"And whereas it is requisite and necessary that some further provision be made for securing our religion, laws, and liberties, from and after the death of his majesty and the princess Ann of Denmark; and in default of issue of the body of the said princess and of his majesty respectively, be it enacted by the king's most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in parlia ment assembled, and by the authority of the same,

"That whosoever shall hereafter come to the possession of this crown shall join in communion with the Church of England as by law established.

"That in case the crown and imperial dignity of this realm shall hereafter come to any person, not being a native of this kingdom of England, this nation be not obliged to engage in any war for the defence of any dominions or territories which do not belong to the crown of England, without the consent of Parliament.

"That no person, who shall hereafter come to the possession of this crown shall go out of the dominions of England, Scotland, or Ireland, without consent of Parliament. **That from and after the time that the further limitation by this Act shall take effect, all matters and things relating to the well-governing of this kingdom, which are properly cognizable in the privy council by the laws and customs of this realm shall be transacted there, and all resolutions taken thereupon shall be signed by such of the privy council as shall advise and consent to the same.

"That after the said limitation shall take effect as aforesaid, no person born out of the kingdoms of England, Scotland, or Ireland, or the dominions thereunto belonging, (although he be naturalised or made a denizen, except such as are born of English parents), shall be capable to be of the privy council, or a member of either house of Parliament, or to enjoy any office or place of trust, either civil or military, or to have any grant of lands, tenements, or hereditaments from the crown to himself, or to any other or others in trust for him.

"That no person who has an office or place of profit under the king, or receives a pensión from the crown, shall be capable of serving as a member of the House of Com

mons.

“That after the said limitation shall take effect as aforesaid, judges' commissions be made quam diu se bene gesserint, and their salaries ascertained and established; but upon the address of both houses of Parliament it may be lawful to remove them.

"That no pardon under the great seal of England be pleadable to an impeachment by the commons in Parliament.

"And whereas the laws of England are the birthright of the people thereof, and all the kings and queens who shall ascend the throne of this realm ought to administer the government of the same according to the said laws, and all their officers and ministers ought to serve them respectively according to the same, the said lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, do therefore humbly pray, that all the laws and statutes of this realm for securing the established religion, and the rights and liberties of the people thereof, and all other laws and statutes of the same now in force, may be ratified and confirmed. And the same are, by his majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the said lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, and by authority of the same, ratified and confirmed accordingly."

ACCESSION OF QUEEN ANNE.

CHAPTER VI.

Accession of queen Anne.---Her declaration to the Privy Council.-Parliament continues sitting. Preponderance of Tories.-Marlborough sent as envoy to the States-General.-War declared.-Marlborough's first Campaign.-Expedition to Cadiz.-Vigo. -New Parliament.-Tory majority.-Bill against Occasional Conformity.-Defoe's Shortest Way with the Dissenters.-Marlborough created a Duke.-Revolt in the Cévennes.-Marlborough's second Campaign.-The Methuen Treaty with Portugal. --Occasional Conformity Bill again rejected by the Lords.-Aylesbury Election Case. -The Great Storm.-Oaths of Witnesses.-Queen Anne's Bounty.-Touching for the Evil.-May-Poles.

"WHEN the king came to die," says the duchess of Marlborough, "I felt nothing of that satisfaction which I once thought I should have had upon this occasion; and my lord and lady Jersey's writing and sending perpetually to give an account as his breath grew shorter and shorter, filled me with horror.". It is the common story of royal death-beds. "As soon as the breath was out of king William," as lord Dartmouth affirms, "by which all expectations from him were at an end, the bishop of Salisbury drove hard to bring the first tidings to St. James's; where he prostrated himself at the new queen's feet, full of joy and duty."*. From Edward III. to William III.,-from William III. to George IV.,—it was ever the same:

"Gone to salute the rising morn."

That Anne should have dropped a tear for her brother-in-law was scarcely to be expected. Friends they had never been. Since the death of Mary they had avoided all unseemly differences. Anne, subjected to the will of a domineering favourite, who hated William upon the well-known principle that we hate those whom we have injured, could form no independent opinion of his merits as a king. She regarded him as a disagreeable man, generally sullen, and rarely civil. His appointment of Marlborough in the summer of 1700 to an employment of high trust, had probably disposed the new queen to make no hesitation in accepting the great principles of foreign policy which William had rendered triumphant by his unshrinking constancy. It has been attributed to the foresight of the "master workman" in the Grand Alliance, that he appointed Marlborough to the command of the troops sent to the assistance

Note on Burnet, vol. v. p. 1

of the States-Geueral, because he knew that in the event of his own demise, the favourite of his successor would be the chief moving power in English affairs. "The king proposed, by this early step, to engage the earl so much in the war, as to make it his particular interest to pursue it with vigour in the succeeding reign." There was not an hour lost in declaring the policy that the new sovereign was counselled to pursue. On the evening of king William's death, queen Anne, when the Privy Council were assembled as is usual on the demise of the Crown, thus spoke upon the vital question which was the foremost in the public thought: "I think it proper, upon this occasion of my first speaking to you, to declare my own opinion of the importance of carrying on all the preparations we are making to oppose the great power of France; and I shall lose no time in giving our allies all assurances, that nothing shall be wanting on my part to pursue the true interest of England, together with theirs, for the support of the common cause.” †

By a Statute of 1696, which had regard to the dangers of inva, sion or conspiracy, it was provided that Parliament should not be dissolved by the demise of the Crown, but might sit for six months after, unless prorogued or dissolved. The queen went to the House of Lords on the 11th of March. She spoke of the late king as having been "the great support, not only of these kingdoms, but of all Europe." She said of herself, "I know my own heart to be entirely English." Words were thus put into Anne's mouth which gave that praise to William which could not be withheld, and stirred up prejudices against his memory which her Tory advisers were ready to keep alive. With regard to foreign affairs she repeated the sentiments she had addressed to the Privy Council. Within five days the earl of Marlborough received the Order of the Garter, and was made Captain-general of the forces. He probably would not have received such immediate and signal honour and preferment if he had not, with his consummate adroitness, made the queen consider that he belonged to the party for which she intended her chief rewards. "As soon as she was seated on the throne," says the wife of Marlborough, "the Tories, whom she usually called by the agreeable name of the Church-party,

⚫ Onslow. Note on Burnet, vol. v. p. 7.

↑ Burnet takes occasion to mention that " she pronounced this, as she did all her other speeches, with great weight and authority, and with a softness of voice and sweetness in the pronunciation, that added much life to all she spoke." Dartmouth says that Anne was taught to speak by Mrs. Barry. Onslow relates that he heard her speak from the throne, and that "it was a sort of charm." The rare faculty, it might seem, has de scended as a royal inheritance to the next queen-regnant.

7 & 8 Gul. III. c. 17.

MARLBOROUGH ENVOY TO THE STATES.

113

became the distinguished objects of the royal favour.”—“ I am firmly persuaded, that, notwithstanding her extraordinary affection for me," adds the all-powerful Mrs. Morley who professed Whig principles," and the entire devotion which my lord Marlborough and my lord Godolphin had for many years shown to her service, they would not have had so great a share of her favour and confidence, if they had not been reckoned in the number of the Tories." There could be no mistake about Anne's general preferences. Somers, Halifax, and Orford were struck out of the lists of the Privy Council. Nottingham was appointed Secretary of State, and Seymour Comptroller, Rochester was continued as Lord-lieutenant of Ireland; Normanby, another violent partisan, had the Privy-seal. Gradually, Godolphin and Marlborough obtained such an ascendancy as drove their less-moderate colleagues from office. The Whigs supported their war policy. The favourite says, “I resolved from the very beginning of the queen's reign, to try whether I could not by degrees make impressions on her mind more favourable to the Whigs." Anne could not help "being extremely concerned that her dear Mrs. Freeman was so partial to the Whigs," as she writes about half a year after her accession. "I would not have you and your faithful Morley differ in the least thing." Something stronger than Mrs. Freeman's arts drove the violent Tories from office. Something which the faithful Morley could not resist gave the Whigs the preponderance. The war was a magnificent success; and public opinion, whatever was the cost of the war, placed the party in power that had given Marlborough the support which enabled him to win Blenheim and Ramilies. Godolphin and the Duke became united with the Whigs. The Tories had their business to perform of stirring-up new contests at home for what were called "highflying" principles; and the Jacobites were not yet weary of looking forward to the time when the son James II. should again have a clear stage to vindicate the great theory of the divine right of kings, and to overturn the notions of constitutional liberty and religious toleration that had taken root under what they deemed the usurpation of 1689.

Before the end of March Marlborough had been sent as an envoy extraordinary to the States-General. On the 31st of March, he delivered a speech to their "High and mighty Lordships," in which he declared the resolution of his queen to maintain the alliances which “king William of glorious memory" had formed, and to enter into such other alliances as might most conduce to the interests of both nations, and the preservation of the liberty of Europe. Marlborough did not stay more than a week in Holland; VOL. V.-8

but he arranged for a joint declaration of war against France by England, the States, and the Emperor, on the same day, May 4th ;* and he concerted the plan of the first warlike operations. The skilful negotiator left the Hague on the 3rd of April. On the 4th of May war was proclaimed with the usual solemnities in Westminster and the City of London. The Parliament was prorogued on the 25th of May. It was dissolved on the 2nd of July. The Civil List that had been granted to king William was continued to queen Anne. Her majesty was empowered to appoint Commissioners to treat for Union between England and Scotland, not without some insolent reflections from sir Edward Seymour and others, in the same coarse and haughty spirit which had greatly irritated the Scotch in 1700. The queen's speech at the close of the Session was somewhat ambiguous on one point: "I shall be very careful to preserve and maintain the Act of Toleration, and to set the minds of all my people at quiet: My own principles must always keep me entirely firm to the interests of the Church of England, and will incline me to countenance those who have the sincerest zeal to support it."

When we open the valuable collection of Marlborough's Letters and Dispatches,† we at once perceive the high position in which he is recognised by the princes and states of the Alliance. Immediately on his return from Holland, we find him writing from St. James's to the king of Prussia and elector of Hanover, as one speaking with authority about “the common cause." Marlborough left London on the 18th of May; was detained at Margate by contrary winds; but soon after his arrival at the Hague was appointed by the States as Generalissimo of all their forces. He appears to have succeeded, as if by common consent, to the power which was wielded by king William-he, a man who had fought his way up to promotion by no very honourable means; who had alienated two kings by his treachery; who was known to have the most especial eye to his own interests; who had not acquired any high reputation as a general, though no doubt from want of opportunity; but who was now considered to have the entire favour of the new sovereign of England, and, what was of no small importance, had been trusted by William in the latter part of his life, and had justified the trust by his consummate ability. Marlborough went vigorously to the work before him. He drew the allied forces together, so as

This is the date used for this declaration, according to the Old Style, which we must still follow, to prevent discrepancies in dates. After 1700 the difference between O'd and New Style is eleven days. The 4th of May Old Style, is the 15th of May New Style

↑ "Letters and Dispatches of John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, from 17 4 to 1712." Edited by sir George Murray. 5 vo.s. 1845.