CHAPTER III.
Complete triumph of the Whigs—Attempts made to bring Lord Sunderland into the Cabinet—Scheme for insuring the Hanoverian succession—The Queen’s resentment at that measure.—1705.
The gradual removal of the Tory party from the offices of state followed the brilliant successes of the Duke’s arms. The privy seal was taken from the Duke of Buckingham; and the Duchess also prevailed on the Queen to remove from his office Sir Nathan Wright, Lord Chancellor, a man who was obnoxious to all parties, and of “no use to the Crown.” The celebrated Lord Cowper, distinguished for his abilities and integrity, was appointed his successor.
Lord Somers, “seeing,” says Cunningham, “that the Whigs were now united to the court, and fearing lest the principles of our ancestors should be subverted,” retired from all public employments;yet still his powerful mind swayed one of a less solid character. Lord Sunderland, an able, but violent, and unpopular man, who would listen to no arguments but to those of Somers, being in the prime of life, and a man of great vigilance and activity,[55]was considered by the more determined Whigs, and by the Duchess of Marlborough in particular, as qualified to play a leading part in the royal councils. His opinions were no less objectionable to the nation in general than to the Queen in particular; and she long resisted the persuasions of her favourite, as well as of the ministry, now wholly Whig, to appoint this nobleman one of her secretaries of state in the room of Sir Charles Hedges. The point was yet undecided, when a measure was adopted by the Tory faction, which drove her Majesty to the resolution of throwing herself entirely into the hands of the Whigs.
After the bill against occasional conformity had repeatedly failed, a new scheme was, as it were in desperation, suggested. The parliament, which met in 1705, proved to be chiefly composed of Whigs, or of those moderate and skilful politicians, to whom it was convenient to appear to belong to that party. It was now that a plan was formed for inviting into England the PrincessSophia, Electress Dowager of Hanover, on whom the succession of the crown had been already settled.
Different motives have been ascribed for the origin of this proceeding. The Queen’s private feelings were vehemently opposed to such a measure. Nothing could offend her more than any great degree of respect offered to her successor; and her good wishes were with sufficient reason supposed really to centre in another quarter. The kindly-tempered Anne had never forgotten that she had involuntarily injured her brother. The Hanoverian succession could not, therefore, be secured with any hope of pleasing her; and it was supposed rather to be a snare to her ministry, who, if they promoted it, would incur for ever the royal displeasure. The Duchess of Marlborough, observing in which direction her mistress’s affections lay, nevertheless had repeatedly urged her to invite over the Electress, or, at any rate, the young Prince of Hanover, afterwards George the First, in order that he might live in this country as her son; but to this proposal her Majesty never would listen for an instant.[56]
The party who brought this measure into parliament, headed by Lord Rochester and Lord Nottingham, neither expected, nor even wished,it was said, to carry their motion, but either to embroil the Whigs with the Queen, or to draw the enmity of the bulk of the nation upon that party for opposing the scheme; for the Electress, although a Lutheran, was regarded as the protectress of the Protestant church; and the safety of the church was at that time dearer to the populace of England than any other political consideration whatsoever.
The stratagem, for such it must be considered, failed entirely. It did more, it raised the Whigs to a height, which, but for the infatuation of their enemies, they would never, during the reign of Anne, have attained. Notwithstanding that, in voting against the invitation to the Electress, they departed from their principles, the Whigs, upon the plea that the measure was “neither safe nor reasonable,” contrived to keep their credit with the nation. They were split, nevertheless, into factions, upon this delicate subject; but those who were termed “Court Whigs” were zealous in their opposition to the proposed invitation.[57]
“I know, indeed,” says the Duchess, “that my Lord Godolphin, and other great men, were much reflected upon by some well-disposed persons, for not laying hold of this opportunity,which the Tories put into their hands, of more effectually securing the succession to the crown in the House of Hanover. But those of the Whigs whose anger against the minister was raised on this account, little knew how impracticable the project of invitation was, and that the attempt would have only served to make the Queen discard her ministry, to the ruin of the common cause of these kingdoms, and of all Europe. I had often tried her Majesty upon this subject; and when I found that she would not hear of the immediate successor coming over, had pressed her that she would at least invite hither the young Prince of Hanover, who was not to be her immediate successor, and that she would let him live here as her son; but her Majesty would listen to no proposal of this kind in any shape whatever.”
The Queen, upon this occasion, gave the first indications of anything like a real reconciliation to the Whig party.[58]Those in the houses of parliament, and there were many, who were zealously attached to the Pretender, and abjured him only in order better to serve him,[59]were infinitely less obnoxious to her than the politicians who dared to propose planting her extolled successor perpetually before her eyes. Strongerminds than that which Anne possessed would have shrunk from such a trial of temper. She was childless, and no longer young; and perhaps the determination manifested by this proposal to ruin the hopes of her nephew aggravated her resentment. Her self-love was deeply wounded. For though she was not, even then, as the Duchess expressed it, inwardly converted to the Whigs, neither by all that her favourite had been able to say, nor even “by the mad conduct of the tacking Tories,” to repeat language which must be readily appropriated by those who know the Duchess’s style,—yet their conduct in theinvitationoccasioned a change in her sentiments, which an insult from one whom she had formerly regarded with kindly prepossessions completed.
“She had been present,” says the Duchess, “at the debates in the House of Lords upon that subject, and had heard the Duke of Buckingham treat her with great disrespect, urging, as an argument for inviting over the Princess Sophia, that the Queen might live till she did not know what she did, and be like a child in the hands of others; and a great deal to the same effect. Such rude treatment from the Tories, and the zeal and success of the Whigs in opposing a motion so extremely disagreeable to her, occasioned her to write to me in the following terms.”
“I believe dear Mrs. Freeman and I shall not disagree as we have formerly done; for I am sensible of the services those people have done me, that you have a good opinion of, and will countenance them, and am thoroughly convinced of the malice and insolence ofthemyou have always been speaking against.”
The insolent remark of Buckingham was armed with a sting which few females could endure with composure. The Electress Sophia, who was to be the safeguard of the people in Anne’s dotage, was seventy-six years of age. The Queen had gone to the gallery of the house with a far different expectation than that of hearing; observations so calculated to wound her nicest feelings. She had hoped by her presence to restrain the violence of language, which she had on a former occasion checked by her royal presence; but she had not expected that the heat of argument would be mingled up with insinuations so audacious, which, though pointed at the Duchess of Marlborough, were most insulting to herself. She had indulged a desire to hear this celebrated argument, and to judge in person who were most her friends on this occasion; and she was painfully chastised for her curiosity.[60]This, and other circumstances, producedthat acknowledgment which the “dear Mrs. Freeman,” to whom it was addressed, treasured up and reported.[61]
The Whigs lost both character and consistency, whilst they gained court favour, by their opposition to the “invitation” projected. The appointment of Lord Sunderland, so earnestly desired by the Duchess in opposition to her husband, was not calculated to recover their popularity. When it did take place, the event justified the predictions of his enemies, and the apprehensions of his friends. It was not long before he began to dictate to the poor Queen, who was tolerably inured to that sort of treatment, but who did not expect it from his lordship. He raised contentions among the nobility, and disgraced himself and his station by an indifference to moral character in those whom he took to be his associates. The old Whigs, Lord Somers among them, predicted that grievous confusion would accrue in consequence of the boldness and inexperience of this rash and scheming politician.[62]
There was another young satellite of the Lord Treasurer’s, whom the old-fashioned Whigs dreaded and detested. This was Mr. JamesCraggs, an early favourite of the Duke of Marlborough, and now a rising star on the political hemisphere. But Harley stood on a more firm footing than any of the courtiers who dreaded, or who flattered, the still powerful Duchess of Marlborough. Her influence and her arrogance were now at their climax. It is said that, with one glance of her eye, she banished from the royal presence a Scottish gentleman, Mr. James Johnson, who came to Hampton Court to treat with the Queen on the affairs of his country.[63]And, indeed, Harley in vain endeavoured to ingratiate himself in her favour. He dreaded the violent temper and influence of that “busy woman,” as she was called; he knew that it had been exercised to the ruin of others, and that it might affect his prospects.
Few persons understood the art of adapting his conversation to certain ends so well as the discerning, artful, and accomplished Harley; few persons better understood the value of appearances. Although educated in the Presbyterian faith, he carefully avoided an exclusive preference to sectarianism, as a barrier to political advancement; and, piqued at the indifference of the liberal party which he had originally espoused, he adhered to that which was most likely to insure lasting popularity—the high church party. Essentiallya worldly man, Harley, nevertheless, failed not to have a clergyman at his dinner-table every Sunday, and, with characteristic temporising, selected his weekly clerical visitants alternately from the Episcopalian and Presbyterian faith,[64]—his family generally following the latter persuasion. It was Harley’s unsuccessful aim, at this time, to ingratiate himself with the Duchess of Marlborough, and to gain her over to his interests. Deeply versed in literature, and a patron of learning, it might have been supposed that the lettered, the polite, the liberal Harley, could have found means to gain the good-will of one who knew well how to estimate his talents, and to prize the deference which he paid to her ascendant star. The Duchess, however, was not to be blinded or misled by flattery, which she expected as her due, and which she did not think entitled to any degree of gratitude on her part. To all Harley’s civilities she could scarcely be prevailed upon to return a civil answer.[65]The “diverting stories of the town,” with which he afterwards solaced the Queen’s retirement, when Mrs. Masham had superseded the lofty Sarah,[66]were condemned to remain untold, whilst the Duchess frowned on all he said. “She had anaversion to him,” says a contemporary historian, “and with a haughty air despised all that gentleman’s civilities, though he had never discontinued his endeavours, by the most obliging efforts, and all the good offices in his power, to gain her friendship; but she, without any concern, rode all about the town triumphant; sometimes to one lady, sometimes to another; and sometimes she would visit Lord Halifax, who, in compliance with the humour of the times, was wont to appease that lady’s spirit with concerts of music, and poems, and private suppers, and entertainments, for all of which he was well qualified by the natural ease and politeness of his manners.”[67]
The causes of the Duchess’s aversion to Harley are fully disclosed in her “Vindication.” The minister who afterwards effected her downfal had been promoted by Marlborough and Godolphin, who often saw with different eyes to those with which the Duchess viewed the map which lay before her, and on which she traced her future course. Her penetrating glance detected the deep art, the well-digested designs which lay beneath the moderation and civility of Harley. But she had a more particular source of enmity towards Harley, which was that minister’spatronage of Sir Charles Hedges, into whose post it was her design, or rather determination, to introduce her son-in-law Sunderland. The Queen had a reluctance to part with Sir Charles Hedges, and was assisted by Harley in raising obstacles to the change in the cabinet which the Duchess desired. The predominating Whig party aided the Duchess, and, as she relates, “after the services they had done, and the assurances the Queen had given them, thought it reasonable to expect that one of the secretaries at least should be such a man as they could place a confidence in. They believed,” adds the Duchess, “they might trust my Lord Sunderland; and though they did not think him the properest man for the post, yet, being my Lord Marlborough’s son-in-law, they chose to recommend him to her Majesty, because, as they expressed themselves to me, they imagined it wasdriving the nail that would go.”[68]
Marlborough and Godolphin, notwithstanding the near connexion of both with Lord Sunderland, were adverse, nevertheless, to his appointment. Sunderland was not only conceited and headstrong, but he was unpopular from a rash and unbecoming practice of running down Britain, its customs and institutions, laws and rights,and maintaining the superiority of other countries. The manners of this young nobleman were harsh, and his temper ungovernable. He was little adapted to conciliate the favour of a female sovereign; more especially when he came forward in direct contrast with the bland and accessible Harley, who did not consider it beneath him to promote courtly gossip for the Queen’s amusement. The Duchess, however, with less judgment than might have been expected, urged strongly and incessantly the appointment of her son-in-law; and was astonished that the Queen should be reluctant to promote the son-in-law of Marlborough, the hero not only of Blenheim, but of Ramilies, where a victory was gained whilst yet this matter was in suspense.[69]She urged her Majesty by letter not to think that she could continue to carry on the government with so much partiality to “one sort of men, and so much discouragement to others.”
The Queen, it seems, had taken some offence at the freedom of a former letter, for the Duchess thus expostulated with her Majesty in reference to that epistle.[70]
“By the letter I had from your Majesty this morning, and the great weight you put upon the difference betwixt the word notion and nation inmy letter, I am only made sensible (as by many other things) that you were in a great disposition to complain of me, since to this moment I cannot for my life see any essential difference betwixt those two words as to the sense of my letter, the true meaning of which was only to let your Majesty know, with that faithfulness and concern which I ever had for your service, that it was not possible for you to carry on your government much longer with so much partiality to one sort of men, though they lose no occasion of disserving you, and of showing the greatest inveteracy against my Lord Marlborough and my Lord Treasurer; and so much discouragement to others, who, even after great disobligations, have taken several opportunities to show their firmness to your Majesty’s interest, and their zeal to support you.”
She proceeded to point out to the Queen, that if the Lord Treasurer and Marlborough found it impossible to carry on the government, and were to retire from it, her Majesty would find herself in the hands of a very violent party, who, she declared, would have “very little mercy,” or “even humanity,” for her Majesty.
The result proved the truth of this prediction; and when, some years afterwards, the Queen, harassed and intimidated by turns, sank underthe pressure, not of public business, but of party rancour, the value and good sense of the Duchess’s warnings became manifest.
“Whereas,” adds the plain-spoken favourite, “you might prevent all these misfortunes by giving my Lord Treasurer and my Lord Marlborough (whom you may so safely trust) leave to propose those things to you which they know and can judge to be absolutely necessary for your service, which will put it in their power to influence those who have given you proofs both of their being able to serve you, and of their desiring to make you great and happy. But rather than your Majesty will employ a party-man, as you are pleased to call Lord Sunderland, you will put all things in confusion; and at the same time that you say this, you employ Sir C. Hedges, who is against you, only that he has voted in remarkable things, that he might keep his place; and he did so in the last King’s time, till at last, when everybody saw that he was dying, and he could lose nothing by differing with that court; but formerly he voted with those men, the enemies to the government, called Whigs; and if he had not been a party-man, how could he have been a secretary of state, when all your councils were influenced by my Lord Rochester, Lord Nott, Sir Edward Seymour, and about six orseven just such men, that call themselvesthe heroes of the church?”
The anathemas of the Duchess were not without effect. Sir Charles Hedges, dismayed at the vigorous opposition set up against him, deemed it, eventually, more prudent to retire, than to be turned out of his post; and, in the winter of 1706, Lord Sunderland was appointed to succeed him.[71]
Queen Anne had now thrown herself, to all appearance, wholly into the hands of the Whig party, who, from her childhood, had appeared to her to be her natural enemies. Yet still she cherished a secret partiality to her early counsellors, and exhibited a reluctance to consult with her ministers on any promotions in the church.
“The first artifice of those counsellors was,” says the Duchess,[72]“to instil into the Queen notions of thehigh prerogativeofacting without her ministers, and, as they expressed it, of being Queenindeed. And the nomination of persons to bishoprics, against the judgment andremonstrancesof her ministers, being what they knew her genius would fall in with more readily than with anything else they could propose, they began with that; and they took care that thoseremonstrancesshould be interpreted by the world,and presented by herself, as hard usage, a denial of common civility, and eventhe making her noQueen.” Such is the account given by this violent partisan of the secret power by which her friends were finally vanquished.
To operate on her Majesty’s fears, and to gain popularity among a numerous portion of the people who deemed the Whigs inimical to the church establishment, an outcry was raised that the church was in danger. Marlborough and Godolphin were regarded as deserters from the great cause, and the press was employed in attacking the low church party, in terms both unscrupulous and indelicate.
That celebrated libel, entitled, “The Memorial of the Church of England,” the author of which has been already specified, was published at this critical juncture; “a doleful piece,” as the Duchess calls it, “penned by some of the zealots of the party.” This was among the first and most scurrilous efforts of those who hoped by invective and slander to produce a deep impression on the public mind. It was dedicated to the Duke of Marlborough, as being considered still the strength of a party which he had not explicitly renounced: and was forwarded to him in the midst of his campaign on the Ische. To his great mind the aspersions of the anonymousparty were too contemptible to merit a moment’s serious indignation. The vehemence of passionate indignation is, on such occasions, the ebullition of minds of an inferior stamp. The injustice and invective which scarcely drew forth an angry exclamation from Marlborough, produced a feverish heat in the warm temperament of the Duchess.
“In this camp,” writes the Duke to Lord Godolphin, his bosom friend and confidant,[73]“I have had time to read the pamphlet called ‘The Memorial of the Church of England.’ I think it the most impudent and scurrilous thing I ever read. If the author can be found, I do not doubt but he will be punished; for if such liberties may be taken, of writing scandalous lies without being punished, no government can stand long. Notwithstanding what I have said, I cannot forbear laughing when I think they would have you and I pass for fanatics, and the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Jersey for pillars of the church; the one being a Roman Catholic in King James’s reign, and the other would have been a Quaker, or any other religion that would have pleased the late King.”
To the Duchess he calmly writes:—
“Tirlemont, Sept. 7.
“Tirlemont, Sept. 7.
“Tirlemont, Sept. 7.
“Tirlemont, Sept. 7.
“I received last night a letter from you without date, by which I see there is another scurrilous pamphlet come out. The best way of putting an end to that villany is not to appear concerned. The best of men and women, in all ages, have been ill used. If we can be so happy as to behave ourselves so as to have no reason to reproach ourselves, we may then despise what rage and faction do.”
This wise and dignified mode of receiving attacks to which eminent individuals have in every age been exposed, was succeeded by the exposure and punishment of the scurrilous writer.
Of that event, with its painful circumstances, a detailed account has already been given in the preceding volume.