1714] Dismissal of Oxford. Illness of the Queen 475 the Whigs, through the Dissenters, and partly a desperate bid for a whole-hearted support from the High Churchmen. That Bolingbroke, with his religious scepticism, should have proposed a statute at once so bigoted and so intolerably harsh shows to what lengths of unscrupulousness he could proceed. One of the most dramatic scenes in English history was about to be enacted. For two years, or thereabouts, Oxford and Bolingbroke had been counter-working each other, and their contention now came to a sudden and startling climax. The heat of parties was so great, the political atmosphere so electric, that the moderate balancing policy of Oxford was clearly out of place. His failure was so obvious, his divergence from his colleagues so hopeless, that, though Anne declined to accept his resignation in June, all knew his fall to be only a question of time. When at length the Queen sent to him for the White Staff, Bolingbroke must for one brief moment have tasted the joys of realised ambition. But never was triumph so short, never was schemer so soon disillusioned. On July 27, 1714, Oxford was dismissed, on the 29th the Queen fell ill. All was at once in confusion, and Bolingbroke's schemes turned into unsubstantial shadows. Bolingbroke afterwards boasted that, but for the Queen's illness, his plans were so well laid, that within six weeks everything would have been within his grasp. This is by no means clear; for the inscrutable and enigmatic Shrewsbury was playing a crafty game. He had been ambassador at Versailles (October, 1712), had but just resigned the Lord-Lieutenancy in Ireland, and was still Lord Chamberlain. He had since 1710 been deeply in the confidence of Anne, and had acquired much influence in the Ministry by mediating between Oxford and Bolingbroke, while his popularity was so great in the country that he was called "the king of hearts." He had never been committed to the Pretender so far as Bolingbroke, or even as Oxford. His recent absence in Irela Schism Act, made it clear that he could not have designed the ich he was believed to be strongly opposed. All this tends to show he had a party in the Ministry, and to suggest that, even without the sudden catastrophe, Bolingbroke's aims might have been defeated. On July 27, immediately after Oxford's dismissal, a Council met at Whitehall to discuss the formation of a commission for the Treasury. They were unable to agree, and the meeting was adjourned. It appears that Bolingbroke had designed Wyndham as First Lord of the Treasury, and meant to fill up the other posts with his own nominees. His projects were opposed by the Shrewsbury section of the Ministry, for the Lord Chamberlain, who had refused to be First Lord of the Treasury in 1710, now perhaps coveted that or even a higher office. It is significant that disputes too serious for adjustment had already broken out in the Council. On July 29, as was seen, Anne fell ill; on the 30th the Duchess of Ormond sent alarming news to the Council. The Privy 476 Shrewsbury Lord Treasurer. Death of Anne [1714 Council, which was sitting at Whitehall, adjourned to Kensington to discuss the situation. Upon this meeting the Dukes of Argyll and Somerset are supposed to have broken, though unsummoned. But Argyll had attended Council as recently as May, 1714, and Somerset, whose Duchess was at the bedside of Anne, may have received a summons at her suggestion. Whatever be the explanation, the Privy Council Register shows that they did attend, though it does not show that their presence caused the scale to turn against Bolingbroke. The opposition to him had already been considerable, and he was now confronted by the new and alarming danger arising from the Queen's illness. At the decisive Council this bold schemer appears to have lost his nerve and given way; at any rate the Shrewsbury faction triumphed. The story of the meeting, which has been adorned with the most legendary incidents, is best told in the brief entry in the Privy Council Register (July 30). "Their Lordships met in the Council Chamber and, considering the present exigency of affairs, were unanimously of an opinion to move the Queen that she would constitute the Duke of Shrewsbury Lord Treasurer." A deputation waited on the Queen to take her pleasure in the matter, and returned with a command that the Duke should wait upon her. Shrewsbury went to her bedside, and the dying Queen gave him the White Staff, bidding him, with an unwonted flash of regal dignity, use it for the good of her country. For the last time in English history, and from the last Stewart sovereign a subject received the staff and office of Lord High Treasurer. Probably with the view of marking her complete confidence, Anne refused to accept the Duke's proffered resignation of the Chamberlaincy; and he returned to the Council with the Chamberlain's wand in one hand and the Treasurer's staff in the other. Shrewsbury resumed his seat at the Board; and the Council drew up schemes for the defence of the kingdom and for the securing of the Succession under his guidance. On July 31 the Council was increased in numbers from 25 to 38 by the arrival of Whig Lords. On the next day Shrewsbury informed five other Lords of the Council at Kensington that "Her Majesty Queen Anne departed this Life at her Palace at Kensington at half an hour after seven this Morning"; upon which news they adjourned to St James'. There a Privy Council, to the number of 43, assembled, at which Bothmer, the Hanoverian Envoy, was present, and where the Commission of Regency was read. On the steps of Whitehall the heralds blew their trumpets announcing the accession of His Gracious Majesty King George the First. On August 10, news came to the Elector of Hanover sitting in his garden in the Orangerie, at Herrenhausen, that he had inherited three Crowns. CHAPTER XVI RUSSIA It is the purpose of this chapter to trace in brief outline the history of the Muscovite State during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to sketch the political and social circumstances of the Russia which Peter the Great reshaped, and to indicate the preparatory conditions without which his radical changes would not have been feasible. It is an error to suppose that the history of contemporary Russia can be understood by a survey which begins with Peter the Great. His reign marks the opening of a new era. But the abiding features which have differentiated Russia from the other States of Europe, some of the deeper tendencies of her domestic government as well as of her external policy, the spirit of her institutions as well as the direction of her expansion, were imposed upon her at a much earlier time. The history of Russia may be divided into five periods. The first begins with the foundation, in the ninth century, of Slavonic States at Kieff and Novgorod organised by "Russian" adventurers from eastern Scandinavia; the second, with the reception of Christianity by Vladimir of Kieff towards the end of the tenth century; the third, with the Tartar conquest in the thirteenth; the fourth, with the reign of Ivan the Great in the latter half of the fifteenth; the fifth, with Peter. This division exhibits some of the determinant influences which guided the course of Russian history. The Scandinavians supplied the first political organisation and unity to the eastern Slavs; the conversion to Christianity, and close ecclesiastical connexion with the Eastern Empire, introduced the Byzantine features which marked Russian civilisation; the significance of the reign of Ivan the Great it will be our task to explain. But this scheme of periods fails to show the event which is the key to the whole later development, the settlement of Moscow in the middle of the twelfth century. When George Dolgoruki in 1147 founded a military colony by the Moscova in the middle of a Finnic population, he unconsciously turned the course of East Slavonic history into a new channel. The significance of/ the third period lies less in the fact of Tartar domination than in the growth of the Muscovite power in relation to the other Russian princi 1 478 altation palities. Asiatic rule exercised a certain influence on Russian civilisa tion — an influence which has sometimes been exaggerated - but its main importance lies in the fact that it contributed indirectly and unintentionally to the aggrandisement of the princes of Moscow. The aim of these princes was to gather all the Russian territories under their rule and make Moscow the capital, her prince the monarch, of Russia. In their struggles for this end, steadily pursued and finally achieved, their success at decisive moments was constantly due to their skill or fortune in gaining the support of their Tartar suzerains. This shifting of the centre of political gravity from Kieff far northeastward to Moscow, was to impose a new rôle upon Russia and give the decisive direction to her history. It brought into play geographical influences to which her fortune and her misfortunes may be imputed. If the centre had remained at Kieff, there would not have been the same stringent necessity for the efforts of indefinite expansion; there need have been no divorce or protracted alienation from the rest of Europe; and there might have been no defeat of the growth of constitutional freedom. But for a State centred at Moscow endless expansion, ultimately into northern Asia, was an unavoidable consequence of its geographical situation in a land where there were no natural frontiers. Its great distance from the borders of the nearest western States was, as much as the circumstance of Tartar supremacy, a cause of the long isolation of Russia in regard to western Europe. And its origin as a military colony, insulated amidst an alien population, determined from the first the military character and spirit of its government. In other Slavonic States there was no tendency to absolutism; the spirit was rather republican. But at Moscow circumstances imposed a military organisation which fostered the power of the princes. And, as Moscow extended its rule over other Russian principalities and towns, this principle was ruthlessly applied. When Pskoff and Novgorod, and other cities, in which there had been a constitutional civic development, were brought under Muscovite sway, the civic element had to make way for a military organisation. The geographical position of Moscow determined the current of Russian history. Ivan III (1462-1505), Great Prince of Moscow, deserves his title of Great, if the appellation be interpreted in the sense that his reign marks a new epoch. He brought to virtual completion, leaving to his successors only the task of rounding off his work, the two chief enterprises which had engaged the energies of his predecessors - the emancipation of Russia from the slackening yoke of the Tartars, and the gathering of Russian territory under the wing of Moscow. He helped to extend Russian power over enormous tracts, inhabited by barbarous tribes, in the north and north-east, and he laid the systematic foundations of imperial autocracy. A typical Muscovite ruler, embodying all the unattractive qualities which helped the upward progress of the sovereigns 1462-1554] Expansion of the power of Moscow 479 of Muscovy, a profound dissembler, unscrupulous in breaking his word, trusting in tortuous and patient diplomacy, of which he was an accomplished master, rather than in arms, wanting in personal courage, unfalteringly cruel, exempt from the influences of affection and passion, he presents many points of resemblance with his contemporary Louis XI. A military monarch would have seen in the condition of the Tartars an opportunity for a decisive struggle. If the great Mongol conqueror Timur postponed the fall of the Eastern Empire by the blow which he dealt to the Ottoman Turks, it may be said that he hastened the rise of Russia by his destruction of the empire of the Tartar khans. On the ruins of that empire several smaller States arose, Kazan, Astrakhan, the Crimea, all of them weak through mutual dissensions. The general policy of Ivan was to foment the divisions, to refuse tribute, but occasionally to send presents, and to remain on the defensive. Cultivating the friendship of the Khans of Crimea he bided his time for attacking the Tsar of Kazan, whose dominion corresponded to the old realm of Black Bulgaria. In 1487 he captured Kazan and its ruler, but he refrained from annexing it; taking himself the title "Prince of Bulgaria," he gave the throne to a nephew of the Khan of Crimea. The reign of Ivan marks the final emancipation of Russia from Asiatic lordship; the Tartars were still troublesome and dangerous neighbours, they were no longer in any form masters. The annexation of Kazan was effected by his grandson Ivan IV (1552); that of Astrakhan followed (1554); Crimea was to pass under Ottoman sovereignty before it was finally won for Russia in the reign of Catharine II. The predecessors of Ivan had made it their aim, as we have said, to lay hands upon the neighbouring Russian principalities; but they had largely strewn with the left hand what the right hand had gathered, by adopting the policy of assigning appanages to their sons. Ivan discarded this principle, and so consolidated the unity of the State, which he almost doubled in territory by his new annexations. He reduced under his direct sway Tver and Novgorod the Great in the north-west, Viatka in the north-east, Chernigoff in the far south-west, as well as Iaroslavl and Rostoff in the north. His son Vasili completed the extension by winning Pskoff, Smolensk, Novgorod-Sieverski, and Riazan. Of these events, each an important step in the advance of Moscow, a particular interest is attached to the acquisitions of Novgorod the Great and Pskoff. The suppression of these two republics (as well as of the remote and less important republic of Viatka) removed the examples of popular freedom which still survived in the Russian world. The citizens of these States managed their affairs in the veche, or popular assembly, to which they were summoned by the bell in the market-place. They were the only places in Russia which bore any resemblance, in spirit and in well-being, to the prosperous towns of western Europe. Novgorod was a factory of the Hanseatic league and a resort of German merchants. Ivan |