ANNE.
1702-1714.
[Sidenote: =Queen Anne and Prince George of Denmark.=]
According to the provisions of the "Act of Settlement," the English
crown passed, on the death of William III., to his sister-in-law, the
Princess Anne, the second daughter of James II. The new sovereign was
a worthy, pious woman, of simple domestic tastes, without a spark
of intelligence or ambition. She was by far the most insignificant
personage who had ever yet sat upon the throne of England. Her husband,
Prince George of Denmark, was a fit match for her; he was reckoned the
most harmless and the most stupid man within the four seas. "I have
tried him drunk," said the shrewd Charles II., "and I have tried him
sober, and there is nothing in him." He was the best of husbands, and
always acted as his wife's humble attendant and admirer. He and his
good-natured, placid, lymphatic spouse might possibly have managed
a farm; it seemed almost ludicrous to see them set to manage three
kingdoms.
[Sidenote: =Ascendency of Lady Churchill.=]
The worthy Anne was inevitably doomed to fall under the dominion of
some mind stronger than her own. It was notorious to every one that for
the last twenty years she had been managed and governed by her chief
lady-in-waiting, Sarah, Lady Churchill, the wife of the intriguing
general who had betrayed James II. in 1688, and William III. in 1692.
They had been friends and companions from their girlhood, and the
imperious Sarah had always had the mastery over the yielding Anne. The
princess saw with her favourite's eyes, and spoke with her favourite's
words. Any faint symptoms of independence on her part were promptly
crushed by the hectoring tongue of Lady Churchill, who had acquired
such an ascendency over her mistress that she permitted herself the
strangest licence, and cowed and deafened her by her angry and voluble
reproaches. It is only fair to say that she exercised almost as great a
tyranny over her own husband. The suave and shifty general looked upon
his wife with doting admiration, and yielded a respectful obedience to
her caprices.
[Sidenote: =Ministerial changes.=]
It is a curious testimony to the survival of the personal power of the
sovereign in England, that Anne's predilection for the two Churchills
changed the face of domestic politics on her accession. During
William's life, they had been eyed with distrust; now they became
the most important personages in the realm. The queen dismissed most
of the Whig ministers who had been in power when her brother-in-law
died, and filled their places with Tories, or rather with friends and
adherents of Churchill, who, though he called himself a Tory, was in
reality a pure self-seeker who cared nothing for either party. The
chief minister was Lord Godolphin, whose son had married Churchill's
daughter, as shifty a politician as any of his contemporaries. He had
long maintained a fruitless intrigue with the exiled Stuarts, but, when
he came into power, dropped his correspondence with St. Germains, and
ultimately became a Whig.
[Sidenote: =Policy of Churchill and Godolphin.=]
It was fortunate for England that Churchill and Godolphin were as
clever as they were selfish. Though personally they were mere greedy
adventurers, yet their policy was the best that could have been found.
Churchill's military ambition made him anxious to proceed with the
war which William III. had begun. The complete mastery over the queen
which his wife possessed, made him firmly resolved to keep Anne on the
throne at all costs. Hence there was no change either in the foreign
or domestic policy of England: the new ministry were as much committed
to maintaining the Protestant succession and the French war as their
predecessors, though almost every individual among them had at one time
or another held treasonable communications with James II.
[Sidenote: =Completion of the alliance against France.=]
The great alliance, therefore, which William III. had done his best
to organize, was completed by the Godolphin cabinet, England,
Holland, Austria, and most of the smaller states of the Empire bound
themselves to frustrate the union of France and Spain, and to secure
the inheritance of Charles II. for his namesake, the Austrian archduke.
Portugal and Savoy joined the alliance ere the year was out.
[Sidenote: =Position and resources of Lewis XIV.=]
On the other side, Lewis XIV. had the support of Spain: for the first
time for two centuries the Spaniards and French were found fighting
side by side. Only a small minority of the people of the Peninsula
refused to accept Philip of Anjou as their rightful sovereign, and
adhered to the archduke; this minority consisted of the Catalans, the
inhabitants of the sea-coast of North-Eastern Spain, who had an old
grievance against their kings for depriving them of certain local
rights and privileges. By reason of the Spanish alliance, Lewis started
on the war in complete military possession of two most important
frontier regions, the Milanese in Italy, and the whole of the Spanish
Netherlands (Belgium) in the North. He had also a strong position in
Germany, owing to the fact that he had secured the alliance of those
powerful princes, the Elector of Bavaria and the Prince-archbishop of
Cologne, two brothers of the house of Wittelsbach who had an old family
grudge against the Emperor.
War had been declared by England and her allies in 1702, but it
was not till 1703 that important operations began. They were waged
simultaneously on four separate theatres--the Spanish Netherlands,
South Germany, North Italy, and Spain. It appeared at first as if Lewis
XIV. was to be the aggressor; from his points of vantage in Alsace,
Milan, Bavaria, and the Spanish Netherlands, he seemed about to push
forward against Holland and Austria. But he had now to cope with two
generals such as no French army had ever faced--the Emperor's great
captain, Prince Eugéne of Savoy; and the wary Churchill, now, by Queen
Anne's favour, commander-in-chief of the English and the Dutch armies.
[Sidenote: =The campaign of 1703.=]
The first campaign was indecisive, the only considerable advantage
secured by either side being that Churchill rendered a French invasion
of Holland impossible, by capturing the north-eastern fortresses of
the Spanish Netherlands, Venloo and Ruremonde, and by overrunning the
electorate of Cologne and the bishopric of Liège. On his return to
England, he was given the title by which he is best known, that of Duke
of Marlborough.
[Sidenote: =Military genius of Marlborough.=]
Hitherto Churchill had shown himself an able general, but no one had
taken the true measure of his abilities, or recognized the fact that
he was by far the greatest military man that England had ever known.
But now the ignominious political antecedents of Queen Anne's favourite
were about to be hidden from view by the laurels that he was to win.
John Churchill, when once he had intrigued his way to power, showed
that he was well fitted to hold it. As a soldier he was the founder
of a new school of scientific strategy: on the battle-field he was
alert and vigorous, but he was greater in the operations that precede
a battle. He had an unrivalled talent for careful and scientific
combinations, by which he would deceive and circumvent an enemy, so
as to attack him when least expected and at the greatest advantage.
Where generals of an older school would run headlong into a fight and
win with heavy loss, he would outflank or outmarch his enemy, and
hustle him out of his positions with little or no bloodshed. On one
occasion--as we shall see--he drove an army of 60,000 French before
him and seized half the duchy of Brabant, without losing more than 80
men. Yet when hard blows were necessary he never shrank from the most
formidable problems, and would lead his troops into the hottest fire
with a cool-headed courage that won every man's admiration.
[Sidenote: =Marlborough as a diplomatist.=]
Great as were Marlborough's talents as a general, he was almost as
notable as a diplomatist and administrator. He had all the gifts of
a statesman: suave, affable, patient, and plausible, he was the one
personage who could keep together the ill-assorted allies who had
combined to attack Lewis XIV. The Dutch, the Austrians, and the small
princes of the Empire had such divergent interests that it was a hard
task to get them to work together. That they were kept from quarrelling
and induced to combine their efforts was entirely Churchill's work.
The organization of the allied army was in itself no mean problem; the
English troops in it formed only a quarter or a third of the whole, and
to manage the great body of Dutch, Prussians, Hanoverians, and Danes,
who formed the bulk of the host, required infinite tact and discretion.
Yet under Marlborough this motley array never marched save to
victory, and never failed from lukewarmness or disunion.
[Sidenote: =His avarice.=]
When we recollect all Churchill's intellectual greatness, we are more
than ever shocked with his moral failings. Not only was he an intriguer
to the backbone, but he was grossly and indecently fond of money: he
levied contributions on all the public funds that passed through his
hands, was open to presents from every quarter, and did not shrink from
gross favouritism where his interests moved him.
[Illustration: THE
SPANISH
NETHERLANDS
1702.]
[Sidenote: =1704--Marlborough moves to Bavaria.=]
The first great campaign in which Marlborough showed his full powers
was that of 1704. When it opened, his army lay on the Meuse and Lower
Rhine, holding back the French from Holland. But meanwhile Lewis
XIV. had pushed forward another army into South Germany to join the
Bavarians, and their united forces held the valley of the Upper Danube,
and seriously threatened Austria. Seeing that the sphere of decisive
action lay in Bavaria, and not on the Meuse, Marlborough resolved
to transfer himself to the point of danger by a rapid march across
Germany. After with great difficulty persuading the Dutch to allow him
to move their army eastward, he executed a series of skilful feints
which led the French to imagine that he was about to invade Alsace.
But having thoroughly misled them as to his intentions, he struck
across Wurtemburg by forced marches, and appeared in the valley of the
Danube. By storming the great fortified camp of the Bavarians on the
Schellenberg, he placed himself between the enemy and Austria, and
rendered any further advance towards Vienna impossible to them. When
joined by a small Austrian army under Eugéne of Savoy, he found himself
strong enough to fight the whole force of the French and Bavarians.
[Sidenote: =The Battle of Blenheim.=]
Accordingly he marched to attack them, and found them 56,000 strong,
arrayed in a good position behind a marshy stream called the Nebel,
which falls into the Danube near the village of Blenheim. Formidable
though their line appeared, Marlborough thought that it might be
broken. He sent Prince Eugéne with 20,000 men to keep employed the
enemy's left wing, where the Bavarians lay. He himself with 32,000
assailed the French marshals Marsin and Tallard, who formed the hostile
centre and right. On the two flanks the Anglo-Austrian army was brought
to a standstill opposite the fortified villages of Blenheim and
Oberglau, and could advance no further. But between them Marlborough
himself found a weak point, just where the French and Bavarian armies
joined. He made his men wade through the marshy stream, and then
directed a series of furious cavalry charges against the hostile
centre. After a stout resistance it broke, and the French and Bavarians
were thrust apart. The Elector and his men got off without much hurt,
for Prince Eugéne's force had been too much cut up early in the day
to be able to pursue them. But the enemy's right wing fared very
differently: Marlborough's victorious cavalry rolled it up and drove
it southward into the Danube. The French had no choice but to drown or
to surrender. Tallard was captured on the river-bank. Eleven thousand
men laid down their arms in Blenheim village when they saw that their
retreat was cut off; 15,000 more were drowned, slain, or wounded, and
not half the Franco-Bavarian army succeeded in escaping (August 13,
1704).
[Illustration: BLENHEIM
AUG. 13, 1704.]
This crushing blow saved Austria. The whole of Bavaria fell into
Marlborough's hands, the French retired behind the Rhine, and for the
future Germany was quite safe from the assaults of King Lewis. The
duke then transferred himself back to the Dutch frontier so rapidly
that the French had no time to do any mischief before his return.
Next spring he was again on the Meuse, and threatening the Spanish
Netherlands on their eastern flank.
[Sidenote: =Gibraltar taken by the English.=]
It was not in Bavaria alone that the English arms fared well in the
year 1704. A fleet under Admiral Rooke and a small army had been sent
to Spain, to help the Catalan malcontents, who were ready to rise in
the name of the Archduke Charles. They were foiled before Barcelona,
but on their return took by surprise the almost impregnable fortress
of Gibraltar, a stronghold which has remained in English hands ever
since. The possession of this place, "the Key of the Mediterranean,"
has proved invaluable in every subsequent war, enabling England to
watch, and often to hinder, every attempt to bring into co-operation
the eastern and the western fleets of France and Spain. Cadiz cannot
communicate with Cartagena, or Toulon with Brest, without being
observed from Gibraltar, and a strong English fleet based on that port
can practically close the entrance of the Mediterranean.
[Sidenote: =The campaign of 1705.=]
In 1705 Marlborough had intended to attack France by the valley of the
Moselle, but owing to the feeble help given by the Austrians--Prince
Eugéne had been sent off to Italy--he was compelled to try a less
adventurous scheme in the Spanish Netherlands. The armies of King
Lewis, now under Marshal Villeroi, had ranged themselves in a long line
from Antwerp to Namur, covering every assailable point with elaborate
fortified lines. By a system of skilful feints and countermarches,
Marlborough broke through the lines with the loss of only 80 men, and
got possession of the plain of Brabant. He would have fought a pitched
battle on the field of Waterloo, but for the reluctance of the Dutch
Government, who wished to withdraw their troops at the critical moment,
and prevented the campaign from being decisive.
[Sidenote: =1706.--Battle of Ramillies.=]
The next spring, however, brought Marlborough his reward. When he
threatened the great fortress of Namur, Marshal Villeroi concentrated
all the French troops in the Netherlands, and posted himself on the
heights of Ramillies to cover the city. Marlborough's generalship was
never better displayed than in the battle which ensued. Threatening the
French left wing, he induced Villeroi to concentrate the stronger half
of his army on that point. Then suddenly changing his order of attack,
he flung himself on the extreme French right, and had taken Ramillies
and stormed the heights behind it before Villeroi could hurry back his
troops to the point of real danger. Each French brigade as it arrived
was swept away by the advancing allies, and Villeroi lost his baggage
and guns and half his army. The consequences of the fight were even
more striking: Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, and all Flanders and
Hainault fell into Marlborough's hands. In the whole of the Spanish
Netherlands, Lewis XIV. now held nothing but the two fortresses of Mons
and Namur. The French frontier was laid open on a front of more than
200 miles.
[Sidenote: =French reverses in Italy and Spain.--Lewis XIV. sues for
peace.=]
While the arms of France were faring so badly in the North, they were
equally unsuccessful in the South. On September 6th of the same year,
Prince Eugéne and the Duke of Savoy routed the French army of Italy in
front of Turin; in consequence of this battle the generals of Lewis
were obliged to evacuate the Milanese and Piedmont, and to retire
behind the Alps. At the same time a second assault of the allies on
Spain met with signal good fortune. The Catalans had risen in favour
of the Archduke Charles, Barcelona had been stormed in 1705 by an
Anglo-Austrian force under the Prince of Hesse,[49] and all Eastern
Spain submitted. In 1706 an English force, reinforced by Portuguese,
marched up to Madrid and seized it. It seemed that Philip V. would ere
long be forced to leave Spain, and retire beyond the Pyrenees. The
spirits of Lewis XIV. were so much dashed by this series of reverses
that he, for the first time in his life, humbled himself to sue for
peace from the allies--offering to waive his grandson's rights to
Spain, Belgium, and the Indies, if he were allowed to keep the Spanish
dominions in Italy--Milan, Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia.
[Sidenote: =1707.--Battle of Almanza.--Reverses of the allies.=]
The allies were unwise enough to reject these terms; Holland
and the German states would have accepted them, but the Emperor was
set on gaining the Milanese, and Marlborough, who loved the war for
the wealth and glory that it brought him, persuaded the English
Government to refuse to treat. This obstinate determination to push
matters to extremity met with a well-deserved retribution. The fortune
of war in 1707 commenced to turn against the allies. In Spain their
army lost Madrid, and was almost annihilated at the battle of Almanza
by the French and Spaniards. In consequence they lost all their
foothold in the peninsula except Catalonia and Gibraltar. About the
same time Eugéne of Savoy and the Austrians crossed the Alps and
invaded Provence, but were beaten out of France after a disastrous
failure before Toulon. Marlborough himself won no new successes in the
Netherlands; the Austrians gave him little help, and his attention was
distracted from Flanders by the enterprises of Charles XII. of Sweden.
That brilliant and headstrong monarch, an old ally of France, had just
invaded Germany from the rear, pursuing a quarrel with the Elector of
Saxony. In great fear lest he might interfere in the war and join the
French, Marlborough hastened to the far east, visited Charles at his
camp in Saxony, and flattered and cajoled him into retiring. The Swede
marched off into Poland, and Marlborough was able to return to Flanders
with a quiet mind; but he had lost the best months of the campaigning
season in his excursion to meet Charles.
[Sidenote: =1708.--Battle of Oudenarde.--Capture of Lille.=]
In the next year his old fortune returned to him. Lewis XIV.,
encouraged by the events of 1707, had raised a great army for the
invasion of Flanders. It was headed by his eldest grandson and heir,
Lewis, Duke of Burgundy, who was to be advised by Marshal Vendôme,
the best officer in the French service. They crossed the Lys into
Flanders and captured Ghent, but Marlborough soon concentrated his
forces and fell upon them at Oudenarde. The French army was mismanaged.
Burgundy was obstinate, and Vendôme brutal and overbearing; they gave
contradictory orders to the troops, and were caught in disorder by
Marlborough's sudden advance. In a long running fight on the heights
above Oudenarde, the French right wing was surrounded and cut to
pieces; the remainder of the host fled back into France (July 11,
1708). They were soon pursued; the Austrian army came up under Prince
Eugéne to help the English, and the allies crossed the frontier and
laid siege to the great fortress of Lille, the northern bulwark of
France. It fell, after a long siege, on December 9, 1708, when Marshal
Boufflers and 15,000 men laid down their arms before the allied
generals.
[Sidenote: =Lewis again asks for peace.=]
Lewis was now brought very low, lower even than in 1706. Once more he
asked the allies for terms of peace. This time they were even harsher
in their reply than at the previous negotiations. They demanded not
only that he should surrender his grandson's claims to any part of the
Spanish inheritance, but that he should guarantee to send an army into
Spain to evict King Philip, if the latter refused to evacuate the realm
which he had been ruling for the last six years. Lewis was also bidden
to surrender Strasburg and some of the fortresses of French Flanders.
[Sidenote: =Lewis rejects the terms of the allies.=]
Though his armies were starving, and his exchequer drained dry, the
King of France could not stoop to the humiliation of declaring war on
his grandson. "If I must needs fight," he is reported to have said, "I
would rather fight my enemies than my own children." So, protesting
that the continuance of the war was no fault of his, he sent his
plate to the mint, sold his costly furniture and pictures, and made a
desperate appeal to the French nation to maintain the integrity of its
frontiers and its national pride. By a supreme effort nearly 100,000
men, under Marshal Villars, were collected and ranged along the borders
of Flanders.
[Sidenote: =1709.--Battle of Malplaquet.=]
With this army Marlborough had to deal in the next year. He was
proceeding with the siege of the fortress of Mons, when Villars came
up to hinder him, and took post on the heath of Malplaquet. The French
position was very strong, covered on both flanks with thick woods,
and defended with entrenchments and heavy batteries. Nevertheless
Marlborough attacked, and met with his usual success, though on this
occasion his victory was very dearly bought. His left wing, headed
by the headstrong young Prince of Orange, made a rash and desperate
assault on the French lines before the rest of the army had begun to
advance, and was beaten back with fearful loss. But the duke broke
through the centre of Villars' entrenchments by bringing up his
reserves, and won the field, though he lost more men than the French,
who had fought under cover all day. In consequence of this victory
Mons fell, and the allies advanced into France, and began to besiege
the fortresses of French Flanders and Artois. Their progress seemed to
slacken among these thickly set strongholds, and the once rapid advance
of Marlborough grew slow. This was more in consequence of the internal
politics of England than of any falling off in the great general's
capacity. The duke had ceased to command the obedience of the English
ministry, and his friends had just been turned out of office.
[Sidenote: =Godolphin's ministry.=]
From 1702 to 1710 Marlborough's connection, Godolphin, remained
the chief minister. He had kept himself in power by utilizing the
jealousies of Whig and Tory, and allying himself alternately to either
party. Till 1706 Godolphin had posed as a Tory himself, but finding
that the majority of the Tory party were lukewarm in supporting the
war, and pressed for an early peace with France, he resolved to break
with them. Accordingly he dismissed most of his old colleagues, and
took into partnership Marlborough's son-in-law, the Earl of Sunderland,
who, though the heir of the time-serving favourite of James II., was a
violent Whig. It was the Godolphin-Sunderland ministry which rejected
the French proposals for peace in 1708, when the most favourable terms
might have been secured. But to subserve Marlborough's ambition and the
fanatical hatred of the Whigs for Lewis XIV., the war was continued.
[Sidenote: =The Union with Scotland.=]
The only important event of domestic politics which occurred in
this part of Anne's reign was the work of the Godolphin-Sunderland
ministry. This was the celebrated "Union with Scotland" in 1707, which
permanently united the crowns and parliaments of the two halves of
Britain. The separation of the two kingdoms had many disadvantages,
both commercial and political, and William III. had wished to unify
them. But old local patriotism had frustrated the scheme hitherto,
and the unfortunate Darien Scheme[50] had caused much bitter feeling
in William's later years. Early in Anne's reign this took the ominous
shape of an attempt to change the law of succession to the throne in
Scotland, so that there appeared a grave danger of the separation
of the two crowns at the queen's death. Fearing this, Godolphin's
ministry made a resolute attempt to bring about a permanent union of
the two crowns. An act to that effect was ultimately carried through
the Scottish Parliament, but with the greatest difficulty. National
pride, the fear lest England might endeavour to Anglicize the Kirk, the
dislike of the citizens of Edinburgh to see their city lose its status
as a capital, the secret hopes of the Jacobites to win the Scottish
crown for James the Pretender, worked on one side. On the other the
arguments used were the political and commercial convenience of the
change, and the absolute necessity for making sure of the Protestant
succession. When the English Government gave pledges for the security
of the Kirk, and for the perpetuation of the Scottish law courts and
universities, the majority yielded, and the bill passed (1707). For
the future Scotland was represented in the United Parliament of Great
Britain by 45 members of the Commons and 16 representative peers. The
arms of England and Scotland were blended in the royal shield, and in
the new British flag, the "Union Jack," the white saltire of St. Andrew
and the red cross of St. George were combined.
It was many years, however, before the Scots came to acquiesce
cordially in the Union, and the Jacobite party did their best to keep
up the old national grudge, and to persuade Scotland that she had
suffered by the change. But the allegation was proved so false by the
course of events, that the outcry against the Union gradually died
away. Scotland has since supplied a much larger proportion of the
leaders of Britain alike in politics, war, literature, and philosophy,
than her scanty population seemed to promise.
[Sidenote: =Growing unpopularity of the Whigs.=]
The domination of the Whigs was not to last much longer. They fell into
disfavour for two reasons: the first was that the people had begun to
realize the fact that the costly and bloody struggle with France ought
to end, now that Lewis was humbled and ready to surrender all claims to
domination in Europe. The second was that the Whigs had contrived to
offend the religious sentiments of that great majority of the nation
which clung to the Church of England and resented any action that
seemed to put a slight upon her.
[Sidenote: =The Tories denounce the war.=]
The Tories set to work to preach to the people that the war only
continued because Marlborough profited by it, and because the Emperor
and the Dutch wished to impose over-heavy terms on the French. This was
on the whole quite true, and it was dinned into the ears of the nation
by countless Tory speeches and pamphlets, of which the best-known is
Dean Swift's cogent and caustic "Conduct of the Allies" (1711).
[Sidenote: =The trial of Sacheverell.=]
But a more active part in the fall of the Whig ministry was played by
the Church question. High Churchmen had always suspected the Whigs
of lukewarm orthodoxy, because of the attempts which were made by
them from time to time to secure toleration for Dissenters. This, the
best and wisest part of the Whig programme, brought them much enmity.
They were already looked upon askance by many Churchmen, when they
contrived to bring a storm about their ears by an attempt to suppress
the liberty of the pulpit. Dr. Sacheverell, a Tory divine, had preached
two violent political sermons, "On the Peril of False Brethren in
Church and State." They were stupid and bombastic utterances, in which
he compared Godolphin to Jeroboam, and called him "Volpone, the Old
Fox." The minister was foolish enough to take this stuff seriously: he
arrested Sacheverell, and announced his intention of impeaching him for
sedition before the House of Lords. He carried out his purpose; the
doctor was tried, and condemned by the Whig majority among the peers
to suspension from his clerical function for three years, while his
sermons were burnt by the common hangman. This decision produced riots
and demonstrations over the whole country; the Whigs were denounced
as violators of the freedom of the Church and as the secret allies
of schism. The windy Sacheverell became the party hero of the day,
and made a triumphal progress through the midlands. The agitation was
still in full blast, when it was suddenly announced that the queen had
dismissed her ministers, and charged Harley, the chief of the Tory
party, to form a new cabinet.
[Sidenote: =The Duchess of Marlborough disgraced.=]
Queen Anne's decisive and unexpected action was mainly due to personal
causes. The domestic tyranny which the Duchess of Marlborough had
exercised over her for so many years, had at last reached the point at
which it became unbearable. The duchess had grown harsher and ruder
with advancing years, and treated her royal friend with such gross
impertinence that even the placid Anne became resentful. She gradually
transferred her friendship to a new favourite, Mrs. Masham, one of her
ladies in waiting, and a cousin of the Tory leader Harley. Provoked by
some final explosions of the jealous wrath of the duchess, the queen
sought the secret advice of Harley, and suddenly dismissed her from her
offices, and bade her leave the court. After a scene of undignified
recrimination with her mistress, the disgraced favourite was forced to
retire: on her departure she completely wrecked, in a fit of anger, the
rooms which she had so long occupied in St. James's Palace (1710).
[Sidenote: =Godolphin and Sunderland dismissed.--A Tory ministry.=]
Godolphin and Sunderland were dismissed from power immediately after
the disgrace of the duchess, and Harley and the Tories were at
once installed in office. They left Marlborough in command in the
Netherlands for a time, but began at once to open negotiations for
peace with France. This was an honest attempt to carry out the Tory
programme, but it was made in an underhand way, for the Dutch and
Austrians were kept entirely in the dark, and received no news of the
step that England was taking.
[Sidenote: =Marlborough superseded.=]
Meanwhile Marlborough fought his last campaign in France; Marshal
Villars had endeavoured to stop him by a long system of entrenchments
and redoubts stretching from Hesdin to Bouchain. But Marlborough always
laughed at such fortifications: he deceived Villars by his skilful
feints, and easily burst through the vaunted lines, which the Frenchman
had called his _ne plus ultra_. He took Bouchain, and was preparing to
advance into Picardy, when he suddenly received the information that he
was dismissed from his post and recalled to England. Harley had found
the French ready to treat, and was resolved to stop the war. He gave
the Duke of Ormonde, a Tory peer, the command of the English army,
with the secret instructions that he was not to advance, or help the
Austrians in any way (1711).
[Sidenote: =His peculations exposed.--He leaves England.=]
Marlborough returned to England to protest, but found himself involved
in serious troubles when he landed. The Tories had laid a trap for him,
which his own avarice had prepared. He was accused of gross peculations
committed while in command in Flanders. It was proved that he had taken
presents to the amount of more than £60,000 from the contractors who
supplied his army with food and stores. He had also received from the
Emperor Joseph a douceur of 2-1/2 per cent. on all the subsidies which
the English ministry had paid to Austria. More than £150,000 had gone
into his pocket on this account alone. The discovery of these instances
of greed blasted the duke's character; it was to no purpose that he
pleaded that the money was a free gift, and that such transactions were
customary in foreign services. He found himself looked upon askance
by all parties, even by his old friends the Whigs, and retired to the
continent.
[Sidenote: =The treaty of Utrecht.=]
In 1712, Harley, who had now been created Earl of Oxford, brought his
negotiations with France to a close. They resulted in the celebrated
treaty of Utrecht. By this agreement England recognized Philip V. as
King of Spain and the Indies, stipulating that Austria and Holland
were to be compensated out of the Spanish dominions in Italy and the
Netherlands. France ceded to England Newfoundland, Acadia--since known
as Nova Scotia--and the waste lands round Hudson's Bay. Spain also
gave up Gibraltar and the important island of Minorca. Both France
and Spain signed commercial treaties giving favourable conditions for
English merchants. Even the long-closed monopoly of Spanish trade in
South America was surrendered by the _Asiento_, an agreement which
gave England certain rights of trade with those parts, especially the
disgraceful but profitable privilege of supplying the Spanish colonies
with negro slaves. Spain and France also recognized the Protestant
succession in England, and agreed not to aid "the Pretender," as the
young son of James II. was now called.
The minor allies of England also obtained advantages by the treaty
of Utrecht. Holland was given a favourable commercial treaty and a
line of strong towns in the Spanish Netherlands known as the "Barrier
fortresses," because they lay along the frontier of France. They
included Namur, Tournay, Ypres, and six or seven other places. The
Duke of Savoy received Sicily and the title of king; the Elector of
Brandenburg took Spanish Guelders--a district on the Meuse--and was
recognized as King of Prussia. But Austria, our most powerful ally,
does not appear in the agreement. The Emperor wished to continue the
war, and refused to come into the general pacification.
[Sidenote: =Austria deserted by the allies.=]
The treaty of Utrecht was on the whole profitable to England, though
it is certain that better terms could have been extorted from Lewis
XIV. and Philip V., both of whom were in the last stage of exhaustion
and despair. But in signing it England committed a grave breach of
faith with Austria, who wished to continue the war. The English army,
under Ormonde, was actually withdrawn in the middle of the campaign of
1712, so that the Austrian troops were left unsupported in France, and
severely handled by the enemy. Harley's reason for refusing to stand by
his allies was that Joseph I. had lately died, and had been succeeded
by his brother, the Archduke Charles, who had so long claimed the
Spanish throne. It seemed to the Tory ministry just as unwise to allow
the house of Hapsburg to appropriate the bulk of the Spanish dominions
as to allow them to fall into the hands of Lewis XIV. Accordingly,
they refused to listen to the Emperor's plans for bringing further
pressure on the enemy and for demanding harder terms. Left to himself,
Charles VI. fared ill in the war, and was forced to sign the treaty of
Rastadt in 1714. This agreement--a kind of supplement to the treaty
of Utrecht--gave to the Austrians Naples, Sardinia, the Milanese, and
most of the Spanish Netherlands; but a small part of the last-named
country fell to Holland and Prussia, who, as we have already mentioned,
acquired respectively the "Barrier fortresses" and the duchy of
Guelders.
[Sidenote: =The question of the succession.=]
The peace of Utrecht had been signed early in 1713, and the Tory party
could now settle down to administer England after their own ideas,
undisturbed by alarms of war from without; but all other subjects
of political importance were now thrown into the background by the
question of the succession to the crown. The queen's health was
manifestly beginning to fail, and it was evident that ere many years
the Act of Settlement, passed in 1701, would come into operation,
and Sophia of Hanover be called to the English throne. But there
were many persons within the Tory party who viewed the approaching
accession of this aged German lady with dislike, and wished, if it
were but possible, to put the son of James II. on the throne. The
exiled prince was now a young man of twenty-five, slow, apathetic, and
deeply religious in his own narrow way. He was not the stuff of which
successful pretenders are made, and played his cards very ill.
[Sidenote: =Position of the Pretender.=]
Nevertheless, there was for a time a considerable possibility that
James III. might sit on the throne of England. It was generally felt
that to exclude Anne's brother from the succession, in favour of her
distant cousin, was hard. The large section of the Tory party who
still clung to the old belief in the divine right of kings, were not
comfortable in their consciences when they thought of the exclusion of
the rightful heir. Another section, who had no principles, but a strong
regard for their own interests, looked with dismay on the prospect of a
Hanoverian succession, because they knew that the Electress Sophia and
her son, the Elector George Lewis, were closely allied with the Whigs,
and would certainly put them in office when the queen died.
If James Stuart had been willing to change his religion, or even to
make a pretence of doing so, the Tory party would have accepted him
as king, and his sister would have presented him to the people as her
legitimate heir; but the Pretender was rigidly pious with the narrowest
Romanist orthodoxy. He would not make the least concession on the
religious point to his secret friends on this side of the water, when
they besought him to hold out some prospect of his conversion. This
honesty cost him his chance of recovering England.
[Sidenote: =The Tory split.--Schemes of Bolingbroke.--The Schism Act.=]
When the Tories ascertained that James would never become a member of
the Church of England, the party became divided. Harley, the prime
minister, and the bulk of his followers would not lend themselves to
a scheme for delivering England over to a Romanist. They continued to
correspond with the Pretender, but refused to take any active steps in
his cause, and let matters stand still. But there was another section
of the party which was not so scrupulous, and was prepared to plunge
into any treasonable plot, if only it could make sure of keeping the
Whigs out of office. These men were led by Henry St. John Viscount
Bolingbroke, one of the two Secretaries of State. St. John was a
clever, plausible man, a ready writer and a brilliant speaker, but
utterly unscrupulous, and filled with a devouring ambition. Though in
secret a free-thinker, he pretended to be the most extreme of High
Churchmen, and led the more bigoted and violent wing of the Tory party.
St. John was set on becoming the ruler of England, and saw his way
to the post if he could place James III. on the throne. His cautious
colleague Harley stood in his way, so he set himself to expel him from
office, by playing on the foibles of the queen and the High Churchmen.
With this end he brought in the "Schism Act," a persecuting measure
recalling the old legislation of Charles II. It proposed to prohibit
Dissenters from keeping or teaching in schools, so as to force all
Nonconformists under the instruction of the Church. Harley would not
give this bigoted measure his support, and so lost the confidence of
half his own party, and, moreover, the favour of the queen, who was
persuaded by St. John to give her patronage to the bill.
[Sidenote: =Bolingbroke chief minister.=]
In consequence Harley was dismissed from office, the Schism Act was
passed, and Bolingbroke became the queen's chief minister. He set to
work to prepare for a Jacobite restoration, filling all posts in the
state with partisans of the exiled prince. So able and determined was
he, that the Whigs took alarm, and began to make preparation to defend
the Protestant succession. They put themselves into communication with
George of Hanover, whose aged mother the electress was just dead, and
swore to secure him the throne, even at the cost of civil war.
[Sidenote: =Illness of the queen.=]
But the new ministry had only been in power a few days, when Queen
Anne was stricken with a mortal sickness. Bolingbroke had not reckoned
on this chance, and was caught but half prepared. He saw that unless
he acted, and acted promptly, the law of the land must take its
course, and the Elector George become King of England. But action was
difficult; the army was Whig at heart, and even the majority of the
Tories were not prepared to draw the sword to place a Romanist on the
throne. While Bolingbroke hesitated, his enemies struck their blow.
[Sidenote: =Action of the Hanoverian dukes.--Death of Anne.=]
As the English Constitution then stood, the Cabinet system was but
half developed. The modern idea that the queen's advisers should be a
small homogeneous body of men of the same party, meeting together under
the presidency of the prime minister, was only just coming into being.
It was still a moot point whether, during the sovereign's illness or
at his or her death, the executive power lay in the hands of the whole
Privy Council or of the members of it alone who were actually ministers
and members of the Cabinet. The supporters of the Protestant succession
took advantage of this doubt. While the queen lay speechless and dying,
three dukes, Shrewsbury, a "Hanoverian Tory," and Argyle and Somerset,
two Whigs, presented themselves at the meeting of the Cabinet and
claimed a seat in the assembly as privy councillors. Bolingbroke did
not dare to exclude them, and thereby lost his chance of carrying out a
_coup d'état_. For the dukes called in all the other privy councillors,
a majority of whom were Whigs or moderate Tories, and took the conduct
of affairs out of the prime minister's hands. The queen died that night
(August 1, 1714), and the Privy Council at once proclaimed the elector
under the name of George I. Bolingbroke retired in wrath, muttering
that if he had been granted six weeks for preparation, he would have
given England a different king.
THE STUARTS.
JAMES IV. = Margaret = Archibald Douglas,
of Scotland, | of England. | Earl of Angus.
1488-1513. | |
| |
Mary of Guise = JAMES V., Margaret = Matthew,
| 1513-1542. Douglas. | Earl of
| | Lennox.
| +----+-------+
| | |
(1) Francis II. = MARY, = (2) Henry Lord Charles,
of France. 1542-1567.| Darnley. Earl of Lennox.
(3) James Earl | |
Bothwell. | Arabella Stuart.
|
JAMES VI. of Scotland, 1567-1625. = Anne of
I. of England, 1603-1625. | Denmark.
|
+-----------+-----------------------------+-------+
| | |
Henry CHARLES I., = Henrietta Elizabeth = Frederick,
died 1612. 1625-1649. | of France. | Elector
| | Palatine.
| |
| +--------+-------+-------+
| | | | |
| Charles Rupert. Maurice. Sophia = Ernest,
| Lewis, | Elector
| Elector | of
| Palatine. | Hanover.
| | |
| Elizabeth = Philip. GEORGE I.,
| | Duke of Orleans. 1714-1727.
| |
| Dukes of Orleans.
|
+-----------+---------+-------------------+-----------------------+
| | | |
CHARLES II., JAMES II., = (1) Anne Hyde. Mary = William II. |
1660-1685. 1685-1688. | (2) Mary of | of |
| Modena. | Orange. |
| | |
| WILLIAM III., = MARY II., |
| 1689-1702. his |
| cousin. |
+--------------------+-+--------------------+ |
| | | |
(1) (1) (2) |
MARY II., = William ANNE, = George JAMES, +----+
1689-1694. of 1702-1714. | of the old |
Orange. | Denmark. Pretender, |
| died 1765. |
| | |
William, | |
Duke of Gloucester, | |
died 1701. | |
| |
+--------------------+--------------+ |
| | |
Charles Edward, Henry Cardinal, Philip = Henrietta.
the young Pretender, Duke of York, of |
died 1788. died 1807. Orleans.|
|
|
|
Victor = Anne
of |
Savoy. |
|
Dukes of Savoy.
FOOTNOTES:
[49] For this success the volatile and unscrupulous Earl of
Peterborough claimed all the credit. But his account of his doings in
Spain is a mere romance, and he was in truth a hindrance rather than an
aid to the allies.
[50] A Scottish Colonial Company had been formed to seize and colonize
the pestilential region about the Isthmus of Panama--then known as
Darien--so as to obtain access to the Pacific (1698). The Scottish
Parliament gave it great privileges, but William III. refused to
confirm them, and would not commit England to the scheme. The colonists
all perished of disease and tropical heat; but the Scots ascribed the
failure to English jealousy.