himself from this implied reproach with an animation and solemnity, which rarely marked his course in parliamentary proceedings. But at the same time he declared, “that he could by no means give into the measures that had lately been taken to enter into a negotiation of peace with France, upon the foot of the seven preliminary articles; for he was of the same opinion with the rest of the Allies, that the safety and liberties of Europe would be in imminent danger, if Spain and the West Indies were left to the House of Bourbon." The earl of Nottingham proposed an amendment in the Address to the effect, "that no peace could be safe or honourable to Great Britain, or Europe, if Spain and the West Indies were allotted to the House of Bourbon." The amendment was carried by a majority of sixty-two against fifty-four. A similar amendment in the Commons was rejected by a majority of two hundred and thirty-two against a hundred and six. In the Address of the Lower House to the queen, the feeling against Marlborough was kept up by an especial reference to "the arts and devices of those who, for private views, may delight in war." In answer to the Address of the Lords, queen Anne said, "I should be sorry any one could think I would not do my utmost to recover Spain and the West Indies from the House of Bourbon." The ministers dreaded not only the prospect of being ejected from power, but had the greater fear of Whig revenge upon the discovery of their clandestine dealings with France. They kept their places, however, and they then turned their thoughts to the mode in which they could best damage and destroy their adversaries. Marlborough was the first victim. An information against him was laid before the House of Commons, by the commissioners of the public accounts, and he was dismissed from all his employments. Marlborough was an avaricious man; he clutched at all the gold he could safely touch, but he was too cautious to seize upon perquisites and appropriate funds for which he had not strict precedent. The charges against him were under two heads, and were declared established by large majorities in the House of Commons. Marlborough's defence was certainly very incomplete, as judged by the opinions of our own times; but it seems to have satisfied all but the furious partizans of the ministry, to whom his high influence, especially in foreign courts, was a serious obstacle to their policy.

The discomfiture of the ministry in the House of Lords was stopped from going further, by a bold but dangerous manoeuvre. They created twelve new peers. There was no decided notice taken of this proceeding, except by the humourous lord Wharton, who asked one of the new peers whether they voted by their foreman. The opposition of the Peers being in some degree disarmed by this new creation, and the Commons being decidedly with the ministry, the queen, on the 17th of January, announced the opening of negotiations at Utrecht. Conferences were opened at Utrecht; but the real negotiations for peace between Great Britain and France were secretly carried on at Paris. At the beginning of January prince Eugene arrived in London with the object of preventing any such separate negotiation, by offering a guarantee that the emperor would double his contingents, if necessary, to carry the war, in concert with all the members of the Alliance, to a successful conclusion. The propositions of the emperor were coldly listened to; mentioned to Parliament; and

A.D. 1712. THE ALLIANCE ABANDONED BY ENGLAND.

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then laid aside. Eugene went back to conduct the campaign as the commander of the Allied armies. The duke of Ormond was associated with him, but the States would not entrust those powers to Ormond which they had entrusted to Marlborough. On the 26th of May, Eugene and Ormond, with a far larger force than had been brought into the field under Marlborough in the previous year, passed the Scheldt below Bouchain. A French army of inferior force, under Villars and Montesquiou, was nearer the French frontier. On the 28th, Eugene proposed to attack the French camp, which was open and exposed. Ormond equivocated, and requested delay. He had received private instructions from Secretary St. John, in the queen's name, to avoid engaging in any siege, or hazarding a battle, till he had further orders from her majesty. Eugene was indignant; but at length brought the English general to agree to co-operate in the siege of Quesnoy. The trenches were opened in the night of the 18th of June; and on the 4th of July the garrison surrendered as prisoners of war. In the middle of July, there having been for some time a secret correspondence between Ormond and Villars, Ormond proclaimed an armistice for four months between England and France. He withdrew his British troops from those of the Allied army; and called upon the foreign contingents in the pay of England to follow the example. With a trifling exception, they all refused. This infamous abandonment of the Alliance left the field open for France to recover all the ground she had lost. by one the fortified posts and towns which had been won by the Allies were retaken by the French. Impressive speeches were made in both Houses against the dishonour of the refusal of Ormond to co-operate with Eugene. But they were defeated by large majorities. A very effective protest was signed by many peers; and it was printed and circulated in several languages. The ministry endeavoured to repress it, and would have prosecuted the printer, could they have discovered him. Previous to the withdrawal of the British troops, the queen had informed the parliament, in a speech from the throne, of the terms upon which "a General Peace may be made." The Congress at Utrecht had been no party to these terms, and this statement was only a continuance of the duplicity that had attended the secret negotiations with France. It was moved in the Lords, that the Allies should give a general guarantee to the conditions of peace. This was rejected by a large majority; but a protest was signed by many peers, in which the objections to the proposed Treaty, and to the separate negotiations, were very forcibly put. The people, however, were not in a temper to make any very strenuous opposition to any negotiation for peace, which would bring them an immediate reduction of taxation; and the landowners, who were still paramount in Parliament, were rejoiced at whatever would put an end to those advantages which the moneyed interest derived from the necessities of the government. St. John, who had now been created viscount Bolingbroke, was dispatched to Paris, to settle some points that were still in dispute. The wily secretary had two interviews with the Chevalier St. George. The plenipotentiaries of the emperor at Utrecht had not hesitated to say that the great end of the English management was to bring in the Pretender; and the Dutch had expressed the same belief. The abilities of Bolingbroke were

sufficiently tasked to keep Louis firm to his engagements, now that the Allies were losing ground. Before the Secretary left Paris, however, a suspension of arms was proclaimed between Great Britain and France. The States refused to accede to this armistice. But they saw themselves deserted; they saw that Eugene could not stand up against the military resources of France and the genius of her commanders, and they finally, in December, accepted the propositions made in concert between France and England.

On the 11th of April, 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht was signed by the representatives of Great Britain, France, Savoy, Portugal, Prussia, and the States-General. The emperor refused to be a party to it. By this treaty, and by subsequent treaties of 1714, Spain and the Indies were given to Philip; the French king recognised the Protestant succession, and engaged to make the Pretender withdraw from the French dominions; he renounced for himself, his heirs, and his successors, the succession to the throne of Spain, while Philip renounced in like manner the succession to the throne of France; the fortifications of Dunkirk were to be demolished, and the harbour filled up, an equivalent being first given to France by Great Britain; Hudson's Bay and Straits were to remain to Great Britain, and satisfaction was to be made by France to the Hudson Bay Company for all damages sustained; St. Christopher's, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland were given to Great Britain, with certain rights of fishing off Newfoundland reserved to France; and, by a separate treaty with Philip, as king of Spain, Minorca and Gibraltar were retained by Great Britain; the emperor of Austria received the kingdom of Naples, the duchy of Milan, and the Spanish Netherlands; Sicily was separated from Naples, and given to the duke of Savoy, with the title of king; and the succession to the throne of Spain, in default of descendants from Philip, was settled in the house of Savoy; Luxemburg, Namur, Charleroy, Ypres, and Nieuport were assigned to the Dutch, in addition to the places already possessed by them. Upon the assembling of Parliament, the queen announced in general terms the conclusion of the treaty of peace. On the 9th of May, her majesty sent a message to the effect, that she had ratified the treaties of peace and commerce with France, and had concluded a treaty with Spain. The treaty of commerce contained articles which were conceived in a spirit of liberality far before the age. The mercantile public clamoured against them as destructive of British commerce, and the treaty of commerce was rejected by a small majority of the Commons.

On the 7th of July there was a public Thanksgiving for Peace, and both Houses of Parliament went in procession to St. Paul's. The Parliament was prorogued on the 16th; and very shortly afterwards was dissolved. The elections were conducted with more than usual party violence. The Jacobites were working steadily at their great object of preparing the way for their legitimate shadow of a king, and they had great encouragement in their schemes through the ascendancy of Bolingbroke. Oxford [Harley] had become comparatively powerless; and the bold Secretary, in conjunction with the duke of Ormond, reduced the army, particularly the regiments which had been raised by William III.; and they placed their own instruments in the command of various strongholds. The greatest obstacle to the success of their plans was the inflexible determination of the Cheva

A.D. 1714.

ACCESSION OF GEORGE I.

lier St. George to adhere to his own religion. The new Parliament met in On the 28th of May, the princess Sophia fell dead in an February, 1714. apoplectic fit. Her son George, elector of Hanover-or more properly, elector of Brunswick and Lunenberg-was now, under the Act of SettleA violent rupture had ment, the heir-apparent to the British Crown. On the 9th of July, the Parliament was prorogued by the queen in person. taken place between Oxford and Bolingbroke. On the 27th of July there was a protracted dispute in Council between the two rivals, at which Anne was present till a late hour of the night. It ended in the dismissal of Oxford. Bolingbroke was now supreme. The agitation of the queen brought on a seizure of apoplexy. In an interval of consciousness, she delivered the staff of the highest office to the duke of Shrewsbury, and her death, on the morning of the first of August, gave the power of the government to the friends of the House of Brunswick.

CHAPTER XLI.

IT had been determined by Statute in 1705 that in the event of Anne's death the Council was immediately to meet, and then to open three sealed packets, which contained the names of persons nominated by the Protestant successor to the throne, to act with seven great officers of state named When the sealed packets were opened, in the Statute, as Lords Justices. and eighteen peers, the greater number of whom were Whigs, were nominated by the Elector of Hanover, the hopes of the Jacobite party received a more fatal blow than when the dying queen appointed Shrewsbury Lord High Treasurer. Opposition there was none. The same afternoon the Parliament met, according to the provision of the Act of Regency. The Lords Justices entered upon their administrative functions. The Civil List was settled upon the same scale as had been granted to queen Anne. The title of king George was recognised by France and the other European powers, whether Protestant or Catholic. The Peers and the Commons sent congratulations to the new sovereign upon his happy and peaceable accession to the throne, and besought his majesty to give the kingdom the advantage of his royal presence as soon as possible. George exhibited no eagerness It was the 18th of Septo quit the quiet country where he was respected, and where he had no contests of Whig and Tory to disturb his peace. tember when he landed at Greenwich, accompanied by his eldest son. The new king had no showy qualities. Fifty-four years of age, below the middle stature, shy, awkward, and unable to speak English, his demeanour was not calculated to excite any fervid enthusiasm. His public merits were probably little known to his new subjects. He was unfortunate in his marriage, and did not win popular respect by the exercise of the domestic virtues. Twenty years before the Elector George Louis was called to the throne of England, some terrible tragedy had occurred in the

palace of Hanover, which ended in the somewhat irregular divorce of the princess Sophia Dorothea, the wife of the electoral prince, who was now pining away her life in the castle of Aldhen. The unostentatious sovereign was not fitted by nature to form for himself a court-party, by which he might in some degree have neutralized the two great parliamentary parties. He was inevitably and completely thrown into the hands of the Whigs, to whose firmness and decision he was indebted for his quiet accession to the throne. Bolingbroke was removed from his office of Secretary of State; and the seals were taken from him with some impolitic want of respect. Lord Townshend was appointed in his place; and the other great offices were filled up by leading Whigs. The doubts of Marlborough's fidelity to the Hanoverian succession had been manifested by the omission of his name in the Council of Regency. He was, nevertheless, nominated to his former offices of Captain-General and Master of the Ordnance. The peers of both parties attended the coronation of the king, which took place on the 20th of October. In January the Parliament was dissolved, and the writs for a new election were sent out. When the two Houses met on the 17th of March, the preponderance of the Whigs was decidedly manifested. The king opened the Parliament in person; but his speech was read by the lord chancellor. Its tone was moderate and conciliatory. The Addresses of both Houses were very pointed against the latter advisers of queen Anne. Bolingbroke fled to France, and soon after became Secretary of State to the Pretender. A secret committee was appointed to examine into the intrigues connected with the peace of Utrecht and the cessation of arms which preceded it. When their Report was presented, Walpole rose and impeached Bolingbroke of high treason. Lord Coningsby then impeached Robert, earl of Oxford, of high treason and other crimes and misdemeanours. Both these resolutions of impeachment were carried without a division. On the 21st of June, a similar impeachment of Ormond was decided by a majority of forty-seven. Ormond followed Bolingbroke in his flight to France. Acts of attainder were immediately passed against the two fugitives. Oxford was impeached at the bar of the Lords, and was committed to the Tower. These impeachments were followed by riots of a really serious character, with which the powers of the justice of peace and the constable were quite unequal to cope, and which gave occasion to the Riot Act, which, with some modifications, continues to be the law of the land. The elections of the spring of 1715 were conducted with more violent excitement than at any previous period. It was manifest that the old High-Church spirit was again stirring up the bitterest party strife.

The Hanoverian king had been proclaimed at Edinburgh without any manifestations opposed to the triumphant attitude of the Whigs. Amongst the Scottish nobles who had advocated the Union none had been more zealous than John Erskine, earl of Mar, who came to Edinburgh as Secretary of State in 1706, under the Whigs, and continued to be Secretary under the Tories. The advisers of king George had small confidence in "Bobbing John," as the earl was called from his happy art of accommodating himself to circumstances, and upon the changes which ensued after the arrival of the king, Mar was removed from his important office, and the