And yet St. John insinuates the same thing, in another letter to Drummond, who was in Holland: "I dare say he is convinced by this time that he cannot lead either his mistress or any one else as he used to do. We shall send him over a subject. Take care you do not put royalty into his head." This notion continued to be a real, or an affected, belief of St. John, when, in 1713, upon the performance of Addison's Cato, "he called Booth to his box, and gave him fifty guineas for defending the cause of liberty so well against a perpetual dictator; or, as the story is told by Spence, "for so well representing the character of a person who rather chose to die than see a general for life." + * There is something still more bitter for the great conqueror to endure than the loss of political influence.: "He was told," says St. John, "that his true interest consisted of getting rid of his wife, who was grown to be irreconcileable with the queen, as soon as he could, and with the best grace which he could." In the royal closet, on the 17th of January, there is a scene which tells us of something more pitable even than the last scenes of all," when "From Marlborough's eyes the tears of dotage flow." He presented to the queen a humble letter from the duchess, expressing her apprehension that her lord could not live six months, if some end was not put to his sufferings on her account. "I really am very sorry that I ever did anything that was uneasy to your majesty." The duke then implored her majesty not to renounce the duchess; not to discharge her from the great office she held. "I cannot change my resolution," said the queen. Again he entreated. "Let the key be sent me within three days." The victor of Blenheim is now on his knees, imploring for a respite of ten days. Monmouth praying for his life to James was not more earnest and more abased. "Send me the key in two days,” cried the inexorable queen. The duchess had more spirit than her lord, and the key was sent the next day. "When the duke told her the queen expected the gold key, she took it from her side, and threw it into the middle of the room, and bid him take it up, and carry it to whom he pleased." Her office of lady of the wardrobe was bestowed upon the duchess of Somerset; that of keeper of the privy purse upon Mrs. Masham. The haughty Sarah was turned out of her apartments in the palace. We almost blush to record the mode in which the duchess is revenged upon the queen. "She ordered the locks, placed on the doors at her expense, to be taken off, and the marble chimney-pieces to be removed." § The counter. Johnson's "Lives," Cunningham's edit. vol. ii. p. 137. + Dartmouth's note on Burnet, vol. vi. p. 30. "Anecdotes," p. 35. Coxe, vol. v. p. 417. DISASTERS IN SPAIN. 239 revenge of the royal mistress winds up this story of the degradation of greatness: "The queen is so angry, that she says she will build no house for the duke of Marlborough, when the duchess has pulled hers to pieces, taken away the very slabs out of the chimneys, thrown away the keys, and said they might buy more for ten shillings." The "house for the duke of Marlborough" was to be the reward of his services to the nation. At the beginning of the new year, 1711, the queen sent a Message to Parliament, stating that "her majesty having received notice that there has been an action in Spain, very much to the disadvantage of king Charles's affairs, which having fallen partic ularly on the British forces, the queen immediately gave directions for sending and procuring troops to repair this loss." Never was a victory more opportune to a government than was this defeat to the ministry of Harley and Bolingbroke. The defeated commander of the British forces was General Stanhope, who having signalised himself by his eloquence in the impeachment of Sacheverel, had returned to his command in Catalonia, with large reinforcements, and an ample supply of money. He induced Charles once more to put himself at the head of an army, and to meet his rival Philip in the field. Charles and his general, Staremberg, appear to have been very unwilling to fight; and it required all Stanhope's determination to induce them to hazard an attack. The battle of Almenara, on the 27th of July, was a victory for the Allied forces; and it was followed up by other successes. On the 20th of August another battle was fought under the walls of Saragossa. The Allies were here signally victorious, and the often repeated wish of Stanhope was realised, that there might come a day to retrieve Almanza." † Charles made good use of the victory, by announcing to the Saragossans the restoration of the peculiar rights of the people of Aragon,-a measure which had upheld his cause in Catalonia, under every disaster. Philip, after his defeat, had returned to Madrid, to which capital he was ever welcome, whether a conqueror or a fugitive. But he again quitted his faithful city, for Stanhope had induced Charles to march again into Castille. The vanguard of the Allies entered Madrid on the 21st of September; and when Charles made his public entry shortly after, he found the streets empty and the houses shut up. He immediately left in deep indignation, exclaiming, “This city is a desert." Stanhope wrote home, "The country is our enemy; and we are masters in Castille of no more ground than Coxe, vol. v. p. 419. Letter detailing a conversation with Harley. we encamp on." The Allies lingered at Madrid till the beginning of November, waiting for re-inforcements from Portugal, which never came. Meanwhile the duke of Vendôme had arrived to take the command of the army of king Philip. The Castilians were enthusiastic in furnishing the means of organizing a powerful force; and he soon marched to the Tagus to prevent the possible junction of the Portuguese with the other portions of the Allied army. Charles now determined to return himself to Catalonia, with an escort of two thousand horse. The Allies, thus weakened in an important arm-their commanders differing in opinion-at last began to retreat to Aragon, at the beginning of December. The country was so destitute of supplies, chiefly through the hostility of the people, that the army was divided into three separate bodies, English, Germans, Spaniards and Portuguese, each taking different lines of march. On the day when the Allies were thus compelled to abandon that concentration which was their safety, Philip and Vendôme entered Madrid in triumph. But the energetic Frenchman lost no time in festivities and ceremonials. He, with the king, joined the Spanish army, which had been returning along the Tagus by forced marches; and crossing the bridge at Guadalaxara with his infantry, and swimming the river with his cavalry, came up with the British portion of the Allies. Stanhope was posted at Brihuega, a small town on the river Taguna. The English general had been watching the movements of some partizan cavalry on the hills; and was confiding in his belief that the Spanish infantry was not within some days' march of him. As he afterwards learnt, the army decamped from Talavera on the 1st of December; and they reached Brihuega on the 8th, a distance of "forty-five long leagues," and such was the disposition of the population that the Allies had not the slightest intimation of the approach of the thousands of cavalry and infantry that Stanhope had now to fight single-handed. He did his best. He threw up barricades and entrenchments in the town, and made the old Moorish wall which surrounded it a formidable defence. Through the next day the British fought with desperation against forces of four times their number. At seven in the evening their ammunition was nearly exhausted; and Stanhope then asked and obtained honourable terms of capitulation. Speaking in the highest terms of his brave men, he wrote to the Secretary of State, "Whatever other things I may have failed in through ignorance, I am truly conscious to myself that, in the condition we were reduced to, I could not do a better service to the queen, than endeavour to preserve them by the only way that was left."* General Stanhope, Mahon, p. 337. HOSTILITY TO MARLBOROUGH. 241 his officers, and his men, remained prisoners in Spain till a little time before the peace of Utrecht. The next day, the 10th of December, a great battle was fought at Villa Viciosa by Vendôme with the other portions of the Allied army under Staremberg. The fortunes of the combatants were long doubtful; the losses of each were very great. But Staremberg had no resource but a retreat, which he commenced towards Aragon, the next day, before sunrise. He was harassed and followed by partizan cavalry; sustained severe losses; was unable to defend Saragossa, where Philip established his court; and finally reached Barcelona, with forces dwindled to half their number before the battle of the 10th. The cause of king Charles in Spain was henceforth hopeless. The news of the disasters in Spain was received by the triumphant party in Parliament in the way that the baseness of faction, whether Tory or Whig, has too often applied itself, not to the redress of a national calamity, but to derive advantages of party out of the calamity. The Lords, now having a majority of the partizans of the ministry, told the queen, in answer to her Message, "as this misfortune may have been occasioned by some previous mismanagement, we take the liberty to assure your majesty we will use our utmost endeavours to discover it, so as to prevent the like for the future." They entered into an examination of the whole history of the war, going not only back to the battle of Almanza, but to the time of the early exploits of Peterborough. Lord Galway and lord Tyrawley were placed at the bar to give an account of affairs long since passed. Marlborough said, "It was somewhat strange that generals who had acted to the best of their understandings, and had lost their limbs in the service, should be examined like offenders, about insignificant things." The Lords carried a vote that "the lafe ministers were justly to be blamed for contributing to all our disasters in Spain;" and the thanks of the House were given to the earl of Peterborough, for his great and eminent services. The party object of the just commendation of Peterborough was sufficiently marked by the terms in which the Lord Chancellor, Harcourt. delivered the thanks of the House: "Such is your lordship's known generosity and truly noble temper, that I assure myself the present I am now offering to your lordship, is the more acceptable, as it comes pure and unmixed, and is unattended with any other reward, which your lordship might jastly think might be an alloy to it." Swift's famous “Examiner " of the previous 23rd of November was to be echoed from the woolsack, to give a new sting to the sarcasms of the coffee-houses. There was a general by whom "pure and unmixed " praise, withVOL V.-16 out "any other reward," would have been counted as dust in the balance. The bitter satirist of the "Examiner" says, "the common clamour of tongues and pens for some months past has run against the baseness, the inconstancy, and ingratitude of the whole kingdom to the duke of Marlborough ;" and he then states an account, "to convince the world that we are not quite so ungrateful either as the Greeks or the Romans; and in order to adjust the matter with all fairness, I shall contine myself to the latter, who were much more generous of the two." Here is the account; and we may easily believe the effect it would produce amongst grumb ling Englishmen : The ministers of state, who, from the time when the influence of opinion was thought of importance to the one object of gaining or holding power, have directly associated themselves with public writers, have generally made mistakes in the choice of their literary allies. The authors of real knowledge and ability have been too proud to become the tools of a government, when the association has been considered to be that of the superior with the inferior. The hacks only would take the great man's pay; and, doing his work as hirelings, would earn for themselves and their employers a fitting measure of general contempt. Not so was the connection of Harley and St. John with the great apostate, the Reverend |