Campaign of 1695—Capture of Namur by the allies—Dissolution of Parliament—William's "progress"—The elections—New Parliament—Grants to Portland—The Assassination Plot—Campaign of 1696—Fenwick's conspiracy—Negotiations with France—Peace of Ryswick.
Campaign of 1695—Capture of Namur by the allies—Dissolution of Parliament—William's "progress"—The elections—New Parliament—Grants to Portland—The Assassination Plot—Campaign of 1696—Fenwick's conspiracy—Negotiations with France—Peace of Ryswick.
For some weeks after the death of Mary William's grief for her loss disabled him from the discharge of public duties. He desisted from the personal delivery of his answers to addresses from the two Houses, and though important domestic events—such as the disgrace and dismissal of Sir John Trevor, the Speaker of the House of Commons, for corruption, and the proceedings preliminary to the contemplated impeachment of Danby, now Duke of Leeds, for the same offence—took place before the prorogation, the King does not appear to have actively interested himself in them, either on one side or the other. Leeds, though he escaped the impeachment with which he was threatened, stood morally convicted of the charges preferred against him; but William still allowed this useful and experienced, if unscrupulous public servant to remain at the head of the Council. The only mark of royal displeasure with which he was visited was his exclusion from the list of lords-justices appointedaccording to custom to execute the royal authority during the King's absence on the Continent.
On the 3d of May Parliament was prorogued, and on the 12th of the same month William set out for Flanders to take command of the allied army for what was destined to be the most successful of his campaigns. Luxembourg was dead, and the command of the French army in the Netherlands had devolved on a far inferior general in the person of Marshal Villeroy. William was now matched against a general to whom he was as much superior as Luxembourg had been to him, and this reversal of conditions told speedily and signally on the fortunes of the year's campaign. The prime object of William's operations was the retrieval of the disastrous loss which the allies had suffered in 1692 by the fall of Namur. On the recapture of this important fortress he now bent his whole energies. His first movement, however, was an unsuccessful one. Athlone, who had been detached with a large force to invest the city, was unable to prevent Boufflers from throwing himself into it with a strong reinforcement. The garrison now numbered 14,000 or 15,000 men, and as its works had been planned by Vauban, the greatest military engineer of his age, its defenders reckoned it impregnable. Leaving the main body of his army under the Prince of Vaudemont, who, when pressed by Villeroy, succeeded in skilfully retiring to Ghent, William, at the head of a division, effected a junction with the forces of the Elector of Bavaria and the Brandenburg contingent, and marching to Namur proceeded rapidly to invest it. Its siege was then vigorously prosecuted. Cohorn, the pupil of Vauban, and next to him in scientificreputation, was the engineer of the allies, and, thus pitted against his master, had every incitement to the exertion of his utmost skill. The trenches were opened on the 2d of July, and on the 8th the outworks of one side of the city were attacked and carried by an English force. This was the occasion on which William is reported to have exclaimed, laying his hand on the shoulder of the Elector of Bavaria, "Look, look at my brave English!" The soldier in him was far nearer to them than the statesman, and amid the smoke and tumult of that Flemish battlefield he was doubtless stirred by emotions towards his subjects which at Kensington or Westminster he had never known. On the 17th of the month, after a fierce conflict in which the attacking forces were thrice beaten back and thrice returned to the assault, the first counterscarp of the town was carried. On the 20th the Bavarians and Brandenburgers captured another portion of the outworks, and a few days later the English and Dutch made themselves masters of the second line of fortifications. Before, however, a general assault could be ordered, Boufflers, who did not consider himself strong enough to defend the town, surrendered it on terms of being allowed to retire into the citadel, for the possession of which, in its turn, an obstinate struggle began. Villeroy, now before Brussels, endeavoured in vain by a furious and destructive bombardment of that city to compel the allies to raise the siege of the Namur citadel, and Boufflers, in his last stronghold, soon found himself exposed to so terrible a fire from one hundred and sixty cannon and sixty mortars that, unless relief reached him, he felt that capitulation could only be a question of days. At this desperate juncture Villeroy advanced tohis assistance, and on the 15th of August his army, 80,000 strong, was sighted by the defenders of Namur. The siege of the citadel was not for a moment intermitted; the allies stood between the fortress they were seeking to capture and the host which was marching to relieve it, equally prepared to strike at both. For three days the two armies confronted each other—three days of such anxiety as Europe had not known since the beginning of the war. Everything seemed to portend a conflict between the two great hosts—as decisive and even epoch-making a struggle as that which, after the lapse of a century and a quarter, was to be fought out on that now historic plain which the French general had skirted on his way from Brussels. But the event surprised every one and disappointed many. On the night of the 18th Villeroy unaccountably withdrew his army, and the fate of the fortress was sealed. Portland was sent to demand its surrender, but Boufflers, oppressed by the tradition that no French marshal had ever capitulated, refused to do so, and the next day, after the bloodiest assault which the history of that time records, the allies succeeded in capturing about a mile of the prodigious outworks of the citadel. Boufflers requested a truce of forty-eight hours to bury his dead, which was allowed him; and before the expiration of the time he signified his willingness to capitulate within ten days. He was informed by the Elector of Bavaria on behalf of the allies that he must surrender immediately or prepare for an immediate renewal of the attack; and thus resolutely met he yielded. On the 26th of August the garrison marched out with the honours of war, and the greatest humiliation inflicted upon theFrench king since the commencement of his career of conquest was with much pomp and circumstance consummated. Villeroy and his useless army had already retired to Mons.
The capture of Namur was the greatest event of the year, and indeed of the campaign. It marked the turn of the tide in Louis's fortunes. From 1690 onwards it had set steadily in its favour, and reached full flood on the day of Landen, in 1693. The following year may be fairly taken as representing the half-hour of slack water before the ebb begins; but in 1695 it was plain to every one that the tide was running out. No other victory was needed to demonstrate it after that of Namur, and none in fact was won. In the autumn hostilities as usual ceased, and on the 10th of October William, leaving his army in winter quarters, returned to England to be received with a too rare warmth of welcome by his people. He seized the opportunity of this burst of popular sunshine to dissolve Parliament, which had still under the Triennial Act another year of life to run. It has been suggested that he did so to put a stop to the impeachment of Leeds, but though the proceeding against the Minister to whom he owed not only his marriage with Mary, but in a great measure his elevation to the English throne, must doubtless have given him uneasiness, he had reason enough apart from this for determining the life of the Legislature. "The happy state the nation was in," says Burnet, "put all men except the merchants in a good temper; none could be sure we should be in so good a state next year; so that now probably elections would fall on men who were well affected to the Government. A Parliament that saw itselfin its last session might affect to be froward, the members by such a behaviour hoping to recommend themselves at the next election." And though Burnet only glances at the State prosecutions as one among the causes which decided William's action, it was with no special reference to the case of Leeds. "Besides," are his words, "if the same Parliament had been continued probably the inquiries into corruption would have been carried on which might divert them from more pressing affairs, and kindle greater heats, all which might be more decently dropped by a new Parliament than suffered to lie asleep by the old one."
A proclamation was accordingly issued dissolving the existing Parliament, and summoning a new one for the 22d of November. The interval was employed by William in an unwonted effort to conciliate the goodwill of the electors. For the first and only time in his reign he set out upon a royal progress through the eastern and northern parts of his kingdom, visiting many great houses, not only of Whig, but in some cases of Tory magnates. At each of his stopping-places the rural population of all degrees from squire to peasant thronged to see him, and it seems evident that he made almost pathetic efforts to please. "The King," says Burnet, who is always an outspoken critic of his royal master, "studied to constrain himself to a little more openness and affability than was natural to him; but his cold and dry way had too deep a root not to return too oft upon him." Neither at Cambridge in his journey northward, nor at Oxford, which he took on his return, was his visit a success. The chiefs of the younger University invited him to no entertainment; he declinedthat which was offered him by the authorities of the elder. People murmured, too, at his visit to Althorp, and some remarked, no doubt with less truth than ill-nature, that the only place in which he really succeeded in making himself agreeable was at the seat of the highly unpopular Sunderland. Nevertheless, and however little these conciliatory efforts may have contributed to the result, the elections went generally in William's favour. In many constituencies Tories lost their seats, and were replaced by Whigs. The city of London, which had returned four of the former party, now sent to Parliament four of the latter. Members were in some places expressly instructed by their constituents to support the King, and to vote whatever supplies might be necessary for the vigorous prosecution of the war. The new Parliament contained about one hundred and sixty members, of whom the greater number were known to be well disposed towards the King. William had triumphantly performed a feat which, as attempted by the advisers of the sovereign, has perhaps more often been attended with disaster than with success.
On the 22d of November, the day appointed, the new Parliament met. The Commons again chose Foley for their Speaker, and the King made a long speech from the throne. The demand for supplies was still very high, but William said that as he had engaged in the present war by the advice of his first Parliament, who thought it necessary for the defence of the Protestant religion and the preservation of the liberties of Europe, and as the last Parliament had with great cheerfulness assisted him to carry on the war, so he could not doubt but that the present Parliament would be unanimously zealous in theprosecution of it, particularly since the advantages gained that year afforded a reasonable hope of future success. The Commons voted an address of thanks and congratulation upon the success of his Majesty's arms abroad, and pledged themselves to the prosecution of the war. William returned a short but suitable answer, and the business of the session began. The Legislature set to work to effect a much-needed purification of the coinage, and as the Lords had made a concession to the Commons in respect of the measure which became necessary for this purpose, the Lower House now assented to the often rejected amendment introduced by the Upper House in the Bill for regulating trials in cases of high treason, which now at last became law. But the session was not to proceed far without giving birth to an unfortunate difference between Parliament and the King. William, with that ill-judged profuseness of liberality towards his Dutch adherents, by which he compromised not only contemporary popularity but posthumous reputation, proposed to grant to Portland a magnificent estate consisting of five very extensive manors in Denbighshire. The people of the county forthwith set up the cry that the King intended to make this foreigner Prince of Wales, so far at least as he could do so by bestowing on him all that the Crown had to give in the principality. The local gentry petitioned against the grant, and an address was voted requesting the King to stop it. "Portland," says Macaulay, "begged that he might not be the cause of a dispute between his master and the Parliament, and the King, though much mortified, yielded to the general wish of the nation." It would have been better, however, if the historian had in this place addedthat William forthwith made a fresh grant to the Earl of Portland of the manors of Grantham, Dracklow, Pevensey, and East Greenwich, in the counties of Lincoln, Cheshire, Sussex, and Kent, together with the honour of Penrith in the county of Cumberland, and other manors in Norfolk, York, and the Duchy of Lancaster. As these ancient crown-lands were far apart it could not now be said that the King was creating a principality for the favourite, but it removed no other of the serious objections to the grant.
Again, however, and as before, at a moment when the seldom very bright sky of William's popularity threatened to become seriously overcast, the sympathies of his people were revived by his enemies. The most formidable of the conspiracies against the King's life, that knownpar excellenceas the Assassination Plot, was set on foot, or rather revived, as the renewal of a project which had been frustrated several months earlier by the departure of William for the Continent—in the autumn of 1695; and by the spring of the following year was ripe for execution. Its leading spirit was one Sir George Barclay, a Scotchman, who came over from St. Germains with a special commission from James, which if it did not actually contemplate, or at least expressly sanction assassination, was, to say the least, of a dangerously elastic character. Among those whom he enlisted in the conspiracy were one Charnock, an ex-fellow of Magdalen College, who had been a tool of James II. in his high-handed violation of the statutes and liberties of that society, Sir John Fenwick, a man of good family and connections and a noted Jacobite agitator, and Sir William Parkyns, a Tory. The plan of the conspirators was to lie in waitfor William at a ferry on the Thames, which he was in the habit of crossing every Saturday on his way from Kensington to hunt in Richmond Park. To overpower the royal guards it was necessary to raise the number of the conspirators to forty, among whom it was tolerably certain that there would be at least one traitor. As a matter of fact there were three. The secret was communicated by one of these to Portland; the King, at first disposed to make light of it, consented at last to abandon his hunting expedition on the Saturday fixed for the assassination, and again on the same day in the following week; and the principal conspirators were arrested. Barclay escaped to France, and the Duke of Berwick, who had at the same time been vainly attempting to prepare the way for a French invasion by a Jacobite insurrection, also fled the country. William, in a speech from the throne, made a formal announcement to the two Houses of the detection of the conspiracy and his providential escape; and shortly afterwards several of the conspirators, including Charnock and Parkyns, were tried and executed.
That the discovery of the Assassination Plot tended, as Macaulay holds, to revive the popularity of William may perhaps have been the case; it is at any rate certain that on the occasion of the next difference between the King and the Legislature he proved to be fully master of the situation. The growing jealousy entertained by the landed interest towards the wealthy traders, who were now in ever-increasing numbers disputing the representation of the counties and provincial boroughs with the squirearchy, gave birth during the present session to a project of legislation of a highlyreactionary kind. A Bill was brought in for excluding from the House of Commons every one not possessed of a certain estate in land. For a county member this property qualification was fixed at five hundred a year, for a borough member at two hundred. Early in February the Bill was read a second time, and referred to a select committee, whose deliberations are rendered memorable by the fact that an attempt was made in the course of them to antedate an existing provision of an electoral system by about a century and a quarter. It was proposed to add a clause enacting that votes should be taken by ballot, but the proposition was rejected without a division. Duly revised by the committee the Bill was returned to the House, and it then became apparent that the pretensions of the landed interest were to meet with resistance from an unexpected quarter. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge raised their voices against a restriction which struck at individual ability no less than at personal property, and in deference to their protest a motion was made to except the Universities from the operation of the Bill. This, however, was rejected by 151 votes to 143, and a motion subsequently made to except the city of London was not pressed to a division. The Lords, from disinclination, let us charitably hope, to embroil themselves with the elective House on a matter of electoral legislation, passed the Bill without any amendment, and it came up in due course for the royal assent. It was perhaps the least invidious of all the opportunities ever offered to William for the exercise of the veto, and he very wisely resolved to stop the Bill. In spite, however, of the obviously disinterested character of the step—the measure beingone which touched no royal prerogative whatever, and which he could have no reason for vetoing save that he believed its provisions to be opposed to the true interests of the country—his action did not escape challenge. An attempt was made by a section of the Tory party to carry a vote of censure upon whatever Minister had advised him to refuse assent to the Bill. The proposal, however, was not taken up by the more moderate members of the Opposition, and was ultimately rejected by the very large majority of 219 to 70—a sufficiently emphatic affirmation of the legitimate character of at least this exercise of the prerogative of disallowance. It is of course not impossible, as has been already admitted, that the recent revulsion of goodwill towards the King may have contributed to the completeness of this victory, but it seems scarcely necessary to ascribe much to the operation of any such sentiment. It is pretty clear that the Bill for the Regulation of Elections was very doubtfully regarded in many quarters of the House; and it is indeed rather surprising that in a Parliament such as that returned in 1695, with Whig influence in a distinct ascendency, it should have been possible to carry the Bill at all. It must, moreover, be remembered that even if there had been a more pronounced liking for it in Parliament itself, the measure was essentially one of that character for which a shrewd member will not venture to vote except with one eye on his constituents. Natural as it was for a country gentleman of that day to object to a Londoner coming down with a valise full of guineas to contest with him his native county or his ancestral borough, it is not to be supposed that his objection would be shared by thefree and independent electors of either constituency. To them it might appear by no means undesirable that "local interest" should be stimulated to judicious liberality by the competition of the open-handed outsider.
On the 27th of April the first session of the new Parliament came to an end, and a fortnight after the prorogation William landed in Holland, whence he immediately set out to resume the command of the allied forces in Flanders. His presence, however, was needed rather for purposes of counsel than command; for, in truth, the long and desperate struggle with Louis had now reached a stage when even the most enterprising of captains might well be of opinion that Q. Fabius was the only general whose tactics were worth studying. At one time it had almost become a question which of the combatants would be the first to swoon from exhaustion; but before William's arrival the skilful surprise and destruction by Athlone and Cohorn of a vast magazine of ammunition and stores, collected by the French at Groet, had virtually decided that question against France. England, then in the throes of a monetary crisis, was sufficiently hard put to it to support the continued strain of the campaign; but upon France, with three armies afoot in three hostile countries at once, the demand was far more terrible. She was virtually too weak to attack in the Netherlands, and William probably saw no advantage to himself in forcing an engagement. The summer passed away in marches and counter-marches, and not a blow was exchanged between Villeroy and the strategist who had plucked Namur out of his grasp the year before. On the Rhine operations were equally bloodless and indecisive. In Catalonia there had beensome hard fighting, and Vendome, who had succeeded Noailles, won a dearly-bought victory over the Spaniards. Throughout the year, indeed, the pen was more busy than the sword, and the straits in which Louis found himself may be measured by the energy of his efforts to detach the allies from each other. The wavering Duke of Savoy was at last definitively won over, his seduction, it is said, being finally effected by assurances secretly transmitted to Turin from the Court of Versailles to the effect that James would inevitably be restored to his throne in consequence of the extraordinary measures then being concerted for that purpose. The Duke, upon this, went on pretence of pilgrimage to Loretto, and there signed a secret treaty with France. Suspicion of his fidelity, however, soon gained ground, and in the course of the summer he threw off the mask and declared his intention, in accordance with a clause in the secret treaty, of establishing a neutrality over all Italy. To this, of course, the Emperor and the Kings of Spain and England refused to assent; but the Duke compelled them to submission by an invasion of Milan, and all Italian resistance to the French power was brought to an end. Louis at the same time made separate overtures of peace to the Dutch, and with such success that the States-General formally resolved that the concessions of France afforded good ground for a treaty. The terms were communicated to the other members of the confederacy, by some of the weaker of whom they were accepted, although the Emperor and the King of Spain united in rejecting them.
While matters were in this condition William returned to England for the parliamentary session, andin his speech on the 20th of October to the two Houses he informed them that overtures of peace had been made by the enemy. But the language in which he referred to them left no doubt of his own views. "I am sure," he said, "we shall agree in opinion that the only way of treating with France is with our swords in our hands." This is not a method of treating with foreign Powers which finds equal favour in our own day; but in 1696 there was no great difference among English parties as to the proper mode of negotiating, at any rate with Louis XIV. The House of Commons was as sternly distrustful of the French king as was William himself. Protracted and burdensome as had been the struggle, they were in no more hurry to catch at Louis's overtures than he. In their address of reply the Commons recalled the fact that this was the eighth year that they had assisted his Majesty with large supplies for carrying on a just and necessary war, and that this war had cost the nation much blood as well as treasure; but they added that the benefits procured to religion and liberty were not dearly purchased at this price, and they pledged themselves to provide not only the necessary supplies for continuing the war with vigour, but also for the payment of the public debt, which had been gradually accumulating in consequence of the deficiencies of revenue. The close of this session was marked by vehement debates in both Houses on the Bill for the attainder of Sir John Fenwick. Fenwick, who had been arrested in the previous summer, and was now lying in the Tower, endeavoured to save his life by making a confession incriminating Marlborough, Godolphin, Russell, Shrewsbury, and other Lords, whom heindicated as holding communications with the exiled king. William, however, who had long been well aware of the treason of most of these accused servants of his, declined to notice the charges, and the accuser only sealed his own doom by making them. A Bill of Attainder was brought in against him by the Whigs, and, the insufficient evidence in support of it having by a straining of the law of treason been voted sufficient, passed both Houses after a series of hot debates in which neither political party showed to great advantage, and Fenwick was executed.
Early in 1697 the long struggle between France and the allies showed signs of drawing to a close. Louis had expressed his willingness to surrender the conquests made in the war, to restore Lorraine and Luxembourg to their lawful owners, and to recognise William as King of England. To these terms William and the States-General were ready enough to assent; Spain, however, and the Emperor, raised objections; the latter, as is suggested, on account of his desire to keep up the war until the death of the ailing Spanish king, so that his own pretensions to the crown of Spain might have the support of the allied army against those of the French rival in the succession. Difficulties were accordingly raised to delay the meeting by a Congress. The Emperor proposed Aix-la-Chapelle as its place of meeting, and objected to the French alternative proposal of the Hague. It was, however, finally agreed that the representation of the allies should assemble at the Hague, while those of France took up their quarters at Delft, a few miles off; and that meetings between the two sets of negotiators should take place at Ryswick, anintermediate village, in a palace belonging to the Princes of Orange. Here accordingly they met on the 9th of May 1697, England being represented by Pembroke and Villiers, with the poet Matthew Prior as their secretary, and France by Messieurs Harley, Crecy, and Caillieres. Kaunitz and De Quiros were the respective plenipotentiaries of the Empire and Spain. A Swedish minister acted as mediator. Like other famous Congresses before and since, however, the Congress of Ryswick made little progress; and after it had been many weeks in session with no visible result, William resolved to open negotiations directly with Louis through one of his generals commanding in the Netherlands. He selected Boufflers as the most eligible for his purpose, and Portland was directed to solicit a short interview. Leave to comply with this request was immediately asked and obtained from the French king, and several conferences took place between the two, resulting, in less time than the Congress had taken to exchange powers and settle formalities of precedence and procedure, in the settlement of the basis of a treaty. Portland's commission was couched in highly authoritative terms, and Marshal Boufflers's report of them shows most strikingly how commanding an influence William then exercised in Europe, and what lofty language one of the least assuming of men regarded it as entitling him to use. In the French Marshal's account of his first interview with Portland he recites an assurance conveyed to him by the latter on the part of England, "that if satisfaction be given him on points which concern him (the Prince of Orange) personally, he will oblige the Emperor and the Spaniards to make peace; being satisfied forhimself, as well as the States-General, with the offers which your Majesty has made in the preliminaries, and that if the Emperor and the Spaniards persist in refusing to make peace, he will conclude it without them together with the Dutch."[16]
The required satisfaction, however, was not obtained without some difficulty. On William's side two stipulations were made, to which Louis hesitated to assent; and neither these nor the two counter demands advanced by the French king were ultimately assented to in the form in which they were originally proposed. William required first that in the peace which was to be concluded, and by which Louis was to consent to recognise him King of England, the French king should "promise and engage not to favour, directly or indirectly, King James against him." The French plenipotentiaries at the Hague had already assented to their master engaging himself not to favour directly or indirectly "the enemies of the Prince of Orange, acknowledged King of England." William, however, desired that James should be designated by name. "It is absolutely necessary," writes Boufflers, reporting Portland's words to Louis, "for the security of the Prince of Orange, that your Majesty should engageexpresslynot to favour directly or indirectly King Jamesnominatim; and" (this was the second point of contention) "that he shall go and reside at Rome or elsewhere out of France, provided he be not near enough to keep up any party in England." Boufflers added that though the first demand might be waived if Louis had any reluctance to mention James by name, and that "other equivalentterms" might be found to give the Prince of Orange the securities he desires, yet that it was indispensable in order to remove all suspicion that the exiled king should reside out of France.
To both of these stipulations Louis demurred. It was inconsistent, he held, with his honour as a sovereign, and with his duties as a host and kinsman, to name "the King of England" in the treaty and to engage to cause him to quit France; but he offered to agree "not to assist directly or indirectly the enemies of the Prince of Orange without any exception"; and Boufflers was directed to point out that the last three words would exclude all suspicion of a restriction in favour of any person whatsoever, and in fact amount to a virtual designation of James. Upon this a further clause was engrafted by William, engaging Louis "not to favour in any manner whatsoever the cabals, secret intrigues, factions, and rebellions which might occur in England, nor any person or persons who should excite or foment them," and to this Louis, after modifying the expression "person or persons" which he regarded apparently as the equivalent of "James or James's adherents," consented. An attempt was made by William to obtain an assurance that after peace was concluded James would be "induced to resolve of his own accord" to live out of France; but Louis declined to yield even thus far, and the point was waived. William perhaps believed that he could the better afford to do so, as he proposed to make his acceptance of one of Louis's two stipulations dependent upon his obtaining practical satisfaction on this head. To the demand for the pension of £50,000, to which Mary of Modena was alleged to be entitled,William had signified his willingness to allow her any sum to which she could show lawful claim, but it seems pretty clear that he had resolved to qualify this promise by the condition that she and her husband should quit St. Germains. The other demand of Louis—too arrogant to have been seriously urged, and in all probability only put forward in formal fulfilment of a promise—was that a general amnesty should be granted to all those who had followed the fortunes of James, and further, that they should be restored to their forfeited estates. To this last modest request William replied that it was not in his power to grant it since the reversal of attainder was a matter of statute and not of prerogative; to the former he replied with proper spirit that "as for the general amnesty, besides that his honour and glory demand that he shall not be forced to it by a treaty of peace, the safety of his own person requires him not to recall individuals to England whom he knows to be his personal enemies; but that as soon as he shall be acknowledged King of England, and in undisturbed possession by the treaty of peace, he will readily, of his own free will, pardon those who seem to him disposed to return with good faith and to live in quietness, behaving as good and loyal subjects." The demand was of course immediately waived, and the two Powers being now in accord, it now only remained to bring the rest of the allies into the agreement. This, however, was not to be done in a moment. Both Austria and Spain held back, and while they were hesitating new successes of the French arms brought about an enhancement of the French terms. Barcelona fell before one of Louis's armies, and the South American Cartagena before a squadron of his fleet. Upon this hisplenipotentiaries were instructed to announce that he intended to keep Strasburg, and that unless his terms, thus modified, were accepted by the 10th of September he should hold himself at liberty to modify them yet further. The combined influence of the reverse and the menace, assisted by the steady pressure of William's determination, at length produced the desired effect. At daybreak on the 11th of September (1697), after a night spent in debate as to the order of procedure, the Treaty of Ryswick was at last signed as between France and Spain, France and the United Provinces, and France and England—the Emperor being allowed till the 1st of November to signify his adhesion. Two days later the news was known in England, and was there received with universal rejoicings. William, however, regarded it with no unmixed satisfaction. "I received last night," he writes to the Pensionary, Heinsius, "your letter of the preceding day, and your letter of yesterday has been delivered to me to-day by Lord Villiers. May God be pleased to bless the peace which has just been concluded, and long continue it by His grace. Yet I confess that the manner in which it has been concluded inspires me with some apprehensions for the future."
[16]Grimblot'sLetters of William III., etc., i. 8.
[16]Grimblot'sLetters of William III., etc., i. 8.
Portland's embassy—His life in Paris—The question of the Spanish Succession—The First Partition Treaty—General election and meeting of the new Parliament—Its temper—Opposition to William's military policy—Reduction of the army.
Portland's embassy—His life in Paris—The question of the Spanish Succession—The First Partition Treaty—General election and meeting of the new Parliament—Its temper—Opposition to William's military policy—Reduction of the army.
One of William's first steps after the conclusion of the peace was to appoint a strong ambassador to Versailles. Portland was selected, partly, as it is said, in consequence of his jealousy of the growing ascendency of his youthful rival Keppel in the favour of William, but much more, one may suppose, because of his force of character and intimate acquaintance with European politics. The Ambassador Extraordinary was intended, as he understood his mission, to hold his head high at the Court of Louis, and he undoubtedly did so. His retinue and equipage was of remarkable splendour, and his bearing, especially towards those who showed any sign of disputing his just pretensions, was marked by an unflinching dignity.[17]He protested bluntly against the presence ofthe would-be assassins of William at a Court at which he was William's representative. He pressed for the removal of James and his adherents from St. Germains; and on both these matters Louis, while firmly maintaining the position which he had taken up at the Brabant negotiation, showed, nevertheless, unmistakable anxiety to conciliate the resolute ambassador. It was not, however, to deal with points of this kind that Portland had been sent to Versailles. Another matter of the greatest European moment was beginning to press, and it was to endeavour to effect an adjustment of the various conflicting interests involved in it that William had despatched his carefully-selected emissary to the French Court. Charles II., King of Spain and the Indies, and last of the male line of the Emperor Charles V., was known to be near his end, and at his death the whole of his vast empire in the two hemispheres would pass to one or other of two powerful reigning Houses, to neither of which its transfer would be regarded with indifference byEurope at large. The rightful heir of Charles II., if blood alone had had to be considered, was the Dauphin of France, the son of his sister, who had married Louis XIV. With the consent of her husband she had at the time of her marriage renounced for herself and her posterity all pretensions to the Spanish crown, and her renunciation was duly recorded in a European Treaty. Failing this line it would be necessary to go back another generation, and the Emperor Leopold, as the son of Charles's aunt, stood next in succession. His claim was barred by no renunciation; but it was no more likely that Louis would quietly allow him to succeed than that he would submit to the succession of a Bourbon. It was not to the interests of Europe that either House should acquire such an enormous accession of territory and power. To William it appeared at any rate intolerable that the House of Bourbon should do so, and in order to avert this calamity, as he regarded it, he took one of the most keenly canvassed steps of his political life in the negotiation and conclusion of the famous Partition Treaty. There is no likelihood that posterity will ever arrive at accord upon the policy of this famous transaction, but before even attempting to consider the unfavourable criticisms passed upon it, it is absolutely necessary to note one cardinal characteristic of its nature. To William it was avowedly and essentially an expedient adopted, to use Aristotle's expression,κατὰ τὸν δεύτερον πλοῦν. It was never regarded or represented by him as more than the "second-best" thing to be done in a case where the actual best had been rendered impracticable by circumstances beyond his own control. He knew that Louis's moderation in thesettlement of the terms of Ryswick had been merely politic; that its main object was to put an end to the war, and so to break up the forces of a coalition which both he and his rival knew that it would be a hard matter to get together again; and that the peace once concluded, Louis would have it in his power to recruit his military strength, and prepare to take advantage of the almost daily expected death of Charles II. of Spain to carry out his long cherished design upon that kingdom. There were two ways of dealing with this situation, and two only. Either England must be kept under arms, or the King of England must "transact" with the King of France. The former of these two courses was denied him by the jealousy of his English subjects, and he was accordingly forced upon the latter. In writing to the Pensionary Heinsius he deplores the fact that he cannot "remain armed," and declares that little reliance as could be placed upon engagement with France, it was absolutely necessary that such should be concluded; since otherwise, he writes, "I do not see a possibility of preventing France from putting herself in immediate possession of the monarchy of Spain in case the King should happen to die soon." Obviously, therefore, it would be unfair to judge of the First Partition Treaty as though the arrangement of it had been deliberately selected by William from a variety of more or less eligible expedients. The only mode in which it can be logically or reasonably attacked is by contending either that the object of the Treaty, the exclusion of the grandson of Louis from the throne of Spain, was not a political end of such importance as to be worth bargaining for at all, or else that the particularbargain to which William agreed was in itself an improvident one.
So much premised, let us proceed to examine the provisions of this memorable instrument. Roughly speaking they would have effected a division of the heritage of the Spanish king between the Electoral Prince of Bavaria and the Dauphin of France. The former was to have the kingdom of Spain, the Spanish Netherlands, and the Spanish possessions in the New World; to the latter were to pass the two Sicilies and Sardinia, certain places on and off the coast of Tuscany, and the Cis-Pyrenæan portion of the Province of Guipuzcoa. Milan was to go to the Archduke Charles, the second son of the Emperor Leopold. Such was the arrangement, and whether its terms were to be deemed good or bad for England, it is at least certain that they were only obtained from the French king after long and obstinate diplomatic haggling, first between Portland, William's Ambassador-Extraordinary at Versailles, and the French Ministers, and afterwards between the Count de Tallard, Louis XIV.'s ambassador to England, and William himself. The French king was extremely anxious to secure the Spanish kingdom for his grandson Philip, Duke of Anjou, and was ready to undertake that the Dauphin and Philip's elder brother should waive their rights, so as to guard against the possibility of the French and Spanish monarchies being united under one sceptre. As to the danger lest a Bourbon, once established at Madrid, might hand over the Spanish Netherlands to the head of the family, Louis was willing to protect England and Holland against that danger by consenting that those provincesshould be ceded to the Elector of Bavaria. William met this proposal, not by a direct negative, but by raising his terms of assent to it. Not only, he insisted, must the Spanish Netherlands pass to the Elector of Bavaria, but Louis must give up some fortified towns on his Flemish frontier, for the better self-protection of the United Provinces, while England was "compensated" on the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Mexico. Louis protested on his own behalf against the former of these proposals, and declared that the Spaniards would never consent to the latter. At last, unable to obtain his way with regard to the elevation of one of his grandsons to the Spanish throne, he assented to the only alternative arrangement which would prevent Spain from passing to his rival the Emperor, and signified his willingness to accept the Electoral Prince of Bavaria as the heir to the Peninsula. The obstinacy with which the points of this treaty were contested may be measured by the fact that the first interview between Pomponne and Portland, in which the matter of the Spanish succession was broached, took place on the 15th of March, and it was not till the 4th of September that the treaty was signed. It cannot therefore be contended that William spared pains to obtain what he considered the best terms from Louis, and having regard to the fact that the King of Spain was not expected to live out the year, it is plain enough that on one assumption—that, namely, of the paramount necessity of preventing the accession of a grandson of Louis to the Spanish throne—the negotiations could not with safety have been protracted much longer. The latter, in short, of the two questions which were propounded at the outset of the examinationmay be said to depend for its answer upon the former. Supposing that the exclusion of the Duke of Anjou or the Duke of Berry from the throne of Spain was a political object worth bargaining for at all, William cannot, I think, be charged with having paid an improvident price for it. Nor does it appear to me reasonably arguable that the object in question was not worth bargaining to obtain. It has been urged by some critics of this transaction that the apprehensions roused in those days at the prospect of a Bourbon prince succeeding to the throne of Charles were exaggerated; that experience has shown the fallacy of supposing that ties of kindred count for much in determining the policy of monarchs, and that it would certainly have been better that the Spanish throne should pass to the descendant of a French king than that the two Sicilies and other points of vantage on the Mediterranean should pass to a future French king himself. But those who so argue rely too much upon general principles and pay too little attention to the facts of the particular case. One might readily admit that ties of kindred count for little in determining the policy of monarchs, and at the same time retain the full conviction that the subsistence of the relation of grandfather and grandson between the then King of France—the man and the circumstances being what they were—and the King of Spain would have been fraught with the most disastrous consequences for all Europe. There could be no serious doubt that the Duke of Anjou or the Duke of Berry would be a mere puppet with his strings pulled from beyond the Pyrenees, and that the whole resources of his kingdom would at once have been drawn upon by Louis to enable him to resume thewar. Had the French crown rested upon another head, or even had there been any probability that the new occupant of the Spanish throne would have time allowed him to outgrow theregni novitasand strike out a policy of his own, the case would have been different. But we must judge of the situation by the light of the facts as they were. It is beside the point to argue that because a grandson of Louis after all succeeded the Spanish king, and after a desolating war for his dethronement continued to reign over Spain, and his children after him, without Europe being "a penny the worse"—it is beside the point, I say, to argue that an arrangement which operated not amiss for Europe from 1712 onwards would have been tolerable in 1698. Philip V. was well enough as a king of Spain, after his grandfather's power had been brought low by a dozen more years of European war, but Philip of Anjou, the nominee and instrument of Louis XIV., at the close of the previous century, would have been a weapon pointed at the breast of free and Protestant Europe. You cannot judge of the strength or keenness of a dagger by merely estimating its power in the grasp of a failing hand.
Doubtless, however, the complaints both contemporary and subsequent of the provisions of the Partition Treaty were to some extent stimulated by the circumstances of its arrangement. It is well known that William, acting as his own Foreign Minister, carried his official independence so far as to conduct the whole of the negotiations with Louis from beginning to end without any reference to, or at least any effective consultation of, a single English Minister. Somers, it is true, had been told before the King's departure for Loo that Lord Portland hadbeen sounded by Louis with reference to an agreement with England concerning the Spanish succession; but it was not till the terms were actually arranged that William wrote to Somers for his opinion upon them, "leaving it to his judgment to whom else he might think it proper to impart them," and adding "if it be fit that this negotiation be carried on there is no time to be lost, and you will send me the full powers under the Great Seal, with the names in blank, to treat with Count Tallard." Portland at the same time communicated directly with Vernon, the then Secretary of State, whose consent was necessary to the imprint of the Great Seal; and Somers himself confided the affair to several other Ministers. But it is clear, not only from Somers's own reply to William, but generally on the face of the whole transaction, that even if the King's English Ministers had been competent to revise the agreement, their suggestions would have come too late. Somers's criticisms, though sensible in themselves, were of the most tentative character; he excuses himself indeed that his thoughts were so ill put together, and pleaded the known effect of the waters at Tunbridge Wells, where he then was, in "discomposing and disturbing the head so as almost totally to disable one from writing"; but in fact he writes with the extreme diffidence natural to the "layman" conscious of his incapacity to advise the expert. The commission of plenipotentiaries was then drawn out by Secretary Vernon with the names left in blank, and the Chancellor requested the Secretary for his warrant before affixing the Great Seal. This, however, Vernon refused to give, and Somers thereupon sealed the powers with his own hand, taking care, however, to keep the King's letter as ajustification or an excuse for the act. That the whole proceeding was unconstitutional, according to the fully developed theory of the constitution, is of course obvious, and it is only a partial and not a complete defence of William's share in it that the theory in question was nothing like so fully developed or so firmly established as it is at the present day. It is all very well to say that "William was his own Foreign Minister,"—a statement which is repeated by Whig writers, as though it sufficed to explain any conceivable irregularity,—but the mere fact of his being unable to complete the legal execution of a treaty without calling in the assistance of a Minister (or rather, as it really should have been, if the Chancellor had not taken upon him to dispense with the Secretary's co-operation, of two Ministers), must have been a sufficient indication to the King of the eventhenconstitutional limits of his prerogative. Theform, in short, was eloquent of thefact. It would have been plainly irrational to suppose that the royal treaty-making power would have been made exercisable only under the authority of an instrument validated by an act which none but a Minister or Ministers could perform, unless it were intended that such Minister or Ministers should be as fully responsible for the doings of the executive in foreign as in domestic affairs. And assuredly it cannot be regarded as more than a colourable recognition of this responsibility to procure the merely mechanical assent of Ministers to the results of an international agreement, in the negotiations for which they have not been permitted to take any part. It seems difficult therefore to contend that William was not in this matterknowinglyover-riding constitutional restrictions, under the conviction probablythat the pressing nature of the emergency, and the danger of delaying the Spanish settlement by deliberations with the English Ministers, sufficiently justified the irregularity.
There was that, too, in Somers's letter which would have confirmed him in the belief that he had done well in agreeing betimes with his adversary. The Chancellor spoke of the "deadness and want of spirit" universally prevailing in the nation. None, he said, were disposed to the thought of entering on a new war; but all seemed to be tired out with taxes, to a degree beyond what was discerned till it appeared upon the occasion of the late elections. And, indeed, the lesson of these elections was too significant to be missed. A great change had passed over the mind of the country since the return of the Parliament of 1695, and the overthrow of the Tory ascendency by an electorate thoroughly roused to a sense of the duty of prosecuting the war, and to that end supporting the war party. In 1698, although the Tory ranks were not very largely recruited, nor those of the non-Ministerial Whigs materially reduced, it is certain that many candidates on both sides had been compelled to pledge themselves to a policy of peace and retrenchment. The new Parliament was opened by the King on the 6th of December, and the temper of the House of Commons was not long in declaring itself. The Ministerial party succeeded in carrying the election of their Speaker, Sir Thomas Littleton, but they were utterly powerless to sustain their master's military policy against the mass of opposition which it had to encounter. A resolution was adopted cutting down the army to 7000 men, "and these to consist of his Majesty'snatural-born subjects." To William, whose Ministers had held out hopes to him that a force of at least 10,000 men would be sanctioned by Parliament, and who personally held that anything less than double that number would be insufficient, a resolution which would not only have inexcusably weakened, in his opinion, the defences of England, but have deprived him even of the services of those Dutch Guards who had fought with such signal bravery for the liberties of that country, caused natural and bitter chagrin. He gave the royal assent to the Bill founded upon this resolution, but he gave it in a speech through the dignified composure of which his grave concern and disappointment perceptibly struggle. A later attempt to save his Dutch Guards, almost pathetic in its character,[18]proved unsuccessful; and, when, in reply to this appeal, the Commons reminded him that he had promised in 1688 to "send all foreign troops that came over with him back again," so narrow and ungenerous an insistence on the strict letter of his pledge must no doubt have added to his mortification.
The occasion of this second attempt was an event to be shortly noticed, which might have been thought likely to dispose the Parliament to a more liberal view of military necessities; and William has been censured by his greatest admirer for not having applied to the House for an increase of the English establishment instead of striving to retain a force of his countrymen.It is not a matter for regret, however, that this mistake, if mistake it was, should have been committed; for it enables us pretty accurately to measure the respective proportions of reason and prejudice in the conduct of Parliament. So far as the motive of the House of Commons in these military retrenchments was a purely economical one—so far even as it implied blindness to those European considerations which our insular position no more absolved us from regarding in 1698 than it does to-day—this motive was, if mistaken, respectable. Even that exaggerated dread of a standing army, which, no doubt, had more to do with the decision of the parliamentary majority than any theory, good, bad, or indifferent, of the probable course of European affairs, would not deserve to be severely judged. But it is difficult to attribute the refusal of the House of Commons to sanction William's retention of his body-guard to any worthier motive than mere jealousy of the foreigner. It was a step as unwise from the political point of view, and in its bearing on the relations of sovereign and subject, as on the moral side it was ungracious. One can well understand that the personal affront involved in it may have been harder for the King to bear than even the rejection of his general military demands. Anyhow there seems no doubt that upon learning the decision of the House in the matter of the army William did seriously contemplate retirement to Holland, after abdicating in favour of the Princess Anne, and that nothing but the firmness of Somers prevented him from carrying his resolution into effect. So at least Somers himself believed; and Somers's knowledge of the royal mind, as well as of the royal character, was distinctly superiorto that of Burnet, who treated the threat of withdrawal as not seriously meant. And when, having schooled himself to submit with dignity and grace to this rebuff, he found himself churlishly denied the slight personal favour which he subsequently requested, his bitterness of feeling was, we may well believe, extreme.[19]The whole incident is one which no Englishman of the present day, whatever his politics, can look back upon without a sense of shame.
William, it may be imagined, was not sorry to put an end to a parliamentary session so fraught with unpleasant incidents. Nor, after the settlement of the military question, was there much more business to be done. Its despatch, however, was attended by one occurrence which deserves notice here as having prepared the way for one of the gravest political conflicts of the reign. Defeated by the manœuvre above referred to in their attack upon the Crown grants, the country party brought their forces to bear upon a position at once more limited and more assailable. They demanded a commission of inquiry into the disposal of the Irish forfeitures, and to insure the accomplishment of their object they resorted to the questionable expedient of "tacking" to a money Bill which they were sending to the Upper House a clause authorising the appointment of seven commissioners to carry out the proposed investigation. To this virtual "ouster" of their jurisdiction over the questionthe Lords very naturally objected. They could not reject the Land Tax Bill, the measure to which this clause had been tacked, without creating national confusion; and rejection without amendment was their only constitutional alternative to accepting it—commissioners' clause, and all. They demurred, but ultimately yielded, under protest; and William, not as it seems without foreboding of future trouble, assented to the Bill with its irrelevant rider.
It was now the month of May, and the Houses, having held uninterrupted session ever since the 1st of January, had fairly earned their recess. On the 4th of the month the King came down to Westminster and bade his Parliament a cold adieu.