History of England, Part III, William and Mary to 1887
Tout, T. F. --Powell, F. York
1898
CHAPTER II: Anne 1702-1714
1. [1] Queen was She was good-natured, true to her friends, sincerely religious, and truly boasted to her parliament She was well liked for her honesty and strong Tory and High Church feelings. But she was dull, obstinate, and narrow-minded, giving herself up altogether to the guidance of some stronger and abler friend. Since they had played together as children, had been quite governed by clever, strong-willed, and handsome , who became the wife of . says , Yet knew that In had married Prince George of Denmark (brother of King Christian V.), who was made Duke of Cumberland, a man but and All their children, to her great grief, died young. | |
2. [2] It was well for England that the new queen was so completely ruled by and his wife, for was the one man in Europe able to carry on the life-work of , and keep together the Grand Alliance. was
; yet, Though badly brought up, and unable to spell, he was a natural orator of the first rank. He was also a far-seeing and wise statesman, and the greatest general of his age, whose daring tactics, rapid movements, and dashing attacks were strongly in contrast to the stiff and slow movements of generals who liked sieges better than battles, and were enslaved by a rigid system of drill. Yet was selfish and ungenerous, betraying friends and country when it paid him to do so, and using men as his tools to get himself on. He was cold-hearted and unfeeling, and greedy of money and place. But he had now bent his great faculties on a great object, and he carried his plans out with wonderful courage, temper, and skill. | |
3. [3] 's death broke up the Whig ministry. began to push forward Tories and High Churchmen both in Church and State. She made a duke, and captain-general of her army. His great friend (whose son married one of his daughters) now became Lord Treasurer, and Nottingham, the strictest of Churchmen, Secretary of State. But and , who really ruled the country, were afraid to go too far or to disgust the Whig supporters of King 's foreign policy. While winning over the clergy by restoring to the Church the tenths and first-fruits, which had belonged to the Crown since (this has been since used to increase poor livings, and is called ), they were afraid to press the , which sought to prevent Dissenters qualifying themselves for office by receiving once in the way the communion in church. Rochester, the leader of the was disgusted at being only Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and threw up his office. Bit by bit the stronger Tories followed his example, and were led by him to opp ose | |
19 | the war, into the conduct of which and threw their whole energy. While won great victories, managed Parliament and got together supplies. The custom of both armies going into winter quarters allowed even to lead his party in Parliament as well as his army in the field. Despairing of the extreme Tories, they sought, like , to rule through a mixed ministry. But they found at last, like , that the Whigs alone would really help them. To get the Whigs on their side, they had to offend the queen and the Church by voting against the Occasional Conformity Bill. In Nottingham joined Rochester in the opposition; but the Whig House of Lords backed up the Government, though it had great difficulties with High-Church and Tory majorities in the Commons. At last, in , made his son-in-law, (son of the old adviser of and ), Secretary of State. was a strong Whig and a friend of the lords of the Junto still shut out from office. But the Tory section of the Cabinet grew angry at being gradually pushed from power, and began to intrigue against . Robert , the Tory Secretary of State, got a place at court for his Tory High-Church cousin, Abigail Hill, now married to a courtier named Masham. Her easy, placid ways soon won her 's favour, especially as the queen was getting quite tired of the Duchess of 's overbearing temper. She now told that the Whigs were secretly plotting against the Church, and made her thoroughly suspicious of her leading ministers. |
[4] Whigs and Tories united in Parliament to attack the composite government. At last and found that they had to choose their side, and went over altogether to the Whigs as the only party zealous for their war policy. They now com- pelled the unwilling queen to turn out (February ). With him , the Secretary at War, and Simon Harcourt, the Attorney-General, left the ministry. Zealous Whigs were put in their places. became President of the Council, Orford First Lord of the Admiralty, and Robert , the most rising of the younger Whigs, was made Secretary at War. From to and kept themselves in power entirely through their old opponents. Foreign policy now really divided Whig and Tory. The Tory ministry had gradually turned into a Whig one. | |
4. [5] finished the negotiations which had almost carried through. On 4th May England, the United Provinces, and the Emperor declared war against France. A whole crowd of lesser states followed these great Powers. The Elector of Brandenburg (Frederick, son of the Great Elector, Frederick William) was bought over to the Coalition by being recognised as King of Prussia. The lesser German states were so much afraid of Louis, that even the sluggish Diet of the Empire declared war. Yet Louis had great resources at his back. He governed the richest, most compact, and in some ways the best ruled state in Europe. The army and fleet of France, with their famous generals and admirals and almost unbroken record of victories, were far larger and better managed than those of any other state. Every patriotic Castilian was deeply incensed at the proposed partition of the Spanish empire, and zealous on Louis's side. For the first time the Spanish Netherlands, with their mighty fortresses, were entirely in Louis's hands; and he could begin the war by attacking the Dutch frontier. Even in Germany the Elector of Bavaria and his brother the Elector of Cologne were French partisans; and in the east the discontented Hungarians and the warlike Turks were their constant allies againstAustria. The Spanish Succession gave Louis practical command of Italy, especially as Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy and Lord of Piedmont, was the father-in-law of his grandson Philip of Spain. But mighty as were the two great coalitions, they did not include the whole of Europe. While the War of the Spanish Succession was waged in southern and central Europe, another great struggle was being fought out in the north and east, where Charles XII., the last of the great Swedish monarchs, and Peter the Great, the first of the great Russian Czars, were engaged in a deadly fight for the supremacy of the Baltic lands, which ended at last by the defeat of Charles at Poltava (), his subsequent captivity in Turkey, and the complete triumph of Russia. | |
The Dutch, more fearful of invasion than in , made commander of their army, but constantly kept him in check by their jealousy and sluggishness. Yet, in , he managed not only to prevent invasion, but to capture Venlo, Liege, and a long line of fortresses on the Meuse, to overwhelm the Elector of Cologne, and to cut off the French from the Lower Rhine. But in Upper Germany the French, with their Bavarian allies, were more successful, | |
21 | and in Italy they seemed so threatening that Savoy, in great alarm, joined the Coalition. Portugal, long closely connected with England, now signed the Methuen Treaty (), and united with the allies. |
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The war was now being fought for very little. Louis's attempt to dictate to Europe had failed, and his power of further aggression was gone. But the allies had equally failed to invade France, or to force upon the unwilling Spaniards, though they had succeeded in breaking up the Spanish power by the capture of the Netherlands and Italy. In was elected the Emperor VI. after the death of his brother Joseph I., who had succeeded Leopold I., their father, in . Friends of the balance of power might argue that his establishment in Spain would be the revival of the empire of , which in its day had been as dangerous to Europe as that of had ever been. But the new emperor's stubborn clinging to his claims combined with the sluggishness and fears of the Dutch to carry on the war, and reject Louis's overtures for peace. In England the continuance of the war now became a mere party question, and the destinies of Europe no longer depended on the armies in the field, but on parliamentary struggles and obscure court intrigues. | |
12. [15] The Whigs still clung to power, but the game was now up. They were rudely exposed by the brilliant band of Tory pamphleteers, including , Prior, and, towering above them all, Jonathan (after Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin), whose and pamphlet on laid bare with fierce ruthlessness the factiousness of the ministry. Against them the rival Whig writers could make little way, though the polished wit of , the vigorous ardour of Steele, and the rough strong invective of were all enlisted on that side. But plain men were now sick of the war; and popular feeling swung round still more strongly when the cry was raised that the Church was in danger through the Whig supremacy. (who had now violently broken with the Duchess of ) was quite led away by this, and the strong High Church feeling in the country was inflamed almost to madness by the violent sermons of Dr. Sacheverell, chaplain of St. Saviour's, Southwark, a rash, hot-headed partisan, who denounced the Toleration Act and upheld the doctrine of non-resistance. At last the Government foolishly impeached Sacheverell for | |
26 [1] | a sermon preached at St. Paul's before a Tory Lord Mayor. The Whig House of Lords voted him guilty, but his only punishment was three years' suspension from preaching, and the burning of his sermons by the hangman. This sentence made the noisy doctor a popular hero, and a most useful electioneering agent for the Tories. Bit by bit the queen plucked up courage to bring back the Tories into office. By November the last of the Whigs were got rid of. The new elections sent back a strong majority of High Church Tories to the House of Commons, eager to upset the policy of their predecessors. |
13. [16] Robert , made Lord High Treasurer and Earl of Oxford in May , was now the chief minister. He was a man
He was a skilful party leader, though a poor speaker, slow, hesitating, timid, and too fond of underhand intrigue. says Dean , But the most attractive of the Tory statesmen was Henry , Secretary of State since September , and created Viscount Bolingbroke in . says Lord Chesterfield, He was a famous man of fashion and letters, a brilliant writer, a philosopher, and a sceptic, besides being one of the greatest party leaders that England has ever seen. But he looked on politics as a mere game, and had little real earnestness and conviction. He laughed at the most cherished beliefs of the party that he hounded on to battle. Still his clear insight and rare knowledge of English character gave him and the popular, national, progressive Toryism which he represented a lasting influence on English politics. Rochester now became President of the Council, and Harcourt Lord Chancellor. | |
14. [17] Thwarted on every side, came home in November , after a fruitless campaign. Grave charges of peculation and fraud were now brought against him and his friends, and twelve Tory peers (one of whom was Abigail Masham's husband) were made all at once to get rid of the friendly Whig majority in the upper house. On 31st December he was turned out of all his offices, A few months later , his only true friend, died. The Jacobite Duke of Ormonde, a well-bred, good-looking, but not very competent soldier, was made commander of the English army, but he withdrew from all active share in the war, while hurried through negotiations for peace. The Tories now showed as much factiousness in ending as the Whigs had shown in refusing to end the war. They threw over their allies, who, without English help, could do very little, and let Louis have more favourable terms than he himself had formerly offered at Gertruydenberg. At last, on 31st March , the was signed, though it was not till that the slow and tenacious emperor brought himself to end the war by the . | |
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15. [18] The Treaty of Utrecht was a great triumph for the Tories. Secure of popular support, they looked forward to a long lease of power. But the great danger before them lay in the weak health of Queen . The Act of Settlement made Sophia, Electress of Hanover, the eldest surviving Protestant daughter of Elizabeth of Bohemia, 's daughter, and the sister of Princes Rupert and Maurice, the next in succession; but she was now over eighty years of age. Her son, | |
28 [1] | George Louis (Elector since ), was a decided enemy of the peace of Utrecht, and known to be friendly to the Whigs. If he became king there was little hope of keeping the Tories in power. was, above all things, a strong party man, and though no believer in divine right, or friend of Popery, preferred a Tory to a Whig king. So he began to prepare the way for bringing back 's half- brother, James, generally called the Chevalier of St. George, or the Pretender. herself was not unwilling, and the High Churchmen were still strongly influenced by their old doctrines of passive obedience and divine right. If James had not been a steadfast Roman Catholic the plan would not have been hard, as the Hanover succession excited no enthusiasm whatever. As it was, many strong Churchmen forgot their Protestantism in their zeal for the Stewart cause. |
Having made up his mind, threw himself with his usual eagerness into his new and treasonable policy, and was actively backed up by Ormonde, Harcourt, Sir William Wyndham, by , the fiery High Church Bishop of Rochester, and by Dean . But the cautious and vacillating could hardly be won over, so fresh intrigues were set on foot to discredit him. | |
Active preparations were now made to upset the Act of Settlement. Strong efforts were made to use the High-Church feeling in the country to get back a king who was not a Churchman. The clergy had already been well rewarded for their great share in the Tory triumph. In the (which fined and disqualified all officials who attended any conventicle, and thus made it useless for dissenters to make themselves eligible for municipal offices by taking the Communion once a year in church) had been carried, Whigs vying with Tories in supporting the bill to disprove the taunt that they were at heart enemies of the Church, and buying thus the support of Nottingham and a little band of discontented Tories, shut out of the ministry. A bill was next passed to build fifty new churches in the rapidly increasing suburbs of London, a much-needed measure, but hardly passed from nothing but pure zeal for religion. Finally the () was carried, which absolutely prevented any dissenter from acting as a schoolmaster or tutor; but this never came into operation. | |
The Whigs were almost in despair, when the elections of sent a new Tory parliament to Westminster. They | |
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tried to bring the Electoral Prince of Hanover (afterwards
) to England, to take his seat in the Lords as
Duke of Cambridge; but this unwise move led only to a
personal quarrel between and the old Electress, who
died shortly after. But the Whigs' best hopes were in the
bad health of the queen and the disunion of the Cabinet. At
last the long smouldering dispute between Oxford and
burst to a flame. On 27th July a fierce
altercation in the sick queen's presence was kept up till two in the
morning, and only ended by 's taking away from Oxford
the White Staff of the Treasurer. Instigated by Lady
Masham, who had now deserted her cousin for ,
now complained that
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16. put Jacobites into the vacant offices, and made ready for a revolution. But never got over the stormy scene of Oxford's dismissal. [19] On 30th July she had a fit of apoplexy, and lay speechless and without hope of recovery. All was now excitement. The Whigs prepared to fight, and the Tories did not know what to do. But the Duke of Shrewsbury, who had begun life as a Whig but now held office with the Tories, was at the last moment seized with scruples. The Cabinet met at Kensington to decide on what course to pursue. Suddenly the Whig Dukes of and Somerset appeared and demanded admission as Privy Councillors. The law knew nothing of Cabinet Councils, and it could only be as Privy Councillors that the ministers had met together. Shrewsbury, by previous arrangement, backed up their claims; and they in return urged his appointment as Treasurer. The White Staff was at once put into his hands by the half-unconscious and dying queen. The three dukes now took everything upon themselves, and prepared to secure the Protestant succession. The baffled conspirators were quite overpowered when, disregarding the Cabinet, the dukes got special summonses to the Council for all the Privy Councillors, mostly Whigs, living in London. On 1st August Queen died, and, though some desperate men were for proclaiming the Pretender, the risk was too great. moaned ,
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17. [20] The reign of Queen witnessed the Union between England and Scotland. The stormy history of Scotland in the years succeeding the Revolution of showed clearly that some great change was required. There had been much bad blood between England and Scotland during the time that the Stewart kings had frankly sought to make Scotland depend upon England. But much worse feelings grew up after the Revolution left Scotland a small free state bound to a greater and richer one by no other tie than subjection to a common sovereign. Scots now found that they were shut off from all the sources of wealth which were making England the greatest commercial country of the world. The failure had shown that Scotland, as the weaker power, would be obliged, in really essential matters, to follow the lead of England. The result was the bitterest ill-will between the two nations. Wise men, like , saw that separation or fuller union were now the only ways out of the deadlock. But if pressed for a union, the new which now grew up in Scotland, would be satisfied with nothing less than complete separation. This party centred round the Club, and had for its leader Andrew Fletcher of Salton, in East Lothian, an aristocratic republican, like the old Commonwealth's men. He was and who Largely through his influence the negotiations for union which, through 's influence, had begun in , came to an end in . | |
In the Scottish Parliament (still bitterly mortified by the failure) met under the Duke of Queensberry, a lazy and easy-tempered, but shrewd and far-seeing man, as Lord Commissioner. Fletcher brought forward a , which provided that, on Queen 's death, the Scottish throne should go to some Protestant descendant of the royal house, but excluding the successor to the English crown, Fletcher also proposed a series of , in case the two countries remained under the same monarch which transferred | |
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the whole executive power from the Crown to a Committee
of the Estates, while providing for parliamentary reform
and a national militia. Both measures were eagerly accepted,
and Government, though refusing to touch with the sceptre
(the way of signifying the Crown's approval of Scottish laws)
the Bill of Security, did not dare to refuse the royal assent to
the Limitations. Thereupon Fletcher carried a resolution
All subsidies were refused, and toleration to Episcopalian dissenters contemptuously rejected. Next year the same stormy scenes were renewed, and the timidity of and the new Commissioner, the Marquis of Tweeddale, led to the royal assent being given even to the . |
The English Parliament, not unnaturally, retaliated, the Whigs pressing for severe measures in order to embarrass the Tory government. All trade with Scotland was cut off, Scots were declared aliens, Newcastle and Carlisle were fortified, the militia of the four northern shires called out, and all available troops marched to the Border. But the hopelessness and wantonness of the struggle, the pressure of the Court influence, dislike to play the game of the Jacobites, and a shrewd sense of the benefits to be got from commercial union gradually got the better of the patriotic enthusiasm of the Scottish Parliament. In vain Fletcher joined forces with the Jacobites. In Tweeddale formed a middle party called the (Italian for , a name given at that time to a party of cardinals in the papal court), which, though professing to hold the balance between patriots and courtiers, on the whole favoured the reasonable schemes of union which were now brought forward. England therefore showed a conciliatory spirit by dropping the Alien Act. | |
Early in both nations appointed Commissioners to treat for a union. Two months were spent in active negotiations. At last a was drawn up, and laid before the two Parliaments. There was nothing to fear at Westminster, but a last expiring effort was made at Edinburgh to overthrow the hated measure. Riots broke out, which showed the unpopularity of the Act out of doors. But the Duke of Hamilton (the greatest lord on the patriotic side, who had even hoped to become king under the Act of Security) lost courage at the critical moment, and in January the Act was passed by a majority of 40. | |
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The Union did not at first practically affect the lawless freedom of the Celtic Highlanders; but in the Lowlands, which really were Scotland, it was felt as a grievous blow to national feeling, and long remained intensely unpopular. But the wise care taken to uphold the Scotch Church and the Scotch law blunted the sharpest edge of hostility. Bit by bit the opening up of trade began to work its results. Glasgow became a great port and the rival of Bristol and in the American trade. The idle and vagrant population (which Fletcher in despair had proposed to turn into slaves) now acquired those habits of thrift and industry which mark the modern Scot. Mines were opened up; the soil was tilled with more energy and success; the linen and iron trades took a deep hold of the country; and the great growth of trade and manufactures in the middle of the eighteenth century completed the formation of modern industrial Scotland. The Union Parliament proved on the whole very careful to uphold Scottish privileges. The ill- judged restoration of patronage in the Scottish Church by the Tories under Queen was the only really important instance of disregard for Scottish feeling. So gradually the old dislike died away, though all through the eighteenth century much bad blood remained. So great a man and shrewd a thinker as David , the philosopher and | |
33 34 [1] |
historian, regarded England with intense detestation; and
so late as the reign of the agitator was
applauded for maintaining that a Twice disgust for the Union made Protestant Scotland an easy conquest to Popish Pretenders. But as time went on community of blood, tongue, and interests began to assert themselves against the animosities of centuries. The Scots had withstood the Union, fearing for their national life. But they got the best share of the advantages that accrued from it, and found that their national life could still live on even without their separate Parliament. |
Footnotes: [1] Accession and character of Queen Anne. [2] Marlborough, 1650-1722. [3] Ministerial history, 1702-8. [4] The Whig Ministry, 1708-10. [5] The War of the Spanish succession, 1702-14. [15] Fall of the Whigs, 1710. [1] [1710-1714.] [16] The Tory Ministry, 1710-14. [17] The Peace of Utrecht, 1713. [18] The Jacobite conspiracy, 1713-14. [1] [1711-1714.] [19] Intervention of the Whig Dukes and Death of Anne, 1714. [20] The Union between England and Scotland, 1702-7. [1] [1714-1715.] |
