
Dunkirk at the instance of the Allies; to engage to send the Pretender
out of France, and also not to aid him in any attempt on the throne
of Great Britain, provided that provision was made for his security
and maintenance. He would give up Sicily, but would retain Naples--a
country entirely gone out of his power for more than two years, and
in possession of Austria. He even proposed that Philip should resign
Spain and the Indies; but his allies, the Electors of Bavaria and
Cologne, must be provided for, as they had sacrificed their own
territories in his alliance. The main difficulties appeared to be the
frontier towns of Lille, New Brisac, and Hermingen, in Flanders, De
Torcy contending that the surrender of Ypres, Menin, Condé, and a few
inferior fortresses, would be sufficient for frontier defences. As they
would give up Spain, the only obstacle in the south appeared the demand
on Naples. These terms would have been received with exultation by the
Allies some time ago, but they were now in a different position, and
their demands were proportionate.
[Illustration: LONDON COFFEE-HOUSE IN THE REIGN OF ANNE.]
As De Torcy could not bring the Dutch Ministers to concede anything,
he consented to meet Prince Eugene and Marlborough, who had now
returned from England with Lord Townshend. To these was added Count
Zinzendorf, as Minister for the Emperor. The French Minister, assisted
by Bouillé, though he was treating in a condition of the deepest
anxiety, yet maintained all the high pretensions which his Court had
so long assumed. He offered the surrender of Spain, but he would give
no guarantee for its evacuation. He contended that the word of his
king was enough---as if the word of any king could be accepted in such
a case, and especially of Louis, who had broken his a thousand times.
He pleaded that the king's great age, his earnest desire for peace and
repose in his declining years, and the situation of his affairs, were
of themselves ample guarantees for the fulfilment of that Article of
the treaty; and he even melted into tears in his earnestness to bring
the ambassadors to accept the word of the Grand Monarque. This was all
mere child's play in a treaty which was to be the result of such a war,
and to establish the future peace of Europe. As time was going on,
the representatives of the Allies, at the end of May, presented their
_ultimatum_, in forty Articles, the chief of which were these:--That
Philip should within two months totally evacuate Spain and Sicily,
which with the Indies were to be made over to Charles; that if Philip
refused to evacuate Spain and Sicily, the King of France, so far
from helping him, should assist the Allies to expel him; that Spain
should never, nor any part of it, be united to the crown of France;
that the Dutch should receive, as a barrier to their States, Furnes,
Fort Kenoq, Menin, Saverge, Ypres, Warneton, Comines, Vervick, Lille,
Condé, Tournay, and Maubeuge; that the French should deliver up all the
towns, cities, and fortresses which they had taken in the Netherlands;
that the fortifications of Dunkirk should be destroyed and never again
be restored; that the Pretender should quit France; that the Queen
of England's title and that of the Protestant succession should be
acknowledged; that the interests of the Electors of Bavaria and Cologne
should be settled by the congress which should settle this peace; and
that the Duke of Savoy should receive back everything taken from him,
and should also retain Exilles, Feneshelles, Chaumont, and the valley
of Pragelas. Strasburg and Kehl were to be given up by Louis, but
Alsace itself retained. The new King of Prussia and the new Elector
of Hanover should both be acknowledged, and all these preliminaries
should be adopted and the treaty completed within two months.
De Torcy, who could not expect for a moment that Louis would consent
to any such terms, to gain time, however, engaged to send them to
Versailles. He set off for Paris, but at Douay he saw Marshal Villars,
showed him the conditions of peace, and told him to put his army in
order, for they would never be accepted. Villars replied that he should
be prepared, but that the army was on the point of utter starvation,
and such was the destitution of the country that he had no conception
how the troops were to exist. No sooner did De Torcy reach Paris than
it was announced to the Allies that Louis would never accept such
terms. Bouillé was recalled, and was commissioned by the Allies to
assure the king that no others would be offered; and that, if they were
not accepted by the 15th of June, they should take the field. But the
French king had gained one great object by the negotiation--it enabled
him to represent to his subjects his earnest efforts for peace, and the
arrogant obstinacy of the Allies. He had letters circulated all over
France representing the anxious endeavours he had made to put an end to
bloodshed and to the miseries of Europe; that he had offered to make
unheard-of sacrifices, but to no purpose; everything had been rejected
by the Allies but a fresh carnage and spoliation. He represented that
the more he had conceded, the more they had risen in their demands;
that he found it impossible to satisfy their inordinate demands, except
at the cost of the ruin and the eternal infamy of France.
The effect of this representation was wonderful. The whole of France
was so roused by indignation at the supposed treatment of their king,
the insolent rejection of his peaceful desires, that they execrated
the selfish arrogance of the Allies, for Louis had insinuated that
they were carrying on the war only for their own personal interests.
The kingdom, impoverished and reduced as it was, determined to support
the ill-used monarch with the last remnant of its substance; and such
exertions were made for the continued struggle as astonished the world.
Nor was the effect of Louis's representations lost on Marlborough's
enemies in England. They declaimed on the unreasonableness of the
Allies almost as loudly as the French, and they particularly denounced
the demand that Louis should help to dethrone and expatriate his own
grandson, as the most astounding piece of assumption that had ever
been heard of.
On the 21st of June Marlborough and Prince Eugene crossed the frontiers
of France, and with a force of one hundred and ten thousand men drew
up in a plain near Lille. Marshal Villars, considered now the ablest
general of France, encamped his army on the plain of Sens, between
two impassable morasses, and began to entrench himself. The Allies
reconnoitred his position, but found it too strong to attack him in
it; and as they could not advance towards Paris, leaving such an enemy
behind them, they made a feint of attacking Ypres; and then, suddenly
marching on Tournay in the night of the 27th of June, they presented
themselves before it on the 7th of July. The place was strong, but the
garrison was weak. It consisted of only twelve battalions of infantry
and four squadrons of horse, in very inefficient condition. Villars
endeavoured to throw into the place seven thousand fresh troops, but
he could not effect it. The governor, Lieutenant de Surville, was a
man of great military skill and determination, and he maintained the
siege with such vigour that the Allies were not only detained before
the place for a long and invaluable time, but lost many men. The town
capitulated on the 28th of July, when the Allies were about to carry
it by storm, but the citadel held out till the 3rd of September. The
same day, leaving a detachment under the Earl of Albemarle to level
the defences, the Allies crossed the Scheldt and determined to besiege
Mons. They sent forward a detachment under the Prince of Hesse to
attack the French lines from the Haine to the Sambre, which were
abandoned at his approach. At this juncture Marshal Boufflers arrived
to support Villars, and, though his superior in command, agreed to
serve under him. Marlborough, hearing that Villars had quitted his
camp, and that the French were on the march to attack the Prince of
Hesse and cut off the approaches to Mons, made a rapid movement, which
brought him face to face with the French army, which consisted of one
hundred and twenty thousand men--ten thousand more than the army of the
Allies. Villars and Boufflers were encamped behind the woods of Lanière
and Tasnière, in the neighbourhood of Malplaquet. The Allies encamped
with their right near Sart and Bleron, and the left on the edge of
the wood of Lanière, the headquarters being at Blaregines. On the 9th
of September the outposts of the two armies began to skirmish; but
the French fell back on an encampment near Malplaquet, and spent the
night in fortifying their position. Had the Allies immediately attacked
them the battle would have been less obstinate; but Marlborough was
waiting for the coming up of eighteen battalions, left to rase the
fortifications of Tournay. For the two days that he thus continued
to wait, the French, with unremitting activity, proceeded to cast up
triple entrenchments; and were, in fact, so completely covered with
lines, hedges, entrenchments, cannon, and trees laid across, that the
Dutch field-deputies declared that it would be madness to attack them
in such a situation. But on the 10th, when the expected battalions had
arrived, Marlborough and Eugene determined to give battle.
Early on the morning of the 11th of September they availed themselves
of a thick fog to erect batteries on each wing, and, the day clearing
about eight o'clock, the engagement began. The battle began on the
right by eighty-six battalions, commanded by General Schuylemberg and
the Duke of Argyll, supported by two-and-twenty battalions under Count
Lottum, who broke through the French lines, and fought with such fury
that, notwithstanding their strong barricades, the French in less than
an hour were forced from their entrenchments, and compelled to seek
refuge in the woods of Sart and Tasnière. The contest was far more
desperate on the left, where the Prince of Orange and Baron Fagel, with
six-and-thirty battalions, attacked the right of the enemy, posted
in the woods of Lanière, and covered with three entrenchments. The
Prince of Orange led on the charge with wonderful bravery, having two
horses killed under him, and the greater part of his officers killed
around him. The engagement was now general, and the French continued
to fight with the fury of despair from eight in the morning till three
in the afternoon, when, seeing all their lines forced, their left
being utterly routed, and the centre under Villars giving way, Villars
himself being dangerously wounded, they began to retreat towards
Bavay, under the direction of Boufflers, and retired to a position
between Quesnoy and Valenciennes. The forest of Ardennes served to
protect the French from the pursuit of their enemies, and enabled
them to carry off most of their cannon and standards. About forty
colours and standards, and sixteen pieces of cannon, were taken by the
Allies, with a considerable number of prisoners. But on surveying the
field of battle they found that this was the dearest victory which
they had ever purchased. About twenty thousand of their soldiers lay
slain, and about ten thousand of the enemy. Thirty thousand lives
sacrificed in one battle! Neither Blenheim nor Ramillies could compare
with Malplaquet in monstrosity of carnage. Nor was the impression
produced equal to the destruction. The French, under the able command
of Villars, notwithstanding their defeat, felt rather reassured than
depressed. They had inflicted far more damage than they had received;
and Villars declared that, had he not been so severely wounded, he
would not have left the field without the victory. The French having
retired into Valenciennes, the Allies continued the siege of Mons,
which capitulated on the 23rd of October, and the armies then retired
into winter quarters, after which some resultless negotiations ensued.
[Illustration: FIVE-GUINEA PIECE OF ANNE.]
The Parliament of Great Britain met on the 15th of November, and the
queen, opening it in person, announced in her speech that France
had been endeavouring, by false and hollow artifices, to amuse the
Allies with a prospect of peace, but with the real intent to sow
jealousies amongst them; that the Allies had wisely rejected the
insidious overtures; that our arms had been as successful as in any
former campaign, and had now laid France open to the advance of the
confederate troops; and that if they granted her, as she trusted they
would, liberal supplies, she believed that she would now soon reduce
that exorbitant and oppressive power which had so long threatened the
liberties of Europe. Both Lords and Commons presented addresses fully
approving of the rejection of the king of France's delusive overtures.
They thanked the Duke of Marlborough for his splendid victory at
Malplaquet. The Commons voted six million two hundred thousand pounds
for the services of the year, and established the lottery and other
schemes for raising this heavy sum.
The great topic, however, which engrossed almost the whole attention
this Session, not only of Parliament, but of the whole nation, was not
foreign affairs, not the general war, but a party war at home, which
was carried on with the most extraordinary furor, and put the whole
public into a flame. The ostensible cause of this vehement conflict
was the publication of a couple of sermons by a clergyman, hitherto of
no mark; the real cause was the determination of Harley and the Tories
to damage the Whigs irremediably, and to drive them at once from the
service of the State and the support of the people. They therefore
seized with consummate tact on these sermons, which were, as printed,
stupid though rabid performances; and which, had they not been adroitly
steeped in party spirit--the most inflammable of all spirits--and set
fire to, might soon have slept forgotten in the linings of trunks, or
as wrappers of butter and cheese.
[Illustration: FARTHING OF ANNE.]
[Illustration: TWO-GUINEA PIECE OF ANNE.]
On the 13th of December, 1709, Mr. Dolben, the son of the Archbishop
of York, denounced, in the House of Commons, two sermons preached
and published by Dr. Henry Sacheverell, Rector of St. Saviour's, in
Southwark. The first of these sermons had been preached, on the 15th
of August, at the assizes at Derby, before the Judge and Sheriff. The
second had been preached, on the 5th of November, before the Lord Mayor
and Corporation in St. Paul's Cathedral. In both these sermons he had
made an attack, if not avowedly on the Government, on the principles
on which the Throne and the whole Government were established. He
professed the most entire doctrines of non-resistance and passive
obedience, which, at the same time that they made him appear incapable,
if he had the power, of over-turning any Government, led him to
entirely sap and undermine the Government and title of the queen, by
representing the resistance which had been made to the encroachments
of the Stuarts, and especially to James II., as perfectly impious and
treasonable, contrary to the laws of God and the political institutions
of men. He reprobated the Revolution and all that flowed from it;
and thus, pretending to passive obedience, he was, in the fullest
sense, preaching resistance and a counter-revolution. Whilst crying
non-resistance, he was, as far as in him lay, arming all those who
were hostilely inclined to overturn the throne of Anne, as built only
on rebellion and on maxims subversive of the divine right of kings.
In his second sermon, which he called "Perils of False Brethren," he
preached flamingly against the danger to the Church; danger from the
false and democratic bishops who had been put in by the usurper William
of Orange; danger from the Dissenters, whom he had by law tolerated,
and made powerful in the State and against the true Church. With such a
jubilant avidity was this war-note responded to by High Church clergy,
High Church zealots of all sorts, and the Tories ready to rush to the
assault on any promising occasion, that no less than forty thousand
copies of these sermons are said to have been sold. "Nothing," says Dr.
Johnson, "ever sold like it, except 'The Whole Duty of Man.'"
[Illustration: ROBERT HARLEY, EARL OF OXFORD. (_After the Portrait by
Sir Godfrey Kneller._)]
The motion made by Mr. Dolben in regard to Sacheverell in the House
of Commons was seconded by Sir Peter King, one of the Aldermen of
London, who had listened to the sermon in St. Paul's with astonishment
and indignation. He denounced it as abounding with matter false,
injurious, impious, and tending to sedition and schism in the Church.
This had not been the case with all the City dignitaries on that
occasion. Sir Gilbert Heathcote had indeed been equally astonished at
it, and declared that the preacher ought to be called to account for
it; but the Lord Mayor, Sir Samuel Garrard, had applauded it, and had
allowed it to be published with his sanction. Neither was it the first
of the kind which had been preached in London. One Francis Higgins
had been haranguing on the same topics in the pulpits all over the
metropolis, with the most outrageous declamations on the dangers of the
Church. Sacheverell, however, had brought the fever to a crisis. The
most violent paragraphs were read in the House of Commons, and voted
scandalous and seditious libels. The doctor was summoned to the bar
of the House, and, having acknowledged the authorship of the sermons,
pleaded the encouragement which he had received from the Lord Mayor to
print the one on "The Perils of False Brethren." Sir Samuel Garrard,
who was a member of the House, now repudiated his encouragement, and
the doctor being ordered to withdraw, it was resolved that he should
be impeached of high crimes and misdemeanours at the bar of the Lords,
and Mr. Dolben was ordered to conduct his impeachment. A committee
was appointed to prepare the Articles, and Sacheverell was taken into
custody.
When the impeachment was carried up to the Lords, Sacheverell
petitioned to be admitted to bail, but this was refused. The Commons
committed him to the custody of the Deputy-Usher of the Black Rod, but
the Lords afterwards admitted him to bail. The Articles were carried
up to the Lords on the 13th of January, 1710, and Sacheverell drew
up an answer, in which he wholly denied some of the Articles, and
endeavoured to justify himself in respect to the rest. The Commons
made a reply, and declared themselves ready to prove the charge. A
long delay, however, took place before the day of trial could be
fixed. The queen was more than suspected of being favourable to
Sacheverell, as influenced by Harley, Mrs. Masham, and the Tories.
When the doctor appeared before the Commons, he was attended by Dr.
Lancaster, the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, and above a hundred of the
most distinguished clergymen of London and other towns, conspicuous
amongst them being several of the queen's own chaplains. From the
moment that Sacheverell was taken into custody by the Commons, the
Church and Tory party had set all their engines to work to raise the
populace. These agents were everywhere, distributing money, treating
the mob to ale, and spreading the most alarming rumours--that the
Puritans, the Presbyterians, and the Dissenters were all combined to
pull down the Church and restore the old republican practices, and
that the prosecution of Sacheverell was a trial of their strength. The
pulpits resounded in all quarters with these alarms, with the intention
of working up the people to a pitch of desperation, and they succeeded.
The mob became furious, and paraded the streets and round the palace,
crying, "God save the Queen and Dr. Sacheverell! Queen and High Church!"
Marlborough took his departure for Holland, and the trial of
Sacheverell was fixed for the 27th of February in Westminster Hall. The
managers for the Commons were the Lords William Paulet and Coningsby,
Sir Thomas Parker, Sir Joseph Jekyl, Sir John Hollis, Sir John Holland,
Sir James Montague, Sir Peter King (Recorder of London), Mr. Robert
Eyre (Solicitor-General), Mr. James Stanhope, Mr. Robert Walpole,
Mr. Spencer Cowper, Mr. John Smith, Mr. John Dolben, and Mr. William
Thompson. The prisoner was defended by Sir Simon Harcourt and Mr.
Constantine Phipps, and was attended by Drs. Smallridge and Atterbury.
The Lord Chancellor Cowper demanded of the Lords whether it was their
pleasure that Dr. Sacheverell should be called before them; and the
answer being in the affirmative, he was placed at the bar, his friends
Atterbury and Smallridge standing at his side. Silence being ordered,
the doctor was asked whether he was ready to take his trial; to which
he answered with great confidence that he was, and should always be
ready to obey the laws of the land. The Articles of Impeachment were
then read. They accused him of having publicly reflected on the late
Revolution; of having suggested that it was brought about by odious and
unjustifiable means; of having defamed the Act of Toleration, and cast
scurrilous reflections on those who advocated religious toleration;
of asserting that the Church was in great peril from her Majesty's
Administration; of maintaining that the civil Constitution of the
country was also in danger; of stigmatising many of the dignitaries
of the Church--some of whom the queen herself had placed in their
posts--as false brethren; and of libelling her Majesty's Ministers,
and especially of branding the Lord High Treasurer with the name of
"Volpone;" and, finally, with having, in discharge of his sacred
office, wickedly wrested and perverted the Holy Scriptures.
These charges were well supported by various members of the Commons,
and amongst them Robert Walpole particularly distinguished himself.
The counsel for the doctor then pleaded in his behalf, and endeavoured
to answer the arguments adduced against him. Sacheverell, however,
was not contented with this; he delivered a defence himself which
has been generally considered to be the work of the high Tory divine
Atterbury, and probably with good reason. In this he dwelt much on
his responsibility as a clergyman, and represented the interests of
all his brethren and of the Church as involved in this attack made
upon them through his person. He expressed the utmost loyalty towards
the queen and the Constitution; denied having called in question the
Revolution, though he had certainly condemned in the strongest terms
the resistance by which it was achieved. He declared himself in favour
of the Protestant succession, and asserted that, as his principle was
that of non-resistance in all cases, he could not by any word or act of
his own endanger the Government as by law established; as if his very
declaration of the principle of non-resistance and passive obedience
did not condemn _in toto_ the Revolution, the means by which the queen
came to the throne, and encourage all those who were seeking to restore
Popery and the Stuarts as the rightful religion and rightful possessors
of the throne, both of which had been, according to his doctrines,
forced from their legitimate place by ungodly and un-Christian
violence; and he concluded by calling on God and His holy angels to
witness that he had never been guilty of the wicked, seditious, or
malicious acts imputed to him in the impeachment.
As the doctor went to and from the Hall, his chair was thronged round
by dense crowds, which attended him to his lodgings in the Temple, or
thence to Westminster Hall. Numbers pressed forward to kiss his hand;
they lifted their hats to him with the utmost reverence. The windows
were crowded by ladies and gentlemen, who cheered him vociferously, and
many flung down presents to him. The doctor returned the salutations
by continual bows and smiles, and seemed wonderfully elated by his
sudden consequence. His chairmen seemed to partake of his glory, and
stepped on as proudly as if they had been carrying the queen. "This
huzzaing," says Defoe, "made the doctor so popular that the ladies
began to talk of falling in love with him; but this was only a prelude
to the High Church affair. An essay was to be made on the mob, and
the huzzaing of the rabble was to be artfully improved." Accordingly
after the trial the next day, February 28th, the mob assembled in
dense masses--sweeps, link-boys, butchers, by a sturdy guard of whom
the doctor was always escorted to and from the Hall--collected in the
City and began to cry "Down with the Dissenters! High Church for ever!"
And they soon put their cries in practice by assaulting the Dissenting
chapels, and sacking their interiors. The Tory writers of the time
pretend that the rioters did this of their own accord, as the mobs had
destroyed the Catholic chapels in 1688; but this was not the case. The
proceedings of the mob were stimulated and directed by gentlemen, who
followed them in hackney coaches, according to Cunningham, who is the
only writer who has furnished us with full details of these outrages.
They then directed their rage against the house of Bishop Burnet, which
stood on the other side of St. John's Square, and attempted to demolish
it. This they must have done under instructions from their disguised
instigators, for Burnet was hated by the High Church and Tory party for
the distinguished part which he had borne in the Revolution, for his
constant attachment to King William and his measures, and especially
for his advocacy of toleration. They vowed they would put the Low
Church Bishop to death if they could catch him; but the respectable
inhabitants vigorously interposed in defence of the Bishop's house and
life, and the mob were compelled to desist.
So long as the rioters were only burning and ruining the Dissenting
chapels, the Court remained most calmly quiescent; but when the
news came that they were beginning to attack "Low Church as by law
established," there was a bustle and a fright at St. James's. This
fright was wonderfully increased when Sunderland rushed into the
presence of the queen and announced that the mob was on the march to
pull down and rifle the Bank of England in honour of "High Church
and Dr. Sacheverell." At this news the queen turned deadly pale, and
trembled. She bade Sunderland send instantly the Horse and Foot Guards
and disperse the rioters. Captain Horsey, the officer on duty at St.
James's, was at once summoned into the royal presence, and Sunderland
delivered to him the queen's order to disperse the mob, but to use
discretion, and not to proceed to extremities. Horsey was one of the
anti-Marlborough faction, and received the command in evident dudgeon.
"Am I to preach to the mob, or am I to fight them?" he asked. "If you
want preaching, please to send some one with me who is a better hand
at holding forth than I am; if you want fighting, it is my trade, and
I will do my best." Sunderland could only repeat the order. Horsey
easily dispersed the rabble, who were more valiant against peaceable
Dissenters than against soldiers. In one or two places they seemed as
though they would make a stand; but on any attempt of the Guards to
charge them they flew like leaves before the wind.
[Illustration: DRINKING TO THE HEALTH OF DR. SACHEVERELL. (_See p._
593.)]
The trial lasted for three weeks, and every day the same crowds
assembled, the same hurraing of Sacheverell, the same appeals to the
queen on behalf of the Church and Dr. Sacheverell were shouted by
the enthusiastic mob. No one scarcely dared to appear abroad without
an artificial oak-leaf in his hat, which was considered the badge of
restored monarchy, and all the time the doctor carried the air of a
conqueror. At length, on the 10th of March, the Lords adjourned to
their own House to consider this point, raised by the counsel for
Sacheverell--whether in prosecutions by impeachments the particular
words supposed to be criminal should be expressly specified in such
impeachments. The question was referred to the judges, who decided that
the particular words ought to be so specified. It was objected that the
judges had decided according to the rules of Westminster Hall, and not
according to the usages of Parliament, and it was resolved to adhere
to the usages of Parliament, lest it should become a practice for the
judges to decide on questions of Parliamentary right and privilege.
On the 16th of March the Lords came to the consideration of their
judgment, and the queen attended _incognita_ to hear the debate, which
was long and earnest. In the end Sacheverell was pronounced guilty by
a majority of seventeen; but four-and-thirty peers entered a protest
against the judgment, and his sentence bore no proportion to the usual
ones in such cases. He was merely suspended from preaching for three
years, and his sermons were condemned to be burnt by the common hangman.
[Illustration: MAKING FRIENDS WITH MRS. MASHAM. (_See p._ 594.)]
This gentle sentence was regarded by the people and the Tories as a
real triumph. It was proof of the decline of the Whig party, and of the
fear of offending the public. The event was celebrated by Sacheverell's
mob-friends by bonfires, and by the inhabitants of London and
Westminster by illuminations. There was plenty of beer supplied to the
populace from some quarter, and every one passing along was compelled
to drink the health of Dr. Sacheverell, the "champion of the Church."
Sacheverell himself went from house to house in a state of triumph
to thank the lords and gentlemen who had taken his side. From some
of these, as the Duke of Argyll, he met with a rebuff; but the great
doctor, with a roaring mob at his heels, was generally flatteringly
received, and he took care to boast that after his sentence it was
clear that the Whigs were down and the Church was saved. The University
of Oxford, which had received a snub from the Lords by their ordering
its famous decree asserting the absolute authority and indefeasible
right of princes, to be burnt with Sacheverell's sermons, was loud in
professed triumph and sympathy with the doctor. The House of Commons
was indignant at the lenity of his treatment, and declared that his
sentence was an actual benefit to him, by exempting him from the duties
of his living, and enabling him to go about fomenting sedition.
The queen prorogued Parliament on the 5th of April, expressing her
concern for the occasion which had occupied so much of the Session.
She declared that no prince could have a more zealous desire for the
welfare of the Church than she had, and that it was mischievous in
wicked and malicious libels to pretend that the Church was in danger;
and she trusted that men would now study to be quiet, and mind their
own business, instead of busying themselves to revive questions of a
very high nature, and which could only be with an ill intention. But
every one knew all the while that Anne was only too pleased at the
demonstrations which had been made through Sacheverell; that they had
damaged the Whigs essentially, and brought the day near when she could
safely send them adrift, and liberate herself for ever from them and
the Marlboroughs. Mrs. Masham now ruled triumphantly, and disposed of
commissions and offices as royally as ever the duchess had done. It was
openly said in the army that fighting was not the road to promotion,
but carrying Mrs. Masham's lapdogs, or putting a heavy purse into the
hand of Mrs. Abigail Earwig. The Duchess of Marlborough did not abate
her exertions to recover favour, but they were in vain; and the great
Marlborough complained in a letter to the queen that all his victories
for her Majesty's honour could not shield him from the malice of a
bedchamber-woman.
Indeed, the display of the queen's bias now became rapid and open.
The Duke of Shrewsbury, who had now joined the Tories, returned from
his long residence at Rome, where he had married an Italian lady, and
had taken the part of Sacheverell in the trial. The queen immediately
dismissed the Marquis of Kent, a staunch Whig, from the office of
Lord Chamberlain, and, much to the grief and consternation of the
Lord Treasurer, Godolphin, bestowed it on Shrewsbury. There was great
alarm among the Whigs, and Walpole recommended the instant and entire
resignation of the whole Cabinet as the only means to intimidate the
queen and her secret advisers; but Harley is said to have persuaded
the rest of the Ministers that the only object was to get rid of
Godolphin, Marlborough, and his son-in-law Sunderland. The rumour of
Sunderland's dismissal became general, and not without foundation.
The queen had an extreme dislike to him, not only because of his
belonging to Marlborough's clique, but on account of his blunt and
outspoken manners. He was perfectly undisguised in his expressions of
dislike for Mrs. Masham, and of his resolve, if possible, to turn her
out of the palace; but, with the queen's devotion to that lady, he
could have taken no surer way of getting himself out. The Duchess of
Marlborough, who could not now obtain access to the queen, yet wrote to
her, imploring her to defer any intention of removing Lord Sunderland
till the duke's return; but the queen forthwith gave Sunderland his
dismissal, and appointed Lord Dartmouth, an actual Jacobite, in his
place. Anne endeavoured to qualify Lord Sunderland's dismissal by
offering him a retiring pension, but he rejected it with disdain;
and such was the fear that the Duke of Marlborough, on this act of
disrespect to him, would throw up the command of the army, that all
the leading Ministers--including Cowper, Somers, Halifax, Devonshire,
Godolphin, and Orford--wrote to him, imploring him to retain his
command, as well for the security of the Whig Government as for his
own glory and the good of the country. The Allies on the Continent
were equally alarmed at this indication of the declining favour of
Marlborough, and France was just as elated at it. But nothing could now
stay the fall of the Whigs. Anne, indeed, ordered Mr. Secretary Boyle
to write to the Allied sovereigns and to the States-General to assure
them that nothing was farther from her thoughts than the removal of
the Duke of Marlborough from his command, and that she still proposed
to conduct her government by the same party. The hollowness of these
assurances was immediately shown by her also dismissing Godolphin from
the Treasury, and appointing Harley Chancellor of the Exchequer. Harley
thereupon proposed to Lord Chancellor Cowper and Walpole to make a
coalition, but they rejected the overture; and as a Tory Cabinet could
not expect to carry on with a Whig House of Commons, a dissolution was
determined upon, and Parliament was dissolved accordingly, and writs
were issued for a new election.
The nomination of the Tory Cabinet immediately followed. Lord
Rochester, the queen's High Church and deep-drinking uncle, was made
President of the Council in place of Somers; the Duke of Buckingham
succeeded the Duke of Devonshire as Lord Steward; St. John succeeded
Mr. Secretary Boyle; Sir Simon Harcourt, as Lord Chancellor, superseded
Lord Cowper; the Duke of Ormonde took the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland
from Lord Wharton; the Duke of Somerset had anticipated these changes
by throwing up his post of Master of the Horse, and the Earl of Orford
was removed from the Admiralty, and that office was put in commission.
In the room of Walpole, George Granville was made Secretary at War.
Here was a clean sweep of all the Whigs, except some subordinate
officials, who clung to office as long as it was permitted. Dr.
Sacheverell had done a mighty work for the Tories, and, having a living
in Wales conferred on him, he made quite a triumphant progress thither
in May, during all the heat and violence of the elections, still
labouring in his vocation of self-glorification, and of damaging the
Whig cause as much as he could, in which he was energetically supported
by his patrons.
On the Continent war and negotiation were going on at the same time
whilst the Sacheverell fever had been raging at home. Early in the
spring Louis XIV., sensible of the miserable condition of his kingdom,
had again made overtures for peace. The Ministers of the two parties
met at first on board a yacht at Maardyk, but the French preferred
the wretched little town of Gertruydenberg for their sojourn, where
they complained of the miserable accommodations they obtained. The
Dutch States-General had sent a pressing request that Marlborough
might be allowed to go to Holland in time to give his advice in these
negotiations, and the two Houses of Parliament seconded this request.
The queen readily consented, though it was suspected the whole was
done at the suggestion of Marlborough himself, to show how essential
his services were deemed by the Allies. Though Marlborough hastened
to the Hague in consequence, he did not in any way appear openly in
the matter, but appeared busy with Prince Eugene in setting early on
foot the campaign. The French ambassadors represented themselves as
being not only most meanly entertained, but as meanly and narrowly
watched--their letters being opened, and their propositions met by
haughty discourtesy. Certainly, if we were to regard the concessions
made by Louis XIV. on this occasion as honestly offered, the Allies
had never a fairer opportunity of closing the war triumphantly, and
were most culpable in refusing them. Louis offered to give up all
Spain, and the Indies, East and West; to acknowledge Charles king of
undivided Spain; to give no support to Philip, but to claim for him
only Sicily and Naples. When it was objected that Naples was already in
the possession of Austria, and could not be given up, the ambassadors
waived the claim of Naples, and contented themselves with Sicily and
Sardinia for Philip. As a security for Philip evacuating Spain, they
offered to give up four cautionary towns in Flanders; to restore
Strasburg and Brisac; to destroy all their fortifications on the Rhine
from Basle to Philippsburg; to level all the fortifications of Dunkirk;
and to surrender to the Dutch Maubeuge, Condé, Furnes, Menin, Ypres,
Tournai, and Lille.
Surely nothing could be more complete. By gaining all these advantages
the Allies gained everything they had been fighting for. They wanted
not only an agreement for the surrender of Spain, but a sufficient
guarantee for it; and this guarantee they demanded in the shape of an
engagement that Louis should help them with actual money and arms
to expel Philip from Spain if he refused to evacuate it, and really
to place Austria in possession of it. This was certainly putting the
sincerity of Louis to sufficient test, and Louis failed under it.
He contended that it would be monstrous and unnatural to take arms
against his own grandson, but that he would contribute money for this
purpose--which, to ordinary intellects, looks quite as monstrous. He
offered, according to his able Prime Minister De Torcy, to pay five
hundred thousand livres a month towards this object, or even to raise
it to a million of money if the Allies would not be satisfied with
less. But as the Allies, in the first place, knew that Louis had not
money to meet the demands of his own Government, and, in the second
place, that Philip had sent an express declaration to the Allies, when
this question was mooted before, that he stood on his rightful claim
through the will of Charles II., the late King of Spain, and would
recognise no pretensions of any party to deal with his patrimony--they
declined the offer, and declared they would be contented with nothing
less than the actual possession of the country. They knew that at the
very time that these negotiations were going on, Philip was making
fresh and strenuous exertions to drive Charles from Spain; that he had
appealed to Louis to send him the Duc de Vendôme to take the command
in that country, with which request Louis promptly complied. They knew
that France had only to close the passes of the Pyrenees, and, under
the pretence of protecting her own frontiers from the armies in Spain,
shut out all attack on Philip, except by sea.
On this rock, therefore, the whole negotiation was wrecked. Louis had
flattered himself that Marlborough, distracted by the state of affairs
in England, would be anxious to make peace, in order that he might be
on the spot to resist the fall of the Whig party at home, and with it
of his influence. But the wiser De Torcy reasoned very differently. He
saw that the party of Marlborough was already ruined, and for him to
return home would be to return to insignificance, mortification, and
insult. His only safety and strength lay in the continuance of the war;
on the chance of reaping new victories, and, therefore, new humiliation
to his enemies. And in this De Torcy was correct. Marlborough did not
appear in the matter. Lord Townshend for England, and Count Zinzendorff
for the Emperor, were consulted by the States-General on all the points
of the treaty; but the Pensionary Heinsius, the devoted friend of
Marlborough and Eugene, kept them _au fait_ on the whole subject, and
influenced the States-General as they dictated. The result was that,
after the negotiations had continued from the 19th of March to the 21st
of July, during which there was a rapid and frequent interchange of
messages with Versailles, the conference broke up.
The campaign had not paused for the issue of the conference. Eugene and
Marlborough left the Hague on the 15th of March, and assembled their
troops, which quartered on the Meuse, at Tournai. The confederate army
amounted to sixty thousand men, with which they invested Douay, and,
Eugene remaining to carry on the siege, Marlborough advanced to Vitry,
where he encamped. Marshal Villars--at the head of an army numerous and
well appointed, considering the distresses of France, and all the more
numerous because men, destitute of the means of livelihood, flocked
to the royal banners--passed the Scheldt and encamped at Bouchain,
declaring that he would engage the Allies; but he thought better of
it. His aim was to embarrass the siege of Douay, in which there was a
strong French garrison, commanded by General Albergotti. The defence
was vigorous, Albergotti making frequent sallies, and altogether the
Allies suffered severely before the town. It was compelled, however,
to capitulate on the 26th of June. Eugene and Marlborough, being
again united, contemplated forcing the lines of the enemy between
Arras and Miramont, but finding them too strong, they resolved to
besiege Béthune, which in spite of the menacing attitude of Marshal
Villars, who marched out of his entrenchments as if going to attack
them, surrendered on the 29th of August. They afterwards took also the
inconsiderable towns of Aire and Verrant, and there the campaign ended.
The armies broke up and retired to winter quarters.
This was a poor result after the grand schemes of storming Boulogne
and marching upon Paris. The fact was, that the anxious condition of
affairs at home completely paralysed Marlborough. He was no longer
the man he had been. His mind was dragged different ways, and was
harassed with anxieties. He could no longer concentrate his attention
on one great plan of warfare, and the consequence was, that his action
was spiritless and indecisive. He seemed to have lost the secret of
success, and met with annoyances which his vigilance and promptitude
had hitherto prevented. On one occasion a great supply of powder and
other stores was intercepted by the enemy, though under the guard of
twelve hundred foot and four hundred and eighty horse. In a word he
was discouraged, divided in his own mind, and the spell of victory, or
rather of high enterprise, was broken.
In other quarters the scene was not more encouraging. Nothing of
consequence was effected on the Rhine, and in Piedmont the Duke of
Savoy, still out of humour with the Emperor, did nothing. The Imperial
forces were commanded by Count Daun, who endeavoured to cross the Alps
and penetrate into Dauphiné, but was effectually kept back by the Duke
of Berwick, who held the mountain passes. In Spain, after a brilliant
commencement of the campaign, everything went to ruin. General
Stanhope, having passed in his Parliamentary character through the
Sacheverell campaign, joined the Imperial general, Count Stahremberg,
in Catalonia, in May. On the 10th of July they encountered the army of
King Philip at Almenara. Stanhope had the charge of the cavalry, killed
with his own hand the commander of Philip's guards, General Amessaga,
and routed the whole body of horse, upon which the infantry retired
precipitately on Lerida. General Stahremberg pursued the flying army to
Saragossa, where King Philip made a stand, but was again defeated, with
a loss of five thousand men, seven thousand taken prisoners, with all
his artillery, and a great number of colours and standards. Charles and
his confederates entered Saragossa in triumph, and Philip continued his
flight to Madrid. Whilst victory was with them, General Stanhope urged
King Charles to push on to Madrid, drive Philip into the Pyrenees, and
secure the pass of Pampeluna, the only one by which Louis could send
reinforcements. But the inert Austrian loitered away a whole month at
Saragossa, and it was not till the middle of September that Stanhope
could induce him to advance. On the 21st of that month Stanhope, still
leading the way, entered Madrid without opposition, Philip and all the
grandees having retreated to Valladolid. On the 28th Charles himself
made his entry into Madrid, but General Stanhope soon perceived that he
had no welcome. The Castilians to a man were for Philip, and did the
army of Charles all the mischief they could, cutting off his supplies,
attacking his outposts, and destroying all the stragglers and foragers
that they could meet with. Stanhope still urged Charles to send on a
detachment to secure Toledo, and to keep open the passage of the Tagus
to facilitate an expected advance of Portuguese troops in his favour.
The Portuguese, however, did not make their appearance; provisions
failed in Madrid, for the peasantry held back the supply, and the
whole army marched to Toledo, where it found itself still worse off.
Philip, meanwhile, had sent in haste to request reinforcements from
Louis under the command of the Duc de Vendôme, and these approaching,
the timid Charles hastened back into Catalonia as the only place of
security.
[Illustration: THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH'S INTERVIEW WITH ANNE. (_See p._
599.)]
Such was continually the fluctuating condition of the war in Spain.
The Spaniards had no inclination to support Charles, and the Allies
only sent troops sufficient to win victories, but not to maintain
them, still less to secure the passes in the Pyrenees and keep back
fresh French armies. It was another of our futile attempts to support
a man who, unless he could support himself, had no business there.
At this juncture the Tories, having risen into power, withheld fresh
reinforcements. They were not hearty in the war, and our small army
there was left to contend with impossibilities. The English and
Imperialists unwillingly following in the track of the king towards
Catalonia, for the sake of better procuring provisions on the route,
had separated and marched at some distance from each other, though
in parallel lines. In this condition they were suddenly overtaken by
Vendôme on the 8th of December, and Stanhope, with his five thousand
men, found himself surrounded by the main army of the French. This
was an instance of want of circumspection which was not anticipated
in General Stanhope after his vigorous and able operations hitherto,
and procured him severe blame. He managed to despatch a messenger to
Stahremberg for help; but his powder was nearly exhausted, and after
courageously defending himself till the next day, he was compelled
to surrender himself in the little town of Brihuega. Stahremberg
was accused of tardy movement for the relief of Stanhope, but he
was probably prevented from coming up by the forces of Vendôme, who
attacked him also on the 10th at Villaviciosa. Vendôme's troops are
said to have doubled in number those of Stahremberg. Stahremberg's left
wing was routed, and great slaughter made of them; but Stahremberg
himself maintained the fight with his right wing till night, when the
French retreated, having suffered equally severely with the troops
of Stahremberg. The Imperial general, however, found himself unable
to pursue the advantage; he ordered all the guns to be spiked, and
retreated as fast as possible into Catalonia. Vendôme pursued him,
took Balaguer on the way, in which he left a garrison, and followed
Stahremberg to the very walls of Barcelona. About the same time the
Duc de Noailles invested Gironne, and took it in the severity of the
winter weather; and thus was Charles, after a few months' campaign,
which began so splendidly, stripped of the whole Spanish monarchy, with
the exception of Catalonia, which was itself greatly exposed and very
inefficiently defended.
At home the new Parliament met on the 25th of November. There was a
strong infusion of Tories sent up, but there was still also a strong
party of Whigs. The Tories, however, carried the Speakership in the
person of Mr. Bromley, in the place of the late Whig Speaker, Onslow;
but the chief managers of the Sacheverell trial had managed to secure
their own return. The queen, on the other hand, showed her prejudice
by knighting Mr. Constantine Phipps, Sacheverell's counsel, and making
him Lord Chancellor of Ireland, and giving other promotions to marked
Tories. In her Speech, Anne declared that she would support the Church
of England, maintain the Constitution, and grant the indulgence allowed
by law to scrupulous consciences. The word was no longer "toleration,"
but "indulgence," the very phrase used by Sacheverell--another proof
of the queen's leaning towards the doctor. And this phrase now became
general in the High Church, the doctrine being that whatever liberty
the Dissenters enjoyed was of indulgence, and not of right. In the
House of Lords the Earl of Scarborough moved the usual vote of thanks
to the Duke of Marlborough, but the Duke of Argyll opposed it; and
the duke's friends let the matter drop, hoping to carry it when the
duke returned. Other signs of the great change which had taken place
in the domestic policy of the nation quickly followed. The Earl of
Peterborough, who had so long suffered from the overwhelming shade of
Marlborough, was appointed Ambassador-Extraordinary to the Imperial
Court. The Earl of Rivers was appointed Ambassador to Hanover; and
Richard Hill, a kinsman of Mrs. Masham, Ambassador-Extraordinary
to the States-General, and also to the Council of State appointed
for the government of the Spanish Netherlands, in the place of
Lieutenant-General Cadogan. Colonels Meredith, Macartney, and
Honeywood, were deprived of their regiments for drinking confusion to
the enemies of the Duke of Marlborough. The Marlborough reign was at an
end.
The Tories being now in power, there was an entire revolution of
opinion and of measures. Everything which had been applauded and
encouraged under the Whigs was now to be decried; everything which had
been kept down was to be set on high. When Marlborough, therefore,
arrived during the Christmas holidays, it was to a most cold reception.
There were no longer popular acclamations, nor Lords and Commons
hurrying to offer him thanks and eulogies for his eminent services.
The public mind had been carefully indoctrinated on this point, and
the great commander landed in a most expressive silence. He waited,
as was his duty, on the queen, was admitted to about half an hours
audience, and the next morning attended a meeting of the Privy Council.
But both in the Presence and the Council Chamber the same ominous and
freezing silence reigned. The queen plainly told him that he was now
no longer to expect the thanks of Parliament as formerly; and she
added that, notwithstanding, she trusted he would act in harmony with
her Ministers. Marlborough showed no outward signs of resentment. He
was anxious still to continue the command of the army, and to put the
finish to his successes by compelling a satisfactory peace from Louis,
now reduced to the most terrible straits.
The duke saw that it was time for the duchess to resign her offices.
The queen had repeatedly insisted to Marlborough that the duchess
should deliver up the gold keys, the token of her offices of Groom of
the Stole and Mistress of the Robes; but that resolute woman refused
to comply. Marlborough, unable to obtain the keys, endeavoured to
mollify the queen's anger at the delay. His appeal, however, did not
decrease the queen's impatience, and Marlborough imperatively demanded
the keys from his wife. For some time she vehemently refused to part
with them, but after a violent and stormy altercation (according
to Cunningham) she finished by flinging them at his head. The duke
snatched them up and hurried to the palace with them, where, says the
same authority, the Queen received them with far greater pleasure than
if he had brought her the spoils of the army; at which, he says, "the
duchess flew about the town in a rage, and with eyes and words full of
vengeance."
There was no doubt that the queen's exultation was great at being at
length liberated from the heavy and imperious yoke of the Marlboroughs.
People who had absented themselves from Court for years, now presented
themselves there to pay their respects, and, amongst them, the Duke
of Beaufort congratulated Anne that he could now salute his queen in
reality. The duchess's places were immediately given to the Duchess
of Somerset and Mrs. Masham. The Tory raid against the Whigs was
pursued with unpausing ardour. An inquiry was set on foot in the
Lords into the conduct of the war in Spain. The Earl of Peterborough's
turn was now come. He was examined before a committee, and imputed
the mismanagement of the war in Spain to Galway and General Stanhope.
Galway made an able defence, but the House, notwithstanding, passed a
resolution that Lord Peterborough had most honourably distinguished
himself by his able counsels and active services in Spain; and that
Galway, Lord Tyrawley, and General Stanhope had been very culpable
in advising an offensive war in Spain, which had caused all our
misfortunes, and especially the battle of Almanza. But in blaming the
generals they blamed also the Ministers who sanctioned the war, and
then so badly supported it. The failure of the attempt on Toulon was
attributed to the same cause. Thanks were voted to Lord Peterborough;
and in rendering them it was not forgotten to make some caustic
criticisms on Marlborough.
To increase the power of the Tory landlords in the House of Commons,
and diminish that of the Whig supporters in the boroughs, an Act was
introduced--and the Commons were weak enough to pass it--making it
necessary that every candidate for Parliament in the counties should
possess six hundred a year in real property, and for a borough seat
three hundred; and this law lasted to our time, when, however, it was
repealed.
But in spite of the triumphant position of the Tories, Harley found his
individual position far from enviable. His caution made him inimical
to the more violent Tories, who were impatient to exercise their power
without restraint; of which his colleague St. John, at once ambitious
and unprincipled, artfully availed himself to undermine the man by
whom he had risen. But an incident occurred to excite a fresh interest
in Harley, and give a new impetus to his power. Amongst the horde of
foreigners--Germans, Italians, French, and Poles--who contrived to
draw English money by acting as spies on their own governments, and
very frequently on the English one too, was the so-called Marquis of
Guiscard. This man had been in receipt of five hundred pounds a year.
He had obtained the salary, it is said, through St. John, being a
devoted companion of that accomplished scoundrel in his dissipations.
Harley doubted the value of his services, and reduced the pension
to four hundred pounds a year; and St. John is also said to have
suffered him to endure the curtailment without much remonstrance,
and then, to avoid Guiscard's importunities, refused to see him.
Guiscard immediately offered his services to the French Government as
a spy on the English Court, through a letter to one Moreau, a banker
of Paris. The letter was intercepted, and Guiscard arrested. On being
brought before the Privy Council he desired to speak in private to St.
John, whom, it is suspected, he intended to assassinate, but St. John
refused his demand. He then exclaimed, "That is hard! not one word!"
and suddenly stepping up to Harley, he cried, "Have at thee, then!"
and stabbed him with his penknife. The knife, striking against the
breastbone, broke near the handle; but the excited foreigner struck
him again with such force that Harley fell to the ground covered with
blood. St. John, seeing Harley fall, exclaimed, "The villain has killed
Mr. Harley!" drew his sword, and ran him through. The whole Council was
up and in confusion. All drew their swords and surrounded the murderous
prisoner. He was wounded in various places, and knocked down by blows
from the hands of others. The doorkeepers and messengers rushed in at
the noise, and Guiscard was dragged to prison. He died in Newgate of
his wounds; and such was the curiosity of the populace to see his body
that the turnkey kept it in pickle, and made a good sum by showing him
for several days.
Harley's wound was not serious, but it served to make a political
hero and martyr of him; Guiscard being represented as a Papist,
and instigated from France to destroy this champion of England and
the Church. On Harley's appearance in the House of Commons he was
congratulated on his happy escape in a most eulogistic speech by the
Speaker; and an Act was passed, making it felony without benefit of
clergy to attempt the life of a Privy Councillor. The Earl of Rochester
dying at this juncture, left Harley entirely at the head of the
Cabinet, and he was immediately raised to the peerage, first as Baron
Wigmore, and then as Earl of Oxford and Mortimer. He was, moreover,
appointed Lord Treasurer, much to his own gratification and glory,
but little to the furtherance of the national business, for he was
naturally inert and indecisive, whilst all around him was a scandalous
scene of corruption, intrigue, and neglect.
Marlborough had set out for Holland in the month of February. He
assembled his army at Orchies, between Lisle and Douay, about the
middle of April, and Marshal Villars encamped between Cambray and
Arras. The duke soon after passed the Scarpe, and took post between
Douay and Bouchain, where he was joined by his faithful comrade-in-arms
Prince Eugene; but that great general was soon compelled to leave
him to repel the French forces which were directed against Germany
on the Upper Rhine. The army of Marshal Villars was a very numerous
one, and he had defended his lines with redoubts and other works so
formidably that he thought he would at last checkmate Marlborough.
These lines extended from Bouchain, on the Scheldt, along the Sanset
and the Scarpe to Arras, and thence along the Upper Scarpe to Cambray.
But Marlborough did not despair of entering them by stratagem, if not
by force. He ordered a great quantity of fascines to be prepared, and
made a pretence of a direct attack on the lines where he was; but he
at the same time secretly despatched Generals Cadogan and Hompesch to
surprise the passage of the Sanset at Arleux. Brigadier Sutton was
also despatched with the artillery and pontoons to lay bridges over
the canals near Goulezen, and over the Scarpe at Vitry. By the time
that these operations could be effected, Marlborough suddenly quitted
his position at nine in the evening, marched the whole of his army
through the night, and by five in the morning had crossed the Scarpe
at Vitry. There, receiving the information that Hompesch had secured
the passes of the Sanset and the Scheldt, Marlborough continued his
march on Arleux; and, after a march of ten leagues without halting,
was encamped on the Scheldt between Estrun and Ois. Thus, by this
unexampled dexterity and exertion, he was completely within the boasted
impregnable lines of Villars. This general, on becoming aware of his
opponent's motions, pursued him with headlong haste, but he arrived too
late to prevent his design; and, whilst the Duke of Marlborough was
extolled as a general of consummate ability, Villars was ridiculed even
by his own officers for suffering himself to be outwitted.
The Dutch deputies this time, so far from retarding the duke's
enterprise, were desirous that he should at once attack Villars; but
he would not hazard a battle whilst his men were fatigued by their
enormous march. He determined, on the contrary, to commence the siege
of Bouchain. The place was remarkably strong, and difficult of access
from its situation in a marsh; yet, by the 10th of August, 1711, he
had compelled it to surrender, the garrison of six thousand becoming
prisoners of war. With this exploit Marlborough closed his brilliant
career. His enemies at home--Oxford, St. John, Dartmouth, and the
Tories in general--had fondly hoped that this campaign he was going to
certain defeat and disgrace; but, in spite of all his disadvantages,
he had placed the Allied armies, by this conquest of Bouchain, on the
highway to Paris. The Allies were in possession of the Meuse, almost
as far as the Sambre; of the Scheldt from Tournai; and of the Lys as
far as it was navigable. They had reduced Spanish Guelderland, Limburg,
Brabant, and Flanders, with the greatest part of Hainault, and were in
a position, by one more vigorous campaign, to carry the war to the very
gates of Louis's capital. Such a triumph, however, the malice of the
Tories had determined that Britain and the world should not witness.
After the capture of Bouchain, the Allied armies went into quarters in
the frontier towns, ready for the campaign of the spring; and in the
middle of November Marlborough returned to England.
[Illustration: THE FRACAS IN THE PRIVY COUNCIL. (_See p._ 600.)]
In Spain, whither the Duke of Argyll had been sent to command the
English forces, nothing had been done, from the want of everything to
carry on the war, and the expedition of Mrs. Masham's brother Jack
Hill to Quebec had met with the fate which might have been expected.
This expedition had been planned by Colonel Nicholson, who had taken
possession of Nova Scotia and garrisoned Port Royal. He had brought
to England four American Indians to excite attention, and represented
the great advantages which would accrue from the conquest of Canada
and the expulsion of the French from that part of the world. The idea
was excellent, and, had it been carried out with ability, might have
anticipated the policy of Lord Chatham and the victory of Wolfe;
but the Ministers were not hearty in the cause. Harley is said to
have been averse from it, and St. John to have advocated it because
he saw that it would gratify Mrs. Masham. In an ill-advised hour,
therefore, the command of this important expedition was confided
to a man against whose total unfitness for command of every sort
Marlborough had earnestly warned them. At Boston, in New England, the
expedition was joined by two regiments of colonists and about four
thousand men, consisting of American planters, Palatines, and Indians,
encamped at Albany, in order to march by land into Canada, whilst the
fleet advanced up the St. Lawrence. The squadron had already entered
the river when, on the 21st of August, it was assailed by a violent
tempest. Eight transports were driven aground and wrecked, and eight
hundred men perished--some by drowning, others by the tomahawks of the
Indians and the muskets of the French colonists. The damage, however,
was of no important extent to a really able commander; but the poor
witless Hill, thrust into responsibility by favouritism, was utterly
confounded. The fleet put back to Spanish River Bay, where a council
was held, and, as the forces were only victualled for six weeks, it was
determined to return home.
But whilst Marlborough had been ably preparing the way in Flanders for
finishing the war in triumph, and compelling the King of France to make
such a peace as should secure the peace of Europe and indemnify England
for all that she had suffered and expended for that object, the Tory
Ministers and the queen had been as busy undermining and rendering
abortive his plans and exertions. They were determined to make peace at
any cost, so that the Whigs should receive nothing but reproaches from
the nation for having led it into so long and bloody a war without any
real results. The Tories were to render the war useless, and the Whigs
to bear the blame of it.
St. John was clearly ready to admit the Pretender instead of the House
of Hanover, and had been in close correspondence with the Court of St.
Germains, and there is every reason to believe that it was with the
cognisance and approval of the queen, who hated the House of Hanover.
But Harley was bent on maintaining the Protestant succession, whilst
he was equally determined on the achievement of a peace damaging to
the Whigs. He knew too well that, however the queen might lean towards
the restoration of her brother, the Pretender, the nation would never
submit to it. He therefore entered into a secret negotiation with
France on another basis to that of St. John.
Nothing is more certain than that the queen was strongly inclined to
admit the claims of her brother, James Stuart, the Old Pretender,
if he could be brought to renounce the Catholic religion, and that
she entered into a correspondence on this head. It is true that she
continued to express doubts of his being really her brother, yet she
every now and then let observations escape her which showed that she
really believed him to be so. It was on the ground of this conviction
that she corresponded with him regarding his succession to the Crown,
and was only compelled to give up his claim because she could not
bring him to abandon his attachment to his religion. Amongst those who
supported the claims of the Pretender were her uncle Rochester and
Marshal Tallard--still prisoner of war at Nottingham, and kept there by
Louis on the understanding that he was more useful there as a secret
negotiator than he would be anywhere else at the head of an army.