1700.]

WILL OF CHARLES, WHICH LOUIS ACCEPTS.

248

The wretched man grew worse and worse. Ecclesiastics surrounded his bed to urge, under the penalties of divine wrath, obedience to the councils of the Vatican. The famous Testament which plunged Europe into a war of ten years was signed. The king exclaimed, "Now I am as one of the dead." When the last breath had departed, after Charles had lingered four weeks,— the duke of Abrantes came forth from the Council, of which Porto-Carrero had obtained from Charles the nomination as chief,-and announced that Philip, duke of Anjou, was the sole inheritor of the vast Spanish monarchy. Saint Simon relates an amusing incident which preceded the formal announcement. Blécourt, the ambassador of France, who was probably in the secret of the will, and count d'Harrach, the ambassador of the emperor, who thought that his master would be the fortunate heir, were anxiously waiting in the crowd around the council door. Abrantes came out; looked a moment at Blécourt; then turned his eyes another way, and fixing them on d'Harrach, moved towards him, embraced him, and thus spoke: "Sir, it is with much pleasure," bows and reciprocal embraces,-" Yes, Sir, it is with extreme joy, that for the rest of my life,"-more embraces,-" and with the greatest contentment that I part from you, and take my leave of the august House of Austria."

On the 12th of November, the earl of Manchester, the English ambassador to France, wrote home, "I must now acquaint you that there is an end of our Treaty." The king of France had decided to accept the Will. One of his reasons was, that the emperor had not yet acceded to the Treaty. The emperor had in his possession a Will of the king of Spain, made in the previous June, which gave the inheritance to the archduke of Austria. He had to learn that Charles had cancelled that will, when he signed the Testament of the 2nd of October. The exultation of the court of France was scarcely attempted to be concealed. Louis affected to doubt what his decision should be; and he went through the mockery of consulting his council. He then came forth, and addressed the boy-king. "Sir, the king of Spain has named you his successor. The nobles demand, the nation. desires you, and I give my consent. You will reign over the greatest monarchy in the world." The Spanish ambassador did homage to Philip V.; and when the youth' parted from his affectionate grandfather, the superb monarch exclaimed, "The Pyrenees exist no longer." William knew what the pretended separation of the Crowns of France and Spain really meant. He had arrived in London in November, where he received the news that Louis had broken his engagements. He immediately wrote to Heinsius : "I am perfectly persuaded, that if this Will be executed, England and the Republic are in the utmost danger of being totally lost or ruined." In a letter, three days later, he says: "My chief anxiety is to prevent the Spanish Netherlands from falling into the hands of France. You will easily conceive how this business goes to my heart." The most heroic period of the life of William was now to be entered upon-that period in which Burnet says— "there was a black appearance of a new and dismal scene;" but the period which called forth the most wonderful display of the energies of the king's character. William's conduct cannot be better described than in the magnificent

Hardwicke Papers, vol. ii. p. 393.

+Ibid., p. 395.

244

THE NEW PARLIAMENT.

[1701.

words of Burke: "In all the tottering imbecility of a new government, and with Parliament totally unmanageable, he persevered. He persevered to expel the fears of his people, by his fortitude; to steady their fickleness, by his constancy; to expand their narrow prudence, by his enlarged wisdom; to sink their factious temper in his public spirit. In spite of his people he resolved to make them great and glorious; to make England, inclined to shrink into her narrow self, the arbitress of Europe, the tutelary angel of the human race. In spite of the ministers, who staggered under the weight that his mind imposed upon theirs, unsupported as they felt themselves by the popular spirit, he infused into them his own soul; he renewed in them their ancient heart, he rallied them in the same cause. It acquired some time to accomplish this work. The people were first gained, and through them their distracted representatives." *

The Parliament which had been prorogued in April was dissolved in December, 1700. The Tory party were now in the ascendant, and they had all the advantages of government influence in the elections. The king, if we may judge from the first aspect of proceedings in the House of Commons, was the person in this kingdom who had the least control upon the temper of the people's representatives. Ralph, the laborious party-historian of these times, relieves his usual dreariness by the following anecdote: "His majesty, in dismissing the Whigs, because they could no longer do his business in Parliament, had done enough to disoblige them, but not enough to gain the Tories; and so met with such treatment from both as once gave him occasion to say, in a pet, to Lord Halifax, 'that all the difference he knew between the two parties was, that the Tories would cut his throat in the morning and the Whigs in the afternoon.'"+ The Houses met on the 6th of February. Godolphin was now at the head of the Treasury; Rochester was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Under the ministerial influence Harley was chosen Speaker by the new Parliament, by a majority double that of the Whig nominee. The speech of the king touched upon the two great events of the past year-the death of the duke of Gloucester, and the death of the king of Spain. The loss of the duke of Gloucester "made it absolutely necessary that there should be a further provision for the Succession of the Crown in the Protestant line." The death of the late king of Spain "has made so great an alteration of affairs abroad, that I must desire you very maturely to consider their present state." The House divided upon a motion arising out of the king's speech, carrying this Resolution only by a majority of twenty-one : "That they would stand by and support his majesty and his government, and take such effectual measures as may best conduce to the interest and safety of England, the preservation of the Protestant religion, and the peace of Europe." Burnet says that a design was laid, to open the Session with a vote that the king be requested to own the king of Spain; but the opponents of William's policy thought better of the scheme when a member, Mr. Moncton, who was present at the discussion, said that if the vote were carried, he should expect the next vote would be for owning the pretended prince of Wales. The king was, however, moving steadily forward to the completion

* "Letters on a Regicide Peace," Letter I. + Ralph, vol. ii. p. 908. Burnet's loose mode of narration would imply that this was mooted in Parliament, which Ralph explicitly denies.

1701.] THE KING ASKS ASSISTANCE FOR THE STATES-GENERAL.

245

of the great object of his policy. When he received the Address of the Commons in reply to his Speech, he laid before them a Memorial from the Envoy Extraordinary of the States General. It set forth that they had acknowledged the new king of Spain, under the condition that a negotiation should be entered into, in concert with their allies, to secure the peace of Europe. They prayed the king of England to send the necessary instructions to his minister at the Hague to act conjointly with them. But they added that, as French troops were moving towards their frontier, they requested the succour agreed to be provided for their defence, under a treaty made by England with the States in 1677. The Commons asked that the Treaty of 1677 should be laid before them. They then unanimously resolved to request the king to enter into such negotiations with the States General, and with other powers, as might conduce to the mutual safety of these kingdoms and the United Provinces, and promising their support in performance of the Treaty. William was unexpectedly gratified by this decision. "Nothing," he said to the Houses, "can more effectually conduce to our security than the unanimity and vigour you have shown on this occasion." From that hour the king calmly and resolutely looked upon the future. There was a slight change in the temper of the Commons, which he probably could trace to a higher cause than the change which he had made of his ministers. Public opinion was slowly but surely coming into operation. There were few organs of opinion besides party pamphlets; but the people had some knowledge of political events, even from their meagre newspapers. They thought for themselves, and they expressed their thoughts freely amongst themselves. In the heat of the contest between William and the House of Commons about disbanding the army, we are assured that the king "was in truth more really beloved by the body of the people than he thought himself to be, or than his enemies seemed to believe he was."* Swift, who, in 1701, looked upon politics from a higher elevation than the molehill of party, says, that one cause of the popular aversion to some of the proceedings of the Commons was, "a great love and sense of gratitude in the people toward their present king, grounded upon a long opinion of his merit, as well as concessions to all their reasonable desires, so that it is for some time they have begun to say, and to fetch instances, where he has in many things been hardly used." + We shall soon see this temper of the people coming into direct collision with their represen

tatives.

It was on the 3rd of March that the portion of the king's speech which relates to the Protestant Succession was brought forward in the Commons. Burnet says: "The manner in which this motion of the Succession was managed did not carry in it great marks of sincerity. It was often put off from one day to another, and it gave place to the most trifling matters." During the whole of March and April the two great parties were engaged in the most furious broils. It was perhaps fortunate that their attention was diverted from high matters that concerned the future, to temporary ebullitions of party rage. The nomination of the princess Sophia and her descendants might otherwise have been resisted by the furious Jacobites; and the

Onslow's Note on Burnet, vol. iv. p. 392.

+ "Contests and Dissentions in Athens and Rome," chap. v.

246

THE ACT OF SETTLEMENT.

[1701;

clauses of the Act of Settlement which gave guarantees for constitutional freedom, in addition to the Bill of Rights, might have been opposed by the advocates of absolute government. There was comparatively little discussion about these conditions "for better securing the rights and liberties of the subject." They were proposed by Harley; supported by the Tories; and not resisted by the Whigs,—although the clauses against the sovereign going out of his dominions without the consent of Parliament, and for preventing any foreigner holding office, had the appearance of a personal reflection upon the government of king William. The clause which disqualifies all holders of office, and all receivers of pensions, from sitting in the House of Commons, was repealed early in the reign of Anne. Burnet says, "those who wished well to the Act were glad to have it passed any way, and so would not examine the limitations that were in it." He reckoned it "

a great point carried that we had now a law on our side for a Protestant Successor; for we plainly saw a great party formed against it, in favour of the pretended prince of Wales." It was indeed a great point gained for the welfare of these realms, that an Act was passed by which the House of Brunswick has possessed the Crown for a century and a half, under whose rule there has been a constant progress towards the solution of the difficult problem of representative government,the union of the largest amount of individual liberty with the most perfect security for social order.*

Negotiations were proceeding at the Hague between England, Holland, and France, for the removal of French troops from the Spanish Netherlands, and for other objects of prevention against the preponderance of France. Burnet affirms that "the French, seeing these demands run so high, and being resolved to offer no other security for the peace of Europe but the renewing the treaty of Ryswick, set all their engines at work in England to involve us in such contentions at home, as should both disable us from taking any care of foreign affairs, and make the rest of Europe conclude that nothing considerable was to be expected from England." It was scarcely necessary that party rage should be stimulated either by the intrigues or the gold of France. The Tories applied themselves to the task, most unpatriotic at such a moment, of assailing the Partition Treaties with unmeasured invectives, and of pursuing the chiefs of the late Whig ministry with a rancour very little proportioned to any offences which could be alleged against them. The Commons resolved to impeach Portland, Orford, Somers, and Halifax, for their concern in the Treaties by which the king had endeavoured to save Europe from the war which was now impending, and for other alleged offences. It is scarcely necessary, in a narrative which attempts chiefly to regard those historical events which have a permanent interest, to enter into a minute relation of these violent party conflicts. These party dissensions called up a third party, that had hitherto manifested very little participation in the contests of the two great factions. Swift, with the strongest good sense, temperately pointed out to the members of Parliament, during the recess—which he calls " a lucid interval "-the consequence of their bitter animosities: "It would be wise in them, as individual and private mortals, to look back a little upon the storms they have raised, as well as those they have escaped; to

*We have printed the Act of Settlement as a Note at the end of this chapter.

1701.]

IMPEACHMENT OF SOMERS AND OTHER WHIGS.

247

reflect that they have been authors of a new and wonderful thing in England, which is, for a House of Commons to lose the universal favour of the numbers they represent." The Commons having decided upon impeachment, asked the king to condemn the four peers without trial, by removing them from his councils and presence for ever. The Lords begged his majesty to pass no sentence of discredit upon his late servants, till their alleged high crimes and misdemeanours should be inquired into. The king gave a very general answer to the Commons that he should employ none but those he thought deserving of trust. To the Lords he said nothing. He evidently had made up his mind to let the factions fight out their battle without his intervention. Conferences were held between the two Houses, which became unseemly squabbles. The days were fixed for the trials of Somers and Orford. The Commons said they should not have justice, and refused to attend. The impeachments fell to the ground.

66

That new and wonderful thing" of 1701-a House of Commons displeasing to the people—a popular party speaking by other voices than that of its legally-constituted organs-became too familiar to the nation, in times much nearer to our own than the opening of the eighteenth century.† In 1701 the popular feeling began to take the form which has subsequently shaken many a faction, and disturbed many a scheme of blind and selfish policy. On the 15th of May secretary Vernon wrote to the duke of Shrewsbury, "There grows a great ferment out of the House, which begins to make our topping men uneasy. They are endeavouring to suppress petitions; and perhaps the means they may use for it may blow them up higher." At the quarter sessions for the county of Kent, held at Maidstone on the 29th of April, the grand jury drew up a petition to the House of Commons, which was unanimously signed by them, and also by the chairman of the sessions, and twenty-one of the justices. It was also signed by a large body of freeholders. Mr. Colepeper, the chairman, with four other gentlemen, proceeded to London with the petition, which was at last presented to the House by Mr. Meredith, one of the members for Kent, on the 8th of May. It is a plain-spoken document, but one which we should now call temperate and respectful: "We, the gentlemen, justices of the peace, grand jury, and other freeholders, at the general quarter sessions at Maidstone, in Kent, deeply concerned at the dangerous estate of this kingdom, and of all Europe; and considering that the fate of us and our prosperity depends upon the wisdom of our representatives in Parliament, think ourselves bound in duty, humbly to lay before this honourable House the consequence, in this conjuncture, of your speedy resolution, and most sincere endeavour, to answer the great trust reposed in you by your country. And in regard, that from the experience of all ages it is manifest, no nation can be great or happy without union, we hope, that no pretence whatever shall be able to create a misunderstanding among ourselves, or the least distrust of his most sacred majesty; whose great actions for this nation are writ in the hearts of his subjects, and can never, without the blackest ingratitude, be forgot. We most humbly implore this honourable House to have regard to the voice of the people, that our religion and safety may be

* "Contests and Dissentions," &c.

See Dr. Arnold's "Lectures on Modern History," lecture vii.

Vernon Letters, vol. iii. p. 145.