1710]

Fall of Godolphin and the Whigs.

469

on "the appeal to Heaven," and had made it exceptional and, in a sense, ultra leges. They made one mistake in quoting the Revolution of 1688 as an example of "non-resistance"; on the plea that, as Parliament had acquiesced in all William had done, the "supreme power" had not been resisted. This was wretched sophistry, but it was only one logical fallacy against several. But the Whigs had superiority in force as well as in fallacy; for the larger number of the Peers were of their party. None the less, they were so shaken by the popular clamour that a nominal sentence was only passed by a small majority. Sacheverell-who had posed as the martyr of the Church-was released amid the wildest acclamations. His portrait was seen in dozens of coffee-houses; scurrilous lampoons in his favour and against the Ministry were sold by every hawker in the street. Mobs marched about shouting and rejoicing, even following Queen Anne in her chair to express a hope that she was in favour of Dr Sacheverell.

Anne's conduct soon proved that she had determined to punish the Whigs for daring to meddle with the Church, even when attacked in the questionable shape of Sacheverell. In April, 1710, Shrewsbury, once a Whig but now a moderate, who had voted for Sacheverell's acquittal, was made Lord Chamberlain. Then, to the consternation of all, Sunderland was dismissed (June 14, 1710). It was in vain that deputations of bankers and merchants from the City waited on Anne to implore her not to dismiss the Whigs, in vain that even the Electoral Prince of Hanover remonstrated. On August 8, the Queen sent to Godolphin bidding him yield up his Treasurer's staff. Cowper, Somers, Walpole and other leading Whigs soon followed him into retirement. Harley, who had advised these steps, became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and formed a Ministry of Tories, in which St John was naturally included. Parliament was dissolved on September 26, 1710, and at the general election a strong Church and Tory majority was returned. So overwhelming was the victory that even Harley was induced to act with unusual vigour and severity. Before the assembling of the new Parliament (November 25, 1710) hardly a Whig retained even a minor post in the Administration; no change of Ministry had ever been so sudden or complete. But St John —the right hand of Harley-was not content with the superiority of Tories in the Church, Commons, or Cabinet. He turned to literature as a fresh region to conquer. Defoe, the first of journalists, changed opinions as the Queen changed Ministers, and St John started a weekly paper, the Examiner, to uphold his own views. It was in vain that Addison countered by some vigorous articles in the Whig Examiner; it ran only for five numbers (October). In November Swift began to contribute to the Tory Examiner; his matchless ease and vigour soon overpowered the grace of Addison, and to St. John's delight the Tories were able to assert and maintain their supremacy even in the realms of literature.

470

Harley's “Plan.”—His character and aims. [1710-1

On October 30, 1710, Harley submitted to the Queen a "Plan for conducting the Business of the Public." "In all places," he declared, "the Faction' (i.e. the Whigs) have been for many years possessed of the power." Yet the "true strength and inclination of the people" was obviously Tory, and the High Church majority of the clergy had long been coerced by a minority in high places. The Bench and the Bar were also full of Whigs, and means must be taken to let them know the power of the Crown. All difficulties with the majority of the Commons would vanish, so soon as the wishes of the "Queen, who is the centre of power and union," were known. In other words, places were to depend on services to the Ministry in which the Queen placed complete confidence. Lastly, with regard to the navy and army, the officers were to be made "dependent on the Crown." The Queen was recommended to institute as a standing order that tenure of command for general officers, "Flags," and captains was only to be annual, and to be arranged every year by the sovereign, who was not to allow anyone to "dispose regiments but herself." Thus the spoils-system was to be introduced nakedly and shamelessly into every department of State, under the pretence of securing the authority of the Queen. Indeed, in the flush of his election victory, Harley recommended measures drastic enough to rejoice the heart of St John himself. But, at the very moment when he was concocting this plan, he was secretly corresponding with Somers and Halifax, requesting them to join the Ministry, and assuring them that "a Whig game was intended at bottom." To the last he balanced and intrigued alike with Whigs, Low Churchmen, and Dissenters. His ideal of government really resembled that of Marlborough, and aimed at the moderation of extremes and the formation of a party of the centre. But party passions ran too high for reconciliations even of moderate men, and the time for mixed Ministries of this type had gone by. Had Harley really adhered to his "plan" his party would very possibly have avoided much of the disaster in which he was now to involve it.

In May, 1711, Harley assumed the office of Lord High Treasurer, and received the title of Earl of Oxford. The qualities, which had served him so well up till now, were not, however, sufficient to make him a great Minister. His enigmatic manner, his tolerance and moderation, the cautious, balancing habit of his mind would have in any case caused him to incur the charge of duplicity; but his policy and actions show that the accusation was not always unjust. With him was associated as Secretary of State St John, a man of brilliant genius, who swayed the Commons at his will by the dazzling eloquence and passion of his oratory. Restlessly ambitious, ardent and resolute in temperament, impatient of control, St John was a complete and paradoxical contrast to his colleague. But for the present they were agreed in their policy, and on the expediency of securing favourable terms of peace as soon as possible. The first difficulty was Marlborough, who,

1711-2]

Fall of Marlborough.

471

though not a Whig, had chosen and supported the last Ministry. In the field his services were regarded as indispensable; but it was soon found that old party connexions still influenced him. In the spring of 1711, Harley began secretly negotiating with the French without informing Marlborough. When the Duke discovered this, he revenged himself by negotiations with the Whigs, as to which he was equally silent. The upshot was a most discreditable transaction by which he and his Whig allies purchased the support of Nottingham and other bigoted Tories. With the support of the Whigs, Nottingham amended the address approving the Preliminaries of peace, by adding a clause that no peace would be safe or honourable, which left Spain and the Indies in the hands of the House of Bourbon (December 17, 1711). The Duke of Marlborough, as he rose to support this amendment, bowed to the Queen who was sitting in the Gallery, and his speech aimed as obviously at convincing her as at influencing his brother-peers. The amendment, which he had instigated, was carried. His move was in direct defiance of the ministerial policy, as was proved by its rejection in the Commons by a majority of over a hundred. Nottingham now claimed the price of his support, which was the passing of the Occasional Conformity Bill by the Whig Lords, who had repeatedly rejected it in the past. Though the measure bore hardly on Nonconformists whom it deprived of civic rights, and though the Whigs were famed for their tolerance, Nottingham held them to their promise and passed the Bill. Oxford had deeply resented Marlborough's action with regard to the peace, and, being tolerant towards Dissenters, was still more angry at his acquiescence in this second shameless political job. Marlborough was not only supporting the Whigs, but was inducing Tories to join in his defection and trying to catch the ear of the Queen. Only resolute measures could avert disaster. The first move was to hurry on the publication of a report charging Marlborough with financial malversations. The second was to dismiss the great Duke from all his offices (December 31, 1711). The third was a coup d'état, which intimidated the Lords into passing the peace clauses, by the creation of twelve new peers in a single day (January 1, 1712). This measure went very near to revolution, and it eventually formed one of the counts on which Oxford was impeached.

That the charges of peculation against Marlborough were flimsy and unjust and that he was ill-rewarded by the existing Ministry for his matchless services is clear. It must also be remembered that Swift had attacked Marlborough in his pamphlets, with the hardly disguised approval of Oxford. None the less it appears certain that, on an immediate though not on an ultimate issue, the Duke was opposing the peace. It is true that, in supporting the amendment, he was only making good the promise openly made by St John and Oxford to the Dutch, that the House of Bourbon should not retain both Spain and the Indies. But neither Treasurer nor Secretary would consider it the duty of their colleague to

472

Character of St John (Bolingbroke).

[1714

remind them of their broken pledge. Hence Marlborough's dismissal, though attended by discreditable circumstances, was by no means unjustifiable. The field was now clear for the conclusion of that peace, over the details of which divergence first appeared between Oxford and St John. In these negotiations they have both been suspected of intrigues with James Edward, the "Old Pretender," and each subsequently brought that charge against the other. But the terms of his letters to them both upon May 3, 1714, seem to show that no written communications could have passed between him and either of them. About verbal communications there will always be mystery, dispute, and perhaps genuine misunderstanding. Oxford, with his accustomed dissimulation, probably held out hopes to the Pretender, with the object of inducing him to influence the Jacobite Peers at home to accept the peace. But, while it was characteristic of Oxford to be entangled in an intrigue without ever committing himself, the same cannot be said of St John. It is upon the conclusion which can be formed as to his real designs, that the whole internal history of the last years of the reign turns. If, at the beginning of 1714, Anne and Bolingbroke were really intriguing for a Stewart Restoration, the quarrel with Oxford and Bolingbroke's short-lived triumph are easily explained. Oxford was not the man to move without a distinct parliamentary majority in his favour; and the Parliament of 1714, though divided, appears to have been on the whole opposed to the Pretender, at least so long as he remained Catholic. Bolingbroke was of a different mould; he scorned to follow, aspired to lead, and knew well enough that a vigorous minority, hallooed on by one who shows them game, can educate a supine or wavering majority. Hence, while Oxford hung back, Bolingbroke pushed on, induced Anne to dismiss his rival, and was preparing a coup de main on behalf of the Stewart, when Anne's death intervened. On these assumptions, everything becomes clear; on any other, the historian is lost in the labyrinths of doubt.

The theory which assumes that Bolingbroke was committed to the cause of the Stewart is, however, confronted with two difficulties. In the first place, d'Iberville, of the French embassy, who carried on most of the Jacobite intrigues, wrote to Torcy on May 19, 1714, that Bolingbroke would not support the Pretender, unless he changed his religion to that of the Church of England. Even so late as July 21, Bolingbroke was still holding this language to Tories in England. As it was known that these were terms which the Pretender would not consider, it seems to follow that Bolingbroke was not absolutely committed. In the second place, Bolingbroke certainly contemplated a Hanoverian succession as a possibility, while at the same time he was strongly of opinion that England would not long submit to be governed by a German. Thus he had not found the real key to the situation--the intense hatred of the Hanoverian party towards him; and the fact suggests that his policy in 1714 was not a desperate attempt to bring in the Stewart. His stern proscription

1712- 4]

Oxford and Bolingbroke.

473

of opponents, his feverish race for supremacy, may be explained on the ground that he knew Anne's health to be failing, and that he desired to be in supreme power before her death. Once in the seat of acknowledged authority, Bolingbroke might be able to dictate terms to the Hanoverian Prince who came to assume the Crown. Even so late as August 16, 1714, Bolingbroke still hoped to regain his power through his influence with his party. It is thus possible that, though deep in Jacobite plots, he was not absolutely given over to them, and that his immediate object in 1714 was not the grandiose scheme of restoring the "Pretender," but the far humbler one of overthrowing Oxford.

It must, indeed, have been maddening to St John to find that his official chief, though approving of strict party-discipline in principle, refused to practise it. With the insight of real genius, St John perceived that the day of half-measures was over, and that the political campaign must be waged on very different lines from the sort of civil war comprehensible by Oxford. There can be little doubt that he read the situation aright, and that the increase of party-discipline was the only way of strengthening the Ministry. But, for the moment, St John still went too fast. The High Church clergy disapproved of his morals, and the Tory squires were suspicious of his orthodoxy. Few of them, indeed, understood Oxford, but still fewer trusted St John; and they followed the one in hope till forced to resort to the other in necessity. For a time, Anne's great affection for Oxford, and his personal popularity, rendered vain all the efforts of his more brilliant rival to overthrow him. But, gradually, St John's extraordinary talents, his ascendancy in the Commons, the ingenuity, allied though it was to rashness and duplicity, with which he negotiated, made him the foremost man in England. In July, 1712, after piloting the most important parts of the treaty through the Commons, he was created a peer-with the title of Viscount Bolingbroke. The eagerness with which he seized on the distinction, is an illustration of his impetuous character. Bolingbroke was soon to find, like Chatham and Brougham in after days, that the oratory which had been irresistible in the Commons was merely impressive in the Lords, and that the parliamentary leader who takes to himself a coronet barters power for dignity.

Immediately after receiving his peerage, Bolingbroke proceeded in person to France to conclude his negotiations. On his return (September) he was brought into closer relations with Anne, whom he seems to have captivated by his personal charm. His position was still insecure, the peace was in some respects unpopular, and important commercial clauses, which would have resulted in a freer trade with France, were defeated in Parliament, possibly with the connivance of Oxford. During the spring of 1713, Bolingbroke addressed to his colleague a series of passionate appeals, bidding him in turn make a push for government; separate the chaff from the wheat; and get on the box and use the whip.