Warlike Addresses of Parliament-Reverses-Battle of Almanza-Marlborough's visit to Charles XII. of Sweden-Indecisive Campaign of 1707-Siege of Toulon-Wreck of Sir Cloudesley Shovel-Naval miscarriages-Complaints in Parliament-Discontents in ScotlandJacobite Plots-Attempted Invasion-Dismissal of Harley and St. John from the ministry-Campaign of 1708-Ghent surrendered to the French-Battle of OudenardeSardinia and Minorca surrendered to the Allies-Death of the Prince of DenmarkSurrender of Lille-Proposals of France for Peace-Campaign of 1709-Surrender of Tournay-Battle of Malplaquet. THE Parliament which met in December, 1706, is chiefly memorable for its ratification of the Treaty of Union. The ministry was all powerful, chiefly through the splendid successes of Marlborough in the Netherlands, and from the favourable aspects of the war in Spain and Italy. An indirect overture for peace had been made by Louis; but the English Parliament was in no pacific attitude. The queen called for supplies, "sufficient for carrying on the war next year in so effectual a manner, that we may be able to improve everywhere the advantages of this successful campaign." The Lords congratulated her majesty upon "the ever-memorable victory of Ramilies," and expressed what they called "the universal satisfaction of your people," at the public declaration which the queen had made "that no negotiations for peace should be entered into, but in conjunction with all the members of the Grand Alliance." The Commons promised "such speedy and effectual supplies as, by the continuance of God's blessing upon your majesty's arms, may establish the balance of power in Europe, by a safe, honourable, and lasting peace." The supplies were granted with unusual rapidity; and the pension of 5000l. per annum to the duke of Marlborough was settled upon his posterity. When the Parliament was prorogued, it was renewed by Proclamation, declaring that the first Parliament of Great Britain should be held on the 23rd of October. The warlike successes of the Allies during this year were by no means commensurate with the expectations of the government. In Spain there was a fatal reverse. We have already seen how the insurrection of Catalonia and 330 REVERSES-BATTLE OF ALMANZA. i1707. Valencia had utterly failed, through the incompetency of the Austrian prince and his generals. When Peterborough no longer animated their courage by his daring, and combated their hesitation by his energetic sagacity, the good fortune which gave the Allies Barcelona utterly forsook them. Madrid had been retaken by marshal Berwick, and king Philip was again seated in the Escurial. The so-called king Charles, instead of remaining with the army in Valencia, to lead them against Berwick, returned to Barcelona. In April, lord Galway and the Portuguese general, Das Minas, took the field, with about seventeen thousand men. The French and Spanish army was superior in numbers, especially in cavalry. They met on the plain of Almanza; and there a battle was fought, in which the Allies were utterly routed. Four thousand of the English, Dutch, and Portuguese were slain on that fatal Easter Monday, the 25th of April, and eight thousand were taken prisoners. A letter from Mr. Methuen, the English minister at Lisbon, to the duke of Marlborough, says, "Our infantry is wholly taken or destroyed; but of the horse three thousand five hundred are saved, the greater part of which are Portuguese, who, being on the right, gave way upon the first shock of the enemy, and abandoned the foot."* The towns of Valencia and Aragon were surrendered to the victor. Peterborough's exploits were nearly fruitless. In Catalonia alone had king Charles any adherents. That province continued the seat of warfare, with English assistance, for three more years; but the spirit which only could secure success was gone. It was no longer an insurrection in favour of the House of Austria against the House of Bourbon; it was a national demonstration for king Philip against a foreign enemy. The terrible defeat of Almanza went to the heart of the humblest in England, if we may judge from Addison's amusing Essay upon omens. The salt is spilt by an unlucky guest, and the lady of the house says to her husband, "My dear, misfortunes never come single. Do not you remember that the pigeon-house fell the very afternoon that our careless wench spilt the salt upon the table?" "Yes, my dear, and the next post brought us an account of the battle of Almanza." + Marlborough, the diplomatist, was more busy in 1707 than Marlborough, the general. There was a young king of Sweden, with a passionate desire for war and conquest, who would not take the orthodox course of heartily joining the Grand Alliance against France, or of throwing his weight into the scale of France against the Grand Alliance. Charles XII. had plans of his own, which he pursued with a self-will which had very little respect to the power or influence of any state or confederacy of states. He had defeated the Russians in 1700. He had first conquered, and then deposed, king Augustus of Poland, and had set up a man of noble family, Stanislaus, as king; Augustus was also elector of Saxony. Charles led his army into Saxony; held its elector in a sort of honourable captivity; and from his camp at Alt Ranstadt, near Leipsic, demanded the submission of Europe to his decrees. Louis XIV. in the reverses of 1706 turned his views to Charles as an ally; bribed his ministers; even solicited him to become the mediator between the Bourbons * Dispatches, vol. iii. p. 353. + Lord Macaulay, in his "Essays," has quoted this passage, to observe that much clearer omens indicated disaster in Spain. We quote it to show the impression which public disasters made upon the popular mind at home. 1707.] MARLBOROUGH'S VISIT TO CHARLES XII. 331 and the Allies. The English government had also its alarms; and Marlborough was in communication with general Grumbkow, who had been sent on a mission to Charles by the king of Prussia. The Prussian gave the young Swede a glowing account of Marlborough and his actions, which was duly reported to him whom the general styles "his hero: "-" Among other particulars, he asked me if your highness yourself led the troops to the charge. I replied, that as all the troops were animated with the same ardour for fighting, your highness was not under the necessity of leading the eharge; but that you were everywhere, and always in the hottest of the action, and gave your orders with that coolness which excites general admiration. I then related to him that you had been thrown from your horse; the death of your aide-de-camp, Brinfield, and many other things. He took such pleasure in this recital, that he made me repeat the same thing twice. I also said that your highness always spoke of his majesty with the highest esteem and admiration, and ardently desired to pay your respects. He observed, that is not likely, but I should be delighted to see a general of whom I have heard so much.'"* The general of whom Charles had heard so much was not slow to gratify him. On the 27th of April Marlborough was at Alt Ranstadt. He writes to Harley that he had that day his audience of the king; delivered the queen's letter; and that his majesty seemed very well inclined to the interest of the Allies.† Lediard, the biographer of Marlborough, who was in the camp of Alt Ranstadt, gives us a more precise view of the courtly management of the duke at this audience. "He presented to his Swedish majesty a letter from the queen of Great Britain, and, at delivering it, made him the following compliment in French: Sir, I present to your majesty a letter, not from the Chancery; but from the heart of the queen, my mistress, and written with her own hand. Had not her sex prevented it, she would have crossed the sea, to see a prince admired by the whole universe. I am, in this particular, more happy than the queen; and I wish I could serve some campaigns under so great a general as your majesty, that I might learn what I yet want to know in the art of war." Charles was very gracious in return. He said he would do nothing to prejudice the common cause in general, or the Protestant religion in particular. He cared very little for the common cause. Voltaire has shown what he did really care for. Marlborough, Voltaire says, "fixed his eyes attentively upon the king. When he spoke to him of war in general, he imagined that he saw, in his majesty, a natural aversion towards France, and that he took a secret pleasure in speaking of the conquests of the Allies. He mentioned the Czar to him, and took notice, that his eyes kindled whenever he was named, notwithstanding the moderation of the conference. He, moreover, remarked, that the king had a map of Muscovy lying before him on the table. This was sufficient to determine him in his judgment, that the king of Sweden's real design, and sole ambition, were to dethrone the Czar, as he had already done the king of Poland." Marlborough promised pensions to the Swedish. minister, count Piper, and other functionaries, paying one year in advance; and then he returned to the Hague, to go to his accustomed fighting-ground. * Coxe, vol. iii. p. 159. Lediard, "Life of Marlborough," vol. ii. p. 166. + Dispatches, vol. iii. p. 347. 332 INDECISIVE CAMPAIGN-SIEGE OF TOULON. [1707. Marlborough wrote from Brussels to Harley, in the middle of May, "All our troops are in motion. . . . Since their success in Spain, the enemy talk very big, and pretend to give us battle; for my part, I think nothing could be more for the advantage of the Allies."* But there was no battle in the Netherlands during that campaign. Vendôme commanded the French army, and he was content with defensive operations. The States controlled Marlborough's plans. Thus the two generals were constantly occupied in watching and counteracting each the strategy of the other. But if Marlborough was unable to strike any decisive blow, he had consulted with prince Eugene for the accomplishment of a plan that was calculated to injure France in a vital part. An attempt was to be made, by land and sea, to penetrate into the south-eastern part of Louis's own territory. The land forces, under the duke of Savoy and Prince Eugene, were to invade Provence. An English and Dutch fleet, under sir Cloudesley Shovel, were to co-operate in this bold attempt. In the beginning of July, Victor Amadeus and Eugene crossed the Alps by the pass of the Col di Tende; on the 11th they made the passage of the Var; dislodged the French from their intrenchments on the right bank of that river; and on the 25th encamped near Toulon. The difficulties of this attempt at invasion are described by a high military authority. The fortifications of Toulon were "respectable;" the neighbouring heights presented many strong positions, difficult to be acquired or to be retained; the force of the Allies was wholly incompetent to invest the place, so that the communication between the garrison and the army of marshal Tessé could not be impeded; the besiegers were wholly dependent upon the fleet for provisions and military stores. † In less than one month, the object of the expedition was abandoned. To revenge, it is said, the bombardment of Turin, the duke of Savoy resolved to bombard Toulon, in which act of destruction the fleet was the chief agent. The "diversion,” as it was called, drew off some of the forces of France from other quarters; but the fires of Toulon blazed for no sufficient object, unless success in war is to be measured by the amount of havoc and misery which man can inflict on man. All that naval daring could effect in the siege of Toulon was accomplished by the fleet under the command of sir Cloudesley Shovel. This admiral was faithful and incorruptible, at the time when James II. employed every art to seduce the commanders of the English fleets to betray their trusts. "He was not a man to be spoken to," was the tribute of a Jacobite emissary to the character of sir Cloudesley Shovel. Returning home from the siege of Toulon, with fifteen ships of the line, his flag-ship was wrecked on the rocks of Scilly, with two other vessels, on the night of the 22nd of October. The crews of the Associate, the Eagle, and the Romney all perished. The body of the admiral, supposed to be cast ashore by the waves, was found after some days, and was brought to Westminster Abbey for interment with all honour; and in that house of the illustrious dead may be seen his sumptuous monument. But there is a remarkable story connected with his fate, which was published under the authority of the earl of Romney, grandson to sir Cloudesley Shovel. Many years after the wreck, an aged woman confessed Dispatches, vol. iii. p. 369. + Sir George Murray, in Dispatches, vol. iii. p. 380. 1707.] SIR CLOUDESLEY SHOVEL-NAVAL MISCARRIAGES. 333 to the parish minister, on her death-bed, that, exhausted with fatigue one man who had survived the wreck reached her hut, and that she had murdered him to secure the valuable property on his person. This worst of wreckers then produced a ring taken from the finger of her victim, and it was afterwards identified as one presented to sir Cloudesley Shovel by lord Berkeley. Burnet has described the catastrophe of the wreck: "When sir Cloudesley Shovel was sailing home with the great ships, by an unaccountable carelessness and security, he, and two other capital ships, ran foul upon those rocks beyond the Land's End, known by the name of the Bishop and his Clerks; and they were in a minute broke to pieces; so that not a man of them escaped. It was dark, but there was no wind, otherwise the whole fleet had perished with them: all the rest tacked in time, and so they were saved. Thus one of the greatest seamen of the age was lost, by an error in his own profession and a great misreckoning; for he had lain by all the day before and set sail at night, believing that next morning he would have time enough to guard against running on those rocks; but he was swallowed up within three hours after."* There was another disaster at sea, which in the ensuing session of Parliament led, with other accidents, to serious complaints of naval miscarriages. A convoy of five ships of the line were to guard a fleet of merchantmen to Lisbon, chiefly laden with stores and horses for the king of Portugal. Fourteen sail of French ships from Brest and Dunkirk met the English ships off the Lizard; and of this convoy one vessel was blown up and three taken. Most of the merchantmen escaped, and reached their destination. The posture of affairs was not agreable; and the first Parliament of Great Britain met on the 23rd of October, in no very placable temper. The prince of Denmark was Lord-high Admiral; and against his management, or rather that of his Council, to whom he deferred in all things, were the complaints of Parliament openly or covertly directed. Lord Haversham's denunciations spoke, to some extent, the murmurs of the people: "Your ships have been taken by your enemies, as the Dutch take your herrings, by shoals, upon your own coasts; nay, your royal navy itself has not escaped. And these are frequent misfortunes, and big with innumerable mischiefs. Your merchants. are beggared, your commerce is broke, your trade is gone, your people and manufactures ruined. * * * My lords, the face of our affairs is visibly changed in the space of one year's time, and the temper of the nation too." + In all wars, the English have ever been impatient of misfortune, and even of the absence of success. It was time that Marlborough and the Whigs should make some strenuous exertions to recover their popularity. Harley, and compelled St. John to resign; for these very scrupulous coadjutors were intriguing against them. of fierce warfare, in which the national excitement was abundantly kept up; and then a season of polemical fury, of court intrigue, an outcry for peace, and a total change of men and measures. They turned out able but not very Two more years The Union, as might be expected, has not worked very smoothly in Scotland. The general taxation of the two countries being assimilated, there were perpetual differences about the collection of the Excise. The Scots "Own Time," vol. v. p. 324. "Parliamentary History," vol. vi. col. 599. |