23 removed from the memory of the great warrior; and all that a charitable age can do, is to make allowance for an unsettled state of succes sion, and an intriguing age. The discovery of these proceedings would have been sufficient of themselves to rouse the indignation of William, and to make him look with jealousy on her who countenanced the traitor; but some have suspected the great general of conduct still darker, and of having acted a double traitor, in having offered, while in the service of William, to assist James, and of then betraying the designs of that prince. Excepting, however, the fears of the Jacobites themselves, and one document containing a charge of peculiar atrocity, little evidence has been brought to confirm the accusation, and justice to the memory of a great man requires us to discard it; nevertheless, it has been ingeniously maintained, that Anne, who had now softened towards her father, had from conviction, compassion, or to serve an end, ceased to maintain the spurious birth of the Prince of Wales, and had written to her father a repentant letter," was made the dupe of such transactions, and that the deep dislike of her sister Mary, which did not relinquish her when its object wished to visit her on her deathbed, can only be accounted for on the supposition, that William and Mary knew that Anne was reconciled to her father, and that she entered into his views of re-mounting the throne. Although it is well known that a letter which the princess wrote to her father,24 asking if she might accept of the throne, then likely to become quickly vacant, was answered by a negative, it cannot be denied that a good understanding at that time subsisted betwixt the exiled monarch and his daughter; and after his death in 1701, his widow, writing to Anne, uses terms more applicable to one bound by a solemn promise, than under a mere moral obligation. 25 26 The death of her father was quickly followed by that of her only son: the duke of Gloucester had been put under the superintendence of the celebrated Bishop Burnet, and if the words of the old prelate, who seems to have dearly loved, and deeply regretted his pupil, are to be relied on, he must have shown talents for acquiring knowledge, of a very high order, and a disposition to be acquainted with subjects not generally understood at so early an age. He was a boy of a delicate constitution, and in his eleventh year he caught a fever, which in four days terminated his life. He had been acknowledged successor to the throne, and the nation joining his talents to his undisputed right, fondly looked forward to an end of the strife of succession, and to the reign of a good and great king. But to the mother, if either ambition or affection had place in her mind, the blow must have been the heaviest "Macpherson, vol. i. p. 280, the confession of Sir George Hewit, accusing Churchill of a design to assassinate James. Life of James II. p. 476. Hallam, in laying considerable stress on this event, seems to overlook the circumstance that the quarrel had gained its utmost height before this letter was written. "Life of James II. p. 559. Life of James II. p. 602. "He forgave you all that's past, from the bottom of his heart, (and prayed to God to do so too, that he gave his last blessing and prayer to God to convert your heart) and confirm you in your resolution of repairing to his son the wrongs done to himself." The editor mentions that the portion within parentheses is interlined by the Pretender. It will be observed that the sentence will not read intelligibly without this portion. Burnet-Edit. 1731-vol. iv. pp. 403, 470. which the hand of fate could well strike. "She attended on him," says Burnet, "during his sickness, with great tenderness, but with a grave composedness, that amazed all who saw it: she bore his death with a resignation and piety that were indeed very singular." After this event, in her familiar letters to the countess of Marlborough, she always applied to herself the term, 'your unfortunate Morley.' Anne had born eight immature births, and nine living children; the mother of these was now childless, and those who are partial to such speculations, have supposed the event a just retribution to her who had deserted her parent in his hour of need. No apathy could have resisted the damp which this event must have cast upon her spirits, on her accession to the throne, which took place on the 8th of March, 1702.27 Few monarchs have taken more easy possession of a throne, the succession to which admitted of debate, than Anne. She appears to have met the views of all parties. The Whigs of England saw her fulfil the act of settlement, while the Tories felt she was their friend.28 The Scotch Jacobites hailed the accession of a Stuart,29 and the unfortunate Irish enjoyed a hope, not fulfilled, that the successor of their conqueror would not rule them by the laws applicable to a nation just subdued ;0 the only persons who seemed to dread the effects of her government were some of the more timid of the Scottish Presbyterians, and the English Dissenters. Most historians have noticed her predilection for the councils of the Tories, and it must be admitted, that Anne at all times showed an adherence to principles of divine right and absolute supremacy, at variance with her own title to possess the throne; but her immediate choice of ministers was more actuated by her dependence on the advice and friendship of her celebrated favourite, than on her political principles. The prince of Denmark being formally appointed generalissimo of all her forces by sea and land, Somers and Halifax, who had enjoyed the confidence of the late king, were dismissed from the council, which was regulated by Marlborough and Godolphin at the instigation of these celebrated men, the engagements of the late king to pursue the war of the Spanish succession were continued; the latter was appointed lord-treasurer, and the former being appointed captain-general, and honoured with the order of the Garter, was sent as plenipotentiary to the Hague, to deliver the sanction of the queen to the alliance acceded to by her predecessor, and in pursuance of its principles conducted those campaigns which have rendered the reign of Anne renowned. Of the incidents which history connects with the reign of this princess, few belong to her individual biography, for even where she ostensibly acted, we have to discover the influence of some guiding hand, and a multitude of great names connected with politics, literature, and war, claim the credit of the memorable events of that distinguished period. The partiality of the queen towards her favourite continued for a considerable period in all its former warmth, but what might have been previously considered an honourable friendship, dignified by rank on the one hand, and talent on the other, degenerated into a dangerous subjection of the mind of "Somerville. Smollett, and the other popular historians. Laing's Scotland, Lockhart. Gordon's Ireland, vol. ii. p. 184. Lockhart, Smollett. Somerville, p. 3. The first open a queen to the caprice or insolence of a favourite. act of partiality on the part of Anne was a recommendation to the commons to bestow on Marlborough a pension of £5000 per annum; but the commons declined compliance, and would not admit the principle of extravagantly rewarding minor services, reserving their demonstration of gratitude till the more distinguished acts of that great general afterwards called it forth.33 In the meantime, the queen bestowed on him a dukedom, and he received the thanks of both houses of parliament, an honour which seems to have carried with it an un pleasing condition, from its including the duke of Ormond and Sir George Rooke; and from this period his friends have dated the departure of the duke of Marlborough from the councils of the Tories, and his gradual approach to an alliance with the Whigs.34 With Rochester, the head of the Tory party, Marlborough had early come into collision, and the uncharacteristic objection of that party to the war, impeded his victorious progress, and annoyed the ministry with dissensions. Wearied in spirit by these interruptions, he came to the resolution of resigning his command; but the queen, with her usual vehemence of friendship, forbade the allusion to such an intention :"We four," she said, (alluding to the Marlboroughs, Godolphin, and herself) "must never part till death mows us down with his impartial hand." "As for your poor unfortunate Morley," she says to the dutchess," she could not bear it; for if ever you should forsake me, I would have nothing more to do with the world, but make another abdication for what is a crown when the support of it is gone ?" It is rather remarkable, that the plan which Marlborough adopted to preserve his utility to the queen, brought about the circumstances which finally undermined his interest with his mistress. He admitted into the cabinet, as secretaries of state, two individuals professing Whig opinions, in whom he placed confidence, but who were men still more designing than himself, Harley, and Henry St John. But while following the obscure traces of the secret machinations which ruled the councils of Anne, we must not omit some political acts which characterize her reign, and the spirit of her opinions. She is said to have been of a charitable, mild, and benevolent disposition, and it is natural that we should find her employing these qualifications in her conduct to her favourite church. With the assistance and advice of Bishop Burnet, she procured the passing of an act, by which the first fruits, or the revenues of every ecclesiastical preferment for one year, and the tenths of preferments, or a yearly revenue of a tenth part of the emolument of all preferments paid by the incumbent at Christmas, should be restored to the church, from which the act 26th Henry VIII. had taken them, to secure them to the crown, and should be erected into a fund for the augmentation of small livings.35 The design was doubtless benevolent, but it has been thought by some to have been unsuccessful, and to have only released the rich clergy from a charge to which by law they were liable, while many incumbrances prevented it from having any effect whatever during the lifetime of the queen. 36 The union of the two kingdoms is an event not to be omitted in a memoir of Queen Anne, as it was a measure for which she discovered an early desire," in the furtherance of which she took a personal interest, overcoming great difficulties, and in the accomplishment of which she indulged in a just pride as the fruit of her own endeavours. The proceedings of the English house of peers, regarding the plot of Lord Lovat, had exasperated the national feeling of the Scotch, as a hostile interference; and many began to fear, not without plausible ground, that the greater nation might assume an aspect of command over the weaker. The legislature, of which part was thus influenced, while a portion looked forward to a Jacobite succession, tacked to the supplies the celebrated act of security, by which a separate successor to the crown might be named for Scotland, and the kingdom armed to defend him. This so far showed to those who valued the Protestant succession, the necessity of an incorporating union, that Godolphin has been suspected of so refined a policy as that of having secretly procured the passing of this act to prove the necessity of the projected union.38 No salutary measure ever forced its way through greater difficulties than the act of union. Fletcher of Saltoun, a man venerated for his talents and his goodness, and feared on account of the freedom of his political opinions, and Hamilton, Lord Belhaven, one of the most bold and nervous of those orators who have joined reason with passion, united in a conscientious opposition to the measure, founded on no shallow grounds. It had besides to contend with the prejudices of the Scotch people, who could not with patience witness the extinction of a national name which they had been taught to ally with all that is great in genius and glorious in arms: their ceasing to possess as their own king a descendant of that hoary race of monarchs whose origin was suspended from the clouds, and the closing of the doors of their ancient parliament. By a little corruption, some artifice, and considerable perseverance, and by continuing to the Scottish aristocracy the outward form of their ancient power, the measure was carried, in opposition to the voice of a nation, and the opinion of a teeming press. In feeling the utility of the measure, and looking back on its progress, we are astonished that it ever overcame the array set against it. For some time its operation afforded matter of triumph to its opponents. Additional measures, in pursuance of its spirit, produced heartburnings, which it cannot be said that the conduct of the more powerful nation contributed to alleviate. During the reign of Anne, those who had been the best promoters of the measure chose to move its recall, but the attempt failed: it was long before any of its benefits were acknowledged beyond the council-table, or even felt: it is probably a measure of which the excellent effects will increase with its age, until it be remembered when the victories of Marlborough are forgotten. 39 There are other matters, however, in this reign which present a less noble aspect to the historical inquirer. The disputes betwixt the two houses on the Aylesbury election, and other subjects, are more con Culloden Papers, p. 29. Notes on Lockhart's Mem. Laing, vol. iv. p. 304. Sir S. Clerk's MS. 40 neeted with the constitutional history than with the personal memoir of the queen; but it must be remarked, that the opposition frequently made to liberal principles, and the indecorous opinions on divine right and prerogative, which created so much confusion and danger, would probably have slept in the bosoms of their enlightened projectors, had they not been encouraged from the throne. The crime, if such it may be called, which caused the measures against Sacheverell, was not in the propagation of absurdities by a man of a weak intellect and heated brain, but in the acts of those who maintained the speculative doctrine of divine right for the furtherance of their own dark or selfish motives, and above all, of those who tried to gain their end by uniting it with religion. The alleged danger of the church, or, as it appeared in their eyes, the danger of the Christian religion, fired the minds of the populace, as a false tale of injuries may be said to rouse the feelings of a passionate man, and the people were on the eve of breaking out into open rebellion in vindication of the doctrine of passive obedience. To draw the line where opinions begin to point so strongly at the existing government that the authors of them must be prosecuted for the preservation of the general peace, is a nice point; it is perhaps most safe to lean towards a feeling of the sacredness of opinion, and probably the experience of statesmen can show few instances where such measures have produced beneficial effects. Perhaps there is hardly a case which will admit of more justification than the prosecution of Sacheverell, and yet its propriety is somewhat doubtful, and the irritation it gave to the public mind, along with the slight punishment the peers felt themselves compelled to award, must have made those connected with the transaction feel that they were treading on unsteady ground. But if the prosecution was a matter of doubtful propriety, there can be but one opinion as to the conduct of the queen. Her private attendance on the trial, the adulation she accepted from the turbulent multitude, her cool contempt for the suggestions of the commons, and the final promotion to a rich benefice of the contemptible object of disturbance, show a monarch conniving at defiance of the laws, and too narrow in her intellect to feel the truth of the grand political principle by which she had been placed on the throne, while she would not risk an open avowal of her principles." 41 In the meantime, a change in the friendly feelings of the queen towards the dutchess of Marlborough, produced a strong effect on the policy of Europe. The dutchess would have made a great queen, and being so much connected with the guidance of a royal will, it may well be supposed that her interference and haughtiness became too great even for the temper of Queen Anne. Abigail Hill, a connexion of her own, and appointed by her one of the bed-chamber women, was the person who supplanted the proud dutchess in the affections of the queen. This woman, better known as Mrs Masham, was also distantly related to Harley; and that wily intriguer, on her coming under the notice of the queen, condescended to pay his respects to a relative he had previously neglected, and was introduced to the favour of the queen, to whom he was in the habit, through the intervention of Abigail, of paying secret visits. It is difficult to follow the windings of "Vide Lockhart Papers, vol. i. p. 310. "Smollett.—Somerville, p. 373, &c.—Burnet, p. 1066, &c.—State Trials, vol. xv. |