THE PASSING

OF THE ACT OF SETTLEMENT

In literature creative genius is justly ranked above the critical faculty; in the natural organism anabolism means health and increased vitality, and katabolism means decay and death; so in the conduct of human affairs our admiration is compelled by the energy which is devoted to the construction of systems and the making of nations rather than by the energy which is utilised in the direction of destruction. Possibly this is the explanation of the fact that so many of us revere the memory of Warwick the King-maker while so few of us have even heard of Mr. Griffith Rice, and those few do not think of his existence as having been an unmixed blessing. We suggest this explanation with a little diffidence, for there will very likely be found some to say that our estimate of Mr. Griffith Rice's claim to praise or dispraise is founded on a misconception of his work; that, whereas we regard him as a man who undid a dynasty, he had as much right to be termed a king-maker as Warwick himself. We are not particularly concerned in debating the point, but we think it somewhat odd that it should be left to Legitimists to revive the memory of the man who was the majority for the Act of Settlement.

It is a tradition with many people to read the last volume of a novel first, as with many speakers it is a tradition to pay attention in the first place to their peroration. By some sort of analogy it is difficult to write an historical article in strict chronological order, and Mr. Griffith Rice has already made his appearance before he is properly due. The Act of Settlement, of course, was an essential part of the European policy of William of Orange, and it is not a little strange that Macaulay, who was so careful to unfold the motives that prompted the actions of his hero and to expatiate upon the perseverance and consistency with which he did everything and left undone nothing to further the cause he had at heart, makes no mention of the great parliamentary coup of 1701, which was not only one of the last achievements of his life, but without which the whole fabric he had been at such pains to erect would have crumbled away ere the brain that devised it had yet returned to dust. The

Act of 1701 was the coping-stone set upon the building of which William may be said to have laid the foundation-stone in 1688, and very considerable misapprehension exists as to what that building really was.

It must never be forgotten that William was always a Dutchman and a deadly foe to France. He became Stadtholder when Lewis was at the zenith of his power, and that power it was his single aim to crush. In his own words, he could only accomplish this in one way: Nothing,' he said, 'but such a constitution as you have in England can have the credit that is necessary to raise such sums as a great war requires.' During the earlier years of his life he did everything he could to enlist the support of Great Britain to the coalition against France; he fêted Monmouth while Charles was King, and turned from him coldly when James ascended the throne; he married Mary for reasons of State, and so long as she was merely his wife and Princess of Orange he persistently neglected and betrayed her; so soon, however, as he realised that the woman he had wronged was in a fair way to become Queen of Great Britain he gave his cheerful acquiescence to the compact she proposed, that he should render love to his wife in return for the obedience she would render to her husband; whereby, it is not impertinent to point out, he demonstrated his political sagacity rather than his moral sense. The primary motive, then, that induced William to act as he did in 1688 was a financial one. To do him justice, he never pretended any affection he did not feel for the country of which he became King. He did not accept the British crown from any love of England; he demanded it from love of Holland. As Prince of Orange he had failed in his attempt to use the English constitution and the English purse in his great duel with the house of Bourbon; as King of England he could and did so use them. But to protest that he landed at Torbay animated only with a desire to prove himself the saviour of this country, is to protest too much. His landing was the first real indication that in international affairs the balance of power was at length about to be readjusted, and his admirers would contribute more to the reputation of their idol if they emphasised his heroism in combating Lewis rather than his altruism in supplanting James.

It is generally admitted that, if England would only have joined the European coalition against France, William would have been content with any Sovereign upon the English throne; but James knew that the policy of the Plantagenets, which it remained for William and his German successors to revive, had brought no lasting benefit to this country; he perceived that our true policy was friendship and alliance with France. In the posthumous memoirs of his life he records his views for the benefit of his son, and it may be said without hyperbole that these views were too enlightened to please

the shallow politicians of the seventeenth century. James says-it must be remembered that he always wrote in the third person:

Notwithstanding his propention to war, his prudence made him ever prefer peace; he was sensible (though others were not) that the less a King of England loves war abroad, the better it is for the people at home. He considered that the Kingdom had reaped no other advantage from the conquests of Edward the Third and Henry the Fifth than a continued occasion of lamenting the vast consumption of blood and treasure which ended always in loss and disgrace; that all acquisition upon the Continent were like to prove as little successful or advantageous to us as those from the Continent would infallibly prove upon England, and therefore the less to be feared: that the three Kingdoms was a just Empire of themselves, not to be invaded from the Continent nor to be extended upon it. The increase of trade and riches he knew was a more desirable benefit than an empty fame, which was another motive of his for not joining in a war against France, when he considered that if the third part of the charge (which he foresaw the war must amount to) had been expended in increasing the naval forces, it would have made the nation impregnable not only against France, but all the world besides.

It is, therefore, sufficiently obvious that William had nothing to hope from England while James was on the throne; the two men regarded the world in general, and France in particular, from two entirely different points of view, and if William was to succeed James had to go. It was as if they were playing écarté for crowns. William was dealt good cards and, marking the King, won the first game in 1688; he won the second in 1690 at the Boyne; he won the third in 1701 at Westminster. So far as Europe was concerned, it would have been idle for him to have supplanted his father-in-law, unless, humanly speaking, he rendered it impossible for himself in default of issue to be succeeded by his father-in-law's son. It is unnecessary to emphasise our contention that William was not actuated by religious zeal in settling the Crown upon the Protestant heirs of the Electress Sophia of Hanover. Calvinist and religious fatalist as he was, he was no proselytiser, and we are not aware that he ever displayed any particular anxiety as to the ultimate salvation of his English subjects' souls. We prefer to rely upon his undisputed animosity to France, which was the ruling passion of his life and the determining factor in his policy. Had the Crown of Britain reverted to the House of Stuart, his life-work would have been undone, and he was shrewd enough statesman to foresee it.

When the Duke of Gloucester died the question of the succession had to be settled forthwith, and William introduced it at the opening of the session. His speech was brief and to the point:

'My Lords and Gentlemen,-Our great misfortune in the loss of the Duke of Gloucester hath made it absolutely necessary that there should be a further Provision for the Succession to the Crown in the Protestant line after me and the Princess. The happiness of the ration and the Security of our Religion, which is our chiefest concern, seem so much to depend upon this that I cannot doubt but it will meet with a general concurrence, and I earnestly recommend it to your

early and effectual consideration.' ... On the 13th of March the Commons resolved That 'for the preserving the peace and happiness of this Kingdom and the Security of the Protestant Religion as by Law established, it is absolutely necessary a further Declaration be made of the Limitation and Succession in the Protestant line after His Majesty and the princess and the heirs of their bodies respectively. And that further Provision be first made for the security of the Rights and Liberties of the People.'... March 18. Mr. Conyers reported the further resolutions of the Committee appointed for that purpose, and the House did then agree and resolve that a Bill be brought in upon the said resolutions.

Thus baldly does the story begin in the 'Proceedings of the House of Commons,' but fortunately historical facts are very difficult to suppress. That it was part of the policy of William and his successors to flood the country with calumnies against the Stuarts has been proved up to the hilt. There was a large class of people not given to close reasoning on political questions who were inclined to side with the lawful claimants to the throne, and this class could quite possibly be won over by persistent misrepresentation of the Stuarts and the Stuart cause. At first, as was only natural, the Usurpers relied more upon the swords of mercenaries to maintain their throne than upon the pens of hirelings, but they employed both, and the bill for this assistance has never been adequately exposed. In 1715, for instance, on the outbreak of the revolt, George the First engaged 5,000 Dutch and Hessians at Sheriffmuir, while 3,000 Dutch were landed at Deptford on the 13th of November, 3,000 at Leith on the 4th of December, and another force of Dutch and Hessians arrived in Scotland on the 28th of December. George was the first British Sovereign to reign by the will of the people, and it is a humorous reflection that he was the first British Sovereign who had to employ foreign mercenaries to keep in subjection the people by whose will he ruled. Between the 10th of February, 1731, and the 10th of February, 1741, a sum of 50,0777. 188. was paid to writers of pamphlets and newspapers on the Whig side, and Arnold, one of the most scurrilous writers of that time and one of the most savage opponents of the Stuarts, drew in four years no less than 10,900l. from the Public Treasury. In spite of all this commissioned authorship, however, there is a considerable mass of original papers in the Record Office and elsewhere which enables us, in an age when people do not have faith in a statement merely because it appears in print, to form our own opinion as to what actually occurred.

It appears, then, that the Tory Government of the day was placed in a somewhat serious dilemma. To refuse to bring in the Bill would be to declare themselves openly against the King in possession, who with the aid of his Dutch guards would have given them a very short shrift. Moreover, if not placed thereby in actual peril of their lives, resistance would not have availed them much,

for they would simply have been replaced by a Whig Ministry more amenable to discipline. The other alternative was to introduce the Bill, to procrastinate as long as possible, to propose as many amendments as they thought might be tolerated, and generally to bring the subject into contempt. Burnet complains that the business bore little marks of sincerity:

it was often put off from day to day, and gave place to the most trifling matters. After a great deal of time had been wasted in preliminaries, when it came to the nomination of the mover, Sir John Bowles, who was then disordered in his senses, and soon after quite lost them, was set on by the Tory (then ministerial) party to be the first to name the Electress Dowager of Brunswick, which seemed done to make it less serious, when done by such a person; he was, by the forms of the House, put in the chair of the Committee to whom the Bill was committed. The thing was still put off for many weeks; at every time that it was called for, the motion was entertained with coldness, which served to heighten the jealousy.; the Committee once or twice sat upon it, but all the Members ran out of the House, with so much indecency that the contrivers seemed ashamed of their management. There were seldom fifty or sixty at the Committee, yet in conclusion it passed and was sent up to the Lords, where it was expected great opposition would be made to it.

...

Sir James Mackintosh, another Whig, remarks: The most important Act of the session of 1701 was passed under curious and rather whimsical circumstances'; and comments on the fact of the members leaving the House directly the Bill was brought in. The Whigs, indeed, must have been as indifferent about the succession of the House of Brunswick as the Tories were opposed to it. They were disgusted with William and could scarcely contemplate with pleasure the succession of a petty German prince disqualified by his foreign habits and matured incapacity for governing a free nation like the British. The jesting proposal of the Duke of Devonshire to place the Crown on the head of Long Tom, otherwise the Earl of Pembroke, instead, proves that at least one leading Whig accepted the Act with distaste.

Tindal, corroborating the opinion of Burnet and Mackintosh, carries the account a little further. He records that when at length a day had been solemnly set apart for the motion, and everybody expected that it would pass without more difficulty, Mr. Harley moved that some things previous to it might be considered first. He pointed out that the proceedings of 1688-9 had been conducted with so much haste that many securities which might have prevented much mischief had been overlooked, and he therefore moved that in the present instance they should settle some condition of government before proceeding to the nomination of the person in whom it should be vested. This suggestion won favour, but there were again found some who thought it was merely another specious pretext for gaining time and for introducing such modifications into the scheme as would render the Crown titular and precarious. The