death of the Emperor Joseph, by which the Archduke Charles succeeded to the throne of Spain. After some negotiation it was settled that a congress should meet on the 1st of January, 1712, at Utrecht; and by the treaty concluded there Spain yielded all right to Gibraltar and the island of Minorca, while France resigned her pretensions to Hudson's Bay, Nova Scotia, St. Christopher's, and Newfoundland. It was also agreed that the fortifications of Dunkirk should be demolished, and its port destroyed; and the ratification of the treaty being exchanged, peace was proclaimed in London, with the usual ceremonies, in 1713. It was a peace greatly to be desired, for the war had been characterised by great ferocity: great victories had been won, which had obtained the plaudits of the nation; but the horrors that had attended the strife had not been taken into the account.

Of dear-bought joy, with many a triumph swelled,
Salutes the victor's ears, and soothes his pride,
How is the grateful harmony profaned
With the sad dissonance of virgin's cries,
Who moan their brothers slain! of matrons hoar,
Who clasp their withered hands, and fondly ask,
With iteration shrill, their slaughtered sons!
How is the laurel's verdure stain'd with blood
And soil'd with widows' tears!"

MORE.

The conclusion of war, however, was followed by a renewal of party strife and intrigues; no longer restrained by the tie of common danger, ministers gave a loose to their mutual animosity. Bolingbroke charged the Earl of Oxford with having maintained a private correspondence with the House of Hanover: Oxford wrote a letter to the queen, in which he endeavoured to justify his own conduct, and expose the turbulent and ambitious spirit of his rival. In all probability, Oxford's greatest crime was his having given umbrage to "my Lady Masham," though it is clear that he was favourable to the Hanoverian succession. He was dismissed; and Bolingbroke triumphed in the victory he had obtained, but his ambition was defeated, as the office of lord treasurer was filled by the Duke of Shrewsbury. The violent altercation at court upon this occasion is supposed to have had a fatal effect upon the queen whose constitution was already impaired by the gout; and she was

immediately seized with a lethargic disorder, of which she soon after expired, in the fiftieth year of her age and the thirteenth of her reign, A. D. 1714.

Little need be said of the personal character of Queen Anne. Her mind was weak and indolent, and she was easily governed by favourites: her imbecility caused her submission to the Duchess of Marlborough, which, by advancing the duke to command, proved instrumental to the military glories of her reign; while the same infatuated regard bestowed on another female favourite was fortunately overruled to stop the devastations of war and to bring about a peace. Till towards the close of her reign she was a favourite with neither party in Parliament; but then the Tories affected to idolise her; and after her death she was dignified with the name of "The good Queen Anne."

GEORGE I.

A regency bill, passed in 1705, had provided for the government in case of the demise of the queen; and no sooner had she breathed her last than the seven great officers, with eighteen peers named in an instrument signed by the Elector of Hanover, took upon themselves the temporary administration of the state, and issued orders for proclaiming King George in England, Scotland, and Ireland. The Earl of Dorset was then appointed to carry to Hanover the intimation of his Majesty's accession, and to attend him on his journey to England; while arrangements were made to defeat the designs of the Pretender and secure the Protestant succession. The friends of the Pretender were active, but their efforts were of no avail, for George was proclaimed king without opposition. At a private meeting of the partisans of James, Bishop Atterbury advised that they should immediately proclaim him; but they shrank from the attempt, and "Long live King George!" was the general cry throughout the nation. Both Houses of Parliament took oaths to the new sovereign, and loyal addresses were voted unanimously. In the same breath and with the same drop of ink they expressed

their grief at the death of their queen, "of blessed memory," and their lively pleasure at the accession of a king whose right to the crown was so undoubted, and whose virtues were so princely. Even those members who were in favour of the Pretender, fearing a committal to the Tower, joined in the universal congratulations. This prince, who was the son of Ernest Augustus, first Duke and afterwards Elector of Hanover, and of the Princess Sophia, granddaughter of James I., was in the fifty-fifth year of his age when he ascended the throne of Great Britain. Accompanied by the electoral prince, he landed at Greenwich on the 18th of Septem

ber, where he was received by the Duke of Northumberland, captain of the Life-guards, and the lords of the regency. His subjects of Hanover had witnessed his departure with tears; and his English subjects received him with joy and acclamation. On his arrival he showed marked attention to the leading Whigs; but he looked coldly on the Tories, who had equally run to welcome him. to England. He would not admit some of the leaders of the party into his presence, while others were barely permitted to kiss his hand. This was ominous; and it was followed by an instantaneous and total change in every office of honour and advantage. The Tories were excluded from all power: which was wholly engrossed by the Whigs. These early marks of aversion to the former party alienated the minds of many from his person and government who otherwise might have served him with zeal and affection; and the number of malcontents in England was considerably increased by the king's undisguised attachment to the Whig faction. The clamour that the church was in danger was now revived, jealousies were excited, seditious libels published, and dangerous tumults raised throughout the kingdom.

In April, 1715, General Stanhope delivered to the House of Commons all the papers relating to the late negotiations of peace and commerce, as well as to the cessation of arms, and moved that they might be referred to a committee. These and other papers relating to a treasonable correspondence with France had been seized in the possession of Bolingbroke, Strafford, and the poet Prior; and, as the committee appointed was a thoroughly Whig committee, the result was such as might have been expected. Mr. Walpole was appointed chairman, and after the lapse of two months he declared that the report of the committee was ready, and moved that a warrant might be issued by the speaker to apprehend several persons, especially Mr. Thomas Harley and Prior, who, being in their places, were immediately taken into custody. Walpole then impeached Lords Bolingbroke and Oxford; and when the latter appeared in the House next day he found himself avoided as though he had been a viper, and retired with some confusion: while the Duke of Ormond was threatened with impeachment, and consulted his safety by withdrawing from the kingdom. His correspondence with the Pretender was less susceptible of proof than that of Oxford; but, as he could not expect an impartial trial, he fled. The result of the Earl of Oxford's trial was, that he was sent to the Tower. But he was accompanied thither by a large concourse of people, who exclaimed, at the top of their voices, "High church, Ormond, and Oxford for ever!" Lord Bolingbroke, whose treasonable conduct was more evident than either that of Oxford or Ormond, fled to France; and as neither he nor Ormond

surrendered themselves within the time limited, their names and armorial bearings were erased from the list of peers; inventories were taken of their personal estates; and the duke's achievement as Knight of the Garter was taken down from St. George's Chapel at Windsor. Prior was kept in close custody, and no person was admitted to see him without an order from the speaker.

The easy accession of the House of Hanover, after all the plots and plans that had been laid, and all the pledges that had been given to the Pretender, struck the world with astonishment. Efforts, however, were not wanting to shake the new throne, and the High Church party especially applied their broad shoulders to this work. By sermons and by pamphlets they irritated the populace with suspicions of the king's temper and orthodoxy. They painted his religion in bad colours, representing him as puritanical; and drew an odious distinction between a native and a foreign prince: and they prophesied, moreover, that England would be eaten up by Hanoverian rats and other foreign vermin. Their exertions were not without their fruits. In some places the disciples of orthodoxy not only cried, "Down with the dissenters!" but actually did pull down their places of worship. As for the German attendants on their Majesties, they could scarcely move out of doors without being insulted. One day a German lady of the court, being insulted as she passed through the city of London, put her head out of the carriage-window, and exclaimed in broken English, "Why do you abuse us, good peoples? We come for all your goods." "Yes," replied a fellow in the mob, "and for our chattels too!" This lady, however, was known to be a person of very bad character.

In the midst of this personal unpopularity of George and his court numerous papers in behalf of the Pretender were written, printed, and circulated. He was known, in fact, to be a bigot and a coward; but he was represented in these papers as candid, tolerant, and benevolent; the very paragon of a prince, in short, besides resembling in his countenance Charles II. There was, nevertheless, no chance of an invasion in his favour being attended with success in England; King George was unpopular, it is true, but not with the entire body of the people; and even those who clamoured against him for the most part preferred him, as a Protestant, with all his faults, to a Papist, even though represented as a prince of the most perfect qualities. There was, however, scope for action in favour of the Pretender in the sister kingdom Scotland; for the dissatisfaction occasioned in that country by the Union had never been wholly appeased; and as the disaffected had no hopes of dissolving that treaty, they determined to support the Pretender. They maintained a correspondence with the malcontents in England, who, finding themselves now totally excluded from any share

in the government and legislature, and exposed to the insults and fury of their opponents, began to wish in earnest for a revolution. Taking advantage of their promised support, and with the assistance of the French king, the Pretender was enabled to prepare a small armament in the port of Havre, while the Duke of Ormond and Lord Bolingbroke engaged in his service and corresponded with the Tories in England: but all these intrigues and machinations were discovered, and communicated to the court of London by the Earl of Stair, who then resided as English ambassador at Paris. This nobleman detected the scheme while it was yet in embryo, and gave such early notice of it as to enable the king to take effectual measures for defeating the design. But the most fatal blow to the Pretender's interest was the death of Louis XIV.: the ostentatious tyrant who for more than half a century had sacrificed the repose of Christendom to his insatiate vanity and ambition. Upon the decease of Louis the Duke of Orleans entered into engagements with Great Britain; and, instead of assisting the Pretender, amused his agents with mysterious and equivocal expressions, calculated to frustrate the designs of the expedition.

The partisans of the Pretender, however, had proceeded too far to retreat with safety, and they therefore resolved to try their fortune in the field; and in the month of September the Earl of Mar proceeded to Scotland, assembled 300 of his vassals, proclaimed the Pretender at Castletown, and set up his standard at Brae-Mar. About the same time two vessels arrived at Arbroath, from Havre, with arms, ammunition, and a great number of officers, who assured the Earl of Mar that the Pretender would soon be with them in person. The earl now assumed the title of lieutenant-general of the forces, and in a short time he found himself at the head of 10,000 men well armed. Among the earl's adherents were the Marquises of Huntley and Tullibardine, the Earls of Marischal and Southesk, and several other Jacobite noblemen. In the meantime the Earl of Derwentwater took the field in England with a body of horse, and being joined by some gentlemen from the borders of Scotland, proclaimed the Pretender at Warkworth, Morpeth, and Alnwick. He then attempted to seize Newcastle; but being defeated, he retired towards Scotland. There he was again reinforced by some of the Scottish insurgents; but returning into England, he was overpowered at Preston in Lancashire by the king's forces under Generals Wills and Carpenter, and his troops were compelled to lay down their arms. On the same day the Duke of Argyle defeated the rebel army under the Earl of Mar at SheriffMuir, and the earl retreated with the remnant of his forces to Perth.

The Pretender had been amused with the hope that the people