[1708 A.D.]

over and with the nation. They, however, manfully opposed it, and brought in a bill for the appointment of a regency to act in case of the queen's demise, and another for naturalising the whole of the electoral family. These bills were carried, after much opposition to the former from the tories; and the dislike of the queen to the whigs was now evidently diminished. As much had been said during the debate of the church being in danger, Lord Halifax moved to appoint a day for inquiry into that danger. When the day came, an angry debate took place; but both houses concurred, by large majorities, in a resolution that the church was in a most safe and flourishing condition. The strength of the tory party was weakened by division, while the whigs acted in one compact body, under the direction of the junto, as it was named, which was composed of the lords Somers, Halifax, Wharton, Orford, and Sunderland; this last the son of James' minister, and son-in-law of Marlborough, but the devoted admirer of Somers. The bias of the queen, the general, and the treasurer was to the tories; but the first had been offended by their late conduct, and the last two saw that it was only from the whigs that they could expect support in their foreign policy. The junto felt their power, and insisted on a larger share for their party on the profits and influence of office. They required that Sir Charles Hedges should be dismissed, and Sunderland be made secretary in his place; but it was the policy of the queen to give sway to neither party; and she had, moreover, a personal dislike to Sunderland. The policy of her two great ministers had been the same as hers, but they saw the necessity of giving way; yet it cost them a year's labour and the threat of resignation to overcome the reluctance of the queen (1708).

Harley's Treachery

They had, however, been secretly thwarted in the whole affair by their colleague Harley, and a bed-chamber influence of which they were not aware. The duchess of Marlborough had a cousin who was married to a Mr. Hill, an eminent Turkey merchant, who became a bankrupt; his family in consequence fell into great poverty, and the duchess kindly provided for his children. She placed Abigail, one of the daughters, about the person of the queen as bed-chamber woman, reckoning, of course, that she would always adhere to the interests of her patroness. But Miss Hill soon found that she might aspire higher. The queen, weak and yielding as she was, gradually became weary of the domineering temper of the duchess, and she poured her complaints into the ear of her obsequious attendant, who, it was soon observed, was fast rising in favour and influence. It happened that Miss Hill was related to Harley on the father's, as to the duchess on the mother's side; and, as her politics were tory, that wily statesman entered into a close alliance with her, and by her means influenced the queen. The duchess' friends warned her in vain of the way in which her power was being undermined. At length the private marriage of Miss Hill with Mr. Masham, an officer in the royal houshold, celebrated in the presence of only the queen and Doctor Arbuthnot the court physician, opened her eyes. Godolphin about the same time obtained convincing proofs of Harley's secret machinations.

The policy of Marlborough and Godolphin in joining neither party had the usual fate; both were alienated from them. The ill success of the war in 1707 afforded topics of attack to the discontented. The two ministers saw more strongly than ever the necessity of conciliating the whigs; and they received further proofs of Harley's treachery. The whigs having given them

H. W.-VOL. XX. 21

[1708-1709 A.D.] the strongest assurances of their support, they waited on the queen and told her that they could serve her no longer unless Harley were dismissed. She remained firm.

On the next meeting of the cabinet-council the two ministers were absent. Harley was proceeding to business, when the duke of Somerset said he did not see how they could deliberate without the general and treasurer. The looks of the others expressed their assent; Harley was disconcerted; the queen broke up the council in anger and alarm. The commons and the city gave signs of their discontent. Still the queen was unmoved; but Harley himself saw the difficulties of his situation, and resigned. St. John and the attorney-general, Sir Simon Harcourt, followed his example, and their places were given to Mr. Boyle, Mr. Robert Walpole, and Sir James Montague, brother of Lord Halifax. This last appointment was long resisted by the queen; and all the influence of Marlborough and Godolphin failed to procure a seat in the cabinet, though without office, for Somers. The queen, in fact, disliked the whigs more than ever, and was still secretly actuated by Harley; and they showed themselves as factious as the tories had been; for, bent on coming into office, they had resolved to annoy both the queen and Marlborough by an attack on the admiralty, that is, on her husband and on his brother, Admiral Churchill, by whom the prince was guided. Marlborough had consented to give up his brother, when the opportune death of the prince (October 28th) removed all difficulties. Lord Pembroke was made lord high-admiral, and was succeeded by Somers as president of the council; and Wharton became lord-lieutenant of Ireland.

THE WHIG MINISTRY; THE TRIAL OF SACHEVERELL (1710 A.D.)

Nothing, however, would content the whigs short of the possession of all offices of emolument and influence; and the condition of the general and treasurer, between them and the queen, was far from enviable. To add to their embarrassments, the desire of peace was becoming general. The apparent willingness of Louis to concede weighed with many; the pressure of taxation with others; the want of French wines and other foreign luxuries rendered numbers pacific; and Marlborough was charged with desiring to prolong the war from selfish motives. "All the bottle-companions," says Cunningham, "many physicians, and great numbers of the lawyers and inferior clergy, and in fine the loose women too, were united together in the faction against the duke of Marlborough." "It was strange," says he, "to see how much the desire of French wine and the dearness of it alienated many men from his friendship."

Ŏrford having replaced Pembroke at the admiralty, the ministry may be regarded as whig from the close of the year 1708, when a new parliament met, and Sir Richard Onslow, a whig, was chosen speaker. In its second session (1709) the violence of party zeal hurried it into a measure which eventually overthrew the ministry.

There was a clergyman, named Sacheverell, a preacher at St. Saviour's, Southwark, a man of little talent and less learning, but of a restless and ambitious temper. This man took on him to be a champion of high-church doctrines; and, in a sermon preached before the lord-mayor and aldermen on the 5th of November, he asserted the monstrous doctrine of passive obedience, in the most unqualified terms; attacked the dissenters and the toleration; styled the moderate bishops "perfidious prelates and false sons of the church"; and called on the people to stand up in its defence. He also

[1710 A.D.]

assailed the administration, particularly Godolphin, whom he styled Volpone. This wretched farrago was published at the desire of the lord-mayor; the tories extolled it as almost inspired, and they circulated forty thousand copies of it. The ministers held several consultations. Somers and Marlborough were, it is said by Coxe,d for leaving the matter to the ordinary tribunals; but Godolphin, whose feelings were wounded, and the others resolved on an impeachment. Articles were therefore exhibited against Sacheverell, and the 27th of February, 1710, was the day fixed for the trial in Westminster Hall. In the interval the tories and the clergy in general made every effort to inflame the minds of the populace and excite their zeal for the church.

The trial lasted for three weeks. The managers were Sir Joseph Jekyl, General Stanhope, Walpole, King, and others. The Doctor, as he was called, was defended by Harcourt and Phipps, and assisted by doctors Atterbury, Smallridge, and Friend. He was brought each day from the Temple, where he had been placed, to the hall in a coach, round which the people pressed, eager to kiss his hand. The queen came daily to hear the trial; and the populace used to crowd round her sedan, crying, "God bless your majesty and the church; we hope your majesty is for Doctor Sacheverell."

The managers had a delicate part to act; for, as Sacheverell had asserted that the revolution was not a case of resistance (he did not impugn it), they had to show that it was, and thence to assert the lawfulness of taking arms against the law, and that in the presence of the queen. They, however, did not shrink from their duty. Sacheverell's counsel freely acknowledged the lawfulness of resistance, but they maintained that he was justified in his doctrine of non-resistance by the homilies and the writings of eminent Anglican divines. He was voted guilty by a majority of sixty-nine to fifty-two, of which last thirty-four signed a protest. He was sentenced to be suspended from preaching for three years, and his sermon to be publicly burned; and the Oxford decree of 1683 was condemned to share its fate. This gentle sentence was regarded by the tory party as a triumph, and such in fact it was. Bonfires and illuminations, in London and all over the kingdom, testified their joy; and addresses in favour of non-resistance poured in from all quarters.

The Triumph of the Tories

Harley and the favourite, now sure of the temper of the nation, resolved to hesitate no longer. They had already sought to mortify Marlborough, by getting the queen, on the death of Lord Essex, to give his regiment to Major Hill, Mrs. Masham's brother. Marlborough, highly indignant, insisted on the favourite being dismissed, or else he would resign; but the efforts of Godolphin and other friends accomodated the matter, and he was contented with the disposal of the regiment being left with him. To prove, as it were, the influence of the favourite, the queen soon after gave Hill a pension of £1,000 a year; and she made the duke consent to raise him to the rank of brigadier.

It was Harley's plan to overthrow the ministry by degrees. He began by causing the queen to take the office of lord-chamberlain from the marquis of Kent, and confer it on the duke of Shrewsbury; for this amiable but versatile nobleman, who had returned from Italy, where he had resided for some years, was now alienated in some degree from the whigs on public and even on private grounds, as they did not, he thought, pay due attention to

[1710 A.D.] his lady, an Italian countess who had been originally his mistress, and who now governed him. He was therefore easily gained over by Harley. The queen made the appointment (April 13th) while Godolphin was at Newmarket, and announced it to him by a dry letter. The treasurer acted with his usual indecision: the whigs fearing a dissolution suffered themselves to be cajoled by Shrewsbury; and Harley, now reckoning the victory sure, made his next attack on Sunderland, a man whose overbearing temper had raised him many enemies, and to whom the queen had a peculiar antipathy. The treasurer was as usual without spirit, his whig colleagues clung to their places with the pertinacity distinctive of their party, and abandoned Sunderland; and the queen had the gratification (June 14th) of dismissing him and giving the seals to Lord Dartmouth, a zealous high-church man. Jacobites and high tories now flocked to court and congratulated the queen on her emancipation, as they affected to regard it; the duke of Beaufort, for instance, said to her, "Your majesty is now queen indeed."

The next stroke stunned the whigs. On the 7th of August, Godolphin, who saw that the queen was annoyed at some things he had said in council, had an audience of her. He concluded his discourse by asking, “Is it the will of your majesty that I should go on?" "Yes," said she, without hesitation. That very evening he received a letter from her, desiring him to break his white staff of office! The treasury was put into commission, Harley taking the chancellorship of the exchequer.

The temper of the nation had now been ascertained in various ways, and the prevalence of the high-church and tory spirit was beyond question. That wretched tool Sacheverell having been presented by a Mr. Lloyd with a living in North Wales, his party took advantage of his going to take possession of it to make a demonstration. His progress thither, as it was termed, resembled those of the monarchs in former times. The nobility entertained him sumptuously at their houses; the University of Oxford showed him equal honour; the magistrates of corporate towns met him with their insignia of office. The hedges were for miles decked with garlands and lined with spectators, streamers waved from the steeples of the churches, the air resounded with the cry of, "The church and Doctor Sacheverell!" At Bridgenorth, a Mr. Cresswell met him at the head of four thousand men on horseback, and as many on foot, wearing white knots edged with gold and leaves of gilt laurel in their hats. It is a pity that so much really good and honest feeling should have been wasted on so unworthy an object.

Emboldened by these signs of the popular sentiment, the cabal thought they might now safely venture on a dissolution and a total change of ministry. The queen therefore came to the council (September 21st), and ordered a proclamation to be issued for dissolving the parliament. The chancellor rose to speak, but she said she would admit of no debate, for that such was her pleasure. A general change of administration immediately followed; Lord Somers, the duke of Devonshire, and Mr. Boyle resigned, and their places were taken by Lord Rochester, the duke of Buckingham, and Mr. St. John. Wharton and Orford having also resigned, the lieutenancy of Ireland was given to the duke of Ormonde, and the admiralty was put into commission. All the efforts of Harley and the queen having failed to induce Lord Cowper to retain the great seal, it was put into commission, but was soon given to Sir Simon Harcourt. Of all the whigs, the dukes of Somerset and Newcastle alone remained in high offices.

Thus fell the most glorious, the most able, and we may add perhaps the most virtuous and patriotic administration that England had possessed since

[1711 A.D.]

the days of Elizabeth. It fell by disunion in itself, by the imprudent impeachment of a contemptible divine, and by the intrigues of the bed-chamber, where a weak woman, whom the constitution had invested with power, was domineered over by one waiting-maid and wheedled and flattered by another. When the parliament met on the 25th of November, it proved almost entirely tory, and Bromley was chosen speaker with little or no opposition.

Marlborough on his return was subjected to every kind of indignity. The queen herself desired him not to allow a vote of thanks to him to be moved in parliament, and he had the mortification to see the thanks of the houses bestowed on Peterborough for his Quixotic exploits in Spain. In spite of his most urgent solicitations, his duchess was deprived of her places at court, which were divided between the duchess of Somerset and Mrs. Masham, and an attempt was even made to convict her of peculation. Swift and the other libellers in the service of the ministry poured out all their venom on him. "He was ridiculed," says Smollet,e "in public libels, and reviled in private conversation. Instances were everywhere repeated of his fraud, avarice, and extortion; of his insolence, cruelty, ambition, and misconduct. Even his courage was called in question, and this consummate general was represented as the lowest of mankind." Among his other annoyances, he had to listen to lectures on his military conduct from Harley and St. John. Yet he did not resign; for Godolphin and the whigs, the emperor, and all the allies implored him to retain the command of the army, as otherwise all their hopes would be gone.

Harley, in the midst of his triumph, found that he was not to lie on a bed of roses. The more violent tories, headed by Rochester, regarding him and his friend as lukewarm, formed to control him a combination of not less than one hundred and thirty members of the house of commons, under the name of the October Club, and the whigs on their part had a powerful auxiliary in the duchess of Somerset, a lady of high character, and loved and respected by the queen. Harley and St. John immediately began to make overtures to the duke of Marlborough, and it is probable that they must have come to terms with the whigs, or have succumbed to the October Club, had not a fortunate event arisen to extricate them (1711).

There was a French refugee, called the marquis Guiscard, who had had the command of a regiment, which being broken after the battle of Almanza, he obtained a pension of £500 a year. Harley reduced this pension to £400, and Guiscard in his rage proposed to the French cabinet to acquaint them with sundry secrets of state which he possessed. His letters were intercepted, and he was arrested on a charge of high treason. He was brought before the council at the Cockpit (March 8th), and an order was made to convey him to Newgate. He resisted the messenger, and rushing forward struck Harley in the bosom with a penknife which he had concealed; the blade broke against the bone; he struck again with the stump, but St. John and the others drawing their swords fell on and gave him several wounds. He was then taken to Newgate, where he died of the injuries which he had received. The general sympathy was thus awakened for Harley, and he was regarded as a victim to his zeal for the public service. The death of Lord Rochester (May 2nd) was also of advantage to him, and he was forthwith (24th) raised to the peerage by the title of earl of Oxford and Mortimer, and (29th) made lord high-treasurer. The duke of Buckingham succeeded Rochester on the 12th of June, and several other promotions took place in the course of the year.