MARLBOROUGH'S CHANGE OF OPINIONS. 19

partialities, they called the Whig leaders to their councils. The transformation began as early as 1704, when Lord Nottingham and the Ultra-Tories quitted office, and their places were filled by more moderate Tories, Robert Harley and Henry St. John, who were in favour of the war. In the following year, after the victory of Blenheim, Marlborough ventured to dissolve Parliament. The elections returned a majority such as he had hoped for, and he then made overtures to the Whig leaders. They were accepted; Cowper was made Lord Keeper and Sunderland sent as envoy to Vienna, and the advocates of peace and a French alliance were completely baffled. In the negotiations which led to this result, Walpole, who had been appointed a member of the Admiralty Board, played no unimportant part. By his prudence and administrative ability he had gained Godolphin's confidence; and it was mainly through his advice that the coalition we have described became an accomplished fact.

It has been said that England does not love coalitions; but the truth is, that in a country where government by party is the foundation of the political system, they can never be more than temporary expedients. As the Tory opposition to the war grew more and more vehement, Marlborough was driven to rely more and more upon Whig support, which he rewarded, in 1706, by placing Lord Sunderland, the most Whiggish of the Whigs, in office. The latter immediately set to work to drive even the moderate Tories from the Government, though Marlborough was averse to a proceeding which so completely broke with his old party. But circum

20

WALPOLE, SECRETARY OF WAR.

stances proved too strong for him. The alienation of the Queen, the cabals of Harley and St. John, necessitated a final rupture. In 1708 Harley and St. John were dismissed from their offices, and replaced by Henry Boyle as secretary of state, and Robert Walpole as secretary of war. Lord Somers was appointed to the presidentship of the council, and the triumph of the Whigs was temporarily assured.

The

Walpole's promotion clearly indicates the important position he had attained in the Whig ranks. duties of his new office were very delicate and difficult. In Marlborough's absence he transacted the business of the War department personally with the Queen; he corresponded both officially and confidentially with the Commander-in-chief; and his was the onerous task of conciliating the capricious temper (says Coxe) of the Duchess of Marlborough, who interfered in all business, governed her husband with the most absolute sway, and conducted herself towards the Queen with a vehemence which greatly assisted Harley and St. John in their efforts to overthrow the Whig preponderance.

The new Secretary's business habits, his unfailing activity and prudence, his easy and genial manners, his methodical precision, and his genius for finance recommended him to Godolphin's entire confidence. The Treasurer unbosomed to him his most secret councils, committed to him the leadership of the House of Commons, and entrusted him with the duty of composing the speeches from the Throne. In 1710 he was appointed one of the managers of the impeachment of Dr. Sacheverel, rector of St. Saviour's, Southwark, a High Church clergy

THE SACHEVEREL EPISODE.

21

man, who, in a sermon at St. Paul's, had audaciously advocated the doctrine of Non-Resistance. Somers, Eyre,

the Solicitor General, and Marlborough strongly disapproved of a measure which, as they foresaw, would result in elevating an obscure divine to the honours of martyrdom, and Walpole urged their views upon Godolphin with his usual acumen. But the Treasurer, inspired, as Macaulay says, with all the zeal of a newborn Whig, and exasperated by the nickname of Volpone which Dr. Sacheverel had borrowed from Ben Jonson's comedy and applied to him, would not be persuaded. The impeachment was brought, and the apprehensions of Somers and Marlborough were realized. The populace sided with Sacheverel, and all the clergy of England made haste to espouse his cause. In all the principal churches prayers were offered up for him as for a persecuted saint, and the drum ecclesiastic was loudly beaten in his favour. The London 'prentices joined in the High Church and Dr. Sacheverel!" The Queen, after some vacillation, announced herself on the same side. The bold divine was declared guilty. But his conviction was practically a victory. The sentence pronounced upon him was no punishment. "All this bustle and fatigue," exclaimed Godolphin, "ends in no more but a suspension of three years from the pulpit, and burning his sermons at the old Exchange!" The Treasurer had no right to feel disappointed, for his more prudent colleagues had warned him of the probable result of his injudicious action. "Well might he rue," says Lord Stanhope, "an impeachment so unpopular in its progress

*

The vote of the Peers was 69 against 52.

cry

of

22

A CONTEMPORARY BALLAD.

and so ridiculous in its result. Well might he repent his own rashness in overruling the sagacity of Somers, and attempting at any hazard to silence the buzz of a single insignificant priest. The fable of the bear that hurled a heavy stone at the head of its sleeping master on purpose to crush a fly upon his cheek is a type of the service which Godolphin on this occasion rendered to his party."

* A ballad writer. of the time satirizes the Sacheverel craze in some amusing verses (Wilkins's Political Ballads, ii. 84) :—

These nations had always some token

Of madness, by turns and by fits,
Their senses were shattered and broken,
But now they're quite out of their wits.

Can any man say the Lord Mayor,

Of Parliament likewise a member,

(This was Sir Samuel Garrard, at whose request the sermon, "On the Perils from False Brethren," was published (a), and to whom it was dedicated),—

Did wisely to set up a bear

To preach on the fifth of November?

Was the Doctor less touched in his brain
To stuff his harangue with gunpowder;

Or Dolben, who fired the train,

And made it crack louder and louder?

(It was John Dolben, son of the Archbishop of York, who moved the impeachment in the Commons, and carried the Bill up to the Lords.)

Even he, who wrought all underhand,

So thinking to save his own bacon;
Some doubt, if for all his white wand,

For a conj'rer he ought to be taken.

(a) So Sacheverel asserted; but the Lord Mayor contradicted him.

WALPOLE LEARNS A LESSON.

23

One good effect it had on Walpole's future career. It undoubtedly rendered him chary of attacks upon the Church. It showed him how great was the strength of the clerical party, and how weak, comparatively, that of the Dissenters. Hence he was as unwilling, throughout his administration, to meddle in ecclesiastical questions as was the late Lord Melbourne.

The abortive prosecution of Sacheverel brought back

But our Senate hath outdone 'em all,

By their solemn and grave proceeding,
On a pageant in Westminster Hall,

Where the Nation lies almost a-bleeding.

In such a nice and critical state,

When of weighty affairs there were several,

To spend their sweet lungs in debate

About Hoadley and Henry Sacheverel.

(Bishop Hoadley, then simply rector of St. Peter-le-Poor, Broad Street, London, had ably attacked the Passive-Obedience doctrine in his sermons and pamphlets, for which he received the thanks of the House of Commons, and was formally recommended to the Queen for preferinent.)

Of the danger that threaten'd the nation,
From the scandalous terms of Volpone,

Thrown on the man of high station,

Who so freely supplies us with money.

So as the rare frolic went round,

It seiz'd at last upon the people;

Who swore they would pull to the ground,
The churches that wanted a steeple.

They rebell'd in the Doctor's defence,

. Who so coldly had cried their pow'r down,

And freely gave up their pretence,

To fight for the Church and the Crown.