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THE 
 
 BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 PERCY M. THORNTON, 
 
 AUTHOR OB' 
 
 ' FOREIGK SE0KETAStE3 OP THE NINETEENTH OENTOBY," " HARROW SCHOOL 
 AND ITS aORRODNDluaS," ETC., ETC, 
 
 LONDON: \ 
 
 WILLIAM EIDGWAY, 169, PICCADILLY, W. 
 
 1887. 
 
 (3) 
 
\ 
 
 rnellN 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 LIBR 
 
 »^/ 
 
 \ 
 
 / 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PBINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LHIITBD, 
 
 STAMFORD STREET AND CHARIKG CROSS. 
 
P E E F A C E. 
 
 In dedicating this book to my friends E. Maunde! 
 Thompson and Edward Scott, of the Manuscript 
 Department of the British Museum, I wish to re- 
 cognise their kindness in drawing attention to 
 the unedited Hanover Papers, owing to which 
 I was induced to undertake my present task. It 
 has been my object, by giving a succinct account 
 of Her Majesty's family, and of the accession thereof 
 to the British throne, to fill an obvious gap in our 
 historical literature ; while the time of publication 
 seems opportune, falling, as it does, a few weeks 
 before the Queen completes fifty years of her reign. 
 But the work was originally designed, without 
 reference to any such coincidence, as the result of 
 historical research entered on for the sake of the 
 subject itself and the interesting speculations neces- 
 sarily suggested by the perplexing possibilities 
 which hung in the air during the last years of 
 Queen Anne's reign. There is no pretence here 
 to have set aside the general conclusions of writers 
 such as Mr. W. H. Lecky, Professor A. W. Ward, 
 the late Rev. J. Green, or the late Lord Stanhope, but 
 
 a 2 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 rather to have confirmed their conclusions ; although 
 the Record Office papers exonerate Lord Boling- 
 broke from the charge of carelessness in striving to 
 defend the ports and harbours when, as Secretary 
 of State, he was responsible for their maintenance in 
 proper strength. 
 
 My justification for devoting so much space to the 
 period 1Y02-1714 is that all through Queen Anne's 
 reign extreme uncertainty as to the Succession pre- 
 vailed, and the estimates of the chances of the rival 
 claiii;ants were various and fluctuating. Even 
 among the rank and file of the Whigs and of the 
 Protestant section of the Tories, there was, before 
 1710, little enthusiasm for the Hanoverians on the 
 one side, or ^the Stuarts on the other, so that the 
 Court influence was sufficient to turn the balance of 
 public opinion. But professional statesmen could 
 not tell from day to day whether that influence 
 would veer right round or keep true to the star of 
 Brunswick. It was difficult to understand that the 
 Queen would remain steadfast in sacrificing her 
 sisterly feelings to the interests of Protestantism, or 
 that her brother would keep staunch to his faith 
 at the peril of a crown ; so that the above-named 
 statesmen endeavoured to provide for their personal 
 security in any,event by paying furtive court both 
 to Hanover and St. Germain. Thus assurances of 
 loyalty to James Edward need not be held to imply 
 the slightest intention to give him active support so 
 long as the Queen continued to be in the same mind 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 or James Edward in the same communion. These 
 general considerations give weight to my conten- 
 tion that Lord BoHngbroke laboured as Secretary 
 of State for two main objects, namely, loyal service 
 to Queen Anne, and the elevation of the Tory party. 
 The affair of the writ for the Electoral Prince 
 naturally raised the hopes of the Jacobites, but their 
 restlessness only served to excite the apprehensions 
 and determination of the Whigs, who were roused 
 into something like enthusiasm by the Schism Bill — 
 a measure which could hardly have been promoted 
 by Oxford and Bolingbroke to bolster up their own 
 failing power in Parliament if they had given one 
 serious thought to the interests of the Stuart branch. 
 They, and all well-informed statesmen, must have 
 known that only the Queen's active advocacy could 
 give her brother a reasonable chance of the throne 
 so long as he remained a Papist. Thus Her 
 Majesty's demise resolved the doubts of all moderate 
 politicians in favour of the Guelphs, and so the 
 Council, which naturally took the place of the 
 Court at this juncture, accurately represented the 
 general feeling of the nation when they at once 
 proclaimed George the First as King. The outward 
 expression of the fact that all uncertainty was at an 
 end was the appearance of the Dukes of Somerset and 
 Argyll in the Council-chamber. As matters turned 
 out, the fears that the Jacobites would give trouble 
 proved to be groundless, and at this distance of time 
 seem almost foolish ; for men who had long bee/i 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 clinging to a double hope of their ends being 
 attained by constitutional means, could hardly be 
 expected, when dismayed by the sudden extinction 
 of those hopes, to be ready for an armed rising at a 
 few hours' notice. 
 
 I have copied or mentioned several interesting 
 papers omitted by Macpherson. The most striking 
 statement amongst the unpublished Hanover Papers 
 is that communicated by Sir William Dawes, Arch- 
 bishop of York, containing an account of Queen 
 Anne's voluntary denial of any intention to alter 
 the Succession in 1714, and the document is there- 
 fore given at length. Nor is it of much less inte^ 
 rest in reference to the Succession to know that that 
 devoted Jacobite, James, second Duke of Ormond, 
 wrote several letters expressing devotion to the 
 Electoral Court at Hanover, during 1714; or that 
 three years later (1717) Prince Eugene made similar 
 professions to the exiled Prince James Edward at 
 Avignon, when the great Imperialist general was 
 there campaigning against the Turks. 
 
 Again, the mission of Lord Clarendon to Hanover, 
 which is minutely described in the Hanover Papers, 
 has been brought prominently into this narrative, 
 and I have adduced evidence not hitherto made 
 public in support of the opinion of recent writers 
 that Bolingbroke desired to place the Tory party in 
 power, rather than to alter the Succession, and bring 
 in a Catholic King. 
 
 The fact that the great Duke of Marlborough's 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 earlier letters to the Court of St. Germain fell into 
 Lord Oxford's hands has not hitherto been acknow- 
 ledged by historians, although Lord Stanhope shows 
 that he suspected as much when commenting on the 
 abandonment of the prosecution directed in 1717 
 against Queen Anne's last Lord Treasurer. 
 
 The sketch which I have endeavoured to draw in 
 the light of the Hanover Papers gives a very dif- 
 ferent idea of George the First to that hitherto 
 current. Few are aware that the campaign of 
 Blenheim was conceived in Council with the Elector. 
 
 The descriptions of the various alarms of inva- 
 sion, as well as of threatened internal commotions 
 which were extant in England during 1713-14, 
 are very curious, and contain several statements 
 never before published. These occur in the more 
 recent series of papers at the Record Office, marked 
 Anne, Domestic, and are, for the most part, contained 
 in the chapter on Bolingbroke's designs, chap. ix. 
 
 With regard to the frequent quotations from 
 Macpherson, his excerpts from the Hanover Papers 
 being generally identical with the originals, it is 
 reasonable to grant the credence never directly 
 refused to this author, when he translates from 
 cipher the Stuart papers which the President of 
 the Scotch College at Paris allowed him to copy 
 in 1770. Lord Caryll's letters are especially 
 worthy of remark, because that nobleman was sent 
 to Rome as the representative of James the Second, 
 and remained in the Jacobite counsels to his death. 
 
Vlll PEEFACB. 
 
 The same may be said of Lord Middleton, James 
 Edward Stuart's political adviser, and various other 
 correspondents, copies of whose communications 
 Macpherson obtained. At the same time it is 
 wise to observe great care in accepting the latter 
 writer's deductions from these letters and memo- 
 randa ; because, born at Kingussie, in the centre of 
 the Highlands, Macpherson was a fervent Jacobite, 
 and his writings bear the impress of such opinions. 
 Macpherson will be also remembered for his contro- 
 versy with Dr. Johnson regarding Ossian, whose 
 poems the former claimed to have translated. 
 
 More than a general historical outline it has been 
 found impossible to give, as a period of at least 
 250 years had to be traversed, not to mention the 
 mediseval memories awakened by the early Gruelphic 
 records dealt with in the first two chapters. 
 
 As to 1688, and the deliverance effected by 
 William the Third, the most remarkable piece of 
 history brought prominently forward in this book 
 is Dalrymple's exposure of the intrigue with Eome 
 in 1688, whereby the Dutch diplomatists induced 
 the Papal Court to advance a sum of money to 
 enable William the Third to invade England and 
 dethrone James the Second. 
 
 Apart from the presence of such hitherto unpub- 
 lished matter as has been alluded to, it will, I hope, 
 be found that much unfamiliar information has been 
 collected from printed authorities and set forth in a 
 convenient form. 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 The genealogical table is intended to present in a 
 general view the most interesting steps in the 
 pedigree which is traced in the following pages. I 
 regret that I have been unable to find the name of 
 the Emperor Lothair's only daughter, the wife of 
 Henry the Proud. Cunigunda, as the heiress of the 
 senior brancb of the Gruelphs, has to appear on the 
 left of her husband, Azo the Second, Marquis d'Bste. 
 
 PERCY M. THORNTON. 
 
 Batteesea Rtse, 
 April, 1887. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I'AGH 
 
 Preface ......... iii 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 The early Guelphs. a.d. 450-1614 .... 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Protestant Branch of England's Royal House. 
 
 A.D. 1517-1701 . 14 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Counsels OF Windsor AND St. Stephens, a.d. 1612-1701 . 36 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 GODOLPHIN AT THE TREASURY, MaRLBOROUSH IN THE FlELD. 
 
 A.D. 1702-1710 55 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Exiles of St. Germain ...... 82 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Echoes from Herrenhausen. a.d. 1688-1712 . . . 107 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Peace of Utrecht. Proclaimed in London, May 5, 
 
 1713 127 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Queen Anne and her exiled Brother . . 146 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Designs of Lord Bolingbroke. a.d. 1713-1714. . 160 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 Lord Clarendon's Mission to Hanover, April to 
 
 September, 1714 182 
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 George the First at St. James's . . . . .196 
 
 CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 The Eebellion of 1715 and its Causes .... 208 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 The later Gtjelphs. a.d. 1727-1887 . . . .223 
 
 Appendix ......... 244 
 
 Index 246 
 
GUELPH, Prince of Scyrri 
 (i. 450). 
 
 Count Altdorf. 
 
 Cuuigundn. m. 
 
 Egbert, Wit 
 Azo I. K. of las- 
 Marquis Engliiucl the 
 d'Este. Cd. 837). 
 
 I ' • 
 
 Azo II. 
 
 Marquis 
 
 d'Este 
 
 (d. 1097). 
 
 Guelph y. 
 Guelph VI. 
 
 Baldwin, Earl of 
 Flanders. ' 
 
 Judith. 
 
 Ec 
 Lc 
 
 Henry m. 
 
 the Proud. I 
 
 Henry the Lion 
 (d. 1195). 
 
 Emperor Otho 
 of Germany. 
 
 Egbert. 
 
 Henry II. 
 
 Edwai-d IV. 
 
 . Elizabeth. 
 
 iret. 
 
 ^ary of Guise. 
 
 Scots. 
 
 George William, 
 Duke of Celle. 
 
 Sophia Dorothea, wife of Gc 
 
 jS'oTE. — The Italian Guelphs have a 
 
 n 
 
 ient (d. 1820). 
 
 I 
 VICTOKIA. 
 
THE 
 
 BKUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Paf e 244, 5tli line 
 
 BR BAT A. 
 ofAppend«,/or"1878"W'1868." 
 
 «^ij. j-iiiiSUOIl- 
 
 utspuou seems still to prevail in Great Britain, though 
 Leibniz made his discoveries public lYOT-lTl'Z. But 
 before this, the subjects of the Brunswick princes who 
 lived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
 could not fully appreciate the high antiquity which 
 their family could claim. When, therefore, by the 
 union of Ernest Augustus of Hanover with the 
 Electress Sophia, what Leibniz subsequently proved 
 to be the purest Teutonic blood of Europe was 
 
GUELPH, Prince of Scyn-i 
 (d. 450). 
 
 Count Altdoi'f. 
 
 Cuuiguuda. m. 
 
 Egbert, Wit 
 
 Azo I. K. of las' 
 
 Marquis Engljiud the 
 d'liste. fd. 837). 
 
 I " • 
 
 Azo II. 
 
 Marquis 
 
 d'Este 
 
 (d. 1097), 
 
 Guelph V. Baldwin, Earl of 
 
 I Flanders.' 
 
 Guelph VI. m. Judith. En 
 
 Henry m. 
 
 the Proud. 1 
 
 Egbert. 
 
 Henry 11, 
 
 I I 
 
 George Willian., 
 Duke ofCelle. 
 
 I 
 Sophia Dorothea, wife of Gt 
 
 Note. — The Italian Guelphs have a 
 
 Cent (d. 1820). 
 VIUTOKIA. 
 
THE 
 
 BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 (JiAPTER I. 
 
 THE EARLY GUELPHS. 
 A.D. 450-1514. 
 
 The researches of the philosopher and antiquarian 
 Leibniz among the archives of Modena, in which 
 he -utilised the investigations of his contemporary 
 Muratori, have made it possible to supplement and 
 correct the current ideas about the origin and alliances 
 of the House of Gruelph, as to which much miscon- 
 ception seems still to prevail in Grreat Britain, though 
 Leibniz made his discoveries public 1707-1717. But 
 before this, the subjects of the Brunswick princes who 
 lived in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
 could not fully appreciate the high antiquity which 
 their family could claim. When, therefore, by the 
 union of Ernest Augustus of Hanover with the 
 Electress Sophia, what Leibniz subsequently proved 
 to be the purest Teutonic blood of Europe was 
 
 B 
 
2 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 mingled with that of ancient Scottish kings, the 
 result was a pedigree of unsurpassed splendour and 
 antiquity. 
 
 Descended from Gruelph, or Wlph, Prince of the 
 Scyrri, one of the nations that fought under the 
 banners of Attila the Hun, the Royal House of 
 England likewise unites in its illustrious lineage the 
 blood of the Saxon Egbert, King of England, who 
 died A.D. 837, with that of his contemporary, the 
 Celtic Alpin, King of Scotland.* 
 
 As regards the Gruelphs, it is worthy of note that 
 in a direct line from the above-mentioned Prince 
 Guelph, or Wlph, were derived the two Marquesses 
 of Este, successively known in German and Italian 
 story as the first and second of that name. It is, 
 therefore, an error to impute an Italian origin to our 
 Royal house, whose earliest ancestors, so far as they 
 have been traced, had their home in Bavaria.f 
 
 Azo, the second Marquess of Este in Italy (born 
 A.D. 995, died 1097), the head of the Italian (junior) 
 branch of Gruelphs, married Cunigunda, the sole 
 heiress of the Grerman Gruelphs of Altdorf, thus 
 uniting in his family the blood, wealth, and power of 
 both branches of the old Gruelphs, and becoming the 
 common father of the later Grerman and Italian 
 princes of the name of Gruelph, No wonder, then, 
 that he was elected by the Emperor, Henry the 
 Third, as his representative in Italy. If the chroni- 
 
 • Sir Andrew Halliday's 'House of Guelph,' p. 203. 
 t Ibid., Introduction, p. 10. 
 
THE EAELY GTTELPHS. 3 
 
 clers of this period do not err, Azo d'Este the 
 Second must have lived 102 years,* and he cer- 
 tainly possessed full command of his faculties late 
 in that long life. 
 
 Cunigunda, the first wife of Azo the Second, bore 
 him one son Guelph, who was known in German 
 history as Gruelph the Sixth. He succeeded to his 
 mother's titles and vast estates on her death, a.d. 
 1055, and to those of his father, a.d. 1097. He had 
 a high spirit, and loved the tented field ; and Henry 
 the Fourth invested him with the Duchy of Bavaria, 
 A.D. 1071 — a title first assumed one hundred and 
 seventy years before (a.d. 900) by his almost mytho- 
 logical ancestor, Henry of the Grolden Chariot. 
 Guelph the Sixth married twice ; first with a Bava- 
 rian princess, from whom he separated, notwith- 
 standing that he retained her duchy, which then 
 extended to the confines of Hungary ; and secondly 
 with Judith, daughter of Baldwin, Earl of Flanders. 
 After a wandering soldier-life spent in espousing 
 the cause of the Church, and consequently more 
 often than not at variance with the Emperor, he 
 made a disastrous crusade to the Holy Land, where 
 he lost his army, and died on his return at Paphos, 
 in the island of Cyprus, a.d. 1101. By the above- 
 named Judith he left two sons, Guelph the Seventh, 
 and Henry the Black, who successively ruled the 
 Bavarian States. 
 
 Guelph the Seventh enjoyed great popularity both 
 
 * Sir Andrew llalliday's ' House of G-uelph,' pp. 25, 26. 
 
 B 2 
 
4 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 in Grermany and at Eome, and was, tiierefbre, fre- 
 quently enabled to act as mediator between Pope and 
 Emperor. 
 
 His brother, Henry the Black, Duke of Bavaria, 
 succeeded him in the year 1125, and to this prince's 
 influence the election of Lothair as Emperor of 
 Germany was mainly due. Henry reigned, how- 
 ever, only six years, which, nevertheless, proved an 
 important period, because great accessions of terri- 
 tory then accrued to the House of Guelph, as Henry 
 took to wife Wilfilda, daughter and heiress of Magnus, 
 the last of the Dukes of the Billung race, who then 
 exercised sovereignty as Dukes of Saxony in the 
 districts adjacent to the Hartz Mountains as well as 
 over those near the rivers Weser and Leine. 
 
 Henry the Black and Wilfilda, the Princess of 
 Billung, had three sons : Conrad, a monk, who died 
 a year before his father, in 1126 ; Henry the Proud, 
 Duke of Bavaria and Saxony ; and Gruelph the 
 Eighth, Duke of Spoleto and Tuscany. 
 
 Henry the Proud having espoused a daughter of 
 the Emperor Lothair the Second, not only acquired 
 the remaining States of Saxony, but also became 
 sovereign of Brunswick. Henceforth, by reason of 
 his wife's lineal descent from Wittikend, the last 
 Saxon King, he adopted the crest of a white horse, 
 ■which device remains the family crest to this day. 
 He was a loyal supporter of the Emperor Lothair 
 the Second, when the banner of insurrection was 
 raised by Frederick of Suabia, the defeated candidate 
 
THE EARLY GUELPHS. 5 
 
 for the Imperial purple. Henry reduced the cities 
 of Ulm and Spires, and forced the pretenders to 
 the throne to resign their claims, so that Lothair 
 became undisputed monarch of Grermany. 
 
 Yerily, Henry the Proud may be described as a 
 mighty Teuton, but after the Emperor Lothair the 
 Second died, in 1137, it was not destined, as had been 
 hoped and believed, that he should reap the reward 
 of his former fidelity, and fill the coveted throne. 
 
 A combination comprising both ecclesiastical and 
 secular princes, who were jealous of his power and 
 enraged at his unbending demeanour, being formed 
 against him, the election fell on Conrad, elder of 
 the Grhibelline brothers, who resolved to detract from 
 the defeated candidate's territorial sway by wrench- 
 ing Saxony from his grasp.* To this, proud by 
 nature as by name, Henry demurred, but in a diet 
 where his enemies appeared in a majority, he was 
 stripped of his inheritance, declared to be a rebel, 
 and placed under the ban of the Empire. 
 
 Escaping, however, with but four followers from 
 the banks of the Danube to those of the Elbe and 
 Weser, Henry the Proud appealed not in vain to the 
 States of Brunswick and Luneburg, who found an 
 army to which flocked many Gruelphic vassals of 
 Suabia and Bavaria, anxious to strike for the rights 
 of the man they believed to be their legal sovereign. 
 Despite that the Emperor Conrad advanced to meet 
 this formidable attack, the two parties never came to 
 
 * Sir A. Halliday's ' History of the House of Guelpli,' pp. 36-7. 
 
6 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 blows, and Henry the Proud died in camp, a.d. 1139,* 
 leaving an only son, Henry, ten years of age, who 
 is perhaps the most prominent of all Brunswick 
 heroes under his well-known title, Henry the Lion. 
 This child was destined to regain his father's 
 territories, and to be remembered as the most 
 chivalrous and refined sovereign of the time. He 
 saved Brunswick from an incursion planned by 
 the Emperor in 1147, and such was the respect 
 engendered by his courage and ability, that when 
 Frederick Barbarossa donned the Imperial purple in 
 1152, the value of the young Henry's alliance was 
 apparent, and the Guelphic loyalty to the Empire 
 became notorious in his person, while his striking 
 capacity and dauntless spirit soon led men to respect 
 his statesmanship, and fear his sword. 
 
 In the year 1157, Henry the Lion having gained 
 back Bavaria, stood at the apex of his power, which 
 extended from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. We 
 are unable here to trace the causes of the decline of 
 this prosperity, or to describe the romantic scenes of 
 battle and chivalry through which he passed, but must 
 rest content with telling how the Princess of England, 
 Matilda, daughter of Henry the Second, became his 
 bride in 1168, and how Brunswick, the place of resi- 
 dence mostly frequented by the Lion, was beautified 
 and adorned by the Cathedral of St. B]ase,| which he 
 
 * It was in the course of this campaign that the famous war cries, 
 Guelph and Ghibelline, were first used, and became for 130 years familiar 
 terms wherewith to describe the Ecclesiastical and Imperial factions in Italy. 
 
 t Dedicated to St. Blasius, the Apostle of Brunswick. 
 
THE EARLY QUELPHS. 7 
 
 filled with relics collected during the second crusade. 
 Moreover, it is interesting to remember how he 
 gained Lubeck and made it a free port, and rendered 
 Brunswick and her people famous in the world. 
 Like his father, Henry the Proud, he was destined 
 to quarrel with the holder of the Imperial Crown, 
 and like him fell under the ban, becoming a wanderer 
 over Europe, during which period of depression in 
 his fortunes he was welcomed at Winchester by his 
 father-in-law, Henry the Second, and stayed some 
 time in England. 
 
 Frederick Barbarossa was latterly induced to adopt 
 an attitude of such active hostility towards the 
 Guelphs, that Henry returned home to defend his 
 dominions, and it was only after a final campaign 
 against the next Emperor, Henry the Sixth, carried 
 on with English aid, King Eichard the First furnish- 
 ing troops, that Henry the Lion saved his beloved 
 Brunswick from capture. It was, moreover, just 
 previous to this siege in 1192, that this prince built 
 Luneburg, the present capital of the duchy of that 
 name. 
 
 When in the year 1192 Richard Ooeur de Lion 
 was returning from the Holy Land, the Duke of 
 Austria, as is well known, seized his person. Henry 
 the Sixth, Emperor of Glermany, concurred in his 
 detention, but two sons of the Lion, Otho and 
 William of Brunswick, came forward, together with 
 other German princes, and ofi"ered themselves as 
 hostages for the ransom demanded by the Austrian 
 
« THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Duke, while Henry the Lion helped to negotiate the 
 treaty for Eichard's liberation, and stood security 
 for the remainder of the money required. 
 
 Richard, on his part, did not leave Germany until 
 he had gained forgiveness for Henry the Lion from 
 the Emperor, and obtained restitution of some of his 
 provinces, so that this remarkable ancestor of Queen 
 Yictoria died, in 1195, a power in the North of 
 Grermany. 
 
 Truly this incident, so creditable to the Gruelphs, 
 stands in history as an earnest of the happy union to 
 be again cemented between England and Brunswick, 
 when the cause of liberty was at stake amongst us. 
 
 By the Princess Matilda of England, Henry the 
 Lion had three sons and two daughters, and with the 
 exception of one of the latter who died young, they 
 all became prominent figures in the chronicles of 
 their times. The third and youngest of these sons 
 was Queen Victoria's ancestor. He was born in 
 England, and is known as William of Winchester. 
 He married Helen, daughter of Waldemir, King of 
 Denmark. The second son, Otho, received the 
 highest honour within reach of any layman in the 
 year 1198, when the Pope confirmed the election of 
 a Gruelph to the Imperial dignity. 
 
 But this supreme elevation was accomplished 
 amidst a civil war which ravaged Germany ; Philip 
 of Suabia, son of the late Emperor, Henry the Sixth, 
 endeavouring to assert his claims by force of arms. 
 The truth seems to have been that there was a 
 
THE EARLY GUELPHS. 9 
 
 double election by different portions of the Empire. 
 Philip, at first, gained ground, notwithstanding the 
 Papal opposition, but was suddenly assassinated by 
 Otho of Wittelsbach — Count Palatine — when the 
 Suabian cause was at its brightest.* 
 
 Still, for a time, Otho the Fourth of Guelph was 
 undisputedly wearer of the Imperial Crown, and, 
 according to Sir Andrew Halliday's ' Annals of the 
 House of Hanover ' (Book V., p. 355), it was the 
 English influence that secured the throne for Otho 
 after Philip's death. 
 
 The Pontiff, however, upon the refusal of the 
 Emperor to abandon his rights over Italy, went over 
 to his enemies. Internecine conflicts continued until 
 1214, when a Papal excommunication, following upon 
 the ill success of his arms, caused Otho to resign. 
 He lived in retirement at Brunswick until 1218. 
 As he had not increased his father's — Henry the 
 Lion's — possessions, the practical result of the efforts 
 of Henry the Proud and his son Henry the Lion, to 
 malie conquests north of the Elbe, was this, that a 
 coalition of neighbouring states was formed, which 
 succeeded in reducing the Brunswick power within 
 the limits of the territories known geographically by 
 the name of Hanover, f 
 
 Henceforth the Guelphs appear as ordinary German 
 
 * HaUam's 'Middle Ages.' Seventh Ed., 1838, vol. ii. p. 104. 
 
 t Owing much to Sir A. Halliday's ' House of Guelph,' the author 
 desires likewise to acknowledge his indebtedness for some facts in the 
 above sketch to an article in the Edinburgh Oazetteer of 1822, p. 211. 
 The statements therein bear the closest test which research can bring. 
 
10 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 princes, and the terms Brunswick, Luneburg, Wolf- 
 enbiittel, Glrubenhagen, alternate one with another, 
 the Dukes who ruled over those territories being 
 frequently forced to defend the homesteads of their 
 people. 
 
 The town of Brunswick especially suffered from 
 attack, and the spirit engendered by Henry the Lion, 
 who shares the distinction of tutelar saint in the locality 
 with St. Blase, was again and again invoked to save 
 the coveted city from destruction. Albert the GTreat, 
 who died in 1279, and Magnus the Pious, who died 
 in 1369, were amongst the more famous Dukes of 
 Brunswick, while the story of Magnus Torquatus 
 the Chain-bearer, Duke of Brunswick and Luneburg, 
 who died in 1373, is of itself a romance, for the 
 recital of which we would fain find space. But the 
 exigencies of our subject bid us push on, mentioning 
 en passant that Duke Bernhard invaded Brandenburg 
 in 1389, taking its fortresses and devastating the 
 country, but was in turn punished by the Bishop 
 of Osnaburg, who found allies to revenge his 
 wrongs,* and also, that Frederick, Duke of Bruns- 
 wick, when elected King of the Romans, set out 
 for Frankfort to receive the Imperial crown, and 
 was foully murdered on his journey in the year 
 1400. 
 
 William the Victorious, who died a.d. 1503 at the 
 age of 90, merits mention, and so does Henry of 
 Brunswick-WolfenbUttel, yclept the Bad (killed in 
 
 * Sir A. Halliday's ' House of Guelph,' p. 87. 
 
THE EARLY QUBLPHS. 11 
 
 1514) — a title always affixed to his name, for no 
 apparent reason, as he was a capable general. 
 Probably the explanation lies in the fact that he was 
 the only Duke of Brunswick who drew sword against 
 the citizens of his capital — namely, when they had 
 joined the Hanseatic League, and declared themselves 
 a free city. Henry the Bad, by negotiation, received 
 nominal submission, but the people, probably, never 
 forgave him. 
 
 Thus is the history of this noble family traced from 
 the mists of antiquity, and through the Middle Ages, 
 when, feudality becoming the general law of Europe, 
 men considered it an honour to hold of the Empire. 
 
 We have, however, approached a time when un- 
 expected elements of strife appeared in Grermany, 
 Luther's assertion of religious dependence on Bible 
 truth, rather than on ecclesiastical exposition thereof, 
 having agitated the world, and split mankind into 
 two camps. In the territories of Brunswick-Lune- 
 burg, the new ideas were not accepted without 
 protest, nor could it so be, when the Emperor of 
 Grermany frowned on opinions which claimed for 
 man a right to think for himself, only waiting for 
 a good opportunity to become actively hostile, by 
 joining hands with the spiritual power at Rome for 
 the purpose of stamping out the startling opinions 
 which Luther proclaimed in 1517. 
 
 But on the whole the balance of opinion amongst 
 the Brunswickers seems to have been adverse to 
 Rome at this period. If it be desired to realise in 
 
12 THE BUUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 some degree the personalities of the illustrious rulers 
 and warriors of old Brunswick, let the reader betake 
 himself in imagination to Henry the Lion's Cathedral 
 of St. Blase, where many of their mortal remains 
 are interred. ^Standing on the site of a former eccle- 
 siastical edifice, viz., the church of St. Peter and St. 
 Paul, this fine building was finished in 1194, the 
 first prince of quality whose tomb is preserved being 
 Eckbert the Second, Margrave of Brunswick, who 
 died during the raising of the holy fane wherein 
 his ashes lie. The Emperor Henry the Fourth not 
 being able to conquer Eckbert in open war, paid for 
 his assassination, the Abbess Adelheid of Quedling- 
 burg, the Emperor's sister, being concerned in the 
 murder. 
 
 He was originally buried in St. Syriacin church, 
 which he had founded ; but when this edifice was 
 pulled down in the siege of 1.542, Eckbert's stone 
 coffin was brought to St. Blase's and opened, when 
 the skull was seen to be pierced mortally, the ap- 
 pearance of the injury in question bearing out the 
 story that Eckbert had been killed by a hatchet. 
 
 The student of 12th-century Teutonic lore will 
 feel the deepest interest in the tomb of the Lion, 
 who is said to have died on a Sunday, August 6 th, 
 1195, and was buried with his wife, Matilda of 
 England, Henry the Second's daughter, tradition 
 telling us that at the time of the Lion's funeral 
 two other coffins were in the vault, that of Matilda, 
 and Otho, a son who died young. 
 
THE EARLY GUELPHS. 13 
 
 An elevated monument surmounts this tomb, on 
 the top of which are the figures of Henry and his 
 wife, the founder of the Cathedral, bearing a small 
 model of the building in his right hand. 
 
 In what is called the old vault of St. Blase are 
 interred thirteen Brunswickian princes and princesses, 
 including Otho the Fourth, the Emperor, Beatrix, the 
 Empress, Albert the Great, Magnus Torquatus, 
 Frederick, Emperor elect, but who never wore the 
 purple, as he was assassinated on his way to Frankfort. 
 
 This tomb, being opened mysteriously in the year 
 1606 by what was said to have been an earthquake, 
 has since been covered by a brass plate, inscribed 
 with some biographical facts, which rests upon an 
 otherwise bald flat stone in the nave before the choir. 
 Most of the other monuments in the Cathedral have 
 reference to later periods, such as a study of our 
 narrative may invest with an interest with which 
 they can scarcely inspire the uninstructed observer, 
 as the evidences of nobility are hidden from the 
 public eye.* 
 
 But nevertheless the contemplation of those ancient 
 aisles brings home to the visitor how long a line of 
 princely ancestors the Guelphs can claim, while 
 connecting this Walhalla of the race with the memory 
 of Henry the Lion, greatest Guelph of the Middle 
 Ages. But we must bid adieu to mediseval memories, 
 and seek those connected with more modern story. 
 
 * For these later details I am indebted to Sir A. Halliday's ' House of 
 Guelph,' pp. 265-270. 
 
14 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE PROTESTANT BRANCH OP ENGLAND'S ROYAL 
 HOUSE. 
 
 A.D. 1517-1701. 
 
 Ernest, Duke of Celle,* surnamed the Confessor, and 
 born in 1497, appropriately links together the tradi- 
 tions of Gruelph d'Este and Henry the Lion with 
 those of modern times, and he likewise occupies a 
 leading position amongst those sovereigns and states- 
 men mentioned in the present chapter. 
 
 This Ernest of Brunswick, Duke of Celle, was an- 
 cestor to the present Royal Family of England, and 
 may be selected as a representative of those peculiar 
 qualities which induced the English nation to choose 
 their dynasty from the Brunswick-Luneburg line. 
 
 One of the princes who entered into the league of 
 Protestant States against the all-powerful Charles 
 the Fifth, Ernest had so much to do with forward- 
 ing Reformation principles in Grermany that his 
 name appropriately heads this page, and when we 
 add that as a youth he studied under Luther at 
 Wittenberg, was a zealous supporter of the great 
 
 * Thus modern authorities spell the familiar " Zell." 
 
ENGLAND'S PROTESTANT HOUSE. 15 
 
 religious reformer, being taken prisoner with the 
 Elector of Saxony, when Charles the Fifth revenged 
 himself upon the Protestants at the battle of Muhl- 
 burg in 1547, our readers will recognise his title to 
 prominence. He married a daughter of the Duke 
 of Mecklenburg. Duke Ernest's power, wealth, and 
 honours, devolved on his third son, William, who 
 became Duke of Luneburg, and allied himself with 
 the House of Denmark ; his wife Dorothea, daughter 
 of Christian the Third of that kingdom, bearing 
 him no less than seven sons and eight daughters,* 
 whose careers we are precluded from describing 
 exhaustively. 
 
 It is^ however, interesting to know that Duke 
 William's eldest son Otho wished to marry Mary 
 Tudor of England, and offered her brother, Edward 
 the Sixth, 10,000 men to act against France at the 
 same time that he made his matrimonial proposal. 
 The Lady Mary had then been promised to the 
 Infant of Portugal, while England and France con- 
 cluded peace ; but the incident is curious, as showing 
 how the course of history might have been altered 
 had Queen Mary been given in marriage to a Pro- 
 testant Brunswick instead of to Philip the Second, 
 that absentee husband whose cruelties in Spain, per- 
 petraied in the cause of religion, stamp him as a 
 monarch far behind his times. 
 
 Not so the gallant Brunswickers, who again and 
 
 * ' Some Account of the House of Brunswick- Luneburg,' Macpherson's 
 ' Original Papers,' vol. i. p. 612. 
 
16 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 again espoused the cause of oppressed people ; when, 
 for instance, by Duke Christian, son of William, 
 Duke of Luneburg, succour was given to the unfor- 
 tunate Frederick, King of Bohemia^ and his beautiful 
 spouse, the English Princess Elizabeth, whose ro- 
 mantic adventui-es will be treated in another chapter. 
 
 This notable Duke Christian died of a fever at Wol- 
 fenbiittel, in 1626. His two brothers, Augustus and 
 Frederick, proved themselves worthy of their frater- 
 nity by striking for the Protestant cause through- 
 out the various wars of the high-souled Grustavus 
 Adolphus,* and were concerned in all the transac- 
 tions of Germany early in the 17th century. Duke 
 William's above-mentioned seven sons having all 
 except George died and left no male issue, the Bruns- 
 wick duchies fell to the four sons of the said George, 
 whose wife was a Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt. 
 
 The first, Christian Lewis, took to his share the 
 Duchies of Celle and Luneburg, and died without 
 issue in 1665 ; his second brother, George William, 
 inheriting his honours and possessions. 
 
 This Duke, whose personal history is bound up 
 with that of the English Royal Family, married 
 Eleanor, a daughter of a French Marquess of Poitou, 
 Olbrenze by name, and the child of that alliance, 
 Sophia Dorothea, was wife to her cousin, the second 
 Elector of Hanover, George the First of England, 
 
 The third brother of this generation was John 
 
 * ' Some Account of the House of Brunswick-Luneburg,' Macpherson's 
 ' Original Papers,' vol. i. p. 613. 
 
ENGLAND'S PROTESTANT HOUSE. 17 
 
 Frederick, Duke of Hanover, a renegade from tlie 
 Brunswick principles, wlio allied himself with Louis 
 the Fourteenth, and endeavoured to influence other 
 members of his family. John Frederick died on the 
 way to Rome, in 1680, remaining a fervent Catholic 
 to the last ; while the Fates smiled brightly on the 
 marriage of the fourth brother, Ernest Augustus 
 (who became Elector of Hanover),* with the Princess 
 Sophia, daughter of Frederick, Elector Palatine, and 
 King of Bohemia. 
 
 The life of Ernest Augustus, first Elector of 
 Hanover, is probably more interesting to a student 
 of the Brunswick succession than that of any other 
 potentate of Gruelph origin. In the first place, he 
 allied himself with the Stuarts by espousing James 
 the First's granddaughter, and was not only ad- 
 vanced by the Emperor Leopold to the honourable 
 position of Elector, a ninth vote being thenceforth 
 appended to the rulership of Hanover, at William 
 the Third's request, as a reward to Ernest Augustus 
 for his fidelity to the anti-French cause ; but he 
 likewise introduced primogeniture into that branch 
 of the Brunswick-Luneburg family which he re- 
 presented, and he ultimately inherited George 
 William Duke of Celle's honours and possessions. 
 
 * In 1692 the Emperor Leopold, at the instigation of William the Third, 
 King of England, created a ninth Electorate, in the person of Duke Ernest, 
 as a reward for his fidelity to the Protestant cause. The duty of an Elector 
 of the Holy Roman Empire was under ordinaiy circumstances at this 
 period little more than nominal, because the head of the Hapsburg 
 family was by general consent chosen to the position. The House of 
 Austria ruled supreme in Germany at this period. 
 
18 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Hitherto the territories of the Brunswick-Lune- 
 burg family had been irregularly assigned to the 
 various children of the princes who ruled in 
 Celle and Hanover, but Duke Ernest Augustus 
 made an eldest sou of Greorge Lewis, and so laid 
 the foundation of that Hanoverian Principality 
 which played so important a part in the eighteenth 
 century, blossoming into a kingdom after the 
 Napoleonic wars. 
 
 But by this action a result peculiarly pertinent to 
 the present subject was attained : George Lewis, 
 acknowledged as the representative of a solidified 
 Electorate, could offer an alliance not to be ignored 
 when the balance of European power was threatened; 
 and William the Third, with a true statesman's 
 acumen perceiving this, persuaded the British Legis- 
 lature to adopt the Brunswick-Luneburg family as 
 successors to Queen Anne, provided that sovereign 
 died without issue. 
 
 Hanover, although territorially speaking not an 
 extensive dominion, was notoriously rich in natural 
 resources,* and a large revenue pertained to its 
 sovereigns, who ruled over a population estimated 
 at about half a million only,f which yet maintained 
 
 * The mineral products of the Hartz mountains have contributed to 
 render Hanover a well-to-do country. The first silver mines discovered 
 in Europe were opened here in 968, while iron, copper, lead, zinc and 
 sulphur have all been obtained from the soil. For the conveyance of 
 merchandise the Elbe, Weser, Aller and Bmhs are favourably situated, 
 whUe in Brunswick proper the wool and linen trades have flourished, and 
 the spinning-wheel is said to have been invented there. 
 
 f Morris's ' Early Hanoverians,' p. 21. 
 
ENGLAND'S PROTESTANT HOUSE. 19 
 
 a disproportionately large military force, amounting 
 in Duke Ernest Augustus's time to 15,000 men. 
 
 The value of such an ally as the Elector of Han- 
 over, during the wars of Louis the Fourteenth with 
 the Empire, will be duly appraised when these cir- 
 cumstances are understood. 
 
 The children of Ernest Augustus and the Princess 
 Sophia were as follows : — 
 
 (1) George Lewis, afterwards G-eorge the First of 
 England— born in 1660 : died 1727. 
 
 (2) Frederick Augustus, born in 1661 ; killed 
 fighting against the Turks, in 1685. 
 
 (3) Maximilian, born in 1666: died in 1726. 
 
 (4) Charles Philip, born in 1669 : slain in the 
 Turkish war. 
 
 (5) Christian, born in 1671 : drowned in the 
 Danube, 1703. 
 
 (6) Ernest Augustus, born in 1671 : died unmarried, 
 1728. 
 
 (7) Sophia Charlotta, born in 1668 :* married 
 Frederick the First of Prussia, dying Queen of that 
 kingdom in 1705. 
 
 Of George Lewis we have much to say hereafter. 
 
 Frederick Augustus and Charles Philip com- 
 manded the contingent of 10,000 men, which the 
 house of Brunswick-Luneburg sent to help the 
 Emperor in his war with the Turks in 1684. These 
 two gallant soldiers died in battle. 
 
 * Burke's ' Peerage,' p. 84. 
 
 c2 
 
20 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Maximilian went to the Morea, as chief of an 
 auxiliary force which his father allowed to serve 
 the Venetian Republic. He entered upon duties 
 there in 1686. After two creditable campaigns the 
 Republic made him a Greneral, and gave him a 
 pension of 6000 ducats. Upon his return, Maxi- 
 milian formed a party to support his assumed rights 
 to the duchy of Celle ; but after several adherents 
 had been executed and he himself imprisoned, he 
 renounced his pretensions, and, when war was 
 declared after Louis the Fourteenth had acknow- 
 ledged the Pretender in lYOl and put his grandson 
 on the throne of Spain, entered the Imperial service. 
 
 Christian, like his brothers, Frederick Augustus 
 and Charles Philip, died a soldier's death, but not by 
 the sword, as he lost his life when attempting to 
 swim over the Danube, in 1703.* 
 
 Ernest Augustus, the Princess Sophia's youngest 
 son. Bishop of Osnaburg, accompanied Greorge Lewis 
 to England in 1714, and enjoyed the honours due to 
 a prince of the blood, being created Duke of York, 
 Albany, and Ulster. He never married, and, sur- 
 viving all his brothers, died in 1728. 
 
 Truly it may be said of the Princess Sophia, 
 that she was alike mother of princes and warriors ; 
 while her only daughter, Sophia, died as first Queen 
 of Prussia in 1705, having married the Duke of 
 Brandenburg who first attained to regal dignity. 
 
 * ' Some Account of the House of Brunswick,' Maopherson's ' Oritfinal 
 Papers,' vol. i. p. 616. 
 
ENGLAND'S PROTESTANT HOUSE. 21 
 
 We have narrated these details connected with the 
 Electress Sophia's Grerman relations, because the re- 
 markable services of the race to freedom on the 
 European Continent are sometimes forgotten ; whilst 
 the literature of this century is by no means suffi- 
 ciently impressive in regard to the fact that the 
 Brunswick-Luneburg family were chosen to succeed 
 Queen Anne, because English society preferred 
 government by those of kindred race to a Franco- 
 Italian rule of Jesuit flavour. 
 
 It will be well, anyhow, that the reader of historical 
 and domestic literature between 1701-14 should 
 clear the mind of a good deal of cant, and should 
 comprehend that through the veins of the British 
 Royal Family courses the finest Stuart blood, while 
 they boast also an ancestry of Teutonic origin, 
 whose loves, woes, and deaths are as worthy tlie 
 wizard pen of a Scott as are those of the exiled 
 branch of the Stuarts, whose sufferings Sir "Walter's 
 genius has surrounded with an unfading glow of 
 romance. 
 
 It is well known that old friendship with her 
 Stuart cousins long rendered the Electress Sophia a 
 hesitating claimant for the English throne, and that 
 her doubts not only took the form of that famous 
 so-called Jacobite letter to Stepney, the diplomatist,* 
 
 * " If I were thirty years younger, I should have a sufficiently good 
 opinion of my birth and of my religion to believe that I should be 
 appreciated in England. But as there is little probability of my surviving 
 two people much younger, although more subject to ordinary dangers than 
 myself, it is to be feared that at my death my sons would be regarded as 
 
22 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 but that, despite ber family indebtedness to the King 
 
 of England, she had the courage to avow something 
 
 akin to sorrow for James the Second's misfortunes. 
 
 " I believe (slie wrote to William on his elevation to the 
 throne) you cannot doubt of the part which I take in every- 
 thing that contriHutes to your elevation and your glory ; yet I 
 lament King James, who honoured me with his friendship." * 
 
 The most she ever admitted was in conversation 
 to Leibniz, " that the unfortunate James had brought 
 about his own destruction ;" and when made heiress 
 to the throne, she silently accepted the position of 
 the head of Protestantism in the Royal House of 
 England, but acted so that she would not have had 
 crude opinions to withdraw, or undue assumption 
 of authority to resign, if another member of her 
 family nearer to the main branch had been clothed 
 in the purple by desire of the English people, whose 
 temper as regards the succession was judged to be 
 uncertain.^ 
 
 strangers, the eldest of whom is much more accustomed to claim a high 
 prerogative as sovereign than the poor Prince of Wales, who is too young 
 to profit by the example of the King of France, and wbo would apparently 
 be so glad to recover that which the King, his father, has so inconsiderately 
 lost, that they would be able to do with him just what they wished. 
 
 "I am not so philosophical nor so thoughtless that you should think I 
 do not like to hear a crown spoken of, and that I do not give due considera- 
 tion to the weijjihty judgment you have given on this subject. It seems 
 to me that in England there are so many parties that one can be sure of 
 nothing. That does not prevent my being much obliged, &c., &c." — This 
 is a translation from the original. 
 
 * ' Life of James II., by himself,' vol. ii. p. 362. Dalrymple (' Memoirs,' 
 vol. iii. p. 232) asserts that the Electress Sophia was "no friend to 
 William ITI." 
 
 t Students with time at command should consult the correspondence 
 of the Electress at the British Museum ; also her letters in the Hanover 
 
ENGLAND'S PROTESTANT HOUSE. 23 
 
 The Electress, although of the Calvinist per- 
 suasion, took personally a tolerant view of those 
 differing from her, believing, as she told Madame 
 de Brinon, " in the goodness of God ;" while she 
 approved of the English liturgy, but reprobated 
 Roman Catholicism as being contrary to Christianity.* 
 
 The influence of Leibniz seems to have helped to 
 form her character, which stands as the very embodi- 
 ment of the reformed opinions which were contained 
 in the English Church settlement, even if her theo- 
 logical training led to adoption of the earlier views 
 taught us by the Genevan exiles in 1559 rather than 
 those superadded by Laud and incorporated after the 
 Eeformation in 1662. So far the theological side of 
 the character of this excellent Princess. In her old 
 age, surrounded by kinsmen of different ages, she, 
 the great-granddaughter of Mary Queen of Scots, 
 was destined to look upon her own great-grandson, 
 Frederick Prince of Wales, who in turn was great- 
 grandfather to Her Majesty Queen Victoria. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, that if George the Second 
 had died young, none of his five uncles leaving issue, 
 the Crown of England must have devolved on the King 
 of Prussia's heirs, and Frederick the Great would 
 have reigned at St. James's as well as at Potsdam. 
 The reason for this is not far to seek. The younger 
 
 collection there; while the remarkably exhaustive article of Professor 
 A. W. Ward, ' English Historical Review,' vol. i. p. 470, should be 
 carefully studied, as giving the substance of German opinion as well as 
 English. 
 
 * Macpherson's ' Original Papers,' vol. ii. p. 500. 
 
24 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 sons of the Electress Sophia, not having equal 
 shares in the duchies and principalities of Hanover, 
 led roving lives, and left no issue, vrliile the future 
 Elector's two children were George the Second of 
 England, and Sophia Dorothea, named after her ill- 
 fated mother, of whom anon. The younger princess 
 of that name, who might in a certain contingency 
 have been heir to the throne of England, became 
 wife to Frederick William the First of Prussia, and 
 mother of the G-reat Frederick.* It is indeed difficult 
 to imagine the latter reading his royal speech to a 
 British Legislature, nor is it possible to conceive 
 Potsdam grenadiers located in London. 
 
 George the First of England has not had 
 justice done to him by the various chroniclers 
 who have taken up the pen to describe those 
 events which led to his enthronement at West- 
 minster Abbey. The earlier portion of his life was 
 spent in continental embroilments, and his constant 
 care had been the preservation of the dukedom com- 
 mitted to his charge. Nor had the endorsement of 
 the Electress Sophia's claims by the English Parlia- 
 ment rendered his home task the easier. The 
 jealousy of neighbouring princes was naturally 
 accentuated, if not originally aroused, by the 
 prospective alliance verging on absolute union with 
 powerful Britain, so that the Elector of Hanover 
 found employment for all available means and 
 
 * ' Biographie Universelle,' tome xv. p. 79. Eng. Cyclop., vol. ii. p. 1015. 
 Art " Frederick the Great." 
 
ENGLAND'S PEOTESTANT HOUSE. 25 
 
 energies in striving to keep his Electorate faithful 
 to the Imperial cause. 
 
 Like his brothers, Greorge the First had served 
 early in the tented field. Born in the year of 
 Charles the Second's Restoration, viz., 1660, the 
 young Prince of Osnaburg was only fifteen when 
 he served in the campaign of 1675 under his father, 
 being present at the Battle of Consarbriick, and the 
 Siege of Treves. 
 
 On the latter occasion Marshal Crequi was taken 
 prisoner, after having suffered the first French 
 defeat recorded for sixty years* — a disaster which 
 may be described as an afterwave, following the 
 great Turenne's death, which a chance shot on the 
 Rhine occasioned but a few weeks before. This 
 calamity to Louis the Fourteenth's army released a 
 portion of the Imperialist forces, and rendered the 
 above-mentioned victory possible. 
 
 Loving fighting better than learning,| the future 
 English King hied him towards whatever portion of 
 Europe seemed to offer hopes of active service, and in 
 this manner he passed through Hungary, the Morea, 
 Germany, and Flanders ; these places being at differ- 
 ent times the scenes of his military adventures. 
 
 In 1679, this son of the Elector Ernest Augustus 
 and Sophia, granddaughter of James the First, had 
 visited France, and endeavoured, in the character of 
 
 * Hume, vol. viii. p. 19. 
 
 t ' Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea,' 1845, vol. i. p. 77, also Macpherson'ft 
 ' Original Papers,' vol. i. p. 617. 
 
26 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 diplomatist, to improve the relations of his father 
 with the French Monarchy ; while he extended these 
 political travels into England, and there paid his 
 addresses fruitlessly to the Princess Anne, kissing 
 her with Charles the Second's consent, although the 
 Court scarcely gave him the welcome which a 
 favoured suitor might expect.* 
 
 The influence of England was not then thrown 
 into the scale of Imperial interest, because Charles the 
 Second elected to live and die subservient to France, 
 in order that his personal needs might receive that 
 momentary satisfaction which alone can attend 
 desires having root neither in morality nor patriotic 
 impulse. 
 
 Hence, it is not difficult to understand why the 
 young George Lewis, Electoral Prince of Hanover — 
 for so he was named when his father succeeded to 
 the Duchy — was not received with perfect cordiality 
 by the English Court during his sojourn at the 
 British metropolis in 1681. 
 
 A Lutheran prince, whose father had drawn the 
 sword with success against Charles the Second's 
 secret ally, Louis the Fourteenth, was not likely to 
 find favour in the eyes of the English King, or of 
 his fraternal counsellor, the Roman Catholic Duke 
 of Yoi'k, who afterwards prosecuted a similar policy 
 of veiled dependence on the Bourbons, at a time 
 when he desired to change or ignore the laws at 
 home. But despite his advances not being received 
 
 * ' The Early Hanoveiiane,' by F. E. Morris, p. 17. 
 
ENGLAND'S PROTESTANT HOUSE. 27 
 
 with acclaim by the Princess Anne,* or specially 
 favoured by her royal relations, the Electoral Prince 
 of Hanover received a notable welcome from the 
 University of Oxford. 
 
 All accounts concur in allowing that the departure 
 of the Electoral Prince from England was caused by 
 receiving an imperative message from his father, 
 the semi-episcopal Duke of Hanover, who had other 
 matrimonial views for that son of high destiny. 
 
 A marriage of expediency had been negotiated 
 for him by his father, and the beautiful Sophia 
 Dorothea, daughter and heiress of the wealthy 
 George William, Duke of Celle, who desired to unite 
 the duchies of Celle and Luneburg, was induced to 
 marry her cousin, which resolution she expressed in 
 a letter to her intended mother-in-law, known in 
 history as the Electress Sophia. This union, which 
 secured unity and consequent wealth in the family 
 of Brunswick, took place in November 1682, and the 
 prospect of happiness seemed exceedingly bright for 
 the young couple. 
 
 On the 30th of October, 1683, a son, Greorge 
 Augustus, afterwards George the Second of England, 
 was born ; and, despite much absence from home, the 
 amenities of married life were observed by the young 
 
 * In the case of ordinary individuals outside royalty, love seldom 
 follows immediately on fiist sight, and it cannot be shown that George 
 Lewis "underwent any remarkable experience when he left England in 
 baste without renewing his suit, and therefore open to make that un- 
 fortunate alliance with his cousin — an alliance arranged for family purposes, 
 which marred the lives of George the First and Sophia Dorothea. 
 
28 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 people until just before the birth of the Princess 
 Sophia Dorothea, in 1686 ; this child, named after 
 her mother, being, as we have previously said, 
 destined to be for ever famous as the Queen of 
 Prussia, whose son was Frederick the Great. Then, 
 alas ! jealous intrigues at the Hanoverian Court 
 having sown the seeds of dissension between Geor_ge 
 Lewis and Sophia Dorothea, the drawbacks of a 
 wild soldier life, when a young and beautiful 
 bride remained at home, became but too apparent ; 
 yet George Lewis was encouraged by his father in 
 keen pursuit of that profession of arms which afforded 
 scope for improving their joint political interests at 
 a time when the unsettled state of English politics 
 seemed to offer a prospect of accession to the 
 British throne, because, as head of the Protestant 
 branch of England's Eoyal House, the Princess 
 Sophia's rights would descend to her son, George 
 Lewis. 
 
 Hence followed military service on behalf of the 
 Emperor Leopold during the campaign against the 
 Turks in 1683 ; while three years later these wan- 
 dering expeditions dedicated to Mars culminated, so 
 far as the Empire was concerned, at the capture of 
 Buda in 1686. 
 
 The Emperor rewarded these efforts of the 
 Brunswick-Luneburg family on his behalf by making 
 Ernest Augustus Elector of Hanover in the year 
 1692. The close of the Turkish war left the 
 Electoral Prince, George Lewis, free to place his 
 
ENOLAND'S PROTESTANT HOUSE. 29 
 
 sword at the disposal of another well-wisher and 
 willing benefactor. 
 
 William, Prince of Orange, was the grandson of 
 Charles the First of England ; but Holland was his 
 home, and the honour of that country the main 
 object of life-long' solicitude openly professed by a 
 statesman, whose warrior instincts were chastened 
 by an ever-ready appeal to the dictates of the 
 brain and mind rather than to those of the heart. 
 He lives in history not only as a great sovereign, 
 but also as a general of marked ability, skilled in 
 affairs beyond any of the contemporary princes, 
 and, above all, the possessor of an iron will, which, 
 if it tenanted a weak body, yet ever prevailed in 
 moments when, great events being in the balance, 
 prompt resolve could alone determine the destiny 
 of events.* 
 
 William, as husband of the Princess Mary, was in 
 communication with the Protestants in England, 
 and his cause on the Continent was bound up with 
 the same religious opinions. Therefore it came to 
 pass that George Lewis served willingly under the 
 Prince of Orange in Holland, seeing much active 
 service, and was consequently a frequent visitor at 
 the Loo or the Hague. He was present at the 
 battles of Steenkirk and Landen, and witnessed the 
 siege of Namiir ; on each of these occasions gaining 
 
 * The Marshal Duke of Berwick, son of James the Second of England 
 and Arabella Churchill, first saw William the Third at Landen, and in 
 wrapt admiration likened his countenance to an eagle's. 
 
30 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 good opinions of his valour and capacity from the 
 shrewd leader of the Protestant coalition. 
 
 During these long periods of absence the Princess 
 Sophia Dorothea was far from happy, being exposed 
 to the observation which prominence at her father-in- 
 law's Court entailed. Duke Ernest A-ugustus, despite 
 that he was Bishop of Osnaburg, had striven to vie 
 with Louis the Fourteenth in splendour, so far as the 
 minor capabilities of his State allowed, and the morale 
 of the entourage was not one whit higher than that 
 which obtained at Versailles, so that the low tone 
 which prevailed rendered it the more obligatory on 
 those having influence to regulate their lives by the 
 strictest rule. 
 
 Now it happened that the temperament of the 
 Princess Sophia Dorothea did not allow her to parti- 
 cipate in the life of the Elector's Court, and yet stand 
 aloof from the society of those whose own lives 
 were moulded on no strict lines of right and wrong. 
 Among such, in all charity be it said, truth 
 demands that we should class Count Koningsmark. 
 A man of the world, in the bad sense of the term, he 
 had early in life paid his addresses to the engaging 
 Sophia Dorothea ; until, by reason of her elevation to 
 the rank of Princess, his hopes of gaining her hand 
 were relegated to what should have been under ordi- 
 nary circumstances a sage oblivion. 
 
 Now the writer of this book has carefully examined 
 the evidence which exists concerning this assumed 
 intrigue between Koningsmark and the Princess 
 
ENGLAND'S PROTESTANT HOUSE. 31 
 
 Sophia Dorothea ; and having taken his evidence 
 from, a work derived from original documents, which 
 is admittedly hostile to the Brunswick dynasty,* 
 he yet unhesitatingly declares, that beyond an 
 unwisdom not unlikely to be found when a young 
 wife is left too much alone by her husband and 
 devoid of good counsellors, there is no ground for 
 charging infidelity against the wife of G-eorge the 
 First of England.f On the other hand, with equal 
 desire to adjust the scales of justice, let us record 
 the fact that this unfortunate princess, for reasons 
 which, considering the sacredness of the marriage 
 vow and the peculiar delicacy of her own position, 
 we must declare totally inadequate, refused to resume 
 the position of wife in G-eorge Lewis's household. 
 
 By so doing she affixed a stigma on her husband's 
 name, and indicated a hostile spirit whicb could not 
 leave any hope tbat she would again act tenderly 
 
 * ' Memoirs of SopMa Dorothea,' London, Oolburn, 1845, known to lie 
 by the late Dr. Doran. 
 
 t Ibid., vol. i. p. 246. The Princess testified solemnly to her innocence 
 by partaking of the sacrament before the chief officers of the Courts of 
 Celle and Hanover. Moreover, the Elector Ernest Augustus had himself 
 declared her to be guiltless of the charge of infidelity. She was condemned 
 for deserting her husband. A view ideniical with that supported by 
 documentary evidence in the 'Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea' is expressed 
 in Coxe's ' Walpole,' vol. i. p. 269. Sir R. Walpole and Queen Caroline main- 
 tained her innocence after hearing both sides. — Coxe's ' Walpole,' vol. i. p. 269. 
 
 The imputation cast on Sophia is there declared to have been adjudged 
 false and unjust, while this reaction in opinion is shown to have taken 
 place after the deaths of the first two Electors of Hanover, Ernest Augustus, 
 and George the First of England. 
 
 It is, however, fair to state that Coxe had previously recorded the story cur- 
 rent in Hanoverian Court circles, and that Thackeray, in his ' Pour Georges,' 
 edition 1861, p. 31, adopted a view antagonistic to Sophia Dorothea. 
 
32 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 towards him or consider his political interests. And 
 so the hard, policy-guided Hanoverian statesmen 
 placed her in durance at the Castle of Ahlen, 
 where, although she was allowed local freedom 
 of action and a petty Court, composed of those 
 who were by no means entirely her own choice, 
 yet she suffered the agony of a separation from her 
 children ; while a perpetual cloud was very unwisely, 
 as we think, thrown over her own and her soldier- 
 husband's future lives. And indeed the story had 
 been too tragic to escape unfriendly repetition where- 
 ever the enemies of the Brunswick dynasty — and 
 they were legion — met together to tell how, after an 
 interview with the Princess Dorothea, Koningsmark 
 had been set upon as he left the Palace, and, when 
 defending himself, suffered a violent death.* 
 
 Now we are not prepared to enter into the con- 
 troversy as to whether the mistakes of husband or 
 wife were most flagrant during the course of this 
 ill-assorted alliance ; but, in justice to George Lewis, 
 it must be stated that a full and legally-equipped 
 court of law at Hanover, which never suggested 
 that the Princess had been guilty of any fault but 
 that of coldness and indifference to her husband, yet 
 
 * " When Admiral Cammock, an Irish Jacobite, escaped from the 
 destruction of the Spanish fleet of which he had commanded a win" off 
 Messina in 1718, he addressed an appeal from Malta directed to Admiral 
 Byng, the British Admiral, asking him to desert and join the Pretender's 
 standard. In this document, to which further allusion will be made he 
 speaks slightingly of George I. as having confined his wife for over thirty 
 years in Ahlen Castle, because she had been engaged in a criminal intrigue 
 with Kijningsmark." — See ' Hanover Papers, Miscellaneous.' 
 
ENGLAND'S PROTESTANT HOUSE. 33 
 
 failed to induce her to re-enter the Electoral Prince's 
 household, and that she gladly acquiesced for her part 
 in the sentence pronounced by this same tribunal, 
 which declared " the ties of matrimony to be entirely 
 dissolved and annulled." * 
 
 It is, of course, possible to argue that a wise 
 policy would have dictated a different course than 
 that adopted by the Electoral advisers, when, 
 jealously watching and guarding this fair prisoner, 
 they prevented her own story from reaching the 
 public ear in England. For, in the year 1694, as 
 a glance at Macpherson's ' Original Papers ' f will 
 show, the restoration of James the Second to the 
 throne of England was not an improbable event, 
 while, as cadets of the Royal House, with a 
 contingent, if remote, claim to succeed, the family 
 of the Electress Sophia could ill afford to allow 
 calumnies of a most terrible description to be spread 
 all over England by the agents and friends of an 
 unfortunate lady, who, whatever her wrongs — and 
 they certainly did exist, to some extent — was 
 animated by an uncompromising spirit towards her 
 husband. His charges of disobedience and coldness 
 were met by others on the lady's side, which, if 
 true, proved that the bad example of Louis the 
 Fourteenth and Augustus of Poland I had been 
 followed by a prince who learnt his morals in the 
 
 * ' Memoirs of Sophia Dorothea,' vol. i. p. 268. 
 
 t Vol. i. p. 472, and following jiages. 
 
 J Augustus of Poland had a terribly dissolute Court. 
 
 D 
 
34 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 rough military school then rampant in Europe, and 
 who found no corrective to any loose habits wliich 
 he might have contracted, when he visited his 
 father Ernest Augustus's Court at Hanover. An 
 " authorized version " of the actual facts of the case 
 could not have done more harm to George Lewis 
 than the sedulous dissemination of virulent accusa- 
 tions by his enemies, and their mysterious suggestions 
 of still darker doings ; while, by exposing the animus 
 of his wife and her partisans, it might even have 
 tended to clear the husband's reputation. 
 
 Be that as it may, the quarrel between husband 
 and wife was a deeply-seated evil, and, thanks to 
 evil counsellors, such as the Baroness Platen, who, 
 rumour said, had intrigued to bring these troubles 
 about, and also, as some whispered, compassed 
 Koningsmark's death, never was healed. 
 
 During the year 1698, George Lewis succeeded 
 his. father in the newly created Electorate of 
 Hanover, which had then been in existence six 
 years, so that until this work draws to a close, we 
 shall henceforth know him as the Elector of 
 Hanover, while his son, afterwards George the 
 Second, took the title of Electoral Prince, each male 
 representative of the Brunswick-Luneburg family 
 remaining but a subject, so far as English prospects 
 of royalty were concerned, to the Electress Sophia, 
 widow of Ernest Augustus, through whose Stuart 
 blood the late Elector's children became heirs to the 
 British throne. 
 
ENGLAND'S PROTESTANT HOUSE. 35 
 
 These facts and dates have been given once more 
 with such clearness as the matter demands, on the 
 ground that, as Demosthenes has it, "repetition 
 secures attention," and that their recital, it may be 
 hoped, will enable the present narrative to flow 
 clearly and shortly to its end. 
 
 In the royal vault at Hanover, under the choir of 
 the chapel built by Duke John Frederick, rest the 
 remains of several later celebrities belonging to the 
 House of Brunswick-Luneburg. Amongst these are 
 Duke John Frederick himself, Ernest Augustus, the 
 first Elector, the Electress Sophia, and Greorge the 
 First. Duke John Frederick was the last person 
 interred with the rites of the Roman Catholic re- 
 ligion in this Royal place of worship, and the monks 
 performed the ceremony with great solemnity. The 
 Duke died on his way to Italy in 16Y9.* 
 
 Several other members of the Brunswick-Luneburg 
 race are buried at Herzberg, while various monu- 
 ments of their kinsmen remain scattered over the 
 Duchy of Hanover amidst the various medieval 
 towns with which that country is studded. 
 
 In another chapter we shall attempt to describe 
 how the sovereign and statesmen of England had 
 acted in regard to the Brunswick succession. 
 
 • Sir A. HaUiday's ' House of Guelph,' p. 460. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 COUNSELS OP WINDSOR AND ST. STEPHENS. 
 
 A.D. 1612-1701. 
 
 Turning to England, it becomes necessary to 
 examine, first, the dynastic origin of the present 
 Royal Family, as traced from its Stuart progenitors 
 distinct from Grerman sources, and, secondly, to tell 
 how the historical aspect of the question was viewed 
 by the , statesmen who brought the Brunswick 
 succession into train, and made it legally necessary 
 for future parliaments and ministries to claim 
 priority for those members of the Royal Family 
 professing the Protestant faith, whenever a fresh 
 crisis should arise. 
 
 James the First of England had three children by 
 his wife, Anne of Denmark, viz : — 
 
 (1) Henry, the brave and high-spirited prince, 
 whose premature death plunged England in woe 
 during the year 1612, he being the hope of the 
 Puritan party then gaining strength, so that it was 
 said in a contemporary ballad : — 
 
 " Henry the 8 puld down Abbyes and cells, 
 But Henry the 9 will pul down Bishops and bells." 
 
WINDSOR AND ST. STEPHENS. 37 
 
 The opinions of a youth of 18 could not, however, 
 be finally formed. 
 
 (2) Charles, known in history as the First of that 
 name, the romance of whose life competes in interest 
 with the untowardly tragical character of its end, 
 confronted by this unfortunate sovereign with dig- 
 nity and resolution such as has preserved amongst 
 Englishmen abiding respect for the kingly office. 
 
 The private woes of the monarch may be faith- 
 fully traced, side by side with the errors of his 
 public policy, in those clear, judicial, scientific, and 
 yet kindly, pages of Professor Rawson Gardiner, 
 and beyond recording the dynastic fate of his lineal 
 descendants, this branch of the subject finds no 
 place here. 
 
 (3) But it is otherwise with the third child of the 
 pedantic Stuart king who crossed the Tweed to 
 govern his country's former foes. Elizabeth Stuart, 
 James the First's only daughter, married Frederick, 
 the Elector Palatine, who, posing as Protestant 
 champion, was persuaded by his lovely and 
 chivalrous wife to succour the Bohemian people, 
 then in revolt against the Catholic house of Austria, 
 and, ultimately, to accept the crown offered to him 
 by these revolted populations. 
 
 As son-in-law to the King of England, and nephew 
 to Maurice, Prince of Orange, who dominated the 
 United Provinces, Frederick thought he could become 
 the leader of a great Protestant League in Germany. 
 Kut it was not to be. 
 
38 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Despite the fact that the people of England 
 strained in the leash, and longed to send succour to 
 such of the brave Czechs as were in arms for the 
 cause of Liberty, not only did the British King 
 withhold his approbation from what he deemed 
 rebellion against Ferdinand the Second's authority, 
 but Maurice also, doubting the wisdom of his young 
 relation's romantic project, was unable to do more 
 than send a few regiments to his aid, while 30,000 
 veteran troops* under Spinola succoured the Emperor 
 Ferdinand, the consequence being, that not only was 
 Frederick utterly defeated at the battle of Prague, in 
 1620, and lost his ephemeral kingship in Bohemia, 
 but the triumphant Imperialists seized on the 
 Palatinate, and drove Frederick and his fair 
 companion to take refuge in HoUand.f 
 
 Elizabeth of Bohemia, who suffered so much for 
 the Protestant cause, has a special right to pro- 
 minence in this record, because in a direct line from 
 that fascinating princess is descended her present 
 Majesty, Queen Yictoria, the head of this branch of 
 England's Royal House. The whole narrative reads 
 more like a romance than a tale of sober truth, such 
 as this can be proved to have been. 
 
 From the moment when Frederick landed at 
 Gravesend, and proceeded to claim his bride at St. 
 James's Palace, to the fatal day of the catastrophe 
 
 * Twenty-six thousand foot and four thousand horse. Eapin, vol. viii. 
 p. 162. 
 
 t Hume, vol. vi. p. 104. It is fair to James the First to add that 
 Frederick originally concealed his projects. 
 
WINDSOB AND ST. STEPHENS. 39 
 
 at Prague, the young people's lives were spent 
 amidst fetes and revels, although there were divers 
 anxieties to darken those hopes which to the on- 
 lookers seemed so high. 
 
 In the first place, the Catholics and Protestants 
 stood divided in political opinion, as they necessarily 
 were in the religious questions, upon which the 
 coming struggle depended, but the additional rivalry 
 of Lutherans and Calvinists, seriously weakened the 
 Prince Palatine's chance of holding his own in 
 Bohemia. Nor should we forget the situation of the 
 Empire, when Frederick accepted the Bohemian 
 crown. 
 
 The Emperor Matthias, who died in 1619, had 
 been chosen as a Protestant, and then renounced his 
 opinions, so that the election of a Catholic successor 
 in Ferdinand the Second, occurred when Germany 
 was torn with religious dissensions. The deliberate 
 choice of the Electoral College, arrived at by legal 
 means, was disputed by one of the electorate, who 
 placed himself at the head of the Protestant move- 
 ment, and, disregarding the majority of his colleagues, 
 as well as the minority both in his own Palatinate 
 and Bohemia, set up the Protestant standard in 
 Prague, and expected to be sustained as king by 
 English and Dutch armies. 
 
 We are disposed to attribute the headstrong cha- 
 racter of the Prince Palatine's policy to a genuine 
 appreciation of the immense interests at stake when 
 a representative of the Caesars chosen on religious 
 
iO THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 grounds might hasten to extirpate Protestantism by 
 force of arms, and, if victorious, throw Europe back a 
 century and a half. As a matter of fact the enter- 
 prise of Frederick led to the Thirty Years' War, 
 which, despite various fluctuations of fortune, left the 
 Protestants in a far better position than before, when 
 the Treaty of Westphalia closed that struggle in 1648, 
 Catholics and Lutherans being placed on a footing of 
 equality, while six Protestants were to be admitted 
 to the Aulic Council, and equal numbers of each 
 party to be summoned to the Diet, and to have seats 
 in the Imperial chamber. 
 
 We recapitulate these facts here because the ser- 
 vices to European liberty which Frederick Prince 
 Palatine, and his interesting wife Elizabeth rendered, 
 must be recorded in the very forefront of any 
 chronicle dealing with the history of Her Majesty 
 Queen Victoria's ancestry. The event proved that 
 the unaided strength of Protestantism in South 
 Germany was not sufficient to secure pre-eminence, 
 without the risk of constant anarchical outbursts, in- 
 compatible with settled government. On the other 
 hand, James the First of England, playing doubtless 
 for a high stake, if bent on succouring his son-in-law, 
 would have nevertheless entered on a project in- 
 volving the greatest risk had he sent a contingent 
 to Prague, or even occupied the Palatinate. 
 
 It is more a military question than a poHtical one, 
 whether some few thousand (12,000, at most, judging 
 from James the First's after efforts) English troops, 
 
WINDSOR AND ST. STEPHENS. 41 
 
 for a knowledge of James's resources as to men 
 and transport assures us that a larger force could 
 scarcely have been assembled in Germany, had any 
 chance of turning the scale against so powerful a 
 coalition as was destined to assail and overwhelm 
 Frederick of Bohemia. For the generalship of 
 Maximilian, Duke of Bavaria, quite overshadowed 
 that of the Protestant leaders, even if Spinola had 
 not appeared in Bohemia with his levies from the Low 
 Countries. Indeed, while recognising the sterling 
 qualities of Frederick, brought up as he had been in 
 orthodox Protestant belief, it is impossible to think 
 that he was endowed either with statesmanlike gifts 
 or military faculties. 
 
 He was certainly brave, and for the purpose of 
 our story deserves all honour for loyal fidelity and 
 devotion to the noble woman who so cheerfully bore 
 a hard lot in unison with the husband of her choice ; 
 and, although destined to be overpowered in the 
 contest, the Palatine was not without allies. 
 
 Doubtless the Dutch troops serving with Frederick, 
 and also the few English volunteers, were enthu- 
 siastic Protestants, and might have kept an equal 
 force at bay, but they found no adequate support from 
 the Bohemian levies, whose ranks were infected by 
 treachery ; so that, despite a gallant resistance, the 
 Imperalists carried all before them. 
 
 It was on a Sunday, during morning service, that 
 matters came to a crisis in Prague ; and the passage 
 " render unto Csesar the things which are Ctesar's " 
 
42 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 came with oracular authority to the congregation 
 at the Lutheran Cathedral, who seem to have held 
 various sympathies. However, in the crash of 
 approaching battle it was impossible to remain in 
 the building, threatened, as it appeared to be, with 
 destruction ; so that the preacher left his pulpit, and 
 the people rushed to the Strathoff gate, which led to 
 the field of battle, yclept the White Mountain. 
 
 The unfortunate Frederick, who was with his 
 troops outside the city, was cheered at this time by 
 tidings of a check the enemy had received ; Marshal 
 Bucquoy's force having been defeated by a wing of 
 the Protestant army. 
 
 But soon it became apparent that the Imperialist 
 arms were triumphant outside Prague, and Frederick, 
 galloping to the palace, hurried Elizabeth across to 
 the old town of that name, where, stunned with the 
 calamity, he said, when lifting his wife from the car- 
 riage, " I now know where I am. We princes seldom 
 learn the truth until we are taught it by adversity." * 
 
 The flight of the ex-King and Queen was fallowed 
 by the submission of Prague to the Imperial forces, 
 and it soon became evident that the popular voice 
 was with the conquerors, who showed great severity 
 in punishing those who had been in arms for 
 Frederick, that unfortunate prince being placed 
 Tinder the ban of the Empire on January 12th, 
 1621, and, as a consequence, deprived of his elector- 
 ship and of the Palatinate which appended thereto. 
 
 * Benger's ' Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart.' Longmans, 1825, vol. ii. p. 90. 
 
WINDSOR AND ST. STEPHENS. 43 
 
 The courage of Elizabeth of Bohemia in adversity 
 proved her to be a worthy granddaughter of Mary 
 Queen of Scots, while her devotion for her husband 
 was only equalled by her grief at the separation 
 entailed when Frederick set out from Holland by sea 
 en route to Count Mansfeldt's camp in Alsace, which 
 he reached by travelling through France, after 
 landing at Calais. 
 
 In Paris he appears to have travelled unknown, 
 to become a silent gazer on the splendid Court of 
 Louis the Thirteenth, and passing on to Hagenau, 
 north of Strasburg, he conferred with Mansfeldt. 
 
 But the struggle which ensued was purposeless 
 as regards regaining possession of the Palatinate, 
 inasmuch as the successes of the Imperialists forced 
 Mansfeldt to retreat to his magazines at Hagenau, 
 while the brave Christian of Brunswick failed to 
 effect a junction with his allies. Christian was never- 
 theless moved to devote his life to the cause of 
 Protestantism in the Palatinate when he beheld 
 Elizabeth Stuart in Holland at the close of the 
 campaign, and he faithfully kept his promise. 
 
 The occasion to which we allude was at the 
 Hague, after the battle of Fleurus, when Christian 
 appeared before the ex-Queen of Bohemia with a 
 silver arm in lieu of one amputated on the field.* 
 
 * In crossing the Duchy of Luxemburg to relieve Bergen-op-Zoom, 
 Christian's army was attacked by the Spaniards, under Gonzages de 
 Cordova, on the plain of Fleurus, August 30, 1622. This conflict resulted 
 indecisively. — Eapin's ' History of England,' voL viii. p. 227, quoting 
 Coke Wilson's ' History of Bohemian Rebellion.' 
 
44 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Touched bj Her grace and cteerfulness under mis- 
 fortune, Christian is said to have plucked a glove 
 from Elizabeth's hand and placed it in his Spanish 
 hat as a plume, swearing never to lay down arms 
 until he should see the Palatinate returned to its 
 owners. Formerly the stern Duke had placed on his 
 banner, "God's friend, the foe to priesthood." After 
 his interview with Elizabeth it was transformed 
 into "For God and for her." 
 
 After a life of privation and danger, wherein he 
 saw the cause he championed steadily worsted, the 
 bluff old Duke Christian of Brunswick, as has already 
 been said, died of fever at Wolfenbiittel Castle, re- 
 joicing that he had rejected the Imperial pardon, 
 and regretting that he had not sealed his pledge 
 given to the ex-Queen of Bohemia with his blood.* 
 Truly a worthy descendant of Henry the Lion, and 
 a hero whom Thomas Carlyle would have delighted 
 to honour. 
 
 It is an easy thing to shower blame upon James 
 the First's shoulders for not immediately succouring 
 his daughter ; but the best furnished historian who 
 has examined the situation records his conviction 
 that the means adopted after deliberation by the 
 English King, viz. the allying other powers to 
 bring strong pressure on the Empire, was preferable 
 to hasty and single-handed interference such as 
 James could have alone effected. The fault lay in 
 
 * Beuger's 'Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart.' Longmans, 1825, vol. ii. 
 p. 236. 
 
WINDSOR AND ST. STEPHENS. 45 
 
 the hesitation evinced when diplomacy ought to 
 have retired in favour of action,* 
 
 From time to time it appeared likely that 
 Frederick would recover the Palatinate. After 
 Prince Charles and Buckingham returned in haste 
 from Spain, King James the First consented, in 
 1624, to equip an expedition for the purpose. His 
 troops were promised a free passage through France, 
 according to an understanding with that Court. So 
 it came to pass that 12,000 infantry and 200 
 cavalry were collected together on ships which rode 
 at anchor outside Calais, until disease broke out 
 amongst the soldiers, and Count Mansfeldt deemed 
 the small force remaining insufficient for such a 
 distant campaign as that in the Palatinate. The 
 worry of the preparation seems to have harassed 
 the peacefully -disposed British King in his last hours, 
 as he died the year following this sad fiasco. 
 
 Between this period and the potent advocacy of 
 Gustavus Adolphus, Frederick lost his promising 
 son Henry Frederick, by drowning, in the Zuyder- 
 zee, where father and son had gone together to see 
 the Spanish galleons captured by Peter Heins. f 
 
 The yacht which carried the ex-Prince Palatine 
 and his son went down after collision with a larger 
 ship, and Frederick, clinging to a rope, saw his child 
 sink after crying " Save me, father, save me ! " 
 
 * ' England, Prince Charles, and the Spanish Marriages.' By Prof. 
 Samuel Eawson Gardiner, vol. ii. p. 6Y. 
 
 t Benger's ' Memoirs of Blizabelh Stuart,' vol. ii. p. 260. 
 
46 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Neither Frederick nor Elizabeth were the same people 
 after this tragedy, and the dark shadow thrown over 
 their lives must have prepared Frederick's friends 
 for his own end, which occurred at Metz on 
 November 17th, 1632, eleven days after Grustavus 
 Adolphus had alike triumphed and died in the 
 cause to which they were jointly devoted. 
 
 The last days of the widowed Queen were not 
 only embittered by sorrow, but burdened by poverty. 
 
 Her brother Charles of England's misfortunes 
 precluded him from stretching out a helping hand, 
 while the presence of the Princes Eupert and 
 Maurice in the royal camp alienated those Puritan 
 sympathies which had been devotedly given to 
 Elizabeth ever since her arrival in Holland. No 
 longer deemed " the pearl of G-reat Britain," the as- 
 sistance doled out by the Dutch Government was 
 not granted to her in the same spirit as of yore. 
 
 True it is that by the Treaty of Westphalia in the 
 year 1648 her son Charles Lewis recovered the lower 
 Palatinate, taking with him to Heidelberg his young 
 sister Sophia, who was born shortly before Frederick's 
 last expedition into Germany with Gustavus in 
 1632 ; but he found the Palatinate in an exhausted 
 condition, and was unable to aid his mother ac- 
 cording to her needs or his desires, although he 
 ultimately sent her timely succour. 
 
 Concerning the destiny of that gifted lady, the 
 Electress Sophia, it will be. ours to tell shortly ; and 
 indeed the whole Palatine family story is of such 
 
WINDSOR AND ST. STEPHENS. 47 
 
 deep concern to one who endeavours to present an 
 outline of Brunswick history, that nothing but the 
 dire necessity of confining these records within a 
 small space leads us to bring this portion of the 
 subject to its close, simply recording how, thanks to 
 the princely liberality of Lord Craven after the 
 Eestoration, Elizabeth of Bohemia spent her declining 
 life in comfort such as comported with her dignity. 
 Lord Craven is said to have been her second 
 husband. 
 
 First at Drury House, on the site of Drury Lane 
 Theatre, the Earl's seat in London ; and finally at 
 Leicester House — destined to be occupied by George 
 the Second when Prince of Wales, and by his son 
 Frederick, who bore this title to his death in 1752 — 
 did this noble lady quietly pass her time, while the 
 dissipations and convivialities of the Restoration con- 
 cerned her not ; so that, unnoticed by the revel- 
 lers, and not noticing them, the " Queen of Hearts " 
 of James the First's Court expired at the latter 
 residence on Febru'ary I3th, 1662, 
 
 How different a fate might have awaited this 
 nation, if James the First had in the first instance 
 risked a heavy stake on restoring the Palatinate, 
 and had succeeded in installing his son-in-law 
 permanently in Prague ! 
 
 Would the statesmen of England still have chosen 
 this Brunswick dynasty to reign over us ? or would 
 not their predominance in Grerman affairs have 
 precluded the accession of which we are writing ? 
 
48 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 So far the counsels emanating from Windsor in 
 reference to the fortunes of this poor Stuart Princess. 
 But it is a strange thought that strikes the imagi- 
 nation when pondering over the storj we have told 
 in bare outline. 
 
 Little did James the First think, when with 
 sorrow he allowed his fugitive child to step down 
 from her high estate, that the elder branch of his - 
 family should pass through times of sorrow, regicide, 
 and revolution, the ashes of their descendants resting 
 at St. Peter's in Rome ; while that helpless widowed 
 Princess, almost forgotten at home amidst the terrors 
 of civil war and rebellion, was destined to become 
 the mother of a famous English dynasty, the pro- 
 genitrix of five kings, and of a Queen whose name 
 mankind will honour for all time. 
 
 Sir Henry Wotton, the poet and diplomatist of 
 James the First's time, regarded the Princess Eliza- 
 beth with a chivalrous admiration which found 
 expression in tender verse. He once told her in 
 prose, after her disastrous experience in Bohemia, — 
 " You have showed the World that though you were 
 born within the chance, yet you were without the 
 power of fortune." 
 
 The following stanzas speak for themselves : — 
 
 " You Violets that first appear, 
 By your pure purple mantle's known, 
 Like tlie proud Virgins of the year, 
 As if the Spring were all your own ; 
 What are you when the Eose is blown ? 
 
WINDSOR AND ST. STEPHENS. 49 
 
 " So, when my Mistriss shall be seen 
 In Form and Beauty of her mind, 
 By Vertue first, then choice, a Queen, 
 Tell me if she were not designed 
 Th' Eclipse and glory of her kind ? " * 
 
 Charles the First had a high opinion of his sister's 
 abiUty, and in reference to poor Frederick the Prince 
 Palatine, always said, " The grey mare was the 
 better horse." Moreover, Anne of Denmark, James 
 the First's Queen, never approved of her daughter's 
 marriage, looking upon the Palatinate as an inferior 
 principality and its ruler as a pinchbeck prince. 
 She saw no further than her august husband. 
 
 Having dealt with the counsels of Windsor and 
 their influence on posterity, let us now consider how 
 the Brunswick succession to the British throne 
 received a constitutional status. 
 
 When James the Second left the country in 1688, 
 a convention parliament declared the throne to 
 be vacant by the absence of the sovereign, and his 
 son being unjustifiably ignored as illegitimate, the 
 Princess of Orange became the recognised heiress, 
 such right to be enjoyed in unison with her husband, 
 whose action in delivering the nation from James 
 the Second's designs was straightway rewarded by 
 the crown. The succession — this single deviation 
 excepted — was vested, first, in the children of Mary ; 
 secondly, in Anne and her issue ; thirdly, in the 
 lineal descendants of William, who being the son of 
 
 * Poems by Sir Henry Wotton, Edition 1845, p. 14. 
 
 E 
 
50 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Mary, eldest daughter of Charles the First, was 
 himself no obscure cadet of the Royal Family. 
 
 The first parliament of William and Mary con- 
 firmed this settlement, in 1689; but the childless 
 William, anxious for maintenance of the Protestant 
 line so far as Act of Parliament could provide, 
 formulated his project for continuing the succession 
 in the person of the Princess Sophia and her issue, 
 and entrusted his parliamentary proposal in the first 
 instance to Bishop Burnet. 
 
 Being carried without opposition in the Lords, this 
 amendment to the Bill of Rights — for it was so en- 
 titled — met with opposition from a combination of 
 extreme Whigs, high Tories, and Jacobites in the 
 Commons, who rejected it because they declared it to 
 be unjust to preclude members of the family prior iu 
 lineal descent from succeeding to the crown if they 
 turned Protestant.* The birth of the Princess Anne's 
 son, the Duke of Grloucester, having removed the 
 immediate apprehensions of those who dreaded a dis- 
 puted succession, a clause was annexed to the Bill of 
 Rights which excluded all Papists from the throne, 
 and also those who should marry Papists ; so that 
 when the Duke of Grloucester died, William the 
 Third found no constitutional difficulty in proposing 
 the Brunswick Accession after the Princess Anne 
 and her possible heirs should have passed away.f 
 But the weak point in this settlement became ap- 
 
 * Ooxe's ' Walpole,' vol. i. p. 8. 
 + ibid , p. 9. 
 
"WINDSOB AND ST. STEPHENS. 51 
 
 parent when it was generally known that James 
 the Second's son was neither supposititious, as his 
 enemies assumed, nor married to a Papist. He there- 
 fore lay under no disability which conversion to Pro- 
 testantism, and consequent marriage with a Protes- 
 tant, would fail to remove, provided that Parliament 
 acquiesced. This accounts for the persistent efforts 
 we trace of unscrupulous partisans to maintain the 
 warming-pan legend, and indeed to add to its ab- 
 surdity by inventing additions. Take, for instance, 
 the following extract from the parliamentary de- 
 bates.* After speaking with just reprobation of 
 Perkin Warbeck's deception in Henry the Seventh's 
 time, a speaker in the Scottish Parliament gave vent 
 to the following outburst : — 
 
 " Tte same game is aplaying now. Perliaps some have 
 never read the history, and others have forgot it. No matter, 
 it happened two hundred years ago ; but we cannot forget what 
 happened sixteen years ago, when no male issue was like to 
 succeed King James the Seventh (second of England) . . . One at 
 last was said to be bom at St. James, June 1688. 
 
 " That child died soon after, a second was put in his place, 
 and carried to and nursed up at Eichmond ; but God thought 
 fit to kill that second chUd also. Now, my lord, this pretended 
 Prince of Wales is a third child, in whose veins there is not a 
 drop of royal blood. Here is a new Perkin born into the world." 
 
 Although the story of James Edward Stuart's being 
 a supposititious child is now well known to have 
 been invented by James the Second's enemies, it is 
 
 * ' Parliamentary Debates,' Edition 1741, vol. iv. p. 429. The orator's 
 name is not given, but the scene occurred in the Parliament House of 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION.. 
 
 necessary, in a history of this description, to explode 
 the whole story decisively by the production of un- 
 doubted evidence collected by the Brunswick family 
 themselves : — 
 
 " Quite late in tte day, and but a short time before she died 
 in 1714, the Princess Sophia took measures to strengthen the 
 claim which parliament had given her family to the British 
 throne.' She was in favour of sending her grandson to England 
 as Duke of Cambridge, and also made searching inquiries as to 
 the question of the I'retender's birth. The warming-pan story 
 still had its votaries, and the truth must at all hazards be 
 known. One Dr. Hugh Chamberlen, a London physician, 
 employed by the court when at St. James's, was consulted, and 
 wrote an important and curious minute relating to events which, 
 though they had happened twenty-six years before, still remained 
 apparently fresh in his memory. He tells Eobethon that on 
 9 Juno, 1688, he was suddenly called away professionally to 
 Chatham, and on his returning the following day a messenger 
 summoned him in hot haste to" St. Jaraes's Palace. There, he 
 says, he found ' a child newly born, loose and undressed, in 
 Lady Powys' lap, and as I was told brought forth an hour 
 beibre I came. I was not long in the chamber when the late 
 Dr. Hamilton came, and then Lord Arran. The Duchess of 
 Monmouth having some time before sent for me, and liaving in 
 the meantime gone to the Queen's levy, left order I should 
 wait for her grace's return. She was pleased to make this 
 return for her waiting, that she had been with her Majesty.' 
 The evidence that the duchess proceeded to give was of a 
 character to satisfy the medical mind, and its reproduction is 
 unnecessary, as the facts stand recorded in the published 
 accounts of the inquiry which ensued. Dr. Chamberlen 
 concludes in words which must have satisfied the Electress ' I 
 take the birth to be genuine, without artifice or disguise, so 
 that I never since questioned it.' Moreover he urged that 
 being a ' notorious whig,' he would never have' been sent for if 
 a supposititious child had been brought to St. James's. The 
 risk of discovery would have been too great. The outcome of this 
 
WINDSOR AND ST. STEPHENS. 53 
 
 conversation was totally to discredit the warming-pan theorj'', 
 which no official adherent of the house of Hanover adduced.* 
 
 " Dr. Ohamberlen continues, ' The King coming through the 
 Park to St. James's next morning, he was pleased to tell me 
 that when he sent I was absent ; to which I humbly replied, 
 more warning had been necessary, but he told me they were 
 surprised, for the Queen expected to go a fortnight longer.' 
 James II. and Dr. Chamberlen then entered into a general 
 conversation on the subject of the birth of childien, which it 
 would be tedious to repeat here, unless for the curious admission 
 made by the doctor that ' he believed the science of medicine to 
 be in its infancy.' " * 
 
 The Succession was finally decided in favour of 
 the House of Brunswick, the debates thereon having 
 been sparsely attended ; and after the Session had 
 been closed by William on June 24, 1701,f the Earl 
 of Macclesfield was despatched to Hanover to ap- 
 prise the Electress Sophia of her constitutional 
 prospects. The deaths both of James the Second 
 and William the Third followed closely, during this 
 eventful year, and Queen Anne, the incoming sove- 
 reign, vs^as at once compelled to sustain a new con- 
 flict with the French, whose sovereign scouted the 
 British Queen's title and acknowledged the Pre- 
 tender as James the Third. 
 
 One protest against the Act of Succession deserves 
 mention. It was that of the Duchess of Savoy, grand- 
 
 * The letter from which this statement is tiiken was found in 
 M. Bobethon's cabinet, and is amongst the Hanover papers. The 
 summary given here is identical with that in an article of the author's in 
 the ' English Historical Eeview,' vol. i. p. 768. 
 
 t Sir John Bowles, said to be disordered in his senses, was the man 
 chosen to propose the Electress Sophia. — Burnet's ' History of his own 
 Times.' Edition 1838, p. 683. 
 
54 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 daughter of Charles the First. Eumour, however, 
 has it that all chance of that branch asserting any 
 claim likely to be heeded had passed away in 1696, 
 when the Duke of Savoy deserted the alliance against 
 Louis the Fourteenth, of which William the Third 
 was life and soul. It is difficult to believe that the 
 great Protestant champion would have ever con- 
 sented to treat with the Prince of Savoy about family 
 claims to the English throne, unless security was 
 forthcoming in the matter of religion ; but we give 
 the statement that the English King had been then 
 prepared to consider the question, for what it is 
 worth.* 
 
 * 'The Electress Sophia and the Hanoverian Succession,' by Prof. 
 A. W. Ward, ' English Historical Eeview,' vol. i. pp. 484, 485. Professor 
 Ward quotes Herr Klopp's ' Fall d'Hauses Stuart,' vol. vii. pp. 74, 75. 
 
( 55 ) 
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 GODOLPHIN AT THE TREASURY, MARLBOROUGH IN 
 THE FIELD. 
 
 A.D. 1702-1710. 
 
 Sydney GtOdolphin, the Lord Treasurer of the great 
 Administration which bore his name, boasted a varied 
 official experience, and was the man trusted alike by 
 those who ruled the city world, and by Marlborough, 
 the military colleague, who may be said to have 
 acted the part of Foreign Minister to the G-overn- 
 ment, as well as that of Commander-in-Chief. Monied 
 men felt confident that while Grodolphin was at the 
 Treasury and pursued the war with France, they 
 would continue to receive a large percentage on 
 their capital invested in the funds,* while Marl- 
 borough took his friend's pre-eminence in council as 
 an earnest of regular remittances for payment of 
 soldiery and purchase of necessaries for the camp. 
 In fact, he made it a sine quA non that Grodolphin 
 must be at the Treasury if he were to remain at the 
 head of the army. Grodolphin had been a page at 
 
 * ' Letters of the Duchess of Marlborough,' Ed. 1742, p. 145. 
 
56 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Charles the Second's Court, and the merry Monarch 
 said of him that " he was never in the way, and 
 never out of it."* Later in the above reign, and 
 when holding the Treasurer's staff, Grodolphin had 
 favoured the exclusion of the Duke of York, after- 
 wards James the Second, from the throne, in conse- 
 quence of his Papistical leanings ; but nevertheless, 
 when the time cElme, the practised official cheerfully 
 served James, even though he was called on to resign 
 the Treasury to Lord Eochester ; and it is rumoured 
 that this indispensable minister had tender feelings 
 for Mary of Modena, which were contracted when 
 chamberlain to her household. f Be that as it may, 
 such admiration for the ex-Queen — and it has not 
 been suggested that the sentiment implied anything 
 not purely Platonic — did not prevent him from occu- 
 pying the position of Treasury Commissioner under 
 William the Third, who recognised his business 
 talents, and benefited by his sagacity. 
 
 Finally we see him elevated to the Premiership 
 under Anne, and destined to head the Administration 
 which rendered her reign for ever glorious in our 
 military annals. 
 
 In every age and amidst every race there are 
 individuals of only fair or even of ordinary capacity, 
 who, without displaying any one conspicuous talent, 
 nevertheless possess some special faculty which en- 
 ables them to shine beyond their fellow-men. 
 
 * Macaulay's ' History of England,' vol. i. p. 255. 
 t Ibid., p. 255. 
 
GdDOLPHIN AND MARLBOEOUaH. 57 
 
 No striking speaker, nor yet qualified in other 
 ways to stir the imaginations of his countrymen, 
 Godolphin rendered himself necessary to each con- 
 secutive sovereign under whom he lived, because, in 
 the great Duke of Wellington's words used nearly a 
 century and a half later, he understood how to carry 
 on the Queen's Government. This faculty was never 
 more in demand than when the Earl of Marlborough 
 — for he had not yet won his Dukedom — undertook to 
 conduct the war in Flanders. Of Marlborough much 
 need not be said, as his life, in outline at least, is 
 necessarily familiar to every educated Englishman. 
 It is however to be regretted that it is necessary in 
 the pursuit of truth to reveal certain acts of duplicity 
 as regards the Succession of which this gifted soldier 
 and able diplomatist was guilty. Yet these ani- 
 madversions will not imply any sympathy with the 
 bitter and unreasonable literary attacks to which the 
 Duke was exposed by contemporary writers. Such 
 lapses from the path of integrity are rather to be 
 charitably lamented than harshly condemned, for 
 the extremely difficult position of English statesmen 
 at that period should be borne in mind before the 
 reins are given to merciless censure. The very 
 wisest masters of affairs were then unable to forecast 
 the immediate future, and could not be sure that 
 they might not at an hour's notice be all attainted 
 exiles, or even condemned prisoners, because they 
 championed the dynastic cause which appeared to 
 themselves that of law, order, and liberty. Under 
 
58 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 8uch temptations most men succumbed. All praise 
 then to the honoured names of Somers, Halifax, 
 and Cowper, who never flinched, which, alas ! must 
 be regretfully withheld from John Churchill, the 
 great Duke of Marlborough. But Englishmen will 
 strive to forget political conduct which they cannot 
 condone in contemplation of that stroke of genius 
 which led to the campaign of 1704, having its scene 
 of action on the Danube, rather than, as the enemy 
 expected, on the Meuse or Rhine ; while it will 
 also be well to remember that when Marlborough, 
 crossed swords in 1709-10 vrith Villars — rightly 
 called the saviour of France by reason of his sub- 
 sequent victories — the laurels were apportioned 
 to the British general, not to that remarkable 
 commander whose memory is so fondly treasured 
 in France. No — like VendSme and Tallard before 
 him — Yillars was destined to feel Marlborough's 
 superiority. 
 
 The capture of Mons after the bloody battle of 
 Malplaquet, in September 1709, vies with the strate- 
 gic success which saved Arras in 1710, in demon- 
 strating the pre-eminence which we claim for the 
 premier captain in an age of warriors whose cam- 
 paigns are studied and admired wherever military 
 science flourishes. 
 
 There is a political incident generally known to 
 readers of history, but of which the importance is 
 still not sufl&ciently realised, viz. that Lord Godolphin 
 was Minister up to the opening of William the 
 
GODOLPHIN AND MARLBOROUGH. 59 
 
 Third's last parliament, but then resigned his office 
 of Lord Treasurer because he had objected to the 
 dissolution which preceded the election in question* 
 Hence there occurred an interregnum between the 
 regime under which the Brunswick Succession was 
 voted, and that which predominated when the famous 
 Grodolphin-Marlborough G-overnment commenced 
 their glorious career. Lord Carlisle held the famous 
 White Staff in that Cabinet which attainted the son 
 of James the Second, and received as colleagues Sir 
 Charles Hedges and Lord Manchester. But when the 
 new Queen's accession was followed by the elevation 
 of the Duke of Marlborough to the position in her 
 public counsels which he and his wife had long held 
 in private, Godolphin was again chosen, much 
 against his will, to steer the ship of state. Now at 
 this period of his career, whatever his prescience, 
 however adroit his political address. Queen Anne's 
 first Minister was in private sympathy with St. 
 Germain. During the years 1696, 1697, a Colonel 
 Sackville had acted as intermediatory between the 
 exiled Stuarts and this celebrated statesman ; while 
 in 1701 the secret correspondence of Marlborough 
 and Godolphin was carried on through one Berry ; 
 and it is impossible not to believe, after carefully 
 sifting memoranda the purport of which has never 
 been denied, that the assurances formerly given to 
 James the Second were renewed to his son in 1702, 
 
 * These facts are clearly set forth in the continuation of Sir James 
 Mackintosh's History, Edition 1839, vol. ix. p. 138. 
 
60 .'THE' BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 when the statesmen concerned in these negotiations 
 were about to rule over England.* 
 
 On the other hand, among the Record Office 
 papers of the period, one finds again and again 
 notices of the » haunts frequented by Jacobite and 
 Jesuit priests, such people being hunted for their 
 lives, as if accounted veritable vermin by the autho- 
 rities who held sway under the ever-religious, ever- 
 Protestant Queen Anne. Those very records, how- 
 ever, disclose what we believe to be the key to this 
 difficult problem. 
 
 But the contest between Whig and Tory in the 
 British Parliament was assuming new proportions. 
 The secret diffusion of their principles by the irre- 
 sponsible Whig junto, of which Lord Somers was 
 chief, had slowly but surely taken effect on the 
 constituencies which, even in the least popular form, 
 and in days of undue electoral restriction, as well as 
 of semi-legalised corruption, yet reflected more or 
 less the popular will. Moreover, the recent Tory 
 proposal to allow the next heir to enter the kingdom, 
 and take up a position near the throne, had neither 
 been in accordance with the Queen's prejudices, nor 
 did it find a response in the prevalent opinions con- 
 cerning the Succession. The nation was not enthu- 
 siastic for any ruler from beyond seas, but was easily 
 
 * " Your late conference witli Counsellor Gilbum (Godolphin) doth in 
 a good measure clear the suspicion of his and his party's being joined 
 with Hanmer (Hanover) against Matthews (the King)." — ^Macpherson'a 
 ' Original Papers,' vol. i. p. 609. August 21, 1702. 
 
 Marlborough's cant names were Malbranche and Arnisworth. 
 
GODOLPHIN AND MARLBOROUGH. 61 
 
 moved to anger against the Pope, Priests, and; 
 Jesuits. Thus the dominant feeling was subject to 
 divers influences that statesmen could not pretend to 
 control, and the vox populi uttered an uncertain 
 sound through all these transactions •, so that the 
 Whigs might well congratulate themselves when 
 the triennial parliamentary election of 1705 showed 
 an increased number of Low Church or Whig repre- 
 sentatives, while the choice of Mr. Smith as Speaker 
 proved that Lord Grodolphin's necessities, if not his 
 sympathies, were leading him to cast the balance 
 against his former Tory allies. 
 
 For the moment Harley's schemes were apparently 
 checkmated, although an underground wire-puller 
 has such a singular advantage in deciding when and 
 where he shall commence the game again, that it is 
 impossible to be sure that the hour of apparent 
 defeat is not in truth a mere lull in the attack of 
 the assailant, who straightway devising another 
 operation nearer the fortress, saps his way onwards 
 unobserved and unhindered. Such at least was the 
 method of Harley, the adroit and able party-leader 
 whose nobler qualities were lost in the unworthy 
 tactics then more or less in vogue, and which he 
 ever employed. We are not concerned here to trace 
 successively the stSps of intrigue by means of which 
 the whole Whig junto gradually gained places in 
 Grodolphin's Government, although they were never- 
 theless m like manner slowly but surely pulled down 
 from their hardly-gained posts by Harley after he 
 
62 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 and his brilliant colleague St. John had been dis- 
 missed in 1708.* Incredible as it may appear, when 
 acting as leaders of the Whig party, and as late as 
 the close of the year 1706, both Grodolphin and 
 Marlborough undoubtedly offered assurances to the 
 St. Germain Court, although several modern his- 
 torians either explain them away, or ignore them 
 altogether. 
 
 It is worthy of record that during a debate on a 
 proposal to better secure her Majesty's person and 
 the Protestant succession, which passed the House 
 of Commons in 1705, one Mr, Charles Csesar standing 
 up in his place used the following words : — 
 
 " There is a noble Lord, -witliout whose advice the Queen 
 does nothing, who in the late reign was known to keep up a 
 correspondence with the Court at St. Germain " — 
 
 words bearing evidence that subordinate politicians 
 suspected what has now become notorious to those 
 who chose to learn the truth. After a scene and 
 a renewed debate, Mr. Caesar, who had been with- 
 drawn from the House, was committed to the Tower, f 
 and suffered a lengthy imprisonment. Towards the 
 end of 1708, an act of grace was passed which ex- 
 pressly pardoned all previous correspondence with 
 the Jacobite Court, and according to a rumour, which 
 found its way into Mr. Carte's Memorandum-book, 
 and is endorsed by Macplierson,J Lord Godolphin 
 
 * ' Dictionary of National Biography,' vol. i. p. 459 (" Queen Anne," by 
 Prof. A. W. Ward). 
 
 t ' Parliamentary Debates,' vol. iv. p. 492. 
 
 t Maopherson's ' Original Papers,' vol. ii. p. 104. 
 
GODOLPHIN AND MARLBOROUGH. 63 
 
 had previously been subject to the Whig junto in a 
 very peculiar way. It appears that Lord Wharton 
 had become possessed of an original letter of the 
 Lord Treasurer's to the Pretender's Ministers, and 
 used this document to obtain the Lord-Lieutenancy 
 of Ireland, which Lord Grodolphin did not refuse, 
 because not only did this letter keep him at the 
 mercy of the Whig junto, but public curiosity had 
 been aroused by Mr. Caesar's statement. Lord 
 Wharton was induced to depart to Ireland before the 
 session closed, and the first news he received was of 
 the aforesaid act of grace, by which he knew that 
 the Minister had got himself out of his clutches.* 
 
 It is surprising how cautious Lord Grodolphin 
 seems henceforth to have been, for during the last 
 two years of his administration, and^ although 
 Marlborough expressed as usual " zeal and concern " 
 unlimited,! there is no trace of the first Minister 
 having been approached by the Jacobite agents. 
 James the Second advanced the theory that Marl- 
 borough and Admiral Russell were encouraged by 
 William the Third in their early communications 
 with St. Germain, in order that through them he 
 might gain information about his foes.J 
 
 Godolphin lives in history as the author of the 
 union between England and Scotland, and very 
 early in his administration seems to have realised 
 
 * Hamilton's ' Transactions,' p. 111. Tlie author of the ' Continuation 
 of Sir J. Mackintosh's History ' also tells this story. Vol. ix. p. 225. 
 t Hamiltoa's ' Transactions,' p. 129. 
 t Clarke's ' Life of James II.,' vol. ii. p. 523. 
 
64 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 the necessity of bringing about some such change, 
 the alternative being the tradition of magazines, 
 fortresses, and resources to an irreconcilable foe. 
 He would be a bold man who, after reading of the 
 various projects,of invasion intended to be levelled 
 by France and the Pretender with Scotland as a 
 basis of operations, could aver that the Act of Union 
 passed in 1707 did not alter entirely the conditions 
 of such, conflicts. It is noteworthy that at this 
 moment a desire to promote Union in these islands 
 seized the people of Ireland, who by the mouth of 
 their Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Ormond, prayed 
 for a Union between England and Ireland as a 
 fit and just accompaniment of the healing policy 
 pursued with regard to Scotland. The reply sent by 
 Godolphin's cabinet, then in the days of its early- 
 strength, was not creditable ; as the poor Irish were 
 refused their plea because England declined to share 
 the wool trade with their manufacturers.* 
 
 As regards the Scotch Union, whether Grodolphin 
 was prompted by the Whig junto or not, he was 
 carrying out the well-known desire of the late King. 
 Through some unaccountable oversight, William the 
 Third had failed to provide for the necessary unity as 
 regards succession to the crowns ; and the Scotch 
 Parliament being, on the whole, averse to the 
 Brunswick family, found ready sympathy amongst 
 that intensely national people north of the Tweed, a 
 majority of whom were undoubtedly for restoring 
 
 * Hill Burton's ' Reign of Queen Anne,' vol. iji. pp. 144, 145. 
 
GOpOLPHIN AND MARLBOROUGH. 65 
 
 their old Stuart kings. The nation protested almost 
 with unanimity against Union ; and this, although a 
 majority of the Presbyterians might recoil against 
 the papistical surroundings which James Edward 
 never pretended to forsake. 
 
 The national feeling took shape in Edinburgh in 
 popular tumults when the independence of their 
 legislature was threatened ; while in the provinces 
 the same feeling prevailed. At Dumfries, during the 
 year 1706, the Articles of Union were burnt, many 
 thousands assembling in the market-place to hail the 
 ceremony with cheerful acclamations. A military 
 force was present — double squadrons of horse and 
 foot surrounding the fire ;* but the troops manifestly 
 sympathised with the mob. 
 
 The spokesmen who gave voice to this ebullition 
 of patriotic resentment were various. Accepted as a 
 leader by reason of his friendship for Queen Anne, 
 and also for her exiled brother, the Duke of Hamilton 
 comes first on the list. The next place may be given 
 to the Lord Belhaven, whose perfervid oratory is 
 probably better remembered than the more philo- 
 sophic advocacy of Fletcher of Saltoun — Whig and 
 even Eepublican in his political belief, but still, as 
 a Scotchman, irreconcilably hostile to the proposed 
 Union. The Parliament hall rang and rang again 
 with the echoes of indignant declamation. The Duke 
 of Hamilton surpassed himself, and waxed so eloquent, 
 tha.t Scotchmen accepted his leadership with content. 
 
 * ' Parliamentary Debates,' vol. v. p. 57. 
 
 F 
 
66 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 The Highland chieftains, who held their clans 
 under strict, if rude, military discipline, offered the 
 Duke to march on Edinburgh and disperse the par- 
 liament if it acceded to the English Minister's request 
 and passed the Union.* Judge then what dismay, 
 what discontent spread over Highland pass and Low- 
 land pasture, when it was known that the National 
 leader had hesitated, and failing to appear in his 
 place in parliament when the crucial struggle was 
 renewed, had abandoned himself to despondence. 
 He had received a letter from Lord Middleton, Secre- 
 tary of State to the Court of St. GTermain, ordering 
 him, on behalf of his master, " to forbear giving any 
 further opposition to the Union."f The Oommis- 
 
 * Hamilton's ' Transactions,' p. 41. Another theory, to the effect that 
 the Scotch Union was purchased by the English Government, has been 
 exploded by Dr. Hill Burton, who shows that the secret service money 
 unaccounted for was afterwards restored to the Treasury, with the ex- 
 ception of some paltry travelling expenses paid to indigent Whig members. 
 Lord Stanhope also declared the evidence in question to be flimsy. On 
 the principle, it may be supposed, of a penny received as a consideration 
 being binding in the same degree as if it had been a pound, Mr. Secre- 
 tary Harley held a different opinion regarding these transactions. In a 
 debate regarding the linen trade, and a proposed duty for thirty-two years 
 on all exports of that article, the Scotch very reasonably objected to such 
 a restriction on their commerce. 
 
 "After a long debate Mr. Harley said that he admired the debate 
 shoiild last so long. ' For have not wee (meaning and pointing to other 
 English members) bought them (meaning the Scots) and a right to tax 
 them ? And pray for what end did wee give the equivalent ? ' I took 
 him up and said that I was glad to hear a truth, which I had niver 
 doubted, now publickly brought to light and own'd, for the honorable 
 gentleman acknowledged that Scotland was bought and sold." Lock- 
 hart ' Papers,' vol. i. p. 327. 
 
 This being a ministerial declaration, it is no marvel that the idea 
 became prevalent, 
 t Haniilton's ' Transactions,' pp. 42-44. 
 
GODOLPHIN AND MARLBOBOUGH. 67 
 
 sioner, in the meanwhile, seizing a moment when his 
 opponents were in confusion, hurried the remaining 
 Articles through the House, and so was passed the 
 Act of Union between England and Scotland. 
 
 Harley, at variance with Grodolphin and Marl- 
 borough, was driven out of the Grovernment in 
 February, 1708, and took with him St. John, the 
 eloquent leader of the House of Commons, who, 
 after sustaining the strife in Flanders and the 
 contiguous French provinces by urging the oflScials 
 at home to renewed efforts on behalf of his friend 
 the Duke of Marlborough, had practically closed 
 this portion of his career, leaving the people of 
 England content under a war system which had 
 nevertheless sorely strained the national resources. 
 St. John's successor was no less a personage 
 than the famous Robert Walpole, and the change 
 denotes an epoch when the cleavage between the 
 two parties. Whig and Tory, was more distinct 
 than it had hitherto been in Queen Anne's reign. 
 That is to say, Godolphin and Marlborough were 
 prepared to act without Tory aid, while the situation 
 as regards the Brunswick Succession became more 
 and more hopeful. The reader of history will never- 
 theless perceive that although Blenheim, Ramillies, 
 and Oudenarde, are looked on as the successes of a 
 Whig Government, these glories never could have 
 been achieved without Tory aid. For did not St. 
 John's advocacy in the senate vie with Harley 's efforts 
 in the Council Chamber to render all English-speak- 
 
 P 2 
 
68 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 ing men enthusiasts in the resolve to resist Louis the 
 Fourteenth ? Did not Shrewsbury, Nottingham and 
 Somerset lay aside their prejudices and join in the 
 successful effort to make Grodolphin's Government 
 national and not partisan ? Statesmen called on in 
 after time to administer affairs have envied the 
 political calm which reigned for at least three years 
 after Queen Anne's accession, and have longed to 
 realise a similarly patriotic suspension of party 
 strife. 
 
 After the year 1708 the war with Louis the Four- 
 teenth seems to have declined in favour at home. At 
 this time the Whigs made the Brunswick Succession 
 a leading article of their creed, while astute leaders, 
 such as Soraers and Halifax, were aware that the 
 gentlemen of England were divided into three 
 parties, one lukewarm towards each claimant to the 
 throne, another intensely Jacobite, and to some 
 degree Catholic, while a third section stood ready to 
 receive the Electress Sophia and her heirs, but 
 differed as to the constitutional procedure to be 
 embraced during Queen Anne's lifetime.* 
 
 The Tory party was clearly divided, although in 
 the situation certain elements of uncertainty yet 
 prevailed which gave scope to the peculiar talents of 
 Harley, who even thus early in the day was in- 
 gratiating himself with the new Court favourite, 
 Mrs. Masham. 
 
 * Such a division of parties is described by Bishop Burnet in that 
 instructive and dignified conclusion to the ' History of his ov?n Times.' 
 
GODOLPHIN AND MARLBOROUGH. 69 
 
 There was a touch of romance even in the un- 
 dignified Court intrigue whereby Harley regained his 
 political footing. Abigail Hill, the bed-chamber 
 woman who supplanted Sarah Duchess of Marl- 
 borough in Queen Anne's affections, had become 
 enamoured of Mr. Masham, groom of the chamber 
 to Prince Greorge of Denmark, but failed apparently 
 to make a kindred impression upon the gentleman. 
 But the adroit Harley, perceiving this, made a 
 virtue of acquainting Mr. Masham, suh rosa, of the 
 means whereby advancement in life awaited him, i.e. 
 if he married his royal mistress's favourite. The 
 youth rose to the bait, and Harley straightway 
 established himself in the Royal graces, while Mrs, 
 Masham, happy in the accomplishment of her heart's 
 desire, advocated the Tory cause unblushingly. 
 This occurred as early as June 3, 1707, when the 
 Duke of Maiiborough proved his delicious ignorance 
 of Court intrigue by answering his wife's indignant 
 apostrophe concerning the new favourite's meddle- 
 some conduct as follows : — 
 
 " If you are sure tliat Mrs. Masham speaks of business to the 
 Queen, I should think you might, with some caution, tell her 
 of it, which would do good. For she certainly must be grateful, 
 and will mind what you say." * 
 
 A perfectly delicious trustfulness, more worthy of 
 a mere tyro in politics than of the great Marl- 
 borough, who with his clever wife were fast falling 
 from the Royal favour necessary to support any 
 
 * Marlborough ' Letters.' Edition 1742, p. 185. 
 
70 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 high position, however gained, when Queen Anne 
 was on the throne. 
 
 To no member of the Roman Church were the 
 English Court and Ministry prepared to hand over 
 the future of their country, but held the throne to be 
 an heirloom to the eldest Protestant heir of the 
 Royal house, who at the moment of the sovereign's 
 demise was declared her successor by a parliamentary 
 title. Thus Godolphin and Marlborough seem to 
 have believed that the legislative powers of Queen, 
 Lords, and Commons being unlimited, it was open 
 to them to rescind a decision regarding the succession 
 which was based on facts recognised to be true when 
 it was proclaimed, and yet liable to alteration, pro- 
 vided the titular head of the exiled Royal Family 
 should resolve to revert to the faith of his grand- 
 father and embrace the doctrines of the English 
 Church. 
 
 If then the " pretended " Prince of Wales had only 
 chosen to change his religion and join the Anglican 
 Church, Parliament could have amended its former 
 decision without affronting the majority of English- 
 men. They chiefly desired legality with respect to 
 the title of the sovereign, and freedom of opinion for 
 themselves. The latter they rightly or wrongly 
 thought unattainable with a Catholic King at White- 
 hall. The House of Hanover, on the other hand, was 
 placed next in the succession, because the principles 
 of its members did not prevent them accepting the 
 theories of Grovernment which the laws of the 
 
GODOLPHIN AND MABLBOROUGH. 71 
 
 English constitution prescribed. Theories these, 
 which, if not expressly recognised in Grermany, 
 nevertheless receive practical acknowledgment 
 among all Teutonic peoples, notwithstanding the 
 occasional absence of legal restraint upon autocracy 
 even in its most naked form.* 
 
 The right of a man to live within the law has not 
 been threatened beyond the Rhine for two centuries, 
 unless the various divided provinces fell under 
 foreign domination, and it is remarkable that in later 
 years Germany, with its rude and scarcely defined 
 local liberties, defied, comparatively unharmed, the 
 ravages of that marvellous revolution which sub- 
 merged France after 1792, in spite of the fact that 
 the G-rand nation could call at will on an ancient 
 national Parliament, or States-General, which how- 
 ever, having no popular root, exercised compara- 
 tively little influence. 
 
 So it came to pass that the attitude of the Electress 
 Sophia and that of the Elector George Lewis was 
 purely expectant, though they were not wanting in 
 legitimate ambition. The national feeling in Eng- 
 land therefore steadily pointed towards sustaining 
 the decision of William the Third's last Parlia- 
 ment, and although at the beginning of Queen 
 Anne's reign enthusiasm for the family of Brunswick- 
 Luneburg did not exist, and some wise men doubted 
 whether they would ever succeed ; still the pre- 
 
 * This is commented on by Carlyle in the earlier chapters of his 
 ' Frederick the Great.' 
 
72 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 sumption remained in their favour when Godolplim 
 and Marlborough undertook to prosecute the most 
 important war which this country had ever waged 
 in Europe. But men differed as to the scope and 
 design of these operations. For instance, Lord 
 Eochester, the Queen's uncle, leader of the Tories, 
 desired that England should act as an auxiliary, not 
 as a principal, confining warlike operations to the 
 sea, which was even then considered her native 
 element. 
 
 However, this small dissension did not prevent 
 Lords Marlborough and Grodolphin from forming an 
 administration on the broadest possible lines, the 
 thread that bound men of diverse political sym- 
 pathies being the general resolve to sustain the war 
 with Prance. Nor. was such unity attained without 
 the cognisance, and consequent warm support, of the 
 so-called Whig junto, amongst whom were Somers, 
 Cowper, Halifax, Townsend, Sunderland — Marl- 
 borough's son-in-law — and Wharton, these able 
 statesmen and their associates forming a sort of 
 informal and yet influential outer cabinet whose 
 opinions, regularly formulated, were nevertheless to 
 sway the decisions of official chiefs in every depart- 
 ment of the Government guided by Grodolphin, and 
 crov^'ned with glory by his coadjutor Marlborough.* 
 Yet another agency existed, the influence of which 
 was felt at each crisis between 1702 and 1710, 
 
 * See HaiTOp's ' Bulingbroke,' p. 28, where commences an able analysis 
 of the subject, to which the writei- is much indebted. 
 
GODOLPHIN AND MABLBOHOUGH. 73 
 
 namely, the astute policy of Mr. Secretary Harley. 
 This minister was resolved that neither Whig nor 
 Tory should become too strong, so he trimmed and 
 schemed according to circumstances, never exercising 
 his natural powers of intrigue more fruitfully than 
 when in 1704 he introduced the eloquent and ener- 
 getic St. John into the Ministry as Secretary for 
 War, in which capacity he gave the Duke of Marl- 
 borough the valuable support of his unrivalled 
 eloquence. The public spirit was thereby braced up 
 at a juncture when every nerve of the nation was 
 fully strained, and every resource had been laid 
 under contribution. 
 
 Moreover, St. John's unflagging industry in the 
 cabinet managed to provide the v^ays and means 
 needful for carrying on the campaign of 1704 which 
 ended so triumphantly on the field of Blenheim. 
 This success was achieved without hindering the 
 prosecution of the war in Spain. The victory of 
 Blenheim was all the more important, in that no 
 great advantage had been previously gained by the 
 Allies. The campaign of 1702 was satisfactory, to 
 England especially, because thereby Marlborough 
 had been proved a skilful leader. As to the indeci- 
 sive countermarches and sieges of 1703, if the balance 
 of advantage remained with the English general, yet 
 the final issue of war was still uncertain. Therefore 
 at such a crisis the attraction of the Duke of Savoy 
 to the coalition against France* was valuable, be- 
 
 * Macpherson's ' History of Great Britain,' vol. ii. p. 273. 
 
74 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 cause not only did he possess a well-appointed army, 
 but his appearance showed a lack of unanimity as to 
 the succession amongst the Roman Catholic members 
 of the Royal House of England. 
 
 Another potent ally was gained to the Anglo- 
 Dutch-Imperial cause when the King of Portugal 
 entered the lists as an enemy of Louis the Fourteenth, 
 thus opening a base of attack against Spain, of which 
 a maritime nation such as England was enabled to 
 avail itself. At this time was laid the foundation of 
 a traditional alliance between England and Portugal 
 which preserved the liberty of Europe little more 
 than a century afterwards. The war, notwithstanding 
 St. John's eloquent advocacy, had unfortunately 
 suffered in the estimation of a large section of 
 English politicians when Marlborough was loaded 
 with a premature crop of honours so early in the 
 strife as 1702 ; for the campaign of that year, 
 although smart and creditable to the general, was 
 not of a character which deserved an acknowledg- 
 ment as splendid as a Roman triumph. The Earl of 
 Marlborough received on this occasion a Dukedom 
 and a pension of £5000 a-year during life, for 
 baffling Marshal Boufflers, retaking several Belgian 
 towns, and freeing the navigation of the Meuse. 
 But he fought no battle of importance until Blenheim, 
 in 1704. 
 
 Godolphin then had to serve many masters when 
 he was ostensible head of the Administration formed 
 to give Marlborough a free hand on the Continent. 
 
GODOLPHIN AND MARLBOEOUGH. 75 
 
 Indeed, the Jacobite agents seem to have recognised 
 the difficulties which these two merchants — as Lord 
 Caryll was pleased to style them — were certain to 
 meet with if they elected to pay their old debts. 
 Hence a disposition amongst the adherents of 
 St. Grermain to look charitably on Grodolphin's 
 lately adopted role of comparative silence, while they 
 took for what they were worth Marlborough's more 
 effusive professions of a desire to serve bis Queen's 
 brother when opportunity offered.* 
 
 The professions alluded to were made only a few 
 months after the Danube had run red with the 
 blood of Englishmen who were avowedly striving to 
 keep this same prince from inheriting the throne of 
 England. Truly a tangled situation, and one which 
 it is impossible to clear of a certain perplexity even 
 when the aims of the various actors in the scene are 
 to some extent disclosed. It has been suggested 
 that Queen Anne herself desired this attitude to be 
 preserved towards the candidature of her brother, 
 and it is clearly true that the ties of close relationship 
 had led her to desire James Edward's conversion to 
 English Church principles, although from beginning 
 to end the last Stuart Sovereign of England stood as 
 defender of the Protestant faith. No more light can 
 be thrown on this phase of the question, so that it 
 
 * " I must also own the receipt of yours of the 3rd of May, wherein you 
 relate what passed between you and Mr. Goulton (Godolphin), which 
 merchant is not so prodigal of his words as his partner Armsworth 
 (Marlborough)." Lord Caryll to Lord Middleton. — Macpherson's 'Original 
 Papers,' vol. i. p. 700. 
 
76 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 remains to seek a solution of the failure to compro- 
 mise matters with St. Grerraain by reciting in the 
 next chapter the facts concerning the old Pretender's 
 religious opinions. 
 
 Grodolphin, at this period, received notice of Mrs. 
 Masbam's intrigues, and also of Harley's proceedings, 
 both " within doors and without." Whigs and Tories 
 were alike cajoled, and an opposition set up to the 
 Government such as neither Marlborough's military 
 success, nor the extreme cleverness of his wife, could 
 prevent from gaining ground. Such was the moment 
 chosen by the advisers of James Edward Stuart to 
 make an attempt on Scotland, which effectually cut 
 off the youth thus pressing his claim to the Scotch 
 throne from any hopes of succeeding with the Queen's 
 good-will to the throne of G-reat Britain.* It could 
 not be otherwise ; and althougb from time to time 
 the Duke of Hamilton did act as a negotiator between 
 tbe brother and sister^ yet the terms proposed at St. 
 Germain were totally foreign to those which a Pro- 
 testant Queen could ever think of entertaining, and 
 the Stuart adherents were henceforth destined to 
 pursue a glittering will-o'-the-wisp yclept Restoration. 
 In fact, the whole bent of modern life in England 
 was adverse to the cause of James Edward Stuart. 
 The commercial spirit whicb William tbe Third fos- 
 tered so consistently, and which rendered the Dutch 
 more powerful than their comparatively slender ter- 
 
 * See next chapter. He was henceforth officially called the Pretender. 
 —Burnet's ' History of his own Times,' ed. 1838, p. 826. 
 
GODOLPHIN AND MARLBOROUGH. 77 
 
 ritory warranted, was unpalatable to princes and 
 statesmen of the old regime, who, in alliance with the 
 Roman hierarchy, still sought to put the world back 
 just so far as suited their pretensions. 
 
 But the people of England had chosen to throw in 
 their lot with the party of progress ; and remem- 
 bering how Northern Germany had stood firm in the 
 fight during the Reformation, while Brunswick was 
 ever to the fore, they selected a Protestant princess 
 of semi-Grermanic origin, whose blood entitled her to 
 the British throne, in preference to letting it be 
 tenanted by a prince whose followers scoffed at the 
 theological teachings of Luther, and, still worse, in 
 the eyes of men desiring liberty, scouted the tolera- 
 tion of Erasmus. 
 
 The history of the United Kingdom is not to be 
 re-written, else several pages might be covered with 
 an interesting dissertation upon the trial of Dr. 
 Sacheverell for tilting at the Prime Minister, Lord 
 Grodolphin, and calling him Volpone, in the course 
 of a sermon delivered at St. Paul's on November 5, 
 1709. This sermon was declared to be seditious, 
 because, when asserting the right divine of anointed 
 sovereigns, it struck at Queen Anne's title to rule 
 over England. The trial that followed ended unsatis- 
 factorily for the Grovernment, as they made a martyr 
 of the extravagant clergyman whose vagaries they 
 noticed, but only found themselves supported by 
 the scant majority of ten in the House of Lords, 
 when combating Sacheverell's assertions to the 
 
78 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 effect:* — (1) "That the necessary means for effectuat- 
 ing the late revolution (1688) were odious and unjusti- 
 fiable." (2) " That the toleration of Dissenters was 
 both unreasonable and unwarrantable." (3) " That 
 the Church of England was in danger under the 
 Queen's administration." (4) " That there were per- 
 sons in office who endeavoured to overturn the con- 
 stitution, and that, through the whole management 
 of affairs, there was a mal-administration and cor- 
 ruption." f 
 
 Strong terms these in which to describe an ad- 
 ministration so triumphantly successful as Lord 
 Grodolphin's had proved. Indeed, the party pro- 
 ceedings of the Tories on this occasion may be said 
 to have provoked the reprisals from which they 
 suffered when their rivals triumphed at the be- 
 ginning of the next reign. 
 
 The very completeness of Marlborough's victories 
 had given the Ministers a taste for glory such as it 
 was impossible to satiate, and the refusal of England 
 to treat on reasonable terms at Gertruydenberg, in 
 1710, operated adversely to Lord Godolphin with a 
 large section of the public. Those who concurred in 
 absurd charges, such as those of Sacheverell, hoped 
 thereby to establish a new Ministry in power pledged 
 to conclude peace with France, and so to save the 
 nation's treasure, and husband resources already, 
 perilously strained. It was hoped that the main 
 
 * The numbers were 69 against, and 59 for Sacheverell. 
 f Eecords of the Trial. 
 
GODOLPHIN AND MAELBOEOUGH. 79 
 
 objects of the war would be attained by a peace 
 honourable and at the same time durable. 
 
 Hence the formation of the Grovernment known in 
 history as Lord Oxford's, although the Treasurer's 
 staff was at the outset placed in commission. 
 
 Queen Anne's new advisers could not, , on the . 
 whole, vie with their predecessors in the matter of 
 ability ; yet several characters of celebrity enrolled 
 themselves under the Tory banner, while Harley 
 became Earl of Oxford, and St. John, Viscount 
 Bolingbroke — an advancement which he received 
 with chagrin rather than satisfaction, as he hoped 
 to revive an Earldom which once belonged to his 
 ancient family. 
 
 It is impossible not to contemplate these changes^ 
 and their assumed effect on the Succession question, 
 without some sympathy for the fallen Minister, Lord 
 Grodolphin, who had gradually become a cipher in 
 his own cabinet, obliged to see his friends removed 
 one by one at Harley 's instance, until at last he re- 
 ceived a curt message from the Queen to break and 
 deliver up the White Staff. In deep resentment he 
 broke it to pieces, and betook himself to his beloved 
 Newmarket, where for the most part he lived until, 
 at the end of two years' time, death removed him 
 from the scene of his notable career. 
 
 According to the Jacobite tradition, it is averred 
 that Grodolphin declared privately, that he would 
 have restored James Edward Stuart without French 
 aid, but that Lord Oxford would have attempted the 
 
80 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 same achievement by means of a Bourbon alliance.* 
 But the resolves of this celebrated man as regards 
 the Succession remain at present an impenetrable 
 secret. Marlborough had left for Holland in January, 
 1710, to confer with Pensionary Heinsius, and take 
 counsel with the Elector of Hanover concerning the 
 next campaign; but his position with reference to 
 the home Grovernment is summed up thus by a re- 
 markable letter of Lord Bolingbroke's, written shortly 
 before he gained his peerage, and of which a copy 
 appears amongst the Hanover papers. It is directed 
 to his friend Mr. Drummond, the banker, and British 
 Resident at Amsterdam, and runs as follows : — 
 
 " Whitehall : Jan. 23, 1710. 
 . . . "As to the great man you mention I have wrote a few 
 but plain words to your Pensionary. He was not received with 
 the acclamations you heard of, and they are much mistaken that 
 imagine that he can be upon any other bottom than that what 
 the Queen pleased to put him. 
 
 " I daresay he is convinced by this time that he cannot lead 
 either his mistress or any one else as he used to do. We shall 
 send him over a subject ; take care you do not put royalty into 
 his head again. 
 
 " Adieu. I am ever with the utmost sincerity, 
 
 " Your most obedient servant, 
 
 "Heney St. John." 
 
 It soon became evident that if the new Grovern- 
 ment was to stand, the chief power must rest with 
 Oxford and Bolingbroke. Rochester, the Queen's 
 imcle, had been gathered to his fathers, and no com- 
 
 * It is a remarkable fact that Godolphin wrote no letters to the Court 
 of Hanover, and he is not even mentioned in the Hanover Papers. 
 
GODOLPHIN AND MARLBOROUGH. 81 
 
 petitors on the Tory side could hope to vie with 
 them in management of Parliament or knowledge of 
 affairs. 
 
 But we hasten to trace the fortunes of those 
 Stuarts who, by reason of their religion, were pre- 
 cluded from reigning in England. 
 
82 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE EXILES OF ST. GERMAIN. 
 
 Whether it is stranger to contemplate James the 
 Second living at variance with the Pope during the 
 latter part of his reign, just when he was endeavouring 
 to re-establish the Roman Catholic faith, or dying in 
 the very odour of sanctity, so that his remains 
 worked divers miracles, it is difficult to determine.* 
 
 But it is certain that Innocent XI. reprobated 
 James's conduct towards England, because it was 
 calculated to advance the Jesuits' influence (ever 
 reprobated by that Pontiff) and increase the power 
 of Louis the Fourteenth, who was engaged in diffe- 
 rences with the Pope, which were not in his lifetime 
 composed. 
 
 When Bishop Burnet, the very embodiment of a 
 Protestant Whig, retired from England in 1686, he 
 received a courteous reception from the Papal Court,f 
 
 * Somers' ' Tracts,' vol. xi. p. 314. Clement XI. promised to offer 
 public prayer in the Pontifical Chapel for the soul of James the Second, 
 and — shade of Innocent XI. ! — he spoke of his dear son in Christ, Louis 
 the Fourteenth. 
 
 t Burnet's ' History of his own Times,' ed. 1838, p. 423. 
 
EXILES OF ST. GERMAIN. 83 
 
 the Pope offering him a private audience, and the 
 Cardinals Howard and d' Estrees paying him marked 
 attention. This gracious behaviour towards one of 
 the English King's chief opponents was a straw 
 plainly showing which way the wind blew in the 
 Ciiria. The course of James the Second in England 
 was, we repeat, not approved of at Rome ; while 
 the Papal Secretary Caffoni was actually intriguing 
 with the Dutch against him. The above-mentioned 
 Cardinal d'Estrees wrote, on December 18, 1687, 
 to M. de Louvois, Minister of Louis the Fourteenth, 
 saying that by tbe joint stratagem of a French spy, 
 one Le Gut, and a clerk of the Papal Secretary by 
 name Le Petit, the following information was dis- 
 covered on the person of a Dutch burgomaster 
 named Ouir, who had been for some time suspected 
 of intriguing with Caffoni, the Pope's Secretary. 
 
 The written instructions of the Emperor, the Duke 
 of Lorraine, and the Prince of Orange to the burgo- 
 master were seized, and therein Le Grut discovered a 
 league against France, which was to take effect on 
 the Rhine, William of Orange taking the command. 
 Caffoni declared in his letters that the Pope was 
 " very glad of this," but in a remote corner of the 
 Dutchman's cabinet was the disclosure — made to 
 Caffoni — that William really intended his expedi- 
 tion to land in England to dethrone James the 
 Second, and place his daughter Mary on the throne. 
 Moreover, a statement was appended that the Holy 
 Father knew nothing of this. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Thus according to Dalrymple,* who gives chapter, 
 book, and verse for the assertion, Innocent's treasury 
 furnished a portion of the funds which enabled 
 William of Orange to dethrone James the Second. 
 The same author produces a letter f from the Protes- 
 tant leader himself to the Emperor, saying he went 
 to pacify England and not " to make an attempt on 
 the crown." This occurred without the Pope learning 
 anything beyond the current gossip which told how 
 William of Orange was organising a league against 
 Louis the Fourteenth, but could find no support at 
 the Court of St. James's, where the last Stuart king 
 was engaged in projects the success of which depended 
 on friendly neutrality at Versailles. 
 
 At any rate, we have presented to us before the 
 Revolution of 1688, the strange spectacle of Rome 
 divided against herself, certainly by reason of the 
 Pope's jealousy of the Jesuits, possibly because 
 intense disapprobation of the French king's conduct 
 concerning his embassy in Rome rendered Innocent 
 blind to the course of events in England, J and this 
 
 * Dalrymple's ' Memoirs,' vol. ii. p. 121. 
 
 t Ibid., vol. ii. p. 132. 
 
 % This was a revival of a quarrel wWcli broke out immediately after 
 Louis the Fourteenth ascended the French throne. Louis was determined 
 to preserve the right of asylum for his ambassador which the Pope had 
 induced the Emperor, together with the Kings of Spain, Poland, and 
 England, to renounce, and despite his isolation in the matter, this haughty 
 Bourbon sent an armed embassy under the Marquess of Lavardief, and took 
 possession of the Vatican itself, together with the church of St. Louis. 
 Moreover, he insisted on nominating the Elector of Cologne. — 'The 
 Age of Louis XIV.,' by Voltaire, English translation, ed. 1779, vol. i. 
 pp. 183, 184.' 
 
EXILES Of ST. GERMAIN. 85 
 
 although after events proved beyond all doubt that 
 the Roman Catholic Church recognised the efforts of 
 James the Second to bring England once more into 
 the fold. Indeed two years had not elapsed before the 
 Papal Court had engaged an historian to recount 
 James's restoration to the British throne,* although 
 these literary preparations were rendered abortive 
 when the battle of the Boyne, in 1690, spread dismay 
 amongst the counsellors of the Yatican. After 
 James's death — as we have stated — Pope Clement XI. 
 made acknowledgment before the College of Cardinals 
 of the indebtedness his Church felt towards the late 
 British King. 
 
 James the Second had consistently refused to make 
 terms with the revolution such as might have left 
 his successors a loop-hole through, which to escape 
 from their responsibilities to the ancient faith. He 
 decisively declined to concur in the suggestion of 
 Louis the Fourteenth whereby the youth known in 
 history as the Chevalier de St. Greorge, or the Old 
 Pretender, should be placed next in the succession 
 to William and Mary, and stated that he owed it to 
 posterity, as to the English people, not to condone 
 his own deposition or allow James Edward to 
 regain the throne by such means.f 
 
 James, with potent arguments on his side, de- 
 claimed against the disadvantages of a monarchy 
 
 * Stated in Clarke's ' Life of James II.,' quoting Kennet. 
 t 'Life of James II.,' coUeoted out of memoirs from his own hand, by 
 Bev. J. S. Clarke, Librarian to George IV., vol. ii. p. 571. 
 
86 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 purely elective, and ignoring the strong position of 
 that portion of the Royal Family which embraced 
 principles of freedom both in Church and State, he 
 refused to enter into any compromise infringing the 
 right divine of kings. For such adherence to a 
 policy of thorough, as regards the form of Christianity 
 which he had chosen, James's memory was held 
 precious by that branch of the Church, and although 
 absolute canonisation was not adopted, his remains, 
 resting in the Benedictine Church at Paris, weathered 
 even the French Revolution itself. 
 
 Hidden away from sight by some admirers during 
 that upheaval of society, James's ashes were still 
 unburied when the Allies entered Paris in 1813, and 
 at the command of George the Fourth they were 
 straightway consigned to the tomb at St. Grermain, 
 many of the English then in France joining in that 
 strangely delayed procession.* 
 
 * Within a few weeis of this work appearing, a coffin containing the 
 heart of James the Second has been found on the site of the Scotch College 
 in Paris— once a great Jacobite centre. According to the Paris Guide-book, 
 to which Victor Hugo wrote a preface in 1848, the presence of tliis treasure 
 was known at that period, and it had been long prized as a precious relic 
 by the Scotch Catholics, who in former days sent their archives to this 
 retreat. The Scotch College was founded by David Murray in 1326, and 
 remained a resort where the youth of Scotland sought their education 
 until, the Presbyterians overcoming the Eoman Catholics at home, many 
 of the latter brought their valuable papers to France for safety. Cardinal 
 Beaton in 1532 anticipated events when, deeming the end of Church tyranny 
 in Scotland was approaching, he deposited various manuscripts in this 
 College. — M. Michel, ' Les ]5cossais en France,' vol. i. p. 56. The Scotch 
 College was originally situated at St. Genevidve, Rue des Amandiers, and 
 in 1662 was transferred by Eobert Barclay a little more to the west, in 
 the Rue des Fosses. It was suppressed in 1792, but the building still 
 stands. In it Saint Just was confined. 
 
EXILES OP ST. GERMAIN. 87 
 
 Miss Strickland, to whose industry we owe a 
 curious account of the opening of the English King's 
 coffin, speaks of the French people acting in a spirit 
 of iconoclasm towards the dust of their own sove- 
 reigns, and yet sparing that of James the Second 
 by reason of some lingering belief in his sanctity. 
 But surely the explanation lies nearer the surface, 
 inasmuch as it was the descendants of Louis Capet, 
 rather than those of the Stuart kings, whom a Paris 
 mob sought to dishonour when crazed with the 
 madness which overtook the French people at the 
 close of the 18th century.* 
 
 The last years of the life of James the Second had 
 been spent in comparative seclusion, and he yearly 
 retreated to the Monastery of La Trappe, held 
 occasional converse with superiors of religious con- 
 ventual houses,! ^^^ frequented the great solemni- 
 ties of the Church in Paris, living not for himself or 
 the world, but preparing, in the manner his religion 
 bade him, for the life hereafter, as a contrite and 
 earnest penitent. No reader of that remarkable 
 paper of advice which he left for the guidance of 
 his son I can fail to recognise the sincerity of the 
 man, but in the strange retrospect there disclosed 
 no word of penitence for his disregard of law and the 
 wishes of a vast majority of his subjects escaped him. 
 On the contrary, he desired to see his son follow in 
 
 * Miss Strickland's ' Lives of the Queens of England,' vol. viii. p. 555. 
 t Clarke's ' Life of James II.,' vol. ii. p. 583. 
 
 J Published in full at the end of Clarke's ' Life of Jame3 II.,' Appendix 
 ii. p. 655. 
 
88 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 the fatal path which he himself had endeavoured to 
 tread. For instance, he says : — 
 
 " In the first place serve God in all things as heoomes a good 
 Christian and a zealous Catholicli of the Church of Eome, which is 
 the only true Catholiok and Apostolick Church, and let no human 
 consideration of any kind prevaile with you to depart from her." 
 
 Again he writes, " be never without a considerable 
 body of Catholick troops," while liberty of conscience, 
 as James defined it, he desired to settle by a law, so 
 that the expectant subjects might rest assured that 
 their pious sovereign designed not to force them 
 into embracing the Catholic faith. " Our blessed 
 Saviour," writes James, "whipt people out of the 
 temple, but I never heard He commanded any should 
 be forced into it." At the same time he expressed 
 horror of all " Latitudinarians as being for the most 
 part Atheists." The Habeas Corpus Act seems to 
 have been held in special abhorrence by the last 
 Stuart king, who believed that the first Lord 
 Shaftesbury designed it in order that sovereigns 
 might be forced to keep "more troops than they 
 otherwise needed, and so incur unpopularity." A 
 Jesuitical mode of proceeding we have not hitherto 
 learned to connect with an acknowledged bulwark . 
 of our national liberties. 
 
 James deeply regretted the sowing of his own wild 
 oats, and specially warned the Chevalier de St. George 
 against the various temptations incident to his posi- 
 tion. Indeed he sorrowfully admits the number and 
 unfortunate character of his liaisons, and urges the 
 
EXILES OF ST. GERMAIN. 89 
 
 avoidance of such errors both on public and private 
 grounds, saying that, when some outspoken foes to 
 monarchy urged an attack on certain disreputable 
 recipients of Royal bounty, Lord Mordaunt, leader of 
 the dissentients in question, said : " By no means, 
 let us rather elect Status for them, for if it were not 
 for them the King would not run into debt, and 
 then would have no need of us." 
 
 The ex-King showed a due appreciation of the 
 basis on which the power and prosperity of Great 
 Britain rest when he bade his son " study the trade 
 of the nation, and encourage it by all lawful means, 
 'tis that which will make you at ease at home, and 
 considerable abroad, and preserve the mastery of the 
 sea, without which England cannot be safe." 
 
 Such then were the traditions rife amongst the 
 exiled Stuarts when the unfortunate James Edward 
 became the youthful representative of a sinking 
 cause. He passed his life in an atmosphere wherein 
 ideas of civil liberty never could flourish. Mary of 
 Moclena, for instance, the mother of the Chevalier, and 
 ex-Queen of England, stood as the very embodiment 
 of her faith, and left no stone unturned to advance 
 the Roman Catholic religion. Conscientious, true, 
 and refined, she merits the respect which her con- 
 sistent piety gained for her memory, and the pity 
 which misfortune claims for one who received unjust 
 measure from an adopted country.* 
 
 * The propagation of the warming-pan story is specially disgraceful to 
 the partisanship that forged so unfair a weapon. 
 
90 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Still it is obvious that a child brought up under 
 her influence must have been precluded from under- 
 standing the theories of Government prevalent in 
 England during the era of progress which the reigu 
 of William and Mary inaugurated. 
 
 It is easy to form a due estimate of James Edward, 
 known in history as the Old Pretender, as the 
 materials are fully to hand. In the first place, this 
 child of misfortune, ushered into the world amidst 
 the convulsions which rent his father's throne, had 
 not any great endowments of intellect to make up 
 for bodily weakness, and consequent despondency 
 of mind. Hume, speaking of James the Second's mis- 
 fortunes, partly accounted for their overwhelming 
 character by citing the " middling talents " * of the 
 monarch, who at the crisis of his fortunes required 
 special strength, and more than ordinary tact and 
 acuteness, to preserve a throne enfeebled by the 
 shocks it had received under Charles the First, 
 when it was proved to be assailable, and under 
 Charles the Second, -^vhen its supporters connived at 
 an epoch of corruption and immorality. 
 
 Ifj therefore, James the Second, with these average 
 powers alluded to by Hume, wrecked his throne and 
 placed monarchy again in peril, could it be hoped that a 
 son still less adapted by nature to cope with the rough 
 world should succeed in accommodating himself to 
 the exigencies of an extremely difficult position, 
 especially as the preliminary condition of success 
 
 * Hume's ' History of England/ vol. viii. ch. 71, p. 306. 
 
EXILES OF ST. GERMAIN. 91 
 
 involved the surrender of the most sacred principles 
 inspired by his whole training ? For all the records of 
 that time prove that the age of unbridled autocracy 
 was, in England at least, for ever closed, and that 
 the King on the throne must thenceforth abide by 
 the laws already made, and concur in all timely 
 change duly determined upon by the Legislature. 
 Yet it is impossible to conceive a prince brought up 
 at St. Grermain under the influence of such parents, 
 and in the very shadow of the Court of their patron 
 Louis the Fourteenth, consenting to any such re- 
 strictions, or , if he accepted timely bondage, not 
 casting off the shackles on the earliest available 
 opportunity. 
 
 The touches of character delineated in the next 
 few pages will confirm this view of James Edward 
 Stuart, while they increase his repute as a prince 
 with an English heart, whose disposition was gentle 
 and benevolent, and who might have filled the 
 British throne with credit under different training 
 and circumstances. 
 
 James the Second's son was only thirteen years of 
 age when his father died, and the direction of affairs 
 in his Court was ostensibly committed to Lord 
 Middleton, who was a statesman of considerable 
 experience ; although Louis the Fourteenth's prompt 
 acknowledgment of James Edward as King of Great 
 Britain, an example followed by Philip, Louis's 
 grandson, who had ascended the throne of Spain, 
 had given the French king a title to be consulted, 
 
92 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 and had therefore restricted the influence of ordinary- 
 English advisers.* 
 
 Considerable inconvenience was therefore felt at 
 St. Grermain when Lord Middleton, impressed by 
 the last words of his late master, retired from office, 
 and sought advice in a religious house near Paris, 
 that he might satisfy some scruples he still felt, and 
 master the tenets of his new faith. He pleaded that 
 his change of religion would prove unpopular 
 amongst many Stuart adherents in England, so that he 
 remained out of office for a year, during which time, 
 Simon Eraser — afterwards Lord Lovat — (a Scotch 
 outlaw whose character had been well known to James 
 the Second and his advisers in exile) insinuated 
 himself into the confidence of Mary of Modena, by 
 means of the Papal nuncio in Paris. Thus, in the 
 .absence of Lord Middleton, the Jacobites were 
 saddled with an agent whose duplicity soon became 
 apparent, for when sent into Scotland, he proceeded 
 to accuse his enemies to the Government there of 
 playing the very role he was himself performing, 
 viz. that of agent to the Court of St. Germain.f 
 At the commencement of 1704, Lord Middleton had 
 
 * Lord Maoaulay's ' History of England,' vol. v. p. 289, recounts how 
 this policy of acknowledging James Edward was resolved on wlien Louis 
 the Fourteenth met Madame de Maintenon returning from St. Germain 
 after visiting the afflicted family of James the Second when that royal 
 exile was dying. The Ministers were one and all against this recognition, 
 but Louis and the French princes thought otherwise. It should not be 
 forgotten that James was their kinsman. M. de Toroy, the responsible 
 Minister at the Court of Versailles, objected to the recognition because it 
 would involve violation of the treaty of Eyswick. 
 
 t Macpherson's ' Original Papers,' vol. i. p. 640. 
 
EXILES OF ST. GERMAIN. 93 
 
 returned to his post of Jacobite Minister, and 
 straightway unveiled Eraser's villainy, henceforth 
 remaining a necessary adviser until the youth, who 
 inherited his father's empty title, could share in the 
 family deliberations. 
 
 When the exiled prince was only eighteen years 
 old, the question arose how to interest the victorious 
 King Charles the Twelfth of Sweden in the cause. 
 The Anglo-Imperial armies were pressing Louis the 
 Fourteenth hard ; Blenheim, fought in 1 704, being fol- 
 lowed in May, 1706, by Ramillies, and a march of the 
 foe on Paris seemed likely to reward the chivalrous 
 but impolitic conduct of the French sovereign when 
 he defied England by the acknowledgment of James 
 the Third. The Swedish king, on the other hand, de- 
 throned King Augustus of Saxony, and, annexing his 
 dominions, had rendered himself the arbiter of 'the 
 North, whence, by threatening the dominions of the 
 Elector of Hanover,and endeavouring to separate them 
 from England,* he might at least create a diversion 
 and give Louis the breathing space he sorely needed. 
 These machinations were however defeated by the 
 temperate diplomacy of the Elector of Hanover, the 
 rival candidate to James Edward for the English 
 throne. 
 
 According to the author of Hamilton's ' Trans- 
 actions,' the first personal intervention of the Old 
 Pretender in politics occurred during the year 1707, 
 when, the Union hanging in the balance, the Scotch 
 
 • Macpherson'a ' Original Papers,' vol. ii. p. 23. 
 
94 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Parliament was left to make a decision in the absence 
 of tlie Anti-Unionist leader — the Duke of Hamilton 
 — who, mysteriously absenting himself when the 
 crisis arrived, was said to be following instructions 
 sent by James IJdward in a letter from St. Germain. 
 This policy is so contrary to that generally enjoined 
 on the Scotch friends of the House of Stuart, at the 
 epoch in question, that it is impossible not to doubt 
 the allegation as yet unsupported by further evidence 
 — the more so that when Colonel Hooke, the Jacobite 
 agent, visited Scotland in 1708, he looked to the 
 house of Athol rather than that of Hamilton to 
 produce a leader for his master's party. Moreover, 
 Macpherson has tendered evidence of the latter 
 Duke's unpopularity at this period. On the other 
 hand, it should not be forgotten that if the Duke of 
 Hamilton was the friend of James Edward Stuart, 
 so was he notoriously the servant and associate of 
 Queen Anne, from whom he may have taken his 
 orders. 
 
 There was, however, no antecedent improbability 
 that the Pretender should intervene in the conduct 
 of his own affairs, because on June 28, 1706, Lord 
 Middleton had written to M. de Torcy as follows : — 
 " The King, my master, applies to business now, 
 with the address of a skilful workman." * One 
 signal result of this hard work carried on in concert 
 with the advisers of his mock Court, was the 
 attempt made to invade Scotland at the commence- 
 
 * Macpherson's ' Original Papers,' vol. ii. p. 4; 
 
EXILES OF ST. GERMAIN. 95 
 
 ment of the year 1708, a venture extorted from 
 the French Ministry by repeated and earnest solici- 
 tations.* 
 
 Louis the Fourteenth might have stood excused 
 from making this attempt at all, even from the stand- 
 point of royal patron, as the iron grasp of the Allies 
 was tightening upon his frontier, and rendered it 
 impossible to send more than an inadequate force of 
 between four and five thousand men to promote 
 this haphazard but not premature invasion.^ Yet 
 in spite of the distresses of Louis the Fourteenth the 
 scheme of Jacobite invasion was not by any means 
 hopeless. At this juncture, Scotland, discontented 
 with the Union, was eager to fly to the Prince's 
 standard, while the Grovernment had scarcely five 
 thousand men available north of the Tweed, the 
 remainder being in the Low Countries. 
 
 Louis the Fourteenth appears to have believed 
 that he might create a diversion in his own favour 
 by means of this expedition, by forcing Marlborough 
 to take troops to England from Flanders, even if the 
 main object was foiled, | and the Chevalier gained no 
 footing across the channel. And had the French 
 admiral, Forbin, with only five ships, not met his 
 British opponent. Admiral Byng, with sixteen, off 
 the coast of Fife, these hopes might have been 
 justified. One of Forbin's ships, the Salisbury, had 
 
 * Macpherson's ' Original Papers,' vol. ii. p. 98. 
 
 t ' Lookhart Papers,' vol. i. p. 238. 
 
 % Stanhope's ' Reign of Queen Anne,' p. 340. 
 
96 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 passed too far up the Firth of Forth, and was 
 captured, having on hoard, the aged Lord Griffin, 
 and two sons of Lord Middleton,* hut the rest of 
 the French vessels made good their escape north- 
 wards. 
 
 This important capture might have been expected 
 to rejoice the English Government, instead of which 
 it seemed to be regarded by them rather in the light 
 of an embarrassment. Lord Middleton's two sons 
 were soon released, by order of the Queen, and it 
 has been said that their father was in possession 
 of compromising evidence that G-odolphin had cor- 
 responded with the Court of St. Germain.f Lord 
 Griffin, on the other hand — an aged and weak-minded 
 man, already outlawed for complicity in Jacobite 
 designs — was allowed to drag out the rest of his life 
 
 * The following list, to be found among the undated papers at the 
 Eecord Office, Queen Anne, Domestic Series, of those taken prisoners on 
 the Salisbury in 1708, will be of interest : — 
 
 " Her Majesty's subjects taken on board the Salisbury : — Le Siem- de 
 Beaufort, Captn. au Regiment de Beam — gone to Nottingham to the other 
 French prisoners ; Edmund Fitzgerald, aid de camp ; Daniel Mcharty, 
 Lieu. ; Stephen Conner, Do. ; Edmund Fitzgerald, Do. ; Michael Prender- 
 gast. Do. ; Terence MacMahon, ro. ; Oliver Bourk, Do. ; Daniel Bailey, 
 Anthony Stand Burke, Peter Bruilly, Servants gone to the Tower with 
 Lord GrifBn and his servant ; Mr. Denovan, Lieut, of Foot ; Mr. Hynes, 
 Do. ; Mr. Fannon ; Mr. Macarty ; Mr. O'Sullivan ; Mr. Fitzmorris ; Mr. 
 . Cleary and two servanls." Marshal Martignon's own account of the affair 
 may be of interest : — " I discoursed with M. de Fourbin, to know of him, 
 whether having missed our landing in the Firth of Edinburgh, we might 
 not attempt it in another place. He proposed to me Inverness, which is a 
 Tery remote part in the north of Scotland, and we went immediately to 
 speak of it to the king of England, who entertained the motion with joy." 
 — Letter of Marshal Martignon to M. de Chamillard, Minister of Louis XIV., 
 Eapin's ' History of England,' vol. xvi. p. 543. 
 
 t Hamilton's ' Transactions,' p. 90. 
 
EXILES OP ST. GERMAIN. 97 
 
 in the Tower, an exercise of mercy which gave 
 dissatisfaction to the Whig junto.* 
 
 Altogether it is impossible not to think that 
 Queen Anne's Grovernment was threatened on this 
 occasion with a danger of untold magnitude. But 
 fortunately the peril was averted, for the most part 
 in consequence of the elements proving unpropitious, 
 while Forhin's final refusal to put the Chevalier 
 ashore in the Inverness Firth, notwithstanding that 
 Marshal Martignon, the commander of the French 
 land-forces, concurred with James Edward as to the 
 desirability of the venture, at once blighted every 
 remnant of hope. 
 
 The sorrow of this unfortunate son of James the 
 Second as he left behind him the Ross-shire mountains 
 and lost sight of the distant towers of Inverness, can 
 be scarcely exaggerated, but was probably surpassed 
 by the dull sense of failure and despondency which 
 must have oppressed his heart as he sighted Dunkirk, 
 doubtless remembering how Louis the Fourteenth 
 had there so lately expressed a desire never to see 
 him again.f 
 
 " Had this expedition," says Burnet,| " landed, it 
 might have had an ill effect on our affairs, chiefly 
 with relation to all paper credit." Lockhart takes a 
 
 * See a letter of Lord Sunderland's in Ellis's ' Original Letters,' New- 
 Series, vol. iv. p. 249. He there says that the Ministers, by pardoning 
 Lord Griffin, had declared before the whole world for the Prince of Wales 
 and against the Protestant accession. 
 
 f ' Lockhart Papers,' vol. i. p. 241. 
 
 j ' History of his own Times,' ed. 1838, p. 826. 
 
 H 
 
98 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 similar view.* Indeed we repeat that the peril of 
 Queen Anne's Crown, at this moment, was far greater 
 than has been generally realised. Nor is it possible 
 to refuse sympathy to the ill-fated Chevalier de St. 
 George — for by that name was he henceforth styled 
 by his followers — who with a weak constitution was 
 called on to undergo many hardships, of which not 
 the least was sea-sickness.f After landing at 
 Dunkirk, he courageously threw off his terrible 
 disappointment, joined the French army, and despite 
 partisan statements to the contrary, comported 
 himself at the conflict of Oudenarde as became the 
 great-great-grandson of Mary Queen of Scots, and 
 the great-grandson of Henry the Fourth of France, | 
 Moreover, while the hardships of his son Charles 
 Edward in the ' 45 ' received due recognition from 
 posterity, those suffered by the father at this period 
 have been, comparatively speaking, unnoticed. Hence- 
 forth styled " Pretender " by his sister's Government, 
 he was destined to wander over Europe without any 
 safe resting-place. St. Germain did not suit his 
 health,§ while the bustle and excitement of the camp 
 seemed to relieve a monotony which induced the silent 
 habit and almost melancholy presence which dispirited 
 the Highlanders during the rebellion of 1715.)| 
 
 * ' Lockhart Papers,' vol. ii. p. 239. 
 t Maopherson's ' Oriiiinal Papers,' vol. ii. p. 101. 
 X ' Memoirs of Duke of Berwick,' 1708. 
 § Maopherson's 'Original Papers,' vol. ii. p. 116. 
 
 II ' Stuart Papers,' the property of Her Majesty, quoted in the Appendix 
 of Lord Stanhope's ' History.' 
 
EXILES OP ST. GERMAIN. 99 
 
 And yet there was a playfulness about the 
 Chevalier which accorded ill with such a character. 
 Exceedingly attached to Marshal Yillars, with 
 whom he made the campaign of 1710 in the north 
 of France, the Prince is described as rallying the 
 French general as a modern Hector, and expressing 
 a hope that M. de Torcy, the Minister of Louis the 
 Fourteenth, was out of his " mouldy grubs ;" while, 
 when alluding to a spy from Scotland, he speaks of the 
 pumping question which the detected agent of the 
 English Grovernment had addressed to one of his own 
 followers. In fact he chaffed and talked slang like 
 a modern public-school-boy.* The romance of love 
 as well as of political misfortune coloured his youth. 
 Although several alliances of state advantage were 
 proposed for him, he fell enthusiastically in love with 
 a Princess of Modena, and not until his early and 
 happy married life with Clementina Sobieski did the 
 former impression become entirely eflfaced. 
 
 His letters are interspersed with affectionate allu- 
 sions to his mother, and brotherly expressions of 
 regard for the sister who died at the age of nine- 
 teen after the small-pox, April 18, 1712. About her 
 several interesting stories are preserved, from which 
 we select the following. Both James Edward, and 
 his sister the Princess Louisa, were lovers of the 
 chase, but after a heavy fall experienced by the 
 latter near St. Germain, her brother begged that 
 
 * Maopterson's 'Original Papers,' vol. ii. pp. 153, 155, 160. These 
 three letters of the Chevalier's will repay perusal. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 she would hunt no longer, on the ground that the 
 sport was too rough for ladies.* 
 
 This interesting princess probably caught the small- 
 pox when visiting, in Mary of Modena's company, 
 the Church of the English Benedictines, where her 
 father James the Second's remains were deposited. 
 There was a crowd of poor people present who 
 pressed on the royal visitors, and as the small-pox 
 raged in Paris at the time, and the disease appeared 
 a few weeks after, it is a natural inference that the 
 deadly malady was contracted on this occasion.f 
 
 During this very visit to the English Benedictine 
 Church, news was brought to Mary of Modena that 
 peace was probable between England and France. 
 She received the announcement with dismay, partly 
 doubtless on the ground that her hapless son would 
 have to leave France, and a temporary separation 
 between the male and female members of the Stuart 
 family ensue, although such an antagonistic view of 
 the Treaty of Utrecht by no means tallies with the 
 hitherto received idea that it was made to rehabilitate 
 the Stuart cause. 
 
 The Chevalier de St. G-eorge seems to have had a 
 better constitution than his sister Louisa, and he 
 threw off the malady under which she succumbed, 
 having been bled too copiously in the foot.J 
 
 * Miss Strickland's ' Princesses of the House of Stuart,' p. 363. 
 
 t Ibid., p. 374. 
 
 } These details Miss Strickland derived from the nuns of ChaiUot, who 
 had been the constant associates of the exiled Royal Family. In 1711, 
 Mary of Modena retired thither to save the expense of keeping up an 
 
EXILES OF ST. GERMAIN. 101 
 
 Wlien matters of religion were at stake, the 
 Chevalier never faltered.. Although, as he said, he 
 desired to tolerate the Church of England, he spoke 
 thus plainly regarding his own conscience : " Plain 
 dealing is best in all things, especially in matters of 
 religion ; and as I am resolved never to dissemble in 
 religion, so I shall never tempt others to do it. And 
 as well as I am satisfied of the truth of my own 
 religion, yet I shall never look worse upoa any per- 
 sons, because in this they chance to differ with me ; 
 nor shall I refuse, in due time and place, to hear 
 what they may have to say on this subject. But 
 they must not take it ill if I use the same liberty 
 I allow to others, to adhere to the religion which 
 I, in my conscience, think the best ; and I may 
 reasonably expect that liberty of conscience for 
 myself, which I deny to none." The date is May 2, 
 1711.* 
 
 This letter, sent to his adherents in England, pro- 
 bably lost him the crown ; because, after all chance 
 of converting her brother to the doctrines of the 
 English Church had vanished. Queen Anne — as we 
 shall show — abandoned the hopes she once pre- 
 sumably cherished, of leaving the crown to her 
 nearest male relation. There is scarcely a parallel 
 in history of similar self-abnegation; and as Jesuitical 
 advisers were ready to find balm for his sensitive 
 
 establisliinent at St. Germains. Chaillot Lad been previously known as 
 the resort of Henrietta Maria and the Abbess of Malbuisson (see p. 112). 
 * Maopherson's ' Original Papers,' vol. ii. p. 225. 
 
102 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 conscience, the merit of this unfortunate Prince be- 
 comes more worthy of record.* 
 
 Chased from France to Lorraine, and grudged 
 even the healing waters of Plombieres by his ene- 
 mies, the Prince had the shrewdness never to accept 
 the asylum offered him in Kome, because, despite 
 his devotion to the Holy See, enemies in England 
 might have declared that the Chevalier was under a 
 tutelage that would admit of no tolerance towards 
 Protestantism. He seems to have cherished a strong 
 affection for Scotland ; and when he landed at Peter- 
 head, in 1715, no weary fugitive from the turmoil of 
 great cities ever expressed greater delight at reach- 
 ing the invigorating land-o'-cakes than did James 
 Edward, when he joyfully exclaimed, " Thank God ! 
 I am in mine ancient kingdom." f 
 
 The Stuart Papers in Macpherson's collection 
 afford some glimpses of the movements of the 
 Chevalier de St. Greorge when, France being in dire 
 peril of invasion at the hands of Marlborough and 
 Eugene, he bravely took his place among the de- 
 fenders of his royal benefactor's realm. 
 
 Marshal Yillars was a staimch Jacobite, and during 
 his campaign in defence of Arras, in IVIO, he fre- 
 quently took the Chevalier with him when recon- 
 noitring along the lines which the French had made 
 
 * The refusal of the late Count de Cbambord to be restored bv the 
 Bordeaux assembly in 1871, without the white flag and the lilies of France 
 on his escutcheon, perhaps bears some slight similitude to the conduct of 
 the Chevalier. 
 
 t ' Stuart Papers ' in Appendix of Lord Stanhope's ' History.' 
 
EXILES OP ST. GERMAIN. 103 
 
 for defence of the road to Paris. On one of these 
 occasions they got into conversation with the Eng- 
 lish officers and soldiers, who told them peace was 
 talked of when the Dutch were present, but not 
 before Prince Eugene, and entered likewise into other 
 general conversation. Mr. Booth — 'groom of the bed- 
 chamber at St. Grermain — embraced the opportunity 
 to send some Jacobite medals into the British camp, 
 which were so popular, that thirty English officers 
 asked for facsimiles, while several letters were ad- 
 dressed to the Prince's chamberlain. A trumpeter, 
 wbo brought them, said that Lord Churchill * " in- 
 quired very particularly after the Chevalier de St. 
 George." Marlborough had previously betrayed an 
 interest in the young Prince's movements, asking 
 one Mr. Tunstal, a Jacobite agent, why Lord Mid- 
 dleton was not with the Prince ? and on receiving for 
 reply an excuse on the ground of expense, answered, 
 " One more would not augment it much." A financial 
 policy which the Duke was apt himself to disregard 
 in private matters. 
 
 Marshal Yillars appeared to be in raptures about 
 Sacheverell, and said he heard that people put white 
 ribbons in their hats, and called the doctor's partisans 
 our people, remarking that six thousand men formed 
 a brave body.f Villars, thinking his policy of 
 exciting interest for the exiled Prince had been suc- 
 
 * Id est, Marlborough. The Jacobites allowed no titles after 1688. 
 
 t Maopherson's 'Original Papers,' vol. ii. pp. 171-174. Villars had 
 probably heard a rumour that a crowd of about this number applauded 
 Saoheyerell after his trial. 
 
104 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 cessful, adopted similar tactics iD May 1711, while 
 waiting behind the defences he had constructed 
 "from Namiir on the Meuse to the coast of Picardy. 
 Moving from one place to another, as the tactics of 
 Marlborough necessitated, Villars generally took the 
 Prince with him, so that the tall, graceful figure of 
 this would-be English King was as well known in the 
 British camp as was his skill in horsemanship and 
 elegance of manners, which gained admirers amongst 
 both friends and foes.* 
 
 The Chevalier was not however with Villars in 
 the succeeding campaign which ended so gloriously 
 for France at Denain in July 1712. The Prince 
 was then recovering from the small-pox, and medi- 
 tating retirement into Lorraine. 
 
 There are said to have been no less than fifty- 
 seven descendants of James the First and Charles the 
 First, nearer in blood to the Royal Family of England 
 and Scotland than any of the Protestant line at the 
 time when George the First became King ; | of these 
 the family of Savoy stood nearest to that of Stuart. 
 Victor Amadeus of Savoy had married Anna Maria, 
 granddaughter of Charles the First, who stood next 
 in order of inheritance to the direct descendants of 
 James the Second. This Duke of Savoy joined the 
 alliance against France, but he was uncertain in his 
 after conduct, and was by no means a friend to the 
 new order of things in England, because, a son being 
 
 * Alison's ' Marlborough,' vol. ii. p. 185. 
 
 t Macpherson's ' Original Papers,' vol. i. p. 617. 
 
EXILES OP ST. GERMAIN. 105 
 
 born to him, lie considered that his rights were 
 infringed by the proposed succession of the House 
 of Brunswick.* 
 
 There was at one time some talk of an alliance 
 between the families of Stuart and Savoy, as is shown 
 by the following extract from Swift's ' Journal to 
 Stella,' Letter 18, March 23, 1Y1| : 
 
 " Lord Eivers told me yesterday a piece of bad news, as a 
 secret, that tlie Pretender is going to be married to tbe Duke 
 of Savoy's daughter. It is very bad if it be true." 
 
 Whether Swift feared the access of influence 
 which such a marriage would give the Chevalier, or 
 regretted that all hope of his joining the Church 
 of England would be dissipated by his alliance with 
 a Catholic Princess, it is difficult to say. 
 
 The Queen Dowager of England, at the time when 
 the Brunswick succession was decided on, was 
 Catherine of Braganza, the widow of Charles the 
 Second, who had been espoused to him at Portsmouth 
 in the year 1662. She finished her days at Lisbon, 
 migrating thither at the Revolution, and enjoying a 
 jointure of £40,000 a year, to which other sums 
 accrued.f The Queen Dowager, a fervid Catholic, 
 had been present in St. James's Palace when the 
 son of James the Second was born.| 
 
 So much concerning the minor personages of the 
 
 * See Coxe's ' Walpole,' vol. i. p. 54. 
 
 t ' Present State of the Universe,' a tract printed at the Golden Candle- 
 stick, at the Tower end of Cheapside, 1702, p. 58. 
 
 X Letter of Princess Anne to her sister, Dalrymple's ' Memoirs,' vol. ii. 
 Appendix to Bk. v. p. 181. 
 
106 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Stuart family is necessary to make this work com- 
 plete, but the course of events transfers our interest 
 to Herrenhausen, with its trim gardens, where the 
 Electress Sophia might be seen taking counsel with 
 the sage Leibniz in the avenue of limes, which leads 
 up to the palace built by the first Elector, Ernest 
 Augustus. 
 
( 107 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 ECHOES FROM HERRErfHAUSEISr. 
 
 A.D. 1688-1712. 
 
 HAVI^fG glanced at the history of the exiled family 
 at St. G-ermain, let us turn our attention from that 
 phantom Court to a scene of more substantial dig- 
 nity, with which we are more intimately concerned, 
 namely, the home of those more fortunate cousins 
 who dwelt on the river Leine. A central figure 
 there was the aged Electress Sophia, a personage 
 of such importance that it will not be amiss to con- 
 sider what manner of being she was in the heyday 
 of youth. 
 
 Mr. Kerr, a Scotch gentleman much given to 
 travelling, who was English consul at Amsterdam, 
 and who published in that city in the year of the 
 English Revolution (1688) an account of his travels, 
 gives us some insight into the Court of Hanover. 
 " Here," he says, " I had the honour to kiss the hands 
 of the Princess Royal, Sophia, youngest sister to the 
 late Prince Rupert. Her Highness has the character 
 of the Merry Debonaire, Princess of Germany, a lady 
 of extraordinary virtue and accomplishments : she is 
 
108 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 mistress of the Italian, French, High and Low Dutch, 
 and English languages, which she speaks to perfec- 
 tion. Her husband has the title of the G-entleman 
 of Grermany, a graceful and comely prince, both on 
 foot and on horseback, civil to strangers beyond 
 compare, infinitely kind and beneficent to people in 
 distress, and known in the world for a valiant and 
 experienced soldier. I had the honour to see his 
 troops, which, without controversy, are as good men, 
 and commanded by as expert officers, as are any in 
 Europe. He is a gracious prince to his people, and 
 keeps a very splendid Court, having in his stables, 
 for the use of himself and children, fifty-two sets of 
 coach horses. He himself is Lutheran." 
 
 The account goes on to praise Ernest Augustus' 
 breadth of view as regards theology, because he and 
 his children accompanied the Princess to her Cal- 
 vinistic church.* 
 
 It is said that the Princess Sophia, in her youthful 
 character of ' Merry Debonaire,' preferred the life 
 she led in her brother Charles Louis's household at 
 Heidelberg to the comparative seclusion of Herren- 
 hausen. 
 
 The lofty castle overlooking the Neckar might 
 naturally be chosen as a residence, rather than the 
 German Versailles, which Ernest Augustus created 
 in the suburbs of Hanover. The Princess may well 
 have expected that her married life would be bright 
 and cheerful, as more than one alternative alliance is 
 
 * Morriss's ' Early Hanoverians,' pp. 15, 16. 
 
ECHOES FROM HERRENHAUSBN. 109 
 
 said to have been offered her, both Ferdinand, King 
 of the Romans, and Prince Adolphus of Sweden 
 having sought her hand.* 
 
 Hunting and the chase around Hanover, which 
 could scarcely have presented the excitement of its 
 English prototype, formed the chief amusement 
 available to the household of Ernest Augustus, 
 varied, however, occasionally by foreign travel. 
 While his sons were serving with the army of 
 Austria, or fighting for Venetian independence, 
 Ernest Augustus and his wife visited Rome, and 
 made themselves familiar with many of the Italian 
 cities. Everywhere they were treated as if of 
 sovereign rank, and received the respect due to the 
 high destiny designed for them by William the Third. 
 Ultimately, as has been previously mentioned, 
 these titles to honour induced the Emperor to 
 confer upon Ernest Augustus the dignity of Elector, 
 but the proposition met with scant favour in the 
 Electoral diet, where a majority was not forthcoming 
 in what was called the second college. The most 
 strenuous foes of Ernest Augustus were those of his 
 own household, viz. the Princes of Brunswick- 
 Wolfenbiittelj who considered their claims, as the 
 elder branch of the house of Gruelph, to be para- 
 mount, and therefore employed every artifice to 
 prevent the election of Ernest Augustus. 
 
 On the other hand, George, Duke of Oelle, the new 
 Elector's eldest brother, supported Ernest Augustus 
 
 * Benger's ' Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart,' vol. ii. p. 442. 
 
110 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 loyally, so that by the influential aid of William the 
 Third the oflEcial seal was set to the Emperor's 
 decision, and the Elector of Hanover was repre- 
 sented at the conferences at Ryswick, which termi- 
 nated in 1697, although he never took his seat 
 in the College of Electors, dying at Hanover, 
 January 23, 1698.* 
 
 In the year 1698 William the Third visited his 
 old friend and ally, the Duke of Celle, and at the 
 castle of Groerde he saw the widowed Electress and 
 her son, where it is believed that future measures 
 regarding the English succession were determined 
 on.f But this is by no means the most important 
 conference on the English succession between these 
 relations and friends, because at the Loo, in King 
 William's palace, they were again gathered together 
 in the autumn of 1700, after the Duke of Grloucester's 
 death had destroyed the dynastic hopes of the Pro- 
 testant Stuarts.J 
 
 In this same year, 1700, the dominions of Bruns- 
 wick-Luneburg were in great danger from an attack 
 by the Danes, so that the Elector and his uncle, the 
 Duke of Celle, took the field, and helped to raise 
 the siege of Tonningen, and secure the peace of 
 Travengale. 
 
 But although the peril of invasion from the North 
 was thus allayed, an internecine conflict was only 
 
 * Sir Andrew Halliday's ' House of Guelph,' p. 143. 
 t Ibid., p. 143. 
 
 if ' The Electress Sophia and the Hanoverian Succession,' by Prof. 
 A. W. Ward. ' Enghsh Historical Review, vol. i. p. 485.' 
 
ECHOES FROM HERRENHAUSEN. Ill 
 
 averted by prompt and united action two years 
 later, when, at the commencement of Queen Anne's 
 reign, the aged Duke of Celle joined with his 
 nephew, the Elector, and preserved unity in the 
 Brunswick counsels in reference to the war about 
 to be waged against France. 
 
 An army was suddenly marched to Brunswick 
 and Wolfenbiittel, both of which towns were block- 
 aded, and the recalcitrant Dukes of those provinces 
 forced to forego their intention of joining Louis the 
 Fourteenth.* 
 
 These Dukes were respectively named Antony 
 Ulric and Eodolph Augustus, but as the latter led a 
 purely literary life, all the responsibility of their 
 pro-French policy rested with the former ; but when 
 he was obliged to desist from trying to break up 
 the strength of Brunswick-Luneburg, no less than 
 40,000 men were brought into Marlborough's camp 
 by the united family of Brunswick, Prince Ernest 
 Augustus, afterwards Bishop of Osnabui'g, and 
 brother of George Lewis, the Elector, serving in 
 the first campaign. 
 
 The Electress had other blood-relations whose 
 lives are bound up with our subject, and cannot 
 be neglected in a narrative of the Brunswick 
 Accession. They were not all Protestants, or the 
 Electress Sophia would not have been the legal 
 heiress when the Act passed placing her family 
 
 * ' Some Account of the House of Brunswick.' Macpherson's ' Original 
 Papers,' vol. i. p. 618. 
 
112 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 next to Queen Anne in the succession, with reser- 
 vations as to reHgion. 
 
 Two elder brothers of the Electress Sophia suc- 
 cessively enjoyed the Palatine dignities, viz. Charles 
 Louis and Edward. 
 
 They both professed the ancient faith of Eome, 
 while the latter, by marriage with Anne Gronzague, 
 Princess Palatine, a renowned devotee, had a 
 daughter married to the Duke of Modena.* Again 
 the Protestant heiress to Queen Anne's throne had 
 an elder sister, Louisa, who survived until 1709, so 
 that but for the fact that she was a Catholic, being 
 Abbess of Malbuisson, who looked upon her Stuart 
 cousins with unbounded devotion, she also might 
 have claimed superior right to a place in the British 
 Succession. 
 
 The friend of Henrietta Maria, widow of Charles 
 the First, the Abbess, will be remembered for her 
 able controversy with the Electress Sophia regarding 
 the respective merits of the Catholic and Protestant 
 faith. f The Electress found it necessary to call in 
 
 * Benediota, Duchess of Hanover, daughter to Edward, Count Palatine, 
 had two daughters, Charlotte Felioitas, married to the Duke of Modena, 
 and Wilhelmina Amalia, who, having been espoused to Joseph, Emperor 
 of Germany, was left a widow with two daughters, Mary Josephine and 
 Mary Amelia. All these princesses were Eoman CathoHos, as also were 
 the four grandchildren of Benedicta, Duchess of Hanover, who belonged to 
 the Modenese Eo.yal Family. — ' Present State of the Universe,' printed at 
 the G-olden Candlestick, at the Tower end of Cheapside, 1702. 
 
 The Electress Sophia's eldest son Charles left a daughter married to the 
 Duke of Orleans. This Duchess was on intimate terms with her aunt. 
 
 t The Princess Louisa had suddenly left her mother's house and em- 
 braced the Eoman Catholic faith, travelling thence to Eouen, where she 
 met her brother Edward, who conducted her to the Convent of Chaillot. 
 
ECHOES FROM HERHENHAUSEN. 113 
 
 her friend Leibniz to assist her in the controversy. 
 Two of the Princess Elizabeth's daughters had em- 
 braced a life of contemplative seclusion, the eldest, 
 who bore her mother's name of Elizabeth, becoming 
 so-called Abbess of the Lutheran religious retreat 
 established at Hervorden in Westphalia. A wild and 
 uncultivated country did not prevent distinguished 
 philosophers from visiting the Abbess of Hervorden, 
 the famous Descartes and William Penn, the Quaker, 
 amongst them. She also extended her patronage to 
 the Quietists,* who under Labbadie, had arisen in 
 Holland about the time that Penn and Fox conducted 
 a similar movement in the American Colonies. This 
 daughter of the Princess Palatine exercised political 
 power by virtue of her o£Gce as Abbess of Hervorden. 
 She presided in a court of justice, and no less than 
 7000 people in and around Hervorden owned 
 allegiance to a rule which involved membership of 
 the Grerman diet, to which she sent a deputy, and 
 was required to furnish one horse and six foot 
 soldiers when called on by the Emperor. f An apt 
 illustration of the way in which the Imperial forces 
 were recruited in times of need. The Act of 
 
 * The Quietists were originated by Miguel Molinos, a Spaniard, late in 
 the 17th century. He held that religion consisted in an internal silent 
 meditation on the merits of Christ and the mercies of God. Innocent XII., 
 after privately discouraging, publicly condemned the doctrine in 1699, 
 so it naturally found refuge in a Protestant retreat such as that at 
 Hervorden. There is a curious statement in Maopherson's ' Original 
 Papers,' vol. ii. p. 403, to the effect that the Pretender was a Quietist. 
 Netterville, the Jesuit, hoped it might be believed in England. 
 
 f Banger's ' Memoirs of Elizabeth Stuart,' vol. ii. p. 448. 
 
 I 
 
114 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Succession having been passed in June lYOl, it was 
 recognized to be good policy in Hanover to re- 
 ceive tbe Earl of Macclesfield, who notified the fact 
 at Herrenhausen, where the rejoicings were on a 
 large scale. Fetes illustrative of the descent of 
 the Brunswick-Luneburg family from Henry the 
 Second's daughter Matilda were organised, medals 
 being at the same time struck commemorative 
 thereof ; while the fact that a Guelph married the 
 widow of Harold, slain on Hastings field, was not 
 left unrecorded.* 
 
 On his departure from Hanover, the Electress 
 gave Lord Macclesfield her portrait, set in diamonds, 
 and the Elector presented the Envoy with a massive 
 basin and ewer of gold.f 
 
 This step in advance having been made on their be- 
 half by adherents in England, it became necessary to 
 frame a scheme of policy as regarded the Succession. 
 
 The individual around whose person all the 
 affairs of Hanover seemed to centre, was the Elector's 
 secretary, M. Robethon ; and as the letters in his 
 cabinet form the substratum of our information on 
 this branch of our subject, we subjoin a short biogra- 
 
 * In illustration of the power and sway once held by Henry the Lion 
 Gribbun, in his ' Antiquities of the House of Brunswick,' Miscellaneous 
 Works, vol. iii. p. 555, gives the following translation of the Lion's own 
 verses : — 
 
 " Henry the Lion is my name, 
 Through all the world I spread my fame ; 
 For from the Elbe, unto the Ehine, 
 Frona Hartz, unto the sea — all's mine." 
 
 •j- 8ir A. Halliday's ' House of Guelph,' p. 146. 
 
ECHOES FROM HERRENHAUSEN. 115 
 
 phical notice by the late Dr. O'Connor, librarian at 
 Stowe when the Dukes of Buckingham owned that 
 famous place : — 
 
 " M. Rolietlion was of a French refugee family. He became 
 private secretary to King William III. and was employed by 
 tbe Duke of Zell in tlie same capacity. He was then appointed 
 confidential secretary to the electoral prince of Hanover, after- 
 wards George I. This private intercourse gave him considerable 
 ascendancy over his master ; and being a man of address, great 
 knowledge of mankind, and well acquainted with the leading 
 members in both Houses of Parliament in England, he was 
 enabled to act a conspicuous part. His situation with the King 
 rendered him presumptuous and insolent. His necessities were 
 great and his venality notorious, both Town send and Walpole 
 reprobating it. Consequently he became their inveterate 
 enemy, jealously promoting the views of Sunderland. He was 
 the most intriguing person of all the Hanoverian junto, which 
 also comprised Count Bernsdorff, Baron Bothmar, Baron Schutz, 
 and the Hanoveiian ladies." 
 
 Dr. O'Connor, of course, states his opinion of 
 M. Robethon as he appeared when his career was 
 more matured than it was when he entered the 
 Elector's service. 
 
 Another authority speaks of the Elector's secretary 
 as follows : — 
 
 " He was a man of address, great knowledge of mankind, 
 and well acquainted with the leading men of Parliament in 
 England."* 
 
 As a consequence of this notoriety and familiarity 
 with men of affairs, Robethon corresponded with the 
 leading men in England, Holland and Hanover, 
 
 * Coxe's ' Walpole,' vol. i. p. 83. 
 
 1 2 . 
 
116 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 besides having one way or tlie other collected holo- 
 graph letters from Louis the Fourteenth, Queen Anne, 
 Pensionary Heinsius, Marlborough, Harley, Boling- 
 broke, and, of course, many personal communications 
 from his master and mistress, the Elector George 
 Lewis and the Electress Sophia, while one or two 
 specimens of writing by the great patron to whom 
 ne owed everything, render the collection in question 
 doubly valuable to those who admire the character of 
 William the Thii'd. Taken as a whole, the famous 
 Hanover Papers — for by that name are the contents 
 of Robethon's cabinet known — afford indications of 
 the characters and political ideas of the great 
 men interested in the British Succession, such as 
 form the best guide for a student of this thorny 
 question — provided, that is, that he know sufficient 
 to read between the lines when occasion requires, 
 and do not mistake the voice of party for that of 
 a nation, whether the writer be Whig or Tory.* 
 The chief Minister of the Electoral Court, after 
 
 * The Hanover Papers form part of the Stowe collection recently pur- 
 chased from Lord Ashburnham by the trustees of the British Museum. 
 They consist of a mass of correspondence ranging from 1695 to 1719, and 
 are kept in rough leather covers, but are not yet completely catalogued. 
 Occasionally the letters are copies of originals existing elsewhere ; but 
 very few have been primed, except those chosen by Macpherson in 1775 
 for his collection of 'Original Papers,' dealing with the intrigues at 
 St. Germain and Bar-le-Duc for the purpose of restoring the elder branch 
 of the Stuarts. Macpherson, it is trae, either transcribed or translated the 
 most valuable of the Hanover Papers, but enough remain unprinted to 
 show their historic importance. In the second volume of his ' History of 
 Great Britain from the Eestoration to the Accession of the House of 
 Hanover,' Macpherson a' so refers frequently to the Hanover Papers, and 
 this work, too, will be found useful as a guide through this maze of hidden " 
 
ECHOES FROM HEERENHAUSEN. 117 
 
 1705, was Count Bernsdorff, who formerly served the 
 old Duke of Celle in snch capacity, his honoured 
 master having passed away in that year, but in 1701 
 Count Platen was the Minister whom the Court chiefly 
 consulted. Bernsdorff was celebrated for his know- 
 ledge of continental matters, and to the end of his 
 career the Foreign Department, rather than the 
 domestic, seems to have been his sphere : thus he 
 was on the whole George Lewis's chief personal 
 adviser, as regarded his relations with the Continent, 
 although he never pretended to a knowledge of 
 England, such as that of Bothmar. The Baron 
 Schutz and his son filled important positions in the 
 service of the Blectress and her son, while Baron 
 Groertz was the Minister who worked in the Tory 
 interest.* Baron Kreyenberg, who succeeded Schutz 
 in London, after he fell into ill-favour with Queen 
 Anne, was also a most able agent of the Hanoverian 
 Court, and his letters written at that period are 
 
 information. When M. de Robethon died, his son, Oilonol Robethon, 
 inherited his father's papers. Colonel Robethon, however, was a very 
 dissipated character, and bis effects were sold under an execution in 1752, 
 when a Mr. Duane bought these volumes. He left them with his 
 library to his relation, Mr. Michael Bray of ^Vinlbledon, after whosu 
 decease they were purchased by Mr. Thomas Astle, who was keeper of the 
 records in the Tovvei', a trustee of the British Museum, and a well-known 
 writer on antic[uarian subjects in the ' Gentleman's Magazine.' His manu- 
 script library at Battersea Rise exceeded that of any private gentleman in 
 England ; and when he died at the age of sixty-eight, in 1803, his manu- 
 scripts and Anglo-Saxon charters were purchased, subject to certain 
 conditions, by the Marquess of Buckingham and deposited at Stowe, where 
 a room was fitted up in the Gothic style for their reception. — Article by 
 Percy M. Thornton in 'English Historical Review,' vol. i. p. 756. 
 * Churton Collins' ' Bolingbroke,' p. 98. 
 
118 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 full of vigour and ability. Amongst the minor 
 njembers of the diplomatic corps were Schrader and 
 Galke, who severally flitted about between London 
 and Hanover, picking up information likely to serve 
 their Court. 
 
 We have left to the last the man whose influence 
 was probably felt more than that of any other 
 member of what in after years was styled The 
 Hanoverian Junto— we mean Baron de Bothmar. 
 Unlike Groertz, this able diplomat — for as such he 
 cliiefly excelled — favoured the "Whigs, and persuaded 
 both Bernsdorflf and his other colleagues to distrust 
 the Tories, while he enjoined acquiescence, combined 
 with plausible neutrality, upon the Elector and 
 Electress. Working harmoniously with Robethon 
 when the interests of the Brunswick-Luneburg 
 family were at stake, this remarkable man did more 
 to shape events than any one out of England ; and 
 when he came to that country officially, he actually 
 chose the Prime Minister, for Lord Townsend owed 
 his elevation to the Hanoverian Minister's good 
 offices. 
 
 These statesmen, for in some sort, and according 
 to their lights, they deserve the name, were con- 
 tinuously occupied in scheming how to retain a hold 
 on public opinion in England, ever shifting, and 
 dangerously prone to veer right round in matters 
 concerning the Succession ; and the contents of Robe- 
 thon's cabinet tell how ably on the whole the Elec- 
 toral cause was championed. Mistakes were, of 
 
ECHOES PROM HBERENHAUSEN. 119 
 
 course, again and again made by foreigners seeking 
 to feel the pulse of a patient under a climatic in- 
 fluence, the nature of which they eould not gauge. 
 But the Brunswick cause prospered under these 
 chosen advocates as it certainly never could have 
 done if the principals had put themselves forward 
 on the stage. 
 
 The year 1705 was an important epoch in the Succes- 
 sion question, because Robethon and Bernsdorff, those 
 two acute diplomatists, were taken into the Electoral 
 counsels after the old Duke of Celle's death rendered 
 his servants free to engage their talents elsewhere, 
 while Bothmar, established at the Hague as Hano- 
 verian representative, saw nearly all the important 
 documents which passed through that centre of 
 diplomatic life, whether they were on the way to or 
 from England. It is in the fact that much of 
 Robethon's correspondence, together with that of 
 Bothmar, appear in the famous Hanover Papers, that 
 their great historic value consists. 
 
 In 1 705, the year that the various territories of 
 Hanover were united, the Electress Sophia suffered 
 a great sorrow in the death of her daughter, the 
 Queen of Prussia, while Whig and Tory alike 
 appeared to compete for the honour of serving the 
 new dynasty. 
 
 From the sources of information indicated by the 
 various communications in Robethon's cabinet, we 
 are enabled to present a portrait of the Electress 
 in advancing years which may stand as a companion 
 
120 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 to the description of her early life given at the 
 beginning of this chapter. We are in the presence 
 of a -cultured lady appreciative of literature and 
 plilosophy, not herself a really deep student, but 
 able intellectually to perceive Leibniz's genius, while 
 from the exalted nature of her position she was also 
 armed with the power to find scope for his ability, 
 and give popularity to his name. Simple in 
 personal tastes, most at home at Herrenhausen 
 amongst her ducks and swans, or making the 
 tapestry which still adorns the building, she was 
 careful not to thrust herself or her heirs unduly 
 before the English nation, and yet accepted the 
 heritage they conferred on her, and desired most of 
 all things to have inscribed on her tomb, " Sophia, 
 Queen of Great Britain." * Some writers, on the other 
 hand, have imputed to her undue disregard for her 
 splendid expectations,^ because when Lord Somers, 
 in 1706, induced the Legislature to agree to the 
 
 * Coxe's ' Life of Marlborough,' chap. 59. 
 
 t There are two schools of opinion in Germany dealing with the 
 attitude of the Electoral family towards the British Suecession, one main- 
 taining that the Electress was unduly backward in asserting her rights, 
 while the other adduces fragmentary allusions culled from letters to 
 agents and political friends, which are supposed to indicate a ready par- 
 tizanship such as her public conduct at least belied. Herr Onno Klopp, 
 author of the ' Pull des Hauses Stuart,' the twelfth volume of which has 
 just been published, maintains the former, and as we think most defensible, 
 theory, while D'O. Meinartus, in his work on the Hanoverian Succession, 
 which saw light in 1878, takes the view that Klopp has misconstrued the 
 Electress Sophia's poUtic silence, mistaking it for negligent indifference. 
 Amongst other German writers on the subject, we find the late Dr. Schau- 
 mann and the late Professor Pauli, while the correspondence of the 
 Electress with Leibniz affords an insti-uctive commentary on the course of 
 
ECHOES FROM HBRBENHAUSEN. 121 
 
 appointment of a Regency in the event of the 
 Queen's death, together with the naturalisation of 
 the Electress, the latter princess treated the matter 
 with much the same indifference with which she 
 looked upon offers to give herself and her son a 
 premature footing in England.* 
 
 However, when Lord Halifax, accompanied by the 
 illustrious Addison, was despatched to Hanover with 
 the Garter for the Electoral Prince, the Electress 
 seems to have evinced a due comprehension of the 
 situation. 
 
 For, first and last, neither the granddaughter of 
 James the First, nor her heir, the Elector Greorge 
 Lewis, ever piat their own personal claims forward, 
 
 events elsewhere disclosed. Historical questions of all descriptions are 
 thoroughly threshed out by the modem Teutonic literary representatives, 
 and there is much to be learnt from these researches by the most learned 
 of our own inquirers. Professor A. W. Ward has recognised this to ex- 
 cellent purpose when elucidating the Electress Sophia's actions regarding 
 the Succession, just as Professor Seeley, by his researches in Berlin 
 concerning the life and times of Stein, threw a new light on the deliver- 
 ance of Europe from Napoleon, telling us the story from a continental 
 point of view. This method adopted by Professor Ward has placed the 
 truth within the reach of those who can spare time to look into the 
 matter (' English Historical Review,' vol. i. p. 470), for our home archives 
 are exceedingly full of matter, and the Hanover papers themselves contain 
 evidence undoubtedly genuine in character, affording means whereby to 
 test other statements emanating from more doubtful sources. 
 
 It appears, however, that some copies of Robethon's letters in the 
 Hanover collection are extant in Germany, inasmuch as Herr Klopp has 
 several times referred to identical communications which he found amongst 
 the Hanoverian archives, and this while most of the originals are un- 
 doubtedly in the British Museum. Of course the triumphant success of 
 the Duke of Marlborough, when he won Blenheim, was hailed with 
 delight at Hanover, the greatest of all soldier-diplomatists having charmed 
 the Electress and convinced her of the reality of her prospects. 
 
 * Lord Somers to the Elector, ' Hanover Papers,' April 12, 1706. 
 
122 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 and erred, if they erred at all, in a contrary direc- 
 tion. There is a very interesting minute of the 
 Elector's in the Hanover Papers of 1704, published 
 by Macpherson, which shows that Marlborough took 
 the Elector George Lewis into counsel regarding his 
 movements before Blenheim, and that the famous 
 change of design which led to the campaign being 
 prosecuted, not on the Meuse or Rhine, but on the 
 Danube, was settled after discussion with the man 
 known in history as Greorge the First * The year 
 1Y08 found G-eorge Lewis corresponding with Queen 
 Anne from his head-quarters on the Rhine, having 
 at her request accepted the command there ; but 
 although evincing an interest in all matters con- 
 nected with England, he refrained from personally 
 mixing in politics. Writing to Lord Peterborough 
 on May 26, IVOS, he says : — f 
 
 " I have adopted for a constant maxim, to take no steps con- 
 cerning the affairs of Great Britain, hut in concert with the 
 Queen and with her Ministry," — 
 
 a position as regards the Succession from which he 
 never withdrew until events shaped themselves so as 
 to leave the crown of England in his possession. 
 
 It was doubtless vexatious to Greorge Lewis to find 
 himself thwarted on the Rhine by various repre- 
 sentatives of Southern Circles of the Empire | who 
 
 * Macpherson's ' Original Papers,' vol. i. p. 690. 
 t ' Hanover Papers,' May, 1708. 
 
 % In the year 1500 Maximilian the First divided the Empire into six 
 Circles, viz. Eranconia, Bavaria, Suabia, the Ehine, Lower Saxony and 
 
ECHOES PEOM HEEBENHAUSBN. 123 
 
 had never recognised his father's Electorate. Yet, 
 while conducting what seemed a troublesome and 
 uneventful campaign, the Electoral Prince reaped 
 glory by his presence at the battle of Oudenarde, 
 since the Guelph blood in his veins compelled him 
 to be in the van, and sustain his family reputation 
 for bravery. But it is obvious to a student of the 
 military position what good service was rendered 
 when the Rhenish provinces of Baden and the 
 Black Forest were protected from invasion during 
 the campaign of Oudenarde, so that Marlborough 
 had a free hand in the Low Countries. 
 
 It was at this stage of events that a desire for 
 peace sprang up in England, because amidst many 
 more thoughtful men who knew how the national 
 resources had been strained, there existed a wide- 
 spread opinion that enough had been done by us to 
 sustain the Imperial Dutch cause. The victory of 
 Oudenarde, gained in July 1708, had not opened the 
 road to Paris as Marlborough hoped, and the capture 
 
 Westphalia. In 1512 he added Austria, Burgundy, the Lower Rhine and 
 Upper Saxony. — ' State Papers,' Domestic Series, Record Office. Anne, 
 1705, bundle 10. 
 
 It is not generally known that George the First, during his command on 
 the Rhine, scored a passing triumph. He detached Count Mercy in 1707 
 to attack General Vivans in camp near Offenburg, which was done with 
 complete success, the enemy retiring and losing nearly a thousand mi'n. 
 — ' Annals of the House of Hanover,' Book x. p. 531. 
 
 The French were unable to penetrate into South Germany during the 
 time that George Lewis wns general of the Imperial forces, and he 
 handed his army over intact to the illustrious Eugene. There was a 
 jealousy in Germany against the new Electorate of Hanover, and the 
 Elector was not permitted to vote in the Electoral College mitil 1807. — 
 Ibid., p. 535. 
 
124 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 of Lille, Ghent, and Bruges was felt to be a result 
 inadequate to the efforts expended. 
 
 This feeling became accentuated after the battle of 
 Malplaquet, in 1709, when Marlborough and Prince 
 Eugene, after a tremendous and sanguinary conflict, 
 forced the destined saviour of France — the able 
 Marshal Yillars — off the field, and secured the in- 
 vestiture and fall of Mons. 
 
 But this triumph was of limited value after all, and 
 had been bought at a fearful cost. Nothing, how- 
 ever, could have shaken the Whig war policy in 
 England, had not the controversy arisen concerning 
 Dr. Sacheverell's opinions — 1709, 1710. Thereupon, 
 however, terror regarding the Brunswick Succession 
 seems to have seized the whole Herrenhausen en- 
 tourage. 
 
 Many had been the devices to cause all who lived 
 under the British flag to realise the beneficent sway 
 prepared for them when Queen Anne should leave 
 her throne vacant. 
 
 The States of America, for instance, were made 
 familiar with the personal appearance of the Electress 
 by means of portraits which were freely disseminated,* 
 while it was even sought to instruct the heiress to 
 
 * Mr. Joseph Dudley, Grovernor of Boston, writes to thank her Electoral 
 Highness for an effigies (so-called), and expresses boundless devotion. 
 
 The following letter of the late Prince George'.-i major-domo will speak 
 ■ for itself, and is a fair specimen of the class which was in vogue : — 
 
 " Her Majesty in making all the rest of her subjects Easy and Happy by 
 our late Blessed Union, has very much added to my Burden, — W to God 
 it were yet more Heavy on Condition that every year might increase our 
 Unanimity at Home, and our Victories Abroad. Then Madam, but not 
 
ECHOES FROM HERRENHAUSEN. 125 
 
 the throne in her social duties. Yet all the while an 
 atmosphere of doubt concerning the dynastic hopes of 
 Brunswick-Luneburg generally prevailed. Not even 
 the effusive promises of real true men like Halifax 
 availed to restore confidence, when astute diplomatic 
 thinkers of Robethon's, Bernsdorff's, and Bothmar's 
 calibre were aware, through the information given 
 them by friends in England, that other asseverations 
 of devotion received at Hanover from noblemen like 
 the Duke of Buckingham and the Duke of Newcastle 
 were untrustworthy, because these same men were 
 sending similar assurances to St. G-ermain.* 
 
 The year 1709 saw Charles the Twelfth of Sweden 
 stopped in his career of victory and left a Russian 
 prisoner after dread Pultowa's day. For Hanover 
 and its surroundings this event must be reckoned as 
 savouring of a relief ; for, despite the Elector's often- 
 expressed confidence in his Northern neighbours, we 
 now know that the tendency of Charles's mind lay in 
 the direction of utilising such surplus power as he 
 might obtain in restoring the House of Stuart in 
 
 yet til then will this Island be worthy to receive y' Illustrious House, 
 when they will find it a Land flowing with Milk and Honey. 
 
 "Tis some time ago Madam that I took the Liberty to put into the 
 hands of M. le Baron de Bothmar 2 or 3 Copies of my English Rules for 
 the use of y' R. H. I know not whether they were ever received, but 
 this I am sure of, that it was a very great Presumption in me to Imagine 
 tliat I c* suggest anything in our Language which y' R. H. does not 
 understand as well as, 
 
 "Madam, y' R. H.'s 
 
 " Most devoted and most humble servant, 
 
 "John CHAMBBKLAyuE." 
 — • Hanover Papers,' July 30, 1708. 
 
 * Maophersou's ' Original Papers,' vol. ii. pp. 41-43. 
 
126 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 England, and so increasing his own influence in 
 Europe. 
 
 The change of Grovernment in England in 1712 
 caused the Electoral Grovernment to prepare mea- 
 sures of defence against a movement which they 
 assumed to be likely to shake the constitutional 
 settlement upon which the Brunswick family based 
 their hopes, and they were incited thereto by the 
 Duke of Marlborough. Specimens of his assevera- 
 tions of devotion to the Chevalier de St. George at 
 St. Germain will necessarily be given later on. Let 
 us now hear what he tells the Elector, Aug. 30, 1710: 
 
 " I hope there will never be found in England a considerable 
 number of men who can be seduced to a degree capable of ruin- 
 ing it, by allowing themselves to be imposed upon by the 
 artifices of Mr. Harley and others, who conduct themselves at 
 present in a manner to leave it no longer a doubt that their 
 views tend to bring back the pretended Prince of Wales." * 
 
 No wonder that when Baron Bothmar was de- 
 spatched to London, he saw events too exclusively 
 through anti-Tory spectacles. 
 
 The scene now shifts to the banks of the Thames. 
 
 * ' Hanover Papers,' August 30, 1710. 
 
( 127 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE PEACE OP UTRECHT. 
 PROCLAIMED IN LONDON, MAY 6, 1713. 
 
 It is wortliy of note that Harley on becoming 
 practically Prime Minister, in 1710, betrayed little 
 satisfaction, and seemed exceedingly doubtful as to 
 tlie political stability of his party. As for gratitude 
 to the frothy Sacheverell, that did not in the 
 slightest degree influence the new Minister's con- 
 duct. We read that when Dr. Swift asked him for 
 a living for that famous clerical agitator, Harley 
 gave a round refusal, and showed no signs of re- 
 lenting until Swift told the Treasurer the anecdote 
 of a sailor who, duVing an engagement, stooped to 
 catch a flea, and so avoided a cannon-ball, which 
 otherwise would have taken off his head. " Then 
 the flea shall have the living," answered Harley, 
 recognising Swift's witty analogy between the Tory 
 return to power by Sacheverell's aid and the above 
 story.* But for the exercise of Swift's pen on their 
 
 * Continuation of Sir James Mackintosh's ' History,' quoting note by 
 Sir Walter Scott in Soiners' ' Tracts,' vol. xiii. p. 78. The living given 
 to Sacheverell was that of St. Andrew's, Holborn. 
 
128 THE BBUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 behalf about this time, the Tories would not have 
 held their ground, or made the peace of Utrecht 
 which gained favour by means of ' The Conduct of 
 the Allies,' a pamphlet of great ability ; and indeed 
 at one moment it looked as if Harley's popularity 
 was waning both with the Queen and the nation ; so 
 that if he had not been incontinently stabbed by 
 Gruiscard, a refugee friend of Mr, St. John, who in a 
 fit of desperation approached the ministerial council- 
 table, and, unable to reach his former associate, 
 plunged a penknife into Mr. Harley's breast, it is 
 not improbable that the Government might have 
 fallen to pieces. Harley was stabbed in the spring of 
 1711, and the public excitement against the Whigs 
 seemed commensurate with the sudden advance of 
 the wounded Minister's popularity. He straightway 
 rose into high favour at Court as well as amongst 
 the people. At the same time Lord Rochester's 
 death left him the actual head of the Tory party. 
 
 The new Minister had borne himself with con- 
 spicuous courage, and deserved his reward, which 
 took the form of the Premiership and an Earldom, 
 the titles of Oxford and Mortimer being revived 
 for him, with the addition of Baron Wigmore. 
 
 St. John also was created Viscount Bolingbroke, 
 although, as has been before mentioned, he is said 
 to have been dissatisfied at not receiving back an 
 ancient Earldom which had died out in his family. 
 
 We shall enter here into no dissertation on the 
 characters of the new Ministers, or recount in com- 
 
THE PEACE OP UTRECHT. 129 
 
 plete detail the events which led to the peace of 
 Utrecht. It is perfectly well known that Bolingbroke, 
 being the only Secretary of State who could speak 
 French, was the prime mover in bringing the negotia- 
 tions to an issue, while his friend Matthew Prior, 
 the poet, first in London, and then as Ambassador 
 in Paris, helped to conclude this much-deprecated 
 peace. During the course of these events the Tory 
 Ministers acted secretly, and entered into pre- 
 liminaries of peace separately with France, by 
 means of the Abbe Gaultier's intervention, while 
 they agreed to send Lord Strafford and Robinson, 
 Bishop of Bristol, to Utrecht for the purpose of 
 going through what, so far as England was con- 
 cerned, seems to have been a mock congress of the 
 Powers. 
 
 Nor was this the sum total of their offending, 
 inasmuch as the policy we are describing involved 
 an abandonment of the brave Spanish Catalans, 
 still in arms for their liberties, and relying on the 
 proffered support of England. 
 
 Of course Louis the Fourteenth was thankful to 
 come to terms with England when his resources 
 were failing him, and the issue of a supreme 
 struggle at or near Yersailles seemed, to say 
 the least of it, uncertain ; so that the famous 
 remark attributed to De Torcy, when he was ques- 
 tioned by Gaultier as to whether France wished 
 for peace, " Ask a dying man does he wish to 
 recover," pretty well explains the situation as it 
 
 K 
 
130 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 appeared to responsible statesmen in Paris* But 
 there was another side to the question of peace 
 or war, considered from an English point of view, 
 and an acute financier, whose abilities both Boling- 
 broke and Walpole recognised, viz. Mr. Arthur 
 Moore— of whom we shall speak again — had formed 
 an opinion that a nation of a little over five 
 million inhabitants could not indefinitely support a 
 war system with impunity, and that the strain on 
 our national strength was likely to become perilous. 
 But the crux of the matter really consisted in the 
 military situation — that is, could England hope, after 
 General Stanhope had' been defeated and captured 
 at Brihuega, December 9, 1710, to retain a hold on 
 the Peninsula while engaging likewise in an advance 
 towards Paris in company with the Allies ? As 
 regards Spain, a glance at the map will convince 
 any student of the winter campaign in 1710, that 
 the Anglo- Austrian position was one of danger, and 
 when we know that the remaining English were 
 deserted by the Portuguese, while Stahrenberg, the 
 German General, had only 10,000 men against 
 Vend&me's 20,000,f it might have been described 
 as one almost hopeless, such as a Wellington might 
 possibly have rendered tolerable. But then it is 
 
 * This anecdote appears in De Torcy's ' Memoirs,' but we give it here 
 on the authority of the continuation of Sir James Mackintosh's ' History/ 
 vol. ix. p. 265. 
 
 t Alison's 'Life of Marlborough,' vol. ii. p. 180. Stahrenberg did 
 measure swords once with Vendome at Villa Viciosa, but found himself 
 obliged to retreat after a stubborn struggle. 
 
THE PEACE OE UTRECHT. 131 
 
 not given to a nation to possess a Wellington and 
 a Marlborough at one and the same time. 
 
 Out of Catalonia the Spanish nation was clearly 
 hostile to Charles and the Germans, while it dis- 
 played an enthusiasm for Philip and the French 
 which a student of the events tliat took place a 
 century afterwards in this same country will find it 
 hard to believe. In France, although Marlborough 
 did take Bouchain, he was avowedly unable to 
 advance to Paris through the network of fortifications 
 interspersed with fortresses, which Villars, adopting 
 Fabian tactics, threw all his genius into defending.* 
 And under these circumstances a march to Paris was, 
 to say the least of it, extremely problematical. 
 
 However, at this moment Marlborough's military 
 career came to a close, and the ensuing campaign 
 was not prosecuted by English troops, as the Duke 
 of Ormond, the new general, had orders to remain 
 quiescent, and obeyed them to the disgust of Ger- 
 many and Holland, together, it must be owned, with 
 the freely expressed disapproval of most right-minded 
 people in England. 
 
 The case, however, regarding the Treaty of Utrecht 
 ■ stands on a different footing to the averment made 
 that the Ministry of Lord Oxford was bent on 
 restoring the Pretender : for while it is impossible 
 to defend the mode of making the former, we doubt 
 very much whether any such idea as the latter was 
 ever adopted officially. 
 
 * Alison's ' Life of Marlborough,' vol. ii. pp. 199, 200. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 THE BEUNSWIOK ACCESSION. 
 
 Sir James Mackintosh, when meditating a history 
 of England, dealing with events between 1688 and 
 1748, was permitted by Talleyrand, during the year 
 1814, to have free access to the diplomatic archives 
 in Paris. He there discovered the certainty of what 
 sundry writers, Macpherson in particular, had fore- 
 shadowed. Through the above-mentioned Abbe 
 Gaul tier, who was formerly attached to Marshal 
 Tallard's embassy after the peace of Ryswick, 
 Oxford carried on a secret correspondence with 
 De Torcy, who in turn communicated some of these 
 confidences to the Pretender. 
 
 It is the manner in which the Treaty of Utrecht 
 was thus brought about, England and France acting 
 secretly together (contrary to England's engagement 
 with her allies), which has led to a general condem- 
 nation of the measures taken by Oxford and his col- 
 leagues, rendering that European settlement — what- 
 ever its general character — a by-word, recalling 
 international intrigues of the meanest description. 
 In the course of these dubious transactions, Oxford 
 seems to have thrown out hints to Gaultier that he 
 had sentiments in favour of the Pretender, but the 
 only direct piece of evidence is in the Premier's own 
 handwriting, when, in answer to a letter of Torcy 's, 
 he committed himself so far as to say, — 
 
 " Je parlerai a M. I'Abbe avant son depart au sujet de M. 
 Chevalier." 
 
 This Torcy thought so much of that he sent it 
 
THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 133 
 
 gleefully to the Pretender, boasting that at last 
 Oxford had committed himself on paper, showing 
 that the previous communications must have been 
 somewhat impalpable. According to Sir James 
 Mackintosh's researches, these vague expressions of 
 sympathy had been allowed to filter through G-aultier 
 and Torcy, as evidencing not only Oxford's senti- 
 ments, but also those of his royal mistress. Queen 
 Anne. The wily Minister, however, never permitted 
 his sovereign to answer her brother's letters. 
 
 The reader can form his own ideas as to Oxford's 
 implication in the Jacobite plots, when Queen Anne's 
 first Minister, by turning to the ' Edinburgh Review ' 
 for October 1835, pp. 11-19, as therein is described 
 the substance of Sir James Mackintosh's research. 
 Beyond the reiteration of an exploded avowal of the 
 spy Azzurini, to the effect that Bolingbroke saw the 
 Pretender during his sojourn in Paris, when per- 
 fecting the treaty in 1712, nothing concerning that 
 Minister's alleged complicity in Jacobite counsels is 
 suggested until after peace had been made. True it 
 is that Sir James Mackintosh, in one of his note- 
 books, has an unauthorised statement that " the first 
 introduction of Bolingbroke into the secret negotia- 
 tion was during the illness of Harley after he had 
 been stabbed by Gruiscard ;" * but this surely refers 
 to the impending treaty for peace, not, as has been 
 inferred, to criminal intriguing against the Protestant 
 ' ' Edinburgh Review,' Oct. 1835, pp. 19, 20. 
 
134 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 succession. Therefore it is that the charges against 
 Bolingbroke are relegated to a separate chapter 
 dealing with the two last years of Queen Anne's 
 reign. 
 
 The Hanover,Papers include an interesting series 
 of letters which passed between the Electress Sophia 
 and Lord Strafford,* one of the plenipotentiaries sent 
 
 * Lord Btrafibrd was a strong Tory, and as such, finding Botbmar and 
 Schutz, the Elector's agents, taking a line purely Whiggish, reprobated a 
 one-sided alien interference in British politics. His letters are rambling, 
 but not the leas full of good sense. The Electress, on the other hand, is 
 both clear and concise in her statements, doubtful as to the future, and 
 adverse to what she thought a premature peace. Thus her opinion was 
 expressed in the following terms when first the negotiations commenced 
 at Utrecht: — 
 
 11 me semhle que I'Empereur y est asses cavalUerement traite. Autre 
 fois ce n'etoit pas par le hon plaiser du Boi de France qyHon reconnoissoit 
 I'Empereur dans V Empire, mats tout change dans le monde. Le dessein 
 de la Beine etoit d'ahbaisser le Boi de France, comme sa Majeste engagea 
 tant de Princes a luisfaire la guerre, et voila la France plus puissante 
 que jamais. 
 
 Towards the close of the negotiations, on 13 Jan., 1713, Lord Strafford 
 wrote to the Electress : " The minister of the four circles of the Empire 
 has been with us, and has given us a memorial for the Queen complaining 
 how ill they should be left without Strasburg. They were answered that 
 their not having that town was to be attributed only to the fault of the 
 Princes of the Empire, who none of them found their contingents but 
 hired their troops to serve in Flanders, and when a proposition was made 
 for a general cessation, which the allies being united might have obtained 
 that place, they opposed it, and for the sake of Prince Eugene would follow 
 chimerical projects of new battles and sieges." 
 
 As for the state of public opinion in England after the peace was con- 
 cluded. Lord Strafford writes to the Electress from the Hague on 24 July, 
 1713 : " Bless God I am bom an Englishman, in spite of all our feuds and 
 divisions, which as long as it does not come to a civil war is only a 
 preservative of our libertys. I believe it is pretty plain now we peace- 
 makers shant be hanged at our return as we were threatened. For daily 
 our countrymen grow more and more pleased with the peace. And how 
 have we been made the dupes of others to pay their war." 
 
THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 135 
 
 by England to the Congress at Utrecht ; and although 
 we now are aware that the English representatives 
 were merely acting, arguing, that is, over matters 
 settled privately between France and themselves, 
 yet the matter contained in these above-named 
 documents is not to be disregarded. 
 
 The value of Strasburg for purposes of offence was 
 speedily demonstrated, for in the succeeding^ duel 
 between Eugene and Villars after Denain in July, 
 1712, the latter general passed the Rhine and raided 
 through the Black Forest to Freiburg, using the Al- 
 satian fortress as his base of operations. "We read of 
 Germany suffering at this time from lack of that 
 unity which the efforts of Stein and Bismarck gained 
 for her in later years. And indeed Lord Strafford 
 had gauged the strength of semi-exhausted France 
 and Austria better than most of his contemporaries, 
 for he told the Electress that the Emperor would very 
 likely suffer defeat and be in danger of an Hungarian 
 revolt. This prediction was realised when Italy 
 became hostile to the Imperialists, who, conscious 
 of their danger, made peace at Rastadt on March 6, 
 1714.* 
 
 Lord Strafford's letters are enlivened by pictures 
 of incidents which occurred in the quaint town of 
 Utrecht during the congress, and he tells us of 
 
 * A summary by the author compiled from the ' Hanover Papers,' which 
 deals with the peace of Utrecht, appears in the ' English Historical Review,' 
 vol. i. p. 765. According to Alison's 'Marlborough,' vol. ii. p. 233, 
 Austria succumbed on this occasion because her resources failed her. 
 
136 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 the pleureuses, or weepers, worn by tlie Frencb, 
 who appeared in mourning for the Dauphin and 
 Dauphiness of France, and their child, cut off by a 
 mysterious disease, which raged in Europe. Truly 
 the position of Louis the Fourteenth was lamentable 
 alike socially and politically. 
 
 In his childless old age he was destined to see 
 his dearly bought conquests shrink, and his country 
 reel under poverty's fell grasp, while not even the 
 mercy shown him by the Peace of Utrecht could 
 refill the public coffers or render the suffering people 
 content. Lastly, and to his credit he felt the 
 vexation sorely, Louis was constrained to abandon 
 James the Second's unfortunate sou, who was hence- 
 forth destined to become a desperate vagrant, forced 
 by the very necessities of his birth and present 
 condition to scheme on to the end. 
 
 The territorial changes made by the Treaty of 
 Utrecht powerfully affected the European system, 
 and created a condition of things which, in spite 
 of several wars, was not seriously altered until the 
 revolutionary struggle occurred, which closed the 
 18th century. 
 
 Disparage it as you will, the Treaty of Utrecht 
 contained a guarantee for the Protestant succession 
 in England, and so claims something more than 
 passing mention here. As viewed by contemporary 
 observers, and as commented on by historians who 
 dwelt comparatively near to the events of 1710-13, 
 
THE PEACE OF UTEECHT. 137 
 
 the action of the Oxford Ministry has been judged 
 so completely from the standpoints of Whig and 
 Tory, that, despite Macaulay's essay, the above- 
 mentioned hard fact has not been duly recognised. 
 
 Those who have even followed the sparse outline of 
 the preceding pages will know that the statesman- 
 ship in vogue in Queen Anne's time was, for the 
 most part, of a crooked order. We have cited noble 
 exceptions, of which Somers is the leading example ; 
 but the fact remains, and when we know that Harley 
 and St. John gained their power by intrigue, it is 
 scarcely to be wondered that they strove to hold 
 it by the same unworthy tactics. 
 
 But what we most desire to impress on our readers 
 is this: if peace was attainable at all in 1710 and 
 1711, the only certain means to hand were those 
 adopted by the Tory Grovernment, who, having 
 supplanted the Marlborough family in the Queen's 
 graces, were then called on to cut the ground finally 
 from under the feet of those brilliant favourites, 
 supported as they were to the last by all the 
 influence and ability of the Whig junto, com- 
 prising Somers, Oowper, Halifax, Sunderland, and 
 Walpole. 
 
 Nor should it be forgotten that any peace with 
 France which contained an acknowledgment of the 
 Protestant succession in England — and none other 
 was possible — had necessarily to be negotiated for 
 with those who were conducting one of the greatest 
 
138 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 wars Europe had ever seen, in order to replace 
 James the Second's son on the English throne. 
 The problem seemed insoluble, and that it ever 
 received a passing solution is, we fear, due to 
 the fact that methods were used such as men of 
 the late Lord Stanhope's type have generally de- 
 precated. 
 
 So far as British interests were concerned, they 
 were not uncared for by the high contracting parties 
 who represented us on this occasion ; and although 
 even in this particular there was much to deplore, 
 the diplomatic instrument which gained Gribraltar, 
 and for the moment thrust back France on the 
 American frontier of Canada, is not one which, read 
 by the light of later events, Englishmen should 
 entirely condemn. 
 
 Lord Bolingbroke, when as Mr. St. John he 
 came into office in 1710, had striven to seize on 
 Quebec by means of a joint naval and military 
 expedition sent out on the suggestion of Colonel 
 Nicholson, who received his inspiration from some 
 Indian chiefs hostile to the French. 
 
 Escorted by twelve men-of-war, this fleet consisted 
 of six store ships and a number of transports, which 
 arrived at Boston on June 4, 1711, but found the 
 authorities unprepared to furnish the necessary pro- 
 visions, so that the troops had to be landed, and 
 encamped for a time. This delay probably ruined 
 the venture, for Admiral Sir Hovenden Walker had 
 
THE PEACE OP UTRECHT. 139 
 
 his fleet dispersed in a violent north-east gale, and 
 getting amongst the northern rocks and shoals, lost 
 eight transports with 900 soldiers and seamen on 
 board, whereupon he desisted from the attempt to 
 reach Quebec ; * so that the Government might 
 regard themselves as favoured by fortune when at 
 Utrecht they secured fishing rights and the sove- 
 reignty generally of Hudson's Bay, Nova Scotia, 
 and Newfoundland.^ 
 
 The chief articles of this famous treaty were the 
 acknowledgment of the Queen's title and the Protes- 
 tant succession by France ; the removal of the 
 Pretender from the French dominions; the renun- 
 ciation of the crown of Spain by the Dukes of Berri 
 and Orleans, the contingent succession of that crown 
 being secured to the Duke of Savoy ; the above- 
 mentioned cessions in Canada, which, besides Hud- 
 son's Bay and Newfoundland, included Nova Scotia. 
 The possession of Gibraltar and Minorca secured to 
 England ; the demolition of Dunkirk guaranteed ; 
 barriers respectively retained for the States, the 
 Emperor, and the Duke of Savoy, on the sides of 
 Flanders, the Rhine and the Alps. The restoration 
 of Lille, Aire, Bethune, and St. Venant to France, 
 the articles concerning these hardly-won fortresses 
 causing grave discontent ; tlie cession of Sicily to 
 the Duke of Savoy, and the proffered cession of 
 Naples, Milan, Sardinia, and the Spanish Nether- 
 
 * Wynne's ' British Empire in America,' 1770, vol. 1. p. 144. 
 t Harrop's ' Bolingbroke,' p. 148. 
 
140 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 lands to the Empire, most of which territory after- 
 wards accrued to the house of Hapsburg.* 
 
 It is, however, not with the influence of these terri- 
 torial changes on Europe that we are here concerned 
 so much as with the circumstances that preceded 
 the signature of a treaty said to have been designed 
 in direct antagonism to the Brunswick expectations 
 of succeeding to the English throne, but which issued 
 in such a shape as to become the very sheet-anchor 
 of their dynastic hopes, and a security for the per- 
 petuity of their realisation. 
 
 It should, however, be added that the commercial 
 clauses of the treaty, which were designed by Mr, 
 Arthur Moore — a man beginning life as a footman, 
 who had gradually raised himself by industry — were 
 rejected ignominiously by Parliament, although they 
 contained, according to the opinion of the best 
 judges, the seeds of a fiscal system such as the 
 younger Pitt favoured, and which in after times of 
 European tranquillity was formulated by Adam 
 Smith, and blossomed into life under Peel, Oobden, 
 and Gladstone. 
 
 Mr. Moore was exercising a strong influence over 
 Bolingbroke at the time of the Peace of Utrecht, and 
 lived to hold a kindred power over Sir Robert 
 Walpole. This remarkable man, Mr. Arthur Moore, 
 had thought out the principles upon which the wealth 
 of a people depends, and it is to Bolingbroke's credit 
 
 * We owe this succinct synopsis to the continuation of Sir James Mack- 
 intosh's ' fiistory,' p. 285. 
 
THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 141 
 
 that he too saw the benefit of extended commerce 
 between the nations.* 
 
 Regarded, then, from the point of view of an ad- 
 herent of the Brunswick family, the Peace of Utrecht 
 was not the inimical treaty that has been believed. 
 Yet the fact that better terms might have been 
 obtained at Grertruydenberg in the spring of 1710 
 has led men of thought and honour to condemn the 
 settlement of 1713 ;f while so overjoyed was Louis 
 the Fourteenth at the signing of this peace, that, 
 through Lord Bolingbroke, he sent Queen Anne six 
 splendid dresses, and two thousand five hundred 
 bottles of champagne. J 
 
 It should not be forgotten that in after years 
 Bolingbroke himself admitted in his letter to Sir 
 William Wyndham, that France was treated too 
 leniently on this occasion. On the other hand, a 
 nation of little more than five millions, whose popu- 
 lation was believed to have decreased in the last ten 
 years, stood saddled with a debt of fifty-four millions, 
 more than thirty-seven millions of which had been 
 added during Anne's reign, and which bid fair to 
 become larger still if an end had not been put to 
 this system of perpetual warfare. § Again, to believe 
 that France, with her native wealth and resources, 
 
 * For adequate recognition of Mr Artliur Moore's talents see Harrop's 
 ' Bolingbrol^e,' p. 149. 
 t The late Lord Stanhope is persistently hostile to the Peace of 
 
 Utrecht. 
 
 t Alison's ' Marlborough,' quoting Capefigue, vol. ii. p. 219. 
 § Alison's ' History of Europe,' vol. iv. p. 538, Revenue Tables. 
 
142 THE BBUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 would have long submitted to a shameful peace, 
 whereby territory and money were ruthlessly 
 wrenched from her at the gates of Versailles, is to 
 ignore all the teachings of history past and present. 
 Sir Robert "W^alpole could not have nurtured 
 England's resources unless he had taken the Peace 
 of Utrecht as the corner-stone of his policy. 
 
 We may cite the Duke of Marlborough as being 
 conscious of the desirability that a peace should be 
 speedily made, although he doubtless hoped so to 
 crush Marshal Yillars as to find his way straightway 
 to Paris, He writes to Bolingbroke from the siege 
 of Bouchain on August 20, 1711, as follows : — 
 
 \ " The siege so far as it depends on me shall be pushed on 
 with every vigour, and I do not altogether despair but that, 
 from the success of this campaign, we may hear of some 
 advances made towards that which we so much desire. And I 
 shall esteem it much the happiest part of my life if I can be 
 instrumental in putting a good end to the war, which grows so 
 burdensome to our country, as well as to our allies." * 
 
 The Pretender, on the other hand, regarded the 
 approaching signature of this peace with something 
 akin to despair, dreading the possibility of being 
 driven into some Swiss or Papal refuge wbich he 
 could not leave without passports, and he foresaw 
 that his political effacement would thereby be accom- 
 plished.! Yainly did he strive to provide guarantees 
 against such eventualities, and although the Jesuit 
 Plunket flitted in and about Utrecht during the 
 
 * Coxe's ' Marlborough,' vol. vi. p. 92, 
 
 t Macplierson's ' Original Papers,' vol. ii. p. 294. 
 
THE PEACE OF UTEECHT. 143 
 
 diplomatic gatherings which took place at the Bishop 
 of Bristol's house, yet the chief features of the treaty 
 remained fixed which banished the son of James the 
 Second from France. 
 
 Pending the outcome of these deliberations, both 
 James Edward and his sister were seized with the 
 attack of small-pox, which has been previously men- 
 tioned as having carried the good princess from the 
 reach of all the troubles environing her and hers. 
 
 On recovery from his illness, the Pretender, under 
 the safe conduct of the Emperor, obtained a refuge 
 in Bar-le-Duc, in the Duke of Lorraine's dominions, 
 that sovereign resolutely refusing to eject his guest 
 when the demand for such action became pressing 
 on the part of England. 
 
 There has been no attempt made here to give an 
 exhaustive account either of the way in which this 
 famous European settlement came into being, or of 
 the scope and design which characterised its clauses, 
 but we have striven simply to show what influence the 
 Treaty of Utrecht exercised on the Succession question 
 in England. And from this aspect the family of 
 Brunswick-Luneburg has every reason to rejoice at 
 the conclusion of peace in 1713. But a potent foe 
 has lately urged with all the prestige that possession 
 of the historic faculty can confer, that the seeds of 
 evil were left rooted in the soil of Spain, when by 
 virtue of the Peace of Utrecht a Bourbon sovereign 
 stood triumphant, if harmless for immediate purposes 
 of aggression at Madrid. 
 
144 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 From the omission to force Philip from the throne 
 of Spain, he traces the mysterious family compact of 
 1733, which, carried to its logical conclusion, and 
 faithfully adhered to for at least a century, threatened 
 the peace of Europe constantly, and broke it more 
 than once* And in so far as five years alone sufficed 
 to prove what hidden power lurked in that inert mass 
 which made up the ancient Spanish kingdom, this 
 part of the case, at least, is proven against those who 
 disregarded Spain as played out when they left a 
 Bourbon on her throne. But, on the other hand, 
 Alberoni himself could not have persuaded the 
 Spanish people to let him weld together their re- 
 sources on behalf of a cause in which their sym- 
 pathies were not enlisted. 
 
 No writer has ever more eloquently described the 
 righteous enthusiasm begotten of the great principle 
 of nationalities as applied to occasions when whole 
 races of men have elected to leave their homes and 
 die for the sake of the race from which they sprung, 
 than Professor Seeley. No historian has more 
 clearly perceived that the stirring up of such senti- 
 ment in 1808-9 proved a beacon light whereby the 
 deliverers of Europe from Napoleon saw their way 
 to effect a necessary salvation for their suffering 
 people ; but if, on the other hand, he considers that 
 the statesmen who concluded peace at Utrecht in 
 1713 ought to have withheld their pens from the 
 
 * ' The House of Bourbon,' by Professor J. E. Seeley, ' English Historical 
 Eeview,' vol. i. p. 86. 
 
THE PEACE OF UTRECHT. 145 
 
 parchment until Spain was subjugated and lay 
 bleeding at the feet of Charles, then we say that this 
 nineteenth-century teacher has deserted his flag, and 
 denied to the peasants of Castile and Leon that 
 which he granted willingly to their descendants, 
 namely, the right to choose their own rulers. 
 
 It has been shown, however, which is enough for 
 the limits of this work, that there was neither let nor 
 hindrance to the Brunswick succession in a single 
 line of the Utrecht treaty. Let us then turn towards 
 England at this moment, and endeavour to discover 
 the views of Queen Anne. 
 
146 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 CHAPTER Ylir. 
 
 QUEEN ANNE AND HEE EXILED BROTHER. 
 
 In dealiDg Tvith early eighteenth-century politics 
 in England, some speculation is inevitable regarding 
 the last Stuart Queen's desire to see her brother 
 named in the succession, rather than that branch of 
 her house settled in Germany whose representatives 
 claimed descent from James the First's daughter 
 Elizabeth. In the present summary it is proposed 
 to place speculative theory in the background, and 
 adduce several facts for the reader's information, and 
 so arm him to arrive at his own conclusion. 
 
 It is well known that the Princess Anne was 
 originally one of those who doubted whether Mary 
 of Modena was really the mother, or James the Second 
 the father, of the Chevalier de St. George ; and if 
 there is one argument stronger than another which 
 has helped to dissipate that strange error, we find it 
 in the fact that when her sister and children were 
 dead, Queen Anne turned instinctively towards the 
 nearest blood-relation she possessed. 
 
 After the death of her husband in 1708, this senti- 
 
QUEEN ANNE AND HER EXILED BROTHER. 147 
 
 ment became necessarily more keen, and it is to the 
 Queen's credit that she kept her natural feelings in 
 strict subordination to considerations of public duty 
 both in sustaining the Church of England, and 
 in acting according to parhamentary authority. 
 Nearly all the indications of this brotherly affec- 
 tion which have filtered out bear reference to the 
 period when, in her widowhood, James the Second's 
 daughter was left almost desolate. Under these 
 circumstances it was natural that the Queen should 
 from time to time have held converse with distant 
 cadets of her own family, such as Sheffield, Duke of 
 Buckingham, who had married James the Second's 
 natural daughter, Catherine Darnley, while she fre- 
 quently gave her confidence to those who had known 
 or served her father. 
 
 There is a passage in the ' Lockhart Papers,' vol. i. 
 p. 317, which has been much commented on, and it 
 certainly proves that the Duke of Hamilton — an 
 acknowledged advocate of the Jacobite succession — - 
 was also on terms of intimacy with Queen Anne, who 
 took counsel with him regarding this thorny subject. 
 
 After Dr. Sacheverell's .trial, and just before 
 Godolphin's Grovernment fell, Mr. Lockhart had 
 obtained an address from the barons and freeholders 
 of Edinburgh, calling on Parliament to allow the 
 sovereign free choice of her own servants. The 
 Whig Ministry had endeavoured to get the Queen's 
 favourite, Mrs. Masham, dismissed, in order that the 
 Duchess of Marlborough might resume her former 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 influence at Court. Highly resenting this inter- 
 ference with her private affairs, the Queen had 
 declared how strongly she desired to be secured 
 against such attempts in future. Therefore it was 
 that when Mr. Lockhart — Jacobite though he was 
 well known to be — appeared with his scroll at Court, 
 the Duke of Hamilton being present, he received a 
 gracious answer to the address inscribed thereon, and 
 was told in so many words by the Queen that 
 although he had almost always opposed her measures, 
 she did not doubt of his affection to her person, and 
 hoped he would not concur in the design against 
 Mrs. Masham, or for bringing over the Prince of 
 Hanover. Of course the latter allusion was to the 
 proposal that the Electoral Prince should reside in 
 England, which had been brought forward by the 
 Tory Lord Haversham, and cannot be interpreted 
 as implying any general enmity on the Queen's 
 part to the Brunswick Succession. Lockhart, how- 
 ever, endeavouring to improve the occasion, averred 
 that, as regards Hanover, Her Majesty might judge 
 from the address he presented, that " the bringing 
 over any of that family, either now or any time 
 hereafter," would not be acceptable to the Scotch 
 constituency which the bearer represented. 
 
 Of course Lockhart's shaft was directed against the 
 Brunswick-Luneburg claims in particular, and it 
 certainly is a portentous circumstance, if true, that 
 the Queen, after smiling on Lockhart, should have 
 said to the Duke of Hamilton, she believed the Jaco- 
 
QUEEN ANNE AND HER EXILED BROTHER. 149 
 
 bite member to be an honest man and a fair dealer, 
 and that the Duke replied, " he could assure her 
 Lockhart liked her Majesty and all her father s 
 bairns." 
 
 But as this story rests on the ipse dixit of his 
 Grace, the moment has arrived for testing this evi- 
 dence by the light afforded in such of the Hamilton 
 papers as have been disclosed to the public. 
 
 Now, a letter was written by the Duke of Hamilton, 
 in January, 1712, to Lord Middleton, James Edward's 
 political adviser, which certainly does show the state 
 of the Queen's mind at that period. After aver- 
 ring that she considered the crown as a trust for 
 which she was accountable, and acknowledging that 
 the Prince's misfortunes had affected her deeply, she 
 nevertheless lamented that they had been brought 
 upon him " by imbibing tenets repugnant to her 
 people." 
 
 So far the Queen ; but the Duke, whose death was 
 so heavy a blow to the Jacobites, concludes as 
 follows : — 
 
 " The country will never receive a King from France, nor 
 will the English suffer themselves to be governed by a Eoman 
 Catholic. I would rejoice to see the Prince one day restored, 
 but I declare against having any concern in civil wars. To be 
 plain, you should lose no time in taking him away from France, 
 and not wait until you be compelled by a public or private 
 article in the treaty (that of Utrecht then pending). 
 
 " Go with him to a Protestant country, and marry him, as 
 soon as possible, to a Protestant. 
 
 " I wish you were safe in Sweden." * 
 
 * Hamilton's ' Transactions,' p. 245. 
 
150 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 These words seem to take the sting out of a 
 generally credited assertion which attributes sinister 
 intentions to the Duke of" Hamilton when in 1712, 
 just before his death in a duel in Hyde Park with 
 Lord Mohun, he was chosen to be Queen Anne's 
 Ambassador at Paris. He would clearly have 
 sanctioned no attack on the Protestant Succession. 
 He was stabbed (accidentally, as the Whigs con- 
 tended) by General Macartney, Lord Mohun's second, 
 and his secret instructions have never been revealed. 
 Now the source from which the above-cited 
 extract is derived is not likely to enable us to arrive 
 at the exact truth without due consideration of the 
 circumstances under which the author of Hamil- 
 ton's ' Transactions ' gained his information, and due 
 allowance for the fact that he wrote as a bitter tra- 
 ducer of the great Duke of Marlborough. Party 
 writing is at all times to be scanned with caution, 
 and the late Dr. Hill Burton has perceived the 
 consequent untrustworthiness of this work as an his- 
 torical guide. But, on the other hand, not only was 
 the compiler of the ' Transactions ' connected with 
 the Hamiltons, but he certainly had obtained access 
 to some of their family archives. Moreover, the 
 above-quoted sentences bear the impress of genuine- 
 ness, and therefore seem available for historical 
 purposes. If then, as seems probable, Queen Anne 
 held these decided views as to the impossibility of 
 her brother succeeding unless he became a Protestant, 
 all her expressions of sisterly sympathy with that 
 
QUEEN ANNE AND HER EXILED BEOTHBB. 151 
 
 unfortunate Prince must be read in the light of such 
 sentiments with regard to the Succession. On the 
 other hand, the doubts and anxieties of Eobethon, 
 Bothmar, Schutz, and the other Hanoverian agents, 
 are to some degree justified, although it is still open 
 to question whether they used the wisest means to 
 guard against the dangers of the situation. 
 
 A more implicatory document has been brought 
 prominently forward, on Miss Strickland's authority, 
 and is said to have been found by that authoress in 
 the collection of State papers in Paris, and the 
 reference given is " 2 — Collections. Bib. du Roi ; ' 
 the researches in question having been made during 
 the Orleanist rSgime. 
 
 The extract in question from an assumed letter to 
 Louis the Fourteenth from Queen Anne, must have 
 been written after the Peace of Utrecht had been 
 signed. It runs as follows : — 
 
 " I have done all that is possible in the present juncture in 
 favour of a Prince whose interests are sustained by your 
 generosity. 
 
 " I doubt not that he will be fully convinced of this himself, 
 and that all the world will agree in the same. 
 
 " I repeat yet, Monsieur my brother, that the consideration of 
 your friendship will be a motive very effective to engage me 
 for the future in his interests, and in those of his family." 
 
 Now this communication, read by the light of our 
 previous knowledge, comes to this. The Queen had 
 privately expressed her views regarding her brother, 
 and signified her own possible acquiescence in his 
 taking the headship of the family, provided that 
 
152 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 religious scruples did not hinder him from acquiescing 
 in the conditions preliminary to any possible change 
 in the Succession. Whether Queen Anne wished it or 
 not, the Blectress Sophia remained the legal heir so 
 long as James Edward preserved his unbending 
 attitude of devotion to the Roman Church. Hence 
 the conclusion of the Queen's letter does not really 
 bear the significance which at first seems to be attached 
 to it. The peace between France and England was 
 regarded as being precious to both countries, while 
 the real interests of James Edward's family were 
 certainly not bound up in pressing on a civil war 
 in England. Indeed the events of 1715 and 1745 
 prove such an interpretation of the Queen's desires 
 for her kinsman to be founded on the truth. 
 
 The extract from M. de Torcy's memoirs, founded 
 on the then Lord Jersey's assurances, may be 
 similarly disposed of : — 
 
 " Scavez voTis bien que Madame Protliose (la Eeine Anne) a 
 des sentiments fort tendres pour M. de MontgouUn (le Eoi 
 d'Angleterre)," * 
 
 while at the same time it shows reason for the 
 impression which the Chevalier retained to the last, 
 that his sister desired to restore him, the truth being 
 distorted by flatterers, and hidden by interested 
 adherents ; and indeed the words, " if the Princess 
 dies I am lost,"! concur with the spirit that did 
 James Edward so much harm, when, after George 
 
 * ' Edinburgh Eeview ' on Cooke's ' Bolingbroke,' Oct. 1835. 
 t Coxe's MSS. in Britisli Museum, vol. 51, folio 1. 
 
QUEEN ANNE AND HEE EXILED BROTHER. 153 
 
 the First came to the British throne, he issued 
 a declaration mentioning the good intentions of his 
 sister towards him.* With this explanation our 
 readers will not, however, interpret Queen Anne's 
 views as regards the Succession incorrectly ; and the 
 further statements of the Queen made to Sheffield, 
 Duke of Buckingham^ to Archbishop Dawes and 
 others, will appear in their true aspect as soon as 
 the subject is fully discussed. In the Stuart papers, 
 now in the Royal library at Windsor, the following 
 opening sentence occurs in a letter of the Duke of 
 Berwick to his half-brother, the Pretender : — 
 
 " St. Gennains, April 20, 1714. 
 " M. Orbec (Ormond) has at last spoken plain to Mr. Albert 
 (Anne), and tliey are both agreed to bestir themselves in behalf 
 of M. Eauoourt (James)." f 
 
 This announcement means very little, for Ormond's 
 wish was doubtless father to the thought, and ever 
 sanguine in interpreting the signs of his times, his 
 career was fruitful in failures begotten of schemes 
 ill-digested and not carried to a conclusion. That 
 the Queen's personal sympathies were at St. Grermain 
 rather than at Herrenhausen no one can doubt, but 
 having an inkling of this fact the Jacobites mag- 
 nified every hopeful circumstance, and interpreted 
 goodwill and civility into partisanship, which fore- 
 boded arbitrary interference with the law. That 
 
 * SmoUet's ' History of England,' vol. ii., p. 278. 
 t Lord Stanhope's ' History of England from the Peace of Utrecht,' 
 vol. i., Appendix, p. 8. 
 
154 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Queen Anne ever gave Ormond the assurance men- 
 tioned in April, 1714, is contrary to a mass of 
 evidence whicli demonstrates that then she had 
 surrendered all hope of seeing her brother placed 
 in the position his birth entitled him to but for 
 his father's conduct in bringing his son up a 
 Catholic, and riding roughshod over English 
 liberties. Doubtless the sacrifice was considerable 
 which Anne was forced to make, for she knew but 
 little of her cousins of Brunswick-Lurieburg, nor 
 had affection for her father's memory ever been 
 absent from her thoughts. It is said that he penned 
 an affecting letter to the Princess Anne just before 
 his death, while Mary of Modena had written to her 
 another document of like character, conveying his 
 last blessing and forgiveness, praying that God 
 might convert her heart and confirm her in the 
 resolution to repair to his son the wrongs done to 
 himself.* Truly the Queen was left in a painful 
 situation, and might be forgiven if she did lend an 
 ear to the voices of those friends to her dynasty and 
 family who, nevertheless^ failed to see the immen- 
 sity of that principle at stake when a choice had to 
 be made between a representative of Rome or one 
 from the land of Luther. Queen Anne gauged this, 
 despite the doubting heart which beat in a sister's 
 breastj and generations yet unborn will bless her 
 memory for so deciding. 
 
 * See Prof. A. W. Ward's article on Anne, ' Dictionary of National 
 Biography,' vol. i. p. 451. 
 
QUEEN ANNE AND HEE EXILED BROTHER. 155 
 
 Convincing evidence will be given, we believe, 
 that towards the close of Lord Oxford's rule the 
 Queen stood as staunch to the Brunswick Succession 
 as anybody in the land. It is fortunately open to 
 loyal Englishmen to indulge natural sympathy for 
 the interesting Stuart family in the hard lot which 
 awaited them at this period, and this because the 
 last of their line, Henry, Cardinal of York, made 
 the clearest avowal within his power, that upon the 
 family of Bruuswick-Luneburg, and on no other, had 
 the mantle of the ancient line of Stuart fallen. It 
 is written in quarters where no negative reply 
 can, from the nature of the case, receive a hearing, 
 that the sins of the fathers are visited on the 
 children, but if ever human pity deservedly welled 
 up and endowed misfortune with a romance such as 
 time will never dim, it has been in the case of James 
 Edward Stuart. 
 
 Having discussed his half-sister's natural pre- 
 ference for him, let us turn for an instant to the 
 letters which he is known to have written to the 
 English Queen. They are the work of a clear writer, 
 endowed with a natural style ; and the feelings grace- 
 fully expressed therein appeal to all who peruse 
 them with native eloquence, to which the enforced 
 silence of his sister stands in remarkable contrast. 
 For instance, on March 28, 1712, shortly before 
 the Duke of Hamilton was to start as Ambas- 
 sador to Paris, the Chevalier wrote in his own hand 
 as follows : — 
 
156 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 " In tlie present situation of affairs, it is impossible for me, 
 dear sister, to be any longer silent, and not to put you in mind 
 of the honour and preservation of your family ; and to assure 
 you, at the same time, of my eternal acknowledgment and grati- 
 tude, if you use your most efficacious endeavours towards both. 
 Give me leave to say that your own good nature makes me 
 already promise it to toyself, and with that persuasion, I shall 
 always be ready to agree to whatever you shall think most con- 
 venient for my interest, which, after all, is inseparable from 
 yours ; being fully resolved to make use of no other means but 
 those you judge most conclusive to our mutual happiness, and 
 to the general welfare of our country. 
 
 " Tour most entirely affectionate brother." * 
 
 In another more extended and less telling com- 
 munication, the Chevalier pleads his right for prior 
 consideration to the distant cousins at Hanover, of 
 whom, nevertheless, he speaks as kinsmen, and in 
 kindly terms. It requires no vivid imagination to 
 conceive the heart-searchings which necessarily as- 
 sailed the English Queen when these letters were 
 placed before her, the wily Oxford being doubtless 
 in full cognisance of their existence, and resolved to 
 prevent his mistress sending any letter of message to 
 her brother. 
 
 The desolation which accompanies a childless 
 middle life necessarily becomes more pronounced 
 when the memory of happier hours is ever present 
 to the mind. Anne, when Princess of Denmark, 
 lived in Wandsworth with her husband during 
 James the Second's reign, and in 1684 lost her first 
 child, five others, including the Duke of Gloucester, 
 
 * Maopherson's ' Original Papers,' vol. ii. p. 295. 
 
QUEEN ANNE AND HER EXILED BROTHER. 157 
 
 following them to the grave ; since which bereave- 
 ments she had seen her dethroned father committed 
 to a foreign grave ; while, to crown all, her husband 
 had been taken from her by death.* 
 
 Her sister Mary also lay by her great husband 
 in Westminster Abbey. Under these circumstances 
 the yearnings of her heart for family affection could 
 alone be satisfied by turning to its male repre- 
 sentative. This yearning' could be freely indulged 
 if she could induce him to forsake a religion she 
 deemed that no English monarch could profess 
 without peril to good government and to national 
 welfare. 
 
 Between James Edward and the Succession there 
 was an impenetrable gulf fixed, yet Queen Anne did 
 not, until towards the close of her life, gauge the 
 situation in all its intensity. The Chevalier had 
 been taught to believe " that the Tory party in 
 England wanted him as much as he wanted them." -j" 
 
 It was not so in fact, and any dispassionate student 
 of the life at St. Grermain — which, so far as Mary of 
 Modena and the female part of her family was con- 
 cerned, alternated with retreats to the convent of 
 Chaillot — must come to the conclusion that it was 
 well for England, and probably for the Stuarts them- 
 selves, that the experiment of a Restoration never 
 was tried. Sooner or later, in Lord Bolingbroke's 
 
 * Queen Anne's hostility to the Godolphin regime, and to Lord Somers 
 in particular, was partly owing to the desire evinced by the latter to drive 
 Prince George of Denmark from the Admiralty. 
 
 t Bolingbroke's ' Letter to Sir William Wyndham,' p. 276. 
 
158 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 opinion, " the Court of St. James would be consti- 
 tuted, if ever he (the Pretender) was restored, in the 
 same manner as that of St. Grermain."* 
 
 Therefore it seems to have been happily decided 
 by Providence that the surviving brother and sister 
 of the ancient Stuart line never met in Queen Anne's 
 last years, or her family tenacity, strengthened by 
 the personal charm of the brother she pitied so 
 deeply, might have led to the temporary setting 
 aside of principles on which England'»s greatness 
 depended and still depends. 
 
 Queen Anne will be now remembered in history 
 as having foregone the claims of race, preferring 
 those of religion and constitutional law such as 
 Englishmen had deliberately resolved should obtain 
 in this little island. 
 
 From the miscellaneous and undated papers at the 
 Record Office, the two following documents, which 
 we found, have been selected as likely to be unfa- 
 miliar, and to make an interesting conclusion to the 
 chapter devoted to Queen Anne. 
 
 The first gives us a vivid picture of Her Majesty's 
 journey to the Bath — to use a stock phrase of the 
 time — for cure of her oft-recurring ailment, the 
 gout. 
 
 Her Majesty drove to Reading amidst an escort of 
 Horse Guards and G-renadiers. Half-a-mile from the 
 town troops resident in the place received her, and 
 accompanied the Royal cortege to Newbury, where 
 
 * Bolingbroke's ' Letter to Sir William Wyndham,' p. 176. 
 
QUEEN ANNE AND HER JIXILED BEOTHER. 159 
 
 the local regiment succeeded ; the same change of 
 escort being observed at Hungerford and Marl- 
 borough ; while at Sandy Lane, a detachment from 
 Devizes undertook to guard the Queen until she 
 reached her destination.* The people on the route 
 were assembled to welcome their Queen with, true 
 British loyalty. Eather a contrast, this, to a 
 Royal journey in our own times, when the smoke 
 and hurry of a railway journey are substituted 
 for the drive through scattered market-towns and 
 pleasant country lanes. 
 
 Secondly, we transcribed the following draft, in 
 Queen Anne's own hand, of a speech, which is 
 clearly intended to supply arguments in favour of 
 Lord Oxford's Ministry when they brought about 
 the Peace of Utrecht, and may be considered to 
 present the real sentiments of its Royal author. 
 
 " The best way of preserving the religious and civil rights 
 and of serving the Protestant Succession, as well as the best 
 proof which they can give of their real concern for it, is to pro- 
 ceed with unanimity and temper in supplying the necessary 
 occasions of the government, and in establishing Peace at home 
 by discountenancing the restless endeavours of those factious 
 spirits who attempt to sow jealousies, and to raise groundless 
 fears in the minds of her Majesty's people." f 
 
 * Record Office, Domestic Series. Anne, bundle 30. 
 t Ibid. 
 
160 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSIOIT. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE DESIGNS OP LORD BOLIJiTaBROKE. 
 A.D. 1713-14. 
 
 Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, was the best 
 speaker and one of the most remarkable writers of 
 his time. His youth not being steadied by the ballast 
 which every man of genius needs, he pursued during 
 the prime of life an unfortunate course of profligacy, 
 and later in his dazzling career, injured his reputa- 
 tion by propounding crude ideas on theology. 
 
 But for the marvellously attractive style in which 
 he clotted these wild sallies of a darkened heart, 
 few readers would ever have stopped to scan pages, 
 to which the widest latitudinarian of the nineteenth 
 century never dreams of appealing as records of 
 sound philosophy. 
 
 In spite of these shortcomings, Henry St. John 
 succeeded in charming those into whose society he 
 was thrown. Not only was his bearing noble and 
 worthy his origin — for he came of an ancient family 
 long settled at Battersea — but Grod had endowed 
 him with a manly presence such as put mere good 
 looks into the shade. Such remarkable graces of 
 
THE DESIGNS OF BOLINGBBOKE. 161 
 
 person allied to rare wit and eloquence reconciled 
 men and women to the incongruities of his character. 
 The kind of influence which Lord Bolingbroke exer- 
 cised over his contemporaries is illustrated by the 
 great Duke of Marlborough's declaration, made when 
 grieving over the loss of his only son, Lord Bland- 
 ford, that " he loved Henry St. John as a son." Nor 
 should this friendship between the soldier-diploma- 
 tist and Queen Anne's Secretary of State be lost 
 sight of when striving to unravel the tangled history 
 of this period. 
 
 Again, the fascination exercised over later states- 
 men and students of history by the magic of his 
 literary style and the brilliance of his statecraft, 
 might be shown by many examples. Lord Chatham 
 instanced his style as worthy of imitation, and sub- 
 mitted the attainted nobleman's political writings to 
 his son, William Pitt, the peerless Minister of George 
 the Third, who never ceased to lament the loss of 
 Lord Bolingbroke's speeches, believed to be superior 
 to his written utterances, which were themselves on a 
 level with the finished compositions of Addison and 
 Swift. 
 
 Such was the man who, nominally a subordinate 
 to Lord Oxford, yet by sheer force of ability became 
 the main wheel of that machine which carried on 
 the government between 1710-14. He was believed 
 by his contemporaries to cherish a desire to restore 
 the ancient Stuart line of Kings without the guar- 
 antee which was considered to be indispensable, if 
 
162 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 the constitutional liberties handed down from our 
 fathers were to be preserved. Now it has been 
 already indicated how far the Earl of Oxford was 
 implicated in a conspiracy to restore James Edward, 
 by the light of those researches which Sir James 
 Mackintosh pursued in Paris during the allied 
 occupation of 1814, and it is here proposed to discuss 
 the evidence then collected, which, according to 
 hostile writers, involves Bolingbroke in a precon- 
 ceived conspiracy to strangle the constitution, and 
 render solemn pa,rliamentary decisions regarding the 
 Succession null and void. 
 
 Putting aside certain asseverations of the Jacobite 
 spy Azzurini, who declared that Lord Bolingbroke 
 had two interviews with the Pretender at Paris 
 during 1712 — a statement which has been proved to 
 be based on misapprehension — the counsel for the 
 prosecution* takes tiraely refuge in the conversa- 
 tions held by the British Minister with D'Iberville, 
 the French charge d'affaires in London during 1713, 
 when the Due d'Aumont took his departure from 
 England. What is the sum and substance of this 
 alleged criminality as set forth in an elaborate 
 indictment, framed in such a way as to be a pithy 
 echo of the State prosecution preserved in the 
 national archives ? Why, this, and this alone. A 
 crisis was believed to be at hand after the Queen 
 had been prostrated by an attack of illness, and 
 D'Iberville relates to Louis the Fourteenth an ac- 
 
 * 'Edinburgh Eeview,' Oct. 1835, p. 20. 
 
THE DESIGNS OF BOLINaBEOKE. 163 
 
 count of his conversation with the British Secretary 
 of State. The Pretender, said the latter, had no 
 chance of success, " tant qu'il sera Catholique, pas 
 meme en epousant une ' princesse Protestante.' " He 
 did not blame the impatience of the Jacobites, " mais, 
 dit-il, nous connoissons mieux qu'eux la difEculte 
 qu'il y a de manager les differens esprits dont le 
 Parlement est compose. 11 faut pour cela plus." * 
 
 The very echo this of that manifest drift of 
 opinion in England which secured the throne to the 
 Brunswick-Luneburg family. 
 
 So we must seek further afield for the evidence 
 which is to fix treason on Bolingbroke prior to his 
 departure from England after George the First 
 assumed the crown. In the latter years of Lord 
 Oxford's administration, he seems to have left to his 
 eloquent colleague the task of attracting doubters 
 to the Tory party, satisfying alike the scruples of 
 Jacobites eager to see the ancient faith restored with 
 the legitimate King, as well as those who desired to 
 take security that mass should not be said at St, 
 Paul's by Royal authority. 
 
 There is a very good illustration of Lord Boling- 
 broke's difiiculties and of his method in dealing with 
 Jacobite malcontents, in the ' Lockhart Papers.' f 
 
 The Grovernment had issued their famous procla-. 
 mation against the Pretender, which offered £5000 
 for his person, dead or alive, if he landed in England 
 — a ministerial action which literally struck the 
 
 * ' Edmburgh Eeview,' Oct. 1835, p. 20, t Vol. i. p. 476. 
 
 M 2 
 
164 THE BRUNSWICK AOCBSSIOK. 
 
 Jacobites dumb with amazement, because tbe House 
 of Commons, at Oxford's and Bolingbroke's instiga- 
 tion, had just refused the back paj of the Hanoverian 
 contingent which had followed Prince Eugene rather 
 than remain inactive with Ormond, when the British 
 Government enjoined no further military operations 
 on their Greneral, 
 
 This refusal had been held to imply disregard of 
 the Brunswick-Luneburg family and their wishes ; for 
 the Elector, notwithstanding his avoidance of politics, 
 was susceptible on the subject of his army, and averse 
 to being deprived of the thews and sinews of war. 
 
 If dismay had been the only feeling prevalent in 
 the ultra-Tory camp, it would have been well for 
 Bolingbroke. But resentment, unfortunately, reared 
 its head in the House of Commons, and a compact 
 Cave of Adullam — the name by which, thanks to 
 Mr. Bright's wit, we moderns know such political 
 sections — was formed, containing amongst others, 
 Lockhart of Carnwarth, a Scotch Jacobite of position 
 and influence in Lanarkshire, but who knew little of 
 England, and the Sir John Pakington of that day. 
 
 These malcontents proceeded to join the Wliigs in 
 voting against the supplies, and adopted tactics of a 
 nature which, in later days, have unfortunately 
 become familiar to modern Englishmen.* Boling- 
 broke resolved to see Lockhart, and, if possible, 
 
 * ' Lockhart Papers,' vol. i. p. 476. Two other Tories, viz. Sir W. 
 Wyndham and Mr. Secretary Bromley, -were not above speaking against 
 time when it suited their purpose. — Ibid., p. 458. 
 
THE DESIGNS OP BOLINGBBOKE. 165 
 
 peisuade him to allow public business to proceed, 
 using as an argument that continued opposition of 
 this description could only result in the collapse of 
 Lord Oxford's Administration. Bolingbroke ex- 
 pressed himself as ill-satisfied with the personal con- 
 duct of the First Minister, yet maintained that the 
 confusion certain to ensue on his downfall was likely 
 to effect no good and to thwart the Queen, who could 
 and would settle matters in such a way '' that slie 
 would be at liberty to do what she pleased, and 
 being once done, the Parliament might again be 
 re-assembled in a little time to ratify and approve 
 her proceedings." 
 
 Bolingbroke proceeded to argue that many would 
 come over to us when they saw the thing done, and 
 the game secured. 
 
 What the thing and the gavie might be, thiV politic 
 Minister does not seem to have whispered even to his • 
 staunch supporter ;* for Lockhart adds : " 'Tis true 
 indeed that his Lordship did not particularly name 
 the King's Restoration," and only confined himself 
 to hints and innuendoes. 
 
 It will occur to our readers that if any such wild 
 design was afoot in 1714 as that of calling on the 
 Legislature to change the Succession and disinherit 
 the Protestant branch, who had been deliberately 
 chosen by Parliament as heads of the Royal House of 
 England, there could have been small motive for 
 concealment when such a partisan as Lockhart was 
 
 * ' Lockhart Papers,' vol. i. p. 477. 
 
166 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 in question — a man, be it remembered, in the closest 
 confidence with St. Germain, and to whom for years 
 to come James Edward used to write letters. 
 
 But despite his success with Lockhart's recalcitrant 
 friends. Lord Bolingbroke knew that no temporary- 
 device could prevent a serious split in the Tory ranks, 
 and it came sooner than was expected. The know- 
 ledge of quarrels in the Cabinet, and a distrust 
 evinced by men such as Shrewsbury, Nottingham, 
 and Somerset, had convinced the rank and file that 
 something was wrong in the camp. Moderate men 
 of the party trusted neither Oxford nor Bolingbroke, 
 and knowing the irreparable breach between the 
 Tory leaders, were daily looking for that dismember- 
 ment of the Cabinet which became more probable 
 day by day, and indeed the mutual recriminations of 
 the two statesmen contained statements assuming 
 implication in treasonable designs against the Suc- 
 cession which were enough to destroy confidence in 
 the hearts of strong men, and raise up fears in the 
 hearts of weak ones. 
 
 Hence occurred a whole crop of secessions, espe- 
 cially in the House of Lords, where the immediate 
 safety of the Brunswick Settlement was confirmed 
 by a majority of twelve only. Amongst the first to 
 secede was the Earl of Anglesea, and the above- 
 mentioned Sir William Dawes, esteemed the most 
 eloquent Churchman in England.* 
 
 * For a notice of the Archbishop, see J. H. Overton's ' Life in the 
 English Church,' 1660-1714, p. 254. 
 
THE DESIGNS OP BOLINaBROKE. 167 
 
 Shortly after the whole bench of Bishops were 
 found in opposition, together with the Earls of 
 Abingdon and Jersey, the latter being a Jacobite 
 and Catholic peer whose wife had been under the 
 Abbe G-aultier's spiritual direction when he an- 
 nounced the English desire for peace to M. de Torcy. 
 
 The Lords Ashburnham and Carteret, together 
 with Sir Thomas Hanmer, followed suit soon after ; 
 and despite the fact that Lord Oxford's fall was 
 apparent to those familiar with the Court intrigues 
 of Mrs. Masham, yet there was a distinct disinclina- 
 tion to entrust Bolingbroke with the leadership. He 
 was neither reckoned to be a man of sufBcient char- 
 acter, nor did he possess the favour of the City, 
 where capitalists viewed with disfavour a peace that 
 had limited their field of profitable investment by 
 prohibiting additions to the national debt ; and yet it 
 had been as the chosen champions of such unscien- 
 tific commercial ideas that Grodolphin and Marl- 
 borough floated down the tide of popularity and 
 glory, which enabled them to cripple Louis the 
 Eourteenth, 
 
 There is nothing more unstable than the cohesioQ 
 of a parliamentary majority, however apparently 
 numerous or secure ; for excuses will speedily be 
 found to cabal, abstain, or in the last resort go into 
 active opposition whenever they see that a Minister's 
 errors are recognised by the same public opinion 
 that endowed him with power. The dispersion of 
 such authority is generally gradual at first, begin- 
 
168 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 ning, may be, with the defection of a leading col- 
 league, whom after a brief interval others follow 
 readily when they find their chief's power departing 
 and see an unrelenting enemy scaling the party 
 citadel. 
 
 To put off such an evil day as this did the 
 Oxford Administration disgrace its memory, by pro- 
 posing and carrying the Schism Bill in both Houses. 
 The House of Peers, it should be remembered to 
 their credit, showed more favour to religious liberty 
 than the more popular chamber, where 237 members 
 decided to refuse Dissenters the right of educating 
 their children, except in the principles of the Esta- 
 blished Church, while a minority of 208 were not 
 prepared to infringe the principles of growing tolera- 
 tion which had rendered the Revolution of 1688 
 possible. 
 
 In the House of Lords the retrograde measure was 
 only carried by five ; but Bolingbroke's purpose was 
 temporarily gained, and the High Church Tories by 
 remaining firm saved the Ministry.* But men were 
 uncomfortably exercised in mind as to what Boling- 
 broke and those who followed him might do next, 
 and no inconsiderable portion of his thoughtful 
 countrymen, rightly or wrongly, jumped to the con- 
 clusion that the step in question might be that of 
 restoring the Pretender. As the majority of his- 
 
 * The demise of the Queen, which occurred shortly after, rendered this 
 measure a dead-letter, and the Whigs, of course, never revived a statute 
 justly abhorrent to their principles. — See continuation of Sir J. Mackintosh's 
 ' History,' vol. ix. pp. 319-20. 
 
THE DESIGNS OF BOLINGBROKB. 169 
 
 torians have recorded the several indications which 
 point towards the Tory Government of Lord Oxford 
 favouring the Jacobites, and being prepared, under 
 certain given circumstances, to take measures calcu- 
 lated to sustain their leader's claim to be crowned at 
 Westminster Abbey, so in the interest of justice and 
 equity is it desirable to show what wild Whig 
 schemes were likewise in the air, to take effect when 
 their cause could be supported no longer by constitu- 
 tional means. 
 
 We put aside as doubtful the story, that when 
 Prince Eugene' was in London during 17.11 to 
 prevent the English from making peace with France 
 unless the Imperial claims were satisfied, Marl- 
 borough and Eugene were designing to burn London 
 if they could not persuade the Queen and her 
 Ministers to continue the war. This statement, 
 which appears in Macpherson's ' Original Papers,' 
 Dean Swift has revived in his ' Last Four Years of 
 Queen Anne's Reign,' being likewise re-echoed in 
 various partisan narratives, but it has not been 
 clearly verified, and the whole story bears evidence 
 of unreality, resting on the ipse dixit of one Plunket, 
 a Jesuit, and finding no support elsewhere. 
 
 It is different in regard to the inflamed condition 
 of the Whig party after Lord Bolingbroke brought 
 in his Schism Bill in 1714. Lockhart, who was 
 certainly a shrewd observer when his master's cause 
 was in question, heard enough in and around St. 
 Stephen's to convince him that the Jacobite hopes, 
 
170 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 even if the Ministry favoured them— which he 
 doubted — were destined to rude dispersal. Money was 
 collected in considerable quantities for the purpose of 
 purchasing arms and ammunition, and stranger 
 than all, 
 
 " They caused make severall thousand figures of a small fusie 
 ahout two inches long in brass, and some few in silver and gold, 
 which were to he dispersed amongst the chiefs and more zealous 
 of the partie as a signal in the day of tryall." * 
 
 Lockhart got possession of three of these fusees, 
 and sent one to Mary of Modena by Lord Mar. 
 Another he tied by a small ribbon in the breast of 
 his coat, and placed himself in the House of Commons 
 near a Whig kinsman and friend, Sir Robert Pollock, 
 who gazed on the bauble with amazement, and when 
 the wily Lockhart pretended to hide it, said, " either 
 our secrets are discovered, or you're a convert." 
 It is possible that the Whig leaders did contemplate 
 the Electoral Prince appearing in London with an 
 armed escort variously appraised as to strength, 
 while we shall not stop to record here all that 
 Lockliart's exaggerated fears led him to credit con- 
 cerning this raising of armies at home and abroad to 
 intimidate Queen Anne at St. James's,-)- but the latter 
 rumours are neither more nor less credible than other 
 unauthenticated statements which charge direct hos- 
 tility to the House of Brunswick against the Tory 
 
 * ' Lockhart Papers,' vol. i. p. 463. 
 
 t According to Plunket's apocryphal account, re-echoed in Swift's ' Last 
 Four Years of Queen Anne,' 50,000 men under Marlborough and Eugene 
 were to force Queen Anne to carry on the Whig war policy. 
 
THE DESIGNS OF BOLINGBROKE. 171 
 
 Ministry of 1710-14. How far they apparently 
 went in the direction of St. Grermain and where 
 they stopped, is, however, traced carefully in these 
 pages. One thing is perfectly certain, the Whigs 
 themselves suffered from genuine apprehension ; 
 Greneral Stanhope, for instance, was in despair, and 
 told Lockhart in Westminster Hall, "Well, you'll 
 get your Pretender ; " * while not only was the 
 veteran Somers recalled to the Whig conclaves, hut 
 the general public conception of the situation 
 justified their alarms. 
 
 It is pretty well known that the Queen had 
 decided to allow the parliamentary law of Succession 
 to remain undisturbed, directly she learnt that her 
 brother was immovable in the matter of religion ; 
 but a conversation she held with her half-sister's 
 husband, Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, tells the 
 story in all its fulness. 
 
 The Duke had offered his hand to the Princess 
 Anne before her marriage with the Prince of Den- 
 mark, but ultimately united himself with Catherine 
 Darnley, natural daughter of James the Second by 
 Catherine Sedley. This relationship entitled Buck- 
 ingham to an intimacy with the Sovereign, and 
 being a friend to James Edward's succession, despite 
 several asseverations to Hanover, the Duke urged 
 her brother's cause on Queen Anne during a con- 
 versation held in the year 1712, and received the 
 following reply : — 
 
 * ' Lockhart Papers,' vol. i. p. 479. 
 
172 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 "You see he doth not make the least step to oblige me. I 
 have no reason to think he values me or my estate, and there- 
 fore I am determined to give it to Hanover." * 
 
 The Duke of Buckingham having protested that 
 no such ohh'gation existed, and stated his belief thai 
 the son of James the Second was ready to give 
 securities, his Royal sister-in-law answered as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 " What wouldst thou have me do. As the law stands a Papist 
 cannot inherit, and therefore should I alter my will, it would 
 be to no purpose, the law will give it all to Hanover, and there- 
 fore I had better do that with a good grace which I cannot 
 help." 
 
 The original desire of Queen Anne to restore her 
 brother is one of those facts in history which no 
 student can doubt ; but her steady resolve to sustain 
 the Church of England as a Protestant establishment 
 outlived the earlier family sentiment, and is stamped 
 indelibly on the records of her later life. But the 
 statement of Queen Anne concerning the Succession, 
 which has far more weight than any other, was 
 voluntarily made to Sir William Dawes, the Arch- 
 bishop of York, after that popular and eloquent pre- 
 late had seceded from the Tories in April, 1714, on 
 the ground that he believed the Brunswick family 
 were in danger of losing their rights as heads of 
 the Protestant branch. According to the statement 
 of Mr, John Chamberlayne, who had been the late 
 Prince Greorge of Denmark's Master of the House- 
 
 * Macpherson's ' Original Papers,' Stuart collection, vol. ii. p. 328. 
 
THE DESIGNS OP BOLINGBROKE. 173 
 
 hold, Her Majesty desired to see the Archbishop, who 
 straightway set forth the people's " fears and jea- 
 lousies" concerning the Pretender, receiving for 
 reply the most solemn assurances binding the Queen 
 to preserve the Protestant Succession as by Parlia- 
 ment established, " cultivating the same both by 
 herself and her Ministers." * 
 
 * We give the letter in full as it is one of the most important amongst 
 the Hanover Papers, and has not hitherto been published : — 
 
 " WestminBter, April 27, 1714. 
 
 "Your Royal Highness having lately given me a new mark of your 
 Favor by ordering your secretary to tell me that you have prevailed on 
 his Electoral Highness to suffer me most humbly to lay at his Feet the 
 next Edition of my State of Great Britain, I find myself obliged to approach 
 your Illustrious person with fresh Acknowledgments of the same which I 
 now do with the utmost Deference and Respect, and with exceeding great 
 Pleasure, tho' I am almost ashamed to be so often Troublesome to so Great 
 a Princess. And perhaps Madam 1 should not have ventured to trouble 
 your Highness so soon upon this occasion only if the Archhishop of York 
 (than whom there is no Man in England more Devoted to your interest) 
 had not acquainted me in a private conversation this day, and allow'd me 
 at the same time to inform your Highness that her Majesty sent for him 
 very lately, and permitted him with great Liberty, and with that Candor 
 and Sincerity that is natural to his OrcLce, lo lay before her his thoughts of 
 the People's Fears and Jeilousys concerning the Pretender, and of the 
 dangers to the Succession so much apprended (sic) hy all good Protestants. 
 And after that her Majesty had heard him with Great Patience and Atten- 
 tion, she was pleased to give him the most solemn Assurances of her sincere 
 and unalterable Affection to your Highness and your most illustrious 
 Family and Resolutions of cultivating the same both hy herself and her 
 Ministers. 
 
 " But Madam what I now take the Liberty to inform your B.H., tho it 
 be as full an account as I dare charge an imperfect and bad Memory with, 
 yet is far short of what his Grace will inform you himself whenever you 
 please to command that of bim, and why should not your B.H. condescend 
 to Ask it of him. In truth Madam your Highness will always be sure by 
 his means of the Hearts of almost all our Clergy, which Argument is most 
 Humbly submitted by 
 
 " Madam of your Eoyal Highness 
 
 " The most Faithful, Devoted and obliged servant, 
 "John Chambeelatne." 
 
174 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Various were the efforts made to induce James 
 Edward to rescind the resolve which precluded any 
 dissembling as regards religion. Netterville, a 
 Jesuit of position, thought that the Pope might 
 with advantage give the assumedly rightful Eng- 
 lish King a ' dispensation for turning Protestant. 
 In fact 
 
 "he would oblige the King to declare himself a Protestant, 
 being the safest way to seciire the crown, and establish the 
 Eoman Catholic religion in England, and when he com pleats 
 the work appear with safety in his true shape and not be 
 beholden to anybody." * 
 
 Such were the devices abroad to justify religious 
 pretence at Bar-le-Duc, while the English Ministry 
 were straining every nerve to sustain their power. 
 
 The aforesaid Netterville proposed to Harley, in 
 1713, that he should abolish triennial Parliaments, 
 and so anticipate Walpolef — a suggestion placed 
 aside by the unfathomable Lord Treasurer averring 
 that such a measure threatened to be too violent, 
 and that there was reason to believe the next 
 Parliament would equal its predecessor in Tory 
 virtues. 
 
 But, hand in hand with all this plotting and 
 counter-plotting, a feeling of distrust permeated the 
 nation, and finds expression in the papers preserved 
 at the Record Office which have reference to this 
 peculiar and momentous period — the last two years 
 of Queen Anne's reign. 
 
 * Macpherson's 'Original Papers,' vol. ii. p. 399. 
 t Ibid., p. 393. 
 
THE DESIGNS OF BOLINGBROKE. 175 
 
 Parties seem to have been terribly embittered ; un- 
 beneficed clergymen being turned out of their cures 
 because they held political opinions contrary to those 
 of their patrons, clerical or lay ; while reports of 
 treasonable sayings regarding the Pretender were 
 abroad, such accusations being apparently straight- 
 way submitted to the law-officers of the Crown. On 
 the other hand, we learn that a man speaking im- 
 properly regarding the execution of Charles the First 
 was adjudged by the Attorney-Greneral to have com- 
 mitted misdemeanour, not high treason ; while no 
 quarter was shown to the Whig pamphleteer, Daniel 
 De Foe, who, being the victim of a Crown prose- 
 cution, soon deserted politics to the manifest enrich- 
 ment of a contemporary literature already sufficiently 
 famous.* 
 
 Again, one Patrick Phelan escapes permanent im- 
 prisonment for having tarried at St. Grerraain — an 
 exercise of mercy somewhat strained in its nature, 
 considering that nothing beyond mere sojourn was 
 alleged against him, although a Whig official of that 
 date would probably have viewed with suspicion, 
 rather than as an earnest of respectability, the fact 
 that the detained Irishman had formerly served the 
 French Marshal Tallard.f 
 
 In March 1713 one Samuel Webber arrived from 
 France, and informed the Ministry that he was 
 cognisant of a French plot to murder Queen 
 
 * ' state Papers.' Anne. Domestic Series, bundle 29. 
 t Ibid. . 
 
176 THE BKUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Anne; but owing to certain doubts as to Webbers 
 character which kind friends of his disseminated — 
 apparently not without a substratum of truth — this 
 unfortunate individual was kept in durance vile 
 pending inquiries made in Tipperary, where he 
 was a proprietor of land. Although Webber did not 
 come well out of the inquiry in question, and his 
 story concerning the plot was adjudged unreliable, 
 yet the memoranda in the Record Office relating 
 thereto are worth repeating. 
 
 He writes to Lord Dartmouth, one of the Secre- 
 taries of State, speaking of the dangers to which his 
 family are exposed in Ireland owing to his having 
 disclosed a Jacobite plot against Queen Anne, " it 
 being," he says, " too common in Ireland to fire the 
 houses or hough the chattle (sic) in the feild of such 
 they envie." 
 
 Mr. Webber expresses a wish, which will doubtless 
 be echoed by any modern Irish landlords circum- 
 stanced as he then was, viz. to settle in the West 
 of England. Mr. Webber's release seems to have 
 been coincident with the discrediting of his plot 
 against the Queen's life, but we are not told what 
 was his future in the wilds of Tipperary. 
 
 However, the advices from Ireland continue to 
 be extremely interesting. An anonymous corre- 
 spondent writes that unless some colonels and field 
 officers were changed, the troops quartered there 
 were not all to be depended on, one Fort-Major 
 Wyndham being charged with toasting the Pre- 
 
THE DESIGNS OF BOLINGBROKE. 177 
 
 tender at an entertainment given in Kinsale by 
 Greneral Nicholson, the designer of the futile expe- 
 dition to Canada. As a remedy against the discon- 
 tent and distrust prevailing in the Emerald Isle, the 
 often-mooted idea of a regiment of Irish Guards 
 being formed was recommended, while expression 
 is given to a fear, generally entertained amongst the 
 Whigs, lest Parliament should repeal the Triennial 
 Act.* 
 
 But these were not the only indications of the 
 activity of those who desired to create a Jacobite 
 panic, and compel the Ministry to put in force the 
 laws against the Roman Catholics. Letters were 
 simultaneously received by the Mayors of York, 
 Exeter, Oxford, and Hereford, " exhorting them to 
 use their utmost endeavour to persuade their citizens 
 to declare for King James the Third as their rightful 
 and lawful king." The document averred that, 
 
 " tbe Queen had given leave for tLe Fiench ambassador to rise 
 (sic) a regiment of 1000 men here in England for the King's 
 guards to attend him on his landing and 700 is already listed 
 and quartered about Southwark." 
 
 It ended by declaring that, 
 
 " Sir Patrick Curtis, once the King's envoy at Madrid, is now 
 his envoy here at the court of England. Therefore the Queen 
 and her Ministry agreeing you are to choose fit men to carry 
 the work through." 
 
 * ' State Papers.' Anne. Domestic Series, bundle 29. May 1713. 
 The Whigs in Ireland threatened that the Duke of Hanover and the 
 Duke of Marlborough would soon come and save the kingdom from the 
 " dangers it's running into whether the Queen or Parliament will or no." 
 
 S 
 
178 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Finally, just after Parliament had been dissolved 
 in August 1Y13, and the Tories returned triumph- 
 antly, the elections being carried in four places out 
 of five by the Ministry, there is an account given by 
 one De Saulac, who, taken into custody for toasting 
 James the Third, and presumably to secure his 
 liberty, gave information of another plot, which in 
 this case seems to have had a slight foundation. 
 According to De Saulac, 20,000 men were prepared 
 to rise in Scotland, while a simultaneous movement 
 took place round London. If this rebellion suc- 
 ceeded, De Saulac was to be Grentleman of the 
 Horse. A Jesuit, by name Campbell, was con- 
 cerned, and a ship, with men and ammunition, was 
 expected at Poole, in Dorsetshire, where the Record 
 Office Papers tell us there had been a seizure of 
 Popish documents four months before. When 
 prevented from landing at Poole, the strange craft 
 put out to sea, and is said ultimately to have reached 
 Kirkaldy, in Fifeshire, where her crew went ashore.* 
 No mention of any such expedition finds place in the 
 various Jacobite memoirs, but we give De Saulac's 
 story as a sample of the kind of rumour that helped 
 to create an impression — in the minds of a minority^ 
 which accorded with their hopes and wishes — to wit, 
 that Oxford and Bolingbroke were bent on restoring 
 James Edward Stuart. And of course their power 
 being strengthened by the recent general election 
 for three years, more than ever impressed onlookers 
 
 ' State Papers.' Anne. Domestio Series, bundle 31. Oct. 1713. 
 
 * < < 
 
THE DESIGNS OF BOLINGBEOKE. 179 
 
 with the idea that this great change was to be 
 brought about. 
 
 We have elsewhere given an opinion that Minis- 
 ters collectively desired to keep the Tory party in 
 office rather than alter the Succession, and that, to 
 do Lord Oxford justice, his original pourparlers with 
 the Jacobite agents meant no more than that he 
 could ill afford to lose some forty votes in the House 
 of Commons, while even if the falling Minister — for 
 his differences with Mrs. Masham, Queen Anne's 
 favourite, and his desperate quarrel with Boling- 
 broke, were undermining the authority which, as Lord 
 Treasurer, he still held — did once conceive the possi- 
 bility of a Eestoration, it was not that of a Roman 
 Catholic sovereign to tenant Windsor, and fill once 
 more with ecclesiastical satellites the galleries of 
 Whitehall and St. James's. 
 
 There seems to be no doubt that, after Oxford's 
 fall, Bolingbroke had resolved to do the best in his 
 power to carry out the Parliamentary decision, and 
 bring George the First to St. James's, while Mr. 
 Drummond, his particular friend, was instructed to 
 repair to Holland, and smooth the way for such 
 a programme if the Queen died. 
 
 Arthur Moore was presumably to have been Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer ; Sir William Wyndham, 
 leader of the House of Commons ; and Marlborough 
 — if he would accept the position under Bolingbroke 
 — G-eneral-in-Chief of the Forces ; while Ormond 
 was to be relegated to the Lord-Lieutenancy of 
 
 N 2 
 
180 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Ireland, or be left out altogether if he refused the 
 position. 
 
 Ormond was an irreconcilable enemy to Marl- 
 borough, and it is certain that he, too, for a time 
 believed it was wise to accept the inevitable, and 
 pay court to the rising sun, inasmuch as in the 
 Hanover Papers there are two letters, dated respect- 
 ively June 18, and September 5, 1714, in which 
 devotion to the House of Brunswick is expressed by 
 Ormond, the prince of Jacobite intriguers, who, to 
 do him justice, risked everything for the Stuarts, 
 and, as we shall show, had their interests at heart 
 when the crucial moment arrived. 
 
 The authority upon which this opinion regarding 
 Bolingbroke's later design is founded is the evidence 
 of Thomas Carte's ' Contemporary Note-book,' now 
 in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, extracts from 
 which Macpherson has placed amongst his ' Original 
 Papers.'* 
 
 There was no quarrel between Marlborough aud 
 Bolingbroke which was not capable of adjustment,! 
 
 * Vol. ii. pp. 527-534. Tiiere is a note in the Onslow copy of Burnet's 
 ' History,' written in Lord Hardwick's hand, to the following effect : — 
 
 " The Speaker (Mr. Onslow) has told me, that he had been informed by 
 the late Lord Orford (Sir I{. Walpole) and Arthur Moore, that Lord 
 Bolingbroke had formed a scheme of administration upon the turning out 
 the Earl of Oxford by which he was to have been Lord Treasurer, Sir 
 William Wyndham, one of the Secretaries of State, and Arthur Moore, 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer ; and it is now generally believed that the Duke 
 of Marlborough was to have been restored to the Command of the army." 
 
 t Maopherson's 'History of England,' vol. ii. p. 651; also Despatch of 
 Mr. St. John to Duke of Marlborough, July 31, 1711, quoted in Alison's 
 ' Marlborough,' vol. ii. p. 195. 
 
THE DESIGNS OF BOLINGBROKE. 181 
 
 and although it does not seem possible to prove 
 absolute collusion between these two men of genius, 
 there is every reason to believe they would have 
 acted cordially together had their interests become 
 identical. 
 
 As regards Thomas Carte's ' Note-book,' if Pro- 
 fessor Grardiner sees his way to use that antiquarian's 
 researches for historical purposes, as he has done in 
 his last work, there can exist no bar to judicious 
 use being made of the said contemporary chronicles, 
 which point to conclusions of a character that a 
 Jacobite and a Jesuit could scarcely have desired. 
 In fact, Carte's wish was not father to the thought 
 in question. But until the circumstances connected 
 with Lord Clarendon's mission to Hanover have 
 been duly related, it is not advisable to attempt a 
 solution of this many-sided problem. 
 
182 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LORD clarendon's MISSION' TO HANOVER. 
 APRIL TO SEPTEMBER, 1714. 
 
 The political condition of Europe just before Queen 
 Anne's death ought, in justice to George the First, 
 to be noticed in any account of the manner in which 
 his family attained the throne. 
 
 Among those of the Hanover Papers which deal 
 with the later years of Queen Anne's reign, there 
 are several allusions to the Elector's refusal to find 
 money for diplomatic purposes ; and historians of the 
 highest capacity have therefore allowed the charge 
 of meanness to go by default, while they explain his 
 lack of power to excite enthusiasm amongst parties 
 in England by the existence of this blot on his 
 character. 
 
 Now, before registering any such hasty judgment 
 in his own mind, let the reader take the Elector 
 of Hanover's European position into consideration. 
 What chance was there of his receiving quarter 
 from his enemies on the Continent, if, jealous of 
 the position of the Brunswick-Luneburg family in 
 
LORD CLARENDON AT HANOVER. 183 
 
 Northern Europe, they found Greorge Lewis with an 
 impoverished treasury, and confronted by an England 
 which had restored the Pretender ? 
 
 France certainly would have hailed such a situation 
 with delight, while both Spain and Portugal were 
 under the influence of Louis the Fourteenth ; Philip 
 the Fifth, monarch of the former country, " nourish- 
 ing a violent antipathy to the Elector himself."* 
 Nor could much be expected from Charles the Sixth, 
 head of the House of Austria, who at the Peace of 
 Rastadt, signed on March 6, 1714, between France 
 and the Empire, declined to guarantee the Succession 
 in England to the Brunswick family, and was by no 
 means unwilling to marry a daughter to the Chevalier 
 de St. Grebrge.f Russia, it is true, owing to a war 
 with Sweden and Turkey, had not yet taken up the 
 hostile attitude which the Czar Peter shortly dis- 
 played towards Hanoverian interests generally ;J 
 while the United Provinces, wearied out by exertions 
 beyond their strength, and deeply in debt, gave a 
 sympathy, to the Brunswick cause, which circum- 
 stances did not allow them to render effective. Charles 
 the Twelfth, irritated at the Elector's claim to 
 Bremen and Verden, was avowedly hostile to the 
 Brunswick Succession ; while Augustus the Second 
 of Poland grovelled at the feet of Peter the G-reat, 
 
 * Coxe's ' Walpole,' vol. i. p. 52. 
 
 t Macpherson's ' Original Papers,' vol. ii. p. 523. The Imperial envoy 
 at Vienna told the Duke of Lorraine that the Emperor " seemed to relish 
 the proposal." 
 
 t Coxe's ' Walpole,' vol. i. pp. 04, 181. 
 
184 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 wlio had made him king. Denmark, although under 
 Frederick the Fourth, a passive friend to the Pro- 
 testant cause, yet looked rather to accept assistance 
 from George than to render it to him when need 
 arose. Nor is it possible to deny that a dangerous 
 ally might have been obtained by any enemy of 
 Hanover in the person of that inconstant sovereign, 
 Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, who, although the 
 Treaty of Utrecht had given him Sicily, part of 
 Milan, and a promise of the Spanish Crown when 
 Philip the Fifth's male line failed, yet felt aggrieved 
 that his wife, Anna Maria, great granddaughter of 
 Charles the First of England, had been passed over 
 in favour of the Elector of Hanover.* No long time 
 after, this discontented prince reverted to his old 
 connection with France. Prussia, under Frederick 
 William the First, who had not yet matured the 
 military force which rendered the nation so strong 
 in the ensuing reign of Frederick the GTreat, was a 
 bond fide friend to the Electoral cause. But his 
 whole force, though valuable doubtless on the de- 
 fensive when in alliance with the gallant Hano- 
 verians, could not be expected to enable the Elector 
 to resist successfully a possible coalition such as the 
 position of James Edward on the British throne 
 must have induced him to organise. Finally, we 
 may remember that although the temporal power of 
 Clement XI. was at a low ebb, yet the tendency 
 of his spiritual authority must necessarily have 
 
 * Coxe's 'Walpole,' vol. i. p. 54. 
 
LORD CLAEENDON AT HANOVER. 185 
 
 been directed towards keeping a Catholic Stuart at 
 Windsor. 
 
 Therefore we consider that the Elector acted only 
 with proper circumspection when he kept money in 
 his purse, and refused to impoverish the land of his 
 birth, when adherents such as Schutz and Bothmar 
 thought his hopes so uncertain. On the other hand, 
 he gave an impression to onlookers that he was some- 
 what indifferent about mounting the British throne, 
 which, although his mother, then in her eighty- fourth 
 year, might rest thereon for a while, was looked on 
 as destined to be soon tenanted by George Lewis 
 himself. 
 
 He would neither grant pensions, nor influence 
 the elections with money ; he rejected the violent 
 proposals made, strange to say, by the Whigs at this 
 time, to bring foreign troops into the English king- 
 dom, and finally only gave way regarding the writ 
 summoning his son, the Electoral Prince, to England, 
 when satisfied, as we have shown, that the alternative 
 would probably be a Catholic Restoration in England 
 followed by a continental invasion of Brunswick- 
 Luneburg and its territories,* planned in collusion 
 with the triumphant Stuarts. 
 
 Therefore Greorge Lewis and his mother could not 
 remain unmoved when it was announced that the 
 Pretender was meditating an incursion into England, 
 where not only his supporters, but even the Grerman 
 agents, thought he would be received with acclaim, 
 
 * Macphersou's 'Original Papers,' vol. ii. p. 520. 
 
186 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Above all, they persuaded themselves that at last 
 James the Second's son had cast aside present 
 scruples as to changing his religion. Whether he 
 were acting bond fide in the matter, or, in accordance 
 with the advice given by the Jesuit Netterville, 
 quietly dissembling, mattered not to the frenzied 
 foreigners who stood responsible for the management 
 of the Hanoverian diplomacy. 
 
 The truth, however, was that, notwithstanding the 
 conspicuous favour shown personally to the famous 
 Protestant non-juror Charles Leslie, the Pretender 
 never allowed this potent ally to do more than hold 
 a service in a back room at Bar-le-Duc, and soon 
 repented of having yielded even to that extent.* 
 
 We have seen how electrical was the political 
 atmosphere in England, and the state of affairs 
 became more and more critical,f as the Queen grew 
 feebler in health. The mutual recriminations of 
 Oxford and Bolingbroke, wherein, as has been 
 
 * Harrop's ' Bolingbroke,' p. 196, quoting Lathbury's ' History of the 
 Non-Jurors.' 
 
 t As a specimen of the many false alarms abroad we may mention one 
 that reached the Mayor of Dover in July 1714, to the effect that men were 
 being deported from Ireland and Scotland to join the Pretender at Havre, 
 where 40,000 men were to embark. When this matter came to be looked 
 into by Sir B. Northey, the Attorney-Greneral, it was discovered that four 
 men enlisted for the Pretender were interviewed at Havre, and that some 
 suspicious craft had been' seen in the Downs flying French colours, while 
 one barque had approached Eastbourne and carried on some smuggling 
 transactions with the inhabitants. (See Domestic Papers, Anne, 1714, 
 Record Office, bundle 30.) A conspiracy this on an even more minute 
 scale than even Lord Wharton's, when the two Kellys enlisting men for 
 James Edward led to that unfortunate Prince being proclaimed by Paiiia- 
 ment, and a price set on his head if he visited British soil. 
 
LOED CLARENDON AT HANOVER. 187 
 
 said, neither statesman refrained from accusing the 
 other of a design to change the Succession and 
 bring in James Edward without securities, had 
 been reported to Bernsdorff and Robethon at Her- 
 renhausen. 
 
 In consequence of the impression made upon the 
 Hanoverian diplomatists, the letters of Robethon at 
 Herrenhausen, Kreyenberg in London, and Bothmar 
 at the Hague, became quite dramatic, and it is clear 
 that they distrusted the English Cabinet thoroughly. 
 Bolingbroke's direct appeal for confidence at Herren- 
 hausen had been made as early as October 1710, 
 and was so far appreciated that the Elector returned 
 a polite answer referring to Bolingbroke's influence 
 with the Queen, and speaking of the esteem and 
 regard with which he was looked on at the Electoral 
 Court, but declining nevertheless to correspond except 
 through Baron Bothmar. As it was apparently 
 impossible to get on to a better footing than the one 
 described. Lord Oxford's Administration betook them- 
 selves to the device of a diplomatic mission,* Thomas 
 Harley, brother of the Premier, being chosen for the 
 post of envoy. When at Hanover, in May 1714, 
 Mr. Harley was startled by receiving a joint memo- 
 rial from the Elector and his mother the Electress, 
 
 * Previous experience had not been suo"h as to give much encouragement 
 to this method of procedure. In 1711 Lord Rivers was despatched to 
 Hanover with an assurance to the Elector that his succession to the crown 
 should be secured in the treaty ; in reply to which the Electoral Court 
 represented the pernicious consequences of Philip's remaining in possession 
 of Spain and the West Indies. Bothmar published this remonstrance, and 
 so gave deep offence at Queen Anne's Court. 
 
188 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 " desiring the Pretender's removal into Italy from Lorramo. 
 A pension for the Princess Sophia. Leave to send a Prince of 
 the Electoral family to Britain, and titles as Princes of the 
 Blood to those protestant Princes who were without such 
 honours." * 
 
 This was the first gust which betokened a coming 
 storm, and indicated a resolve on the part of Robe- 
 thon's correspondents to bring matters concerning 
 the residence of the Electoral Prince in England 
 to an issue. 
 
 . But Thomas Harley played a card which created 
 a counter-excitement in the enemies' camp, when he 
 produced original letters of Marlborough's to the 
 Pretender, with which the crafty Prime Minister 
 had armed his brother before allowing him to de- 
 part on his mission.! 
 
 Well might Bothmar with, amazement compare 
 these epistles with effusive passages of anger and 
 contempt against the Jacobites which Marlborough 
 had again and again penned to the Elector's 
 Ministers. 
 
 Meantime the situation in England had developed, 
 and necessitated urgent measures on the part of 
 Grovernment. At a meeting held at Lord Halifax's, 
 the Whig junto, or such part of it as could be col- 
 lected, had resolved to persuade Schutz, the Hano- 
 verian Minister in London, to demand a writ for the 
 
 * ' Hanover Papers,' Strafford, 1714. 
 
 f This is on the whole one of the most important disclosures in the 
 Hanover Papers. It is described in Macpherson's ' Original Papers,' vol ii. 
 p. 638. 
 
LORD CLARENDON AT HANOVER. 189 
 
 Electoral Prince, so that he might straightway 
 reside in England. 
 
 Schutz had asked for this writ on the 12th of 
 April, 1714, and from that moment the Queen 
 resolved that there should be no mistake as to her 
 own views of the question at issue. Lord Claren- 
 don, the Minister chosen to proceed upon this deli- 
 cate mission, had, as Lord Oornbury, been Governor 
 of Pennsylvania, and during his sojourn there had 
 instituted postal arrangements between England and 
 that colony. Bothmar, believing that Lord Boling- 
 broke had chosen Lord Clarendon,* sneered at the 
 new envoy, speaking of him with strange inac- 
 curacy as a Grovernor appointed to the Lidies, 
 where, to represent his Queen, he was said to 
 have dressed himself up as a woman : an unsup- 
 ported story which has been re-echoed by several 
 writers on the ipse dixit of this interested partisan. 
 
 There were, however, as the next few pages will 
 show, good reasons why the Ministry selected Lord 
 Clarendon to take up the threads, and communicate 
 to the authorities at Herrenhausen Queen Anne's 
 unflinching resolve not to acquiesce in a successor's 
 residence in England during her own lifetime. 
 
 But ten days before this mission was announced 
 by letters to the Court of Hanover, the aged Elec- 
 tress passed away suddenly while walking in the 
 
 ♦ " Lord Oxford told me tlie day before yesterday, as he spoke to rae of 
 Lord Clarendon's departure, that he knew very well his Lordship would 
 not speak well of him at Hanover, a certain sign that it is Bolingbroke 
 who sent him." — Kreyenberg to Robethon, ' Hanover Papers,' July, 1714, 
 
190 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 gardens of Herrenhausen.* She had strongly cham- 
 pioned the project of sending the Electoral Prince 
 to England, and in her last few weeks took more 
 active measures on behalf of her family prospects 
 than any she had participated in during her whole 
 previous career. A cultured, high-minded woman, 
 she would, no doubt, have adapted herself to 
 English customs, and fulfilled a royal position in 
 London as became the descendant of Henry the 
 Lion and the Scotch Stuarts. A due estimate of her 
 character will have been gathered from an earlier 
 portion of this volume ; and beyond the fact that her 
 interest in the Brunswick Succession increased as years 
 passed on, there is nothing new to chronicle here of 
 this excellent lady, who died at the ripe age of 84. 
 
 Before Lord Clarendon's departure, the offending 
 Hanoverian agent, Schutz, was driven from his post 
 by the English Ministry. He was destined to be 
 the scapegoat selected to suffer the Eoyal displeasure, 
 and a careful perusal of the Hanover Papers that 
 bear reference to this matter has convinced us that 
 if Queen Anne had lived, and the Court of Herren- 
 hausen proved obdurate, something akin to civil war 
 would have been kindled in England.f 
 
 * Some writers have suggested that the tenor of Queen Anne's letters 
 had disturbed the Eleotress so much, that vexation and agitation combined 
 caused heart complaint to become acute. 
 
 t The Ministerial letters which appear in the ' Hanover Papers ' are 
 described in the ' English Historical Eeview,' vol. i. p. 772. 'J he ensuing 
 account of the mission of Lord Clarendon was written by the author when 
 fresh from study of the ' Hanover Papers,' and is substantially narrated in 
 the text. 
 
LOED CLARENDON AT HANOVER. 191 
 
 In her letter to the Blectress, the Queen spoke 
 thus of the project to which she desired to take the 
 strongest exception possible : " plus dangereux a la 
 tranquillite de mes etats, au Droit de la succession 
 dans votre ligne." Mr. Secretary Bromley's letter, 
 which accompanied that of Queen Anne, contained 
 the following passage : — 
 
 " Your Lordship will endeavour to satisfy the Elector the 
 Queen has no intention, but to secure the Succession to her 
 Crowns as by law established in the house of Hanover and is 
 ready to do everything that may contribute to that end con- 
 sistent with the safe and quiet possession of them during her 
 own time. Her Majesty having been very sincere in the public 
 declarations she has made, and in the assurances she has fre- 
 quently given in favour of this succession ; she expects from the 
 Elector he will speak freely on this subject, and particularly if 
 he thinks he has reason to suspect designs are carrying on to 
 disappoint it, that he will declare what foundation he has for 
 such suspicion. 
 
 " And 5'our Lordship will assure him he may depend that no 
 person shall be continued in her Majesty's service he has reason- 
 able ground to imagine has other views, and if that can be 
 made appear her Majesty will not fail to make examples of such 
 persons. 
 
 " Upon your Lordship's arrival at Hanover you will learn 
 what resolution that Court has taken about the Electoral Prince 
 [the Duke of Cambridge] coming hither, the demanding the 
 writ for his sitting in Parliament having given an expectation 
 it was soon intended. Your Lordship will find such resolution 
 is either taken or suspended, or a resolution taken that he will 
 not come over without her Majesty's consent and invitation. 
 
 " If the resolution for his coming is taken or suspended your 
 Lordship will represent to the Elector, the great uneasiness his 
 coming hither at this time will give the Queen, how unreason- 
 able it is, and that it may endanger the succession itself." 
 
 Lord Clarendon reached the Hague, after experi- 
 
192 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 enciiig some delay, on July 17, and was in Hanover 
 on the 31st. Shortly after his arrival he received 
 a letter, dated July 27, announcing that the Lord 
 Treasurer had heen dismissed, but that the incident 
 should make no alteration with respect to public 
 affairs. For the moment no Lord Treasurer was to 
 be appointed, but the office placed in commission. 
 
 A delay of several days ensued after sending in 
 his credentials to the Elector, and Lord Clarendon 
 remained at Hanover until an interview could be 
 arranged. The King of Prussia was in conclave 
 with his brother-in-law, George Lewis, so it was not 
 until August 3 that Lord Clarendon even saw Baron 
 Bernsdorff, who, explaining the cause of delay, pro- 
 mised that coaches should be in readiness to carry 
 him to Herrenhausen directly the King of Prussia 
 had left. 
 
 This occurred on August 7, when George Lewis not 
 only received Lord Clarendon with cordialitj'^, but soon 
 put it beyond doubt that he intended to conform 
 to Her Majesty's desire in the matter of the writ. 
 He told Lord Clarendon that the idea of the Elec- 
 toral Prince's sojourn in England had commended 
 itself to the late Electress, but that in asking for the 
 writ, Schutz had acted without her cognizance and 
 on his own responsibility. 
 
 In fact, he thi-ew his agent over altogether, a 
 solution that must have proved distasteful to the 
 Whig party, had not events straightway declared for 
 the cause they championed. The Elector spoke thus 
 
LORD CLARENDON AT HANOVER. 193 
 
 plainly concerning his own innocence : " J'espere 
 que le Reine n'a pas cru que cela y'est fait par 
 mon ordre. Je vous assure cela a este fait a mon 
 insceu." 
 
 Had Queen Anne lived, in what a false position 
 would the Whig party in England have been placed 
 by this surrender, when Bernsdorff, Bothraar, and 
 Eobethon, together with all the Hanoverian agents 
 then in power, were acting in collusion ! 
 
 Lord Clarendon told Bernsdorff, without receiving 
 a word in reply, that " it was the more necessary for 
 the Elector to enter into an entire confidence with 
 the Queen as the surest means to secure his inte- 
 rest against the Pretender." 
 
 Such was the situation when, after a premonitory 
 warning sent from St. James's, the news of the 
 Queen's death reached Hanover on August 17th. 
 Lord Clarendon, seeking a fresh audience of the 
 Elector, communicated to him the fact ; to which 
 Greorge the First replied, that the account tallied 
 with that which Robethon had received. 
 
 Lord Clarendon then asked for instructions, and 
 was desired to stay in Hanover until the King set 
 out for his English dominions. 
 
 The Hanover Papers, from which we have evolved 
 this account, tell us that no hesitation ensued in any 
 quarter except as regards the King's departure, 
 which, although it was delayed seven weeks, was 
 immediately provided for by the British Minister at 
 the Hague, who while informing the new Sovereign 
 
 
 
194 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 of his devotion, told him also that the Peregrine* 
 the best Royal yacht, was awaiting him on the coast 
 of Holland. 
 
 We have dwelt somewhat in detail on this mis- 
 sion of Lord Clarendon's, because its import seems 
 to have been overlooked amidst the frequent recitals 
 of more stirring scenes nearer homef In spite of 
 the delay, which was doubtless designed to make the 
 ground sure in London, and to benefit by the prescient 
 forethought of Lord Somers, when he appointed a 
 Regency during the King's enforced absence on the 
 Continent, there was not a ripple on the flowing 
 stream which bore the Brunswick family to the 
 honour they so well deserved. But thfe smooth 
 surface of the waters might at any moment have 
 been transformed into a whirlpool, for it is well 
 known that had Atterbury been a soldier or a states- 
 man instead of a Bishop, he would have put his 
 opinions to the test of civil war, while not even did 
 his sacred office prevent him from avowing his 
 desire to proclaim the Pretender at Charing Cross 
 in full canonicals.J 
 
 * The Peregrine was built by the Marquess of Carmarthen for William 
 the Third, and was accounted one of the finest craft in the service. The 
 Marquess was promised £1000 a year as a compensation for his design, 
 together with time and money expended, but never received it, the 
 Government apparently making the exorbitant price charged an excuse 
 for not paying at all. Although a legal re-assignment of the Peregrine 
 was made to the Marquess of Carmarthen, the Admiralty refused to part 
 with the vessel, and, as we have stated, it brought George the First to 
 England. — ' Eecord Office Papers,' Domestic Series. Anne, bundle 30. 
 
 t The poet Gay acted as Lord Clarendon's secretary during this mission. 
 
 J This fact has stood the test of Mr. W. H. Lecky's research. Lecky's 
 ' History of England in the Eighteenth Century,' vol. i. p. 166. 
 
LORD CLARENDON AT HANOVER. 195 
 
 Moreover there were laymen of quality who would 
 gladly have followed him. Mr. Carte, in his memo- 
 randum book, which is at tlie Bodleian Library, is 
 said to have received the following anecdote from 
 the Duke of Ormond : — 
 
 " The night before the Queen died, when the Council broke 
 up the Duke of Buckingham came to the Duke of Ormond, 
 clapped his hand on his shoulder and said, My Lord, you have 
 twonty-four hours' time to do our business in and make yourself 
 master of the kingdom." 
 
 But the twenty-four hours passed by without any 
 such action taking place,* so that Somers' organisa- 
 tion being perfected, peace was preserved, and the 
 Brunswick family came to the British throne without 
 a drop of blood being spilt, and if it had been pos- 
 sible for them to have adopted a national, instead 
 of a party policy, the sad story of 1715 perhaps need 
 never have been told.f 
 
 * It is worth while observing that there is no historical foundation for 
 the idea that James Edward was in England at this juncture, of which 
 Thackeray has made such effective use in the charming romance of 
 ' Esmond.' 
 
 t According to Carte, the Queen relented as to her brother before she 
 died, sending for the Bishop of London, and making a sort of confession 
 to him. The Bishop is said to have replied aloud before the Duchess of 
 Ormond and others : " I'll declare your mind ; but it will cost me my 
 head." If this be true, the Prelate in question had not the resolution to 
 carry out the Queen's behest. — Maopherson's ' Original Papers,' vol. ii. 
 p. 528. 
 
 2 
 
196 THE BBUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 GEORGE THE FIRST AT ST. JAMES's. 
 
 The turbulent political scenes which surrounded 
 Queen Anne's last hours were enacted amidst the 
 tremors of a people who believed that they were face 
 to face with the perils incident on a disputed 
 Succession. 
 
 Oxford, who had been dismissed ungraciously, soon 
 saw his rival Bolingbroke left far astern in the race 
 for power. At that signally important Council 
 summoned to take the dying Queen's last instructions 
 and to select a Minister in the late Lord Treasurer's 
 place, the Dukes of Somerset and Argyll arrived on 
 the scene* and proposed the Duke of Shrewsbury 
 as holder of the White Staff. Bolingbroke not im- 
 mediately aspiring to a place his social character 
 precluded him from grasping, yet desired to fill the 
 various ofiices of State with followers of his own, 
 
 * Lord Bolingbroke had made a resolute attempt to conciliate the Whigs 
 the night after Lord Oxford's fall, entertaining Generals Stanhope, Cadogan 
 and Palmes, Sir William Wyndham, Mr. Craggs, and cithers.— Bapin, 
 vol. xviii. p. 223. 
 
 Taken with his expressed desire to unite the leading Tories of all com- 
 plexions under his banner, there can remain little doubt that a coalition 
 which should keep him in power was the primary object, not the Pretender. 
 
GEORGE THE FIRST AT ST. JAMES'S. 197 
 
 and when the Queen with her dying breath ratified 
 the selection of these two Dukes, all hopes of realis- 
 ing his designs must have vanished even from the 
 mind of England's most eloquent and most energetic 
 statesman ; * and he had received this rebuff at the 
 hands of the veteran Shrewsbury, one of those who 
 assisted in bringing about the Eevolution of 1688, 
 and yet from time to time corresponded with the son 
 of James the Second. 
 
 That Shrewsbury would have registered no ante- 
 cedent objection to a Stuart restoration is evident 
 from the fact that, as Lord Bolingbroke phrased it, 
 he was dipped in Jacobite politics within a few 
 months after the time when he stood in the breach 
 to baulk those far-reaching ambitions, the real nature 
 and full extent of which no man has yet been able 
 to gauge, 
 
 Shrewsbury had been for some time out of accord 
 with his political associates, who had looked coldly 
 upon an alliance contracted during a residence in 
 Rome between the Duke and a beautiful Italian girl 
 of humble origin ; and his constitutional scruples to 
 Bolingbroke's supremacy were probably seconded by 
 private objections to unhindered Tory pre-eminence. 
 Pointing to Lord Oxford, Bolingbroke had said 
 
 * A careful perusal of many accounts of these events and of such MSS. 
 as bear on the subject inclines us on the whole to prefer that by Mr. Robert 
 Harrop in hiis ' Bolingbroke, a Political Study and Criticism,' pp. 211, 212. 
 He recognises what few other writers do (strange to say, not even 
 Lord Ktanhope, notwithstanding his otherwise clear conception of the situa- 
 tion), viz. that the Council and not Bolingbroke were paramount after 
 Oxford's fall. 
 
198 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 to Dr. Arbuthnot, the Queen's physician, in July 
 1714, 
 
 " How I stand with tliat man I know," 
 
 Then pointing to Shrewsbury he added, 
 " but as to the other I cannot tell."* 
 
 Concerning the two nobles whose sudden appear- 
 ance at the last Council of Queen Anne's reign 
 turned the scale against Bolingbroke, one cannot 
 remain silent. 
 
 Charles Seymour,. Duke of Somerset, sixth in 
 descent from the great Protector of Edward the 
 Sixth's reign, occupied in the House of Lords much 
 the same position as Harley had formerly filled in 
 the House of Commons. He was the recognised 
 leader of the loyal Tory party which remained 
 faithful to the Protestant Succession, and upon his 
 name no taint of Jacobitism had ever fallen. 
 
 Scorning to retain office under James the Second 
 at the expense of his principles, this haughty noble 
 was one of the authors of the great constitutional 
 settlement of 1688, and after William the Third's 
 death was chosen by Queen Anne as her personal 
 friend, although courtier in the ordinary sense of 
 the word it was impossible for him to become.f 
 
 So proud was the Duke of Somerset, that he is said 
 to have reprobated the levity of his second wife, a 
 daughter of Lord Winchelsea, when she ventured to 
 
 * Arbuthnot to Swift, July 15, 171-4. 
 t Harrop's ' Bolingbroke,' p. 44. 
 
GEORGE THE FIRST- AT ST. JAMES'S. 199 
 
 tap him with her fan, a liberty which a previous 
 consort, although a Percy, never dared to take.* He 
 was father-in-law to Sir William Wyndham, and 
 resented the accusation of complicity in the Rebellion 
 of 1715, which was brought against that politician. 
 
 The second opponent who barred Bolingbroke's 
 path was John, second Duke of Argyll. A soldier 
 of considerable experience, he had been promoted by 
 William the Third to command of a regiment when 
 only nineteen, and subsequently served under the 
 Duke of Marlborough at Ramillies, Oudenarde, and 
 Malplaquet ; but he was strangely jealous of his great 
 commander's military renown. Subsequently Argyll 
 was placed in command in Spain after Stanhope's 
 defeat at Brihuega in 1710, and, failing to retrieve 
 the English fortunes, believed that he had not been 
 properly supported by Oxford and Bolingbroke, who 
 were then negotiating the Treaty of Utrecht.f 
 
 The great Scotch magnate had the gift of oratory, 
 and filled a leading position amongst the statesmen 
 of Greorge the First and Greorge the Second. 
 
 As the Commander of the Forces in Scotland under 
 the new Sovereign, the Duke of Argyll was soon to 
 be called on to display such military skill as he 
 
 * Burnet's ' History of his own Times,' edition 1838, p. 732. In the 
 year 1726, when sixty-five years of age, this Duke of Somerset, again a 
 widower, became enamoured of the famous Duchess of Marlborough, but 
 for once received a social rebuff himself, being told " if he was Emperor of 
 the world she would not permit him to succeed to the heart which had 
 been devoted to John Duke of Marlborough." — Alison's ' Marlborough,' 
 vol. ii. p. 320. 
 
 t Coxe's ' WaliKile,' vol. i. pp. 610, 611. 
 
200 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 possessed, and meantime his best endeavours were 
 given to support the Whig Grovernment formed on the 
 ruins of Bolingbroke's half-constructed Tory edifice. 
 
 And thus it happened that matters progressed 
 smoothly towards the consummation then devoutly 
 desired by the more solid portion of the English 
 people, and since acknowledged as a blessing to 
 civilization by generations who have tasted the 
 sweets of liberty under the Gruelphic rule. 
 
 The Privy Council appointed twenty-five Regents, 
 including seven great Officers of State, and eighteen 
 Lord Justices, the latter named by the new King, 
 through Kreyenberg, directly Queen Anne died. 
 That several of the former were not Whigs the 
 following names will show : Dr. Tenison, Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury ; Lord Chancellor Harcourt ; 
 John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, Lord President; 
 Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury, Lord Treasurer; 
 William Legg, Earl of Dartmouth, Lord Privy Seal ; 
 Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Straiford, First Com- 
 missioner of the Admiralty ; and Sir Thomas Parker, 
 Lord Justice of the King's Bench. 
 
 Moreover, a proclamation, styling Greorge, Elector 
 of Brunswick-Luneburg, King of Great Britain, 
 France and Ireland, immediately received the signa- 
 tures of more than one hundred lords and gentlemen, 
 some of whom were destined to shed their blood for 
 James Edward in a year's time, while Lord Isla, 
 Argyll's brother. Lord Justice of North Britain, 
 persuading his countrymen that Royal Stuart blood 
 
GEORGE THE FIRST AT ST. JAMES'S. 201 
 
 ran in Greorge the First's veins, conducted the initial 
 proceedings of proclaiming the new King with an 
 eclat worthy of the Scotch nation, and of the 
 beautiful capital city in which the ceremony was 
 held. 
 
 In the Museum in Princes Street, Edinburgh, 
 exposed on a screen for public view, may now be 
 read the signatures of those who, on the ground we 
 have indicated, welcomed George Lewis's representa- 
 tive to the ancient halls of Holyrood. Nor is it 
 unworthy of record that prominent amongst the list 
 of Highland chieftains and Lowland lairds was the 
 name of Cameron of Lochiel. For in truth men 
 looked forward wistfully to a truce of parties, during 
 which, if many regrets were buried, decent sepulture 
 was afforded them on the score that national unity 
 was a necessity when law and order demanded some 
 sacrifice from the partisan, on whatever side ranged. 
 
 A similar success having attended the formalities 
 at Dublin, those responsible for the peace of England 
 strained their attention in order to learn tidings of 
 the Pretender's movements, and, above all, longed 
 for King George's arrival. 
 
 In the meantime Bolingbroke's late endeavours 
 to arm the ports having been left incomplete,* 
 
 * Lord Bolingbroke has teen freely blamed for not having fortified the 
 ports. We found this letter in his own handwriting, however, at the 
 Record Office, which should be perused in justice to the statesman whose 
 conduct has been so severely animadverted on : — 
 
 " Whitehall, May 25, 1714. 
 
 " Gentlemen, — As to the fortifications of Great Britain and the state of 
 the stores there, and the necessary measures for proceeding on one, and lor 
 
202 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 measures of defence were resolved on by the Re- 
 gency, who chose the illustrious Addison to act. as 
 Secretary, and ignored Lord Bolingbroke contemptu- 
 ously, obliging him to stand at the Council Chamber 
 door with the very papers which had previously 
 been addressed to him as Minister, while he was 
 called on to receive peremptory orders from those 
 who but yesterday were adjudged to be his subordi- 
 nates. Moreover, the very first tidings from the 
 King at Hanover contained an order to formally 
 dismiss the late Secretary of State with contumely, 
 similar to that which he had previously experienced 
 at the hands of Greorge the First's agents. If it is in 
 the nature of a worm to turn, how much more likely 
 is the lion to rend small creatures who conspire to 
 disable him ? and it is difScult to conceive an opti- 
 mist capable of believing that^ spurned from the 
 Palace door, and crushed by his political enemies, a 
 man of unsettled opinions and high spirit such as 
 Bolingbroke would be slow to recognise and nurture 
 the fast-growing reaction in favour of old-world ideas 
 as represented by James Edward Stuart, which was 
 threatening to embarrass the lately-crowned King of 
 England. 
 
 re()lenishmg the other, their Lordships will meet at my ofBce to-morrow 
 between six and seven in the evening, at which hour you will please attend 
 them. 
 
 " I am, &c., 
 
 " Bolingbroke. 
 " Principal Officers of, and Board of Ordnance." 
 
 There was clearly no wilful neglect on the Minister's part. 
 
GEORGE THE FIRST AT ST. JAMES'S. 203 
 
 Much as this poHcy of the Hanoverian Whig 
 leaders may be reprobated, it is not amazing to those 
 who have become familiar with that remarkable col- 
 lection of letters in the Hanover Papers which 
 deal with this period. Kreyenberg, Bothmar, and 
 Eobethon are at one in the resolve to elevate the 
 Whigs, and correspondingly depress the Tories. If 
 the Elector caught the prevailing sentiment, it only 
 survives in his alleged remark, when on starting for 
 England he was reminded by a Grerman friend of 
 Charles the First's fate — " But the King-killers are 
 all on my side." 
 
 Having committed the government of his Grerman 
 dominions to a Council under his brother Ernest, 
 Greorge the First embarked at Orange Polder on 
 September 16, accompanied by Baron Bernsdorff, 
 M. de Robethon, Count Platen, the Baron de Rhedo, 
 the Marquess de la Foret, and (in spite of their 
 having been disavowed in the Electoral Prince 
 matter) the Baron Schutz and his two sons, together 
 with a large entourage of foreigners. 
 
 The above-mentioned yacht Peregrine, and the 
 Mary, were the Royal vessels which, accompanied 
 by British and Dutch men-of-war, conveyed the new 
 King and his suite to England. They reached the 
 Thames in a fog, and so had to wait several hours 
 before proceeding up the river to Greenwich, which 
 the King reached at six o'clock in the evening of 
 September 18, 1714. He took up his abode in the 
 ancient palace erected by Edward the First, and 
 
204 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 specially connected with the Tudor dynasty, inas- 
 much as therein was born Henry the Eighth, while 
 his two daughters _ Mary and Elizabeth also first saw 
 light there. 
 
 After a triumphal entry into London with his 
 son, the Prince of Wales, Greorge the First was 
 crowned at Westminster on October 20, 1714, with 
 great magnificence — both Oxford and Bolingbroke 
 being present ; and in London the people received 
 the King with enthusiasm, although in certain pro- 
 vincial districts, as we shall show, ominous discontent 
 shortly disclosed itself. 
 
 The King, on his arrival in London, took up his 
 residence at St. James's Palace. According to Rapin, 
 the historian, he reached the metropolis on a bright 
 and cool September day. On the following morning 
 he was much surprised when, after gazing at the 
 ornamental water in the park, he received a present 
 of two fine carp from the ranger, Lord Chetwynd, and 
 was told to give five guineas to the bearer for — as 
 the King phrased it — " bringing me my own carp 
 out of my own canal in my oion park." * For so he 
 had been led to regard St. James's Palace, and what 
 was then its beautiful demesne. 
 
 Although the new King's wit can scarcely be de- 
 scribed as of the highest order, yet he was an amusing 
 companion after dinner, and many good-natured 
 anecdotes are told of him which scarcely bear repe- 
 tition. But it is right to record that George the 
 
 * Jesse's ' Court of England,' vol. ii. p. 306. 
 
GEORGE THE FIRST AT ST. JAMES'S. 205 
 
 First, avowedly and constitutionally leaving to re- 
 sponsible Ministers questions of public policy, whether 
 connected with the stability of his own dynasty or 
 the direction of foreign affairs, as well as matters of 
 trade and finance, yet ever displayed a commendable 
 liberality of feeling towards the exiled claimants to 
 his throne. 
 
 For instance, he retained the friendship of an old 
 companion, wlio, although ready to smoke with him 
 as of yore, would never salute him as King of G-reat 
 Britain. Again, to a lady in a domino who, pre- 
 sumably at a masked ball, asked him to drink to the 
 Pretender, he replied : 
 
 " I will drink witli all my heart to the memory of any 
 Tinfortunate prince." 
 
 Probably, however, the answer he gave to a 
 German nobleman with whom he stayed on one 
 of his journeys to Hanover, will be thought the 
 most creditable of all the anecdotes recorded by 
 that pleasant chronicler, Mr. John Heneage Jesse. 
 Seeing a portrait, apparently of an English sove- 
 reign in full regal robes, George the First asked 
 who it represented, and was told diffidently that the 
 Chevalier de St. George had sent the picture to 
 the owner, an acquaintance made at Rome : — 
 
 "Upon my word," said the King, "it is very like the family." 
 No greater delicacy of feeling, alike towards his 
 unfortunate kinsman and the embarrassed host, 
 could possibly be imagined.* 
 
 * Jesse's ' Court of England,' vol. ii. p. 309. 
 
206 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu has left a vivid 
 picture of the Court of St. James's early in this 
 reign. Mr. Wortley being a Lord of the Treasury, 
 his beautiful and witty wife was welcomed at a 
 Court where many other possessors of such charming 
 qualities declined to appear, such was the devotion 
 of the old English families to the Stuarts. But not 
 only did the King and the Duchess of Kendal,* who 
 headed his table, become enchained by Lady Mary's 
 beauty, but the susceptible Prince of Wales admired 
 her also, although attendance at the levees of 
 St. James's was usually by no means an entree to 
 Leicester House, the Heir-Apparent's residence. 
 
 One evening, Lady Mary, wishing to escape from 
 a Royal party, found the admiring monarch loth 
 to allow her to depart, which she nevertheless 
 did, amidst many deprecatory but complimentary 
 remarks. Unfortunately, however, she retailed her 
 experiences to Mr. Secretary Craggs, whom she met 
 in the courtyard at St. James's, and he, wishing to 
 please Greorge the First, carried Lady Mary upstairs 
 in his arms, and deposited the fair burden close 
 to that monarch, who was extremely delighted, ex- 
 claiming, " Ah ! la revoila." However, Lady Mary, 
 quite put off her guard, in her confusion exclaimed : 
 
 " Oh Lord, Sir, I have heen so frightened," 
 and then told the story just as she would have told 
 
 * The Duchess of Kendal was George the First's wife by a left-handed 
 marriage. The Electress Sophia called her a Maukin, and wondered at 
 her son's infatuation for her. — Coxe's ' Walpole,' vol. i. p. 82. 
 
GEORGE THE FIRST AT ST. JAMES'S. 207 
 
 it to a subject. The Sovereign, much amused, asked 
 Craggs if it was an English custom to carry ladies 
 about like sacks of wheat, and was told in reply 
 that it was done for His Majesty's satisfaction. 
 Mr. Craggs' lame answer passed tolerably well, but 
 he revenged himself on the tell-tale beauty by oaths 
 and reproaches, which, to use her own words, she 
 " durst not resent." * 
 
 There is no portion of West-end London more 
 rich in interesting memories of the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries than those which cluster around 
 the courtyard of that circumscribed Royal palace at 
 St. James's, whence the Court of England is, in 
 diplomatic parlance, supposed to issue its mandates. 
 The spot is equally associated with the unfortunate 
 Stuarts and with their Gruelph successors. There 
 the Prince Palatine was welcomed to the English 
 Court by King James the First, although the Queen 
 Anne of Denmark never could reconcile herself to 
 what she deemed an unequal marriage with a pseudo 
 prince, and hesitated to allow her beautiful daughter 
 Elizabeth to leave for Grermany. There the ill-fated 
 James Edward first saw the light, and under that 
 roof dwelt George the First. 
 
 * Lady M. W. Montagu's "Works, vol. i. p. 38. 
 
208 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE REBRLLION OP 1715 AND ITS CAUSES. 
 
 The rising which King George the First is believed 
 to have apprehended before he left Hanover was 
 only deferred, not prevented, and, as will be shown, 
 the Brunswick-Luneburg family were speedily com- 
 pelled to wrestle with what threatened to become a 
 desperate situation. But the Fates fought for them, 
 and quickly averted the imminent disaster. 
 
 A candid family friend — and they would doubtless 
 have been forthcoming in numbers had defeat and 
 abdication awaited the new King — might plausibly 
 have ascribed his downfall to the questionable policy 
 of propitiating only one of the great parties which 
 had, on the whole, fairly shared power since the 
 Eevolution of 1688. Dr. Sacheverell was at Sutton, 
 near Birmingham, about this time, and employed his 
 time in vigorously preaching, in and out of the pulpit, 
 against the threatened Whig domination. As a con- 
 sequence, excited mobs arose at Birmingham, dis- 
 persing by force a loyal gathering which had 
 assembled to celebrate the Coronation.* In Stafford- 
 
 * Rapiu's ' History of England,' vol. xvjii. p. 327. 
 
THE "1715." 209 
 
 shire excited crowds attacked the Dissenting meet- 
 ing-houses, necessitating the reading of a stringent 
 Riot Act passed through Parliament with haste 
 for the purpose.* Similar disorders, moreover, oc- 
 curred at Bristol, Chippenham, Norwich and Reading, 
 On the other hand, it is fair to add that many formal 
 addresses of loyalty reached St. James's from other 
 parts of the kingdom, while Cambridge University 
 spoke strongly out for the Brunswick regime. 
 
 The King had brought over with him, in lieu of 
 the unfortunate Sophia Dorothea of Celle, who was 
 still immured in Ahlen Castle, two female com- 
 panions, one of whom, the Duchess of Kendal, has 
 already been mentioned. The other was the Countess 
 Platen. The Grerman entourage, male and female, 
 became exceedingly unpopular, and it is said to have 
 been one of the latter who, when execrated by the 
 people, thrust her head out of the window and cried, 
 in broken English, " My friends, we are come for 
 your goots ;" some British wag rejoining, "Aye, 
 and for our chattels too." Cries of " Ormond " and 
 " High Church for ever ! " were frequent among the 
 people at this time, even in London, where the Whig 
 commercial class generally, no doubt, were for the 
 Protestant Succession ; but the cry of " Down with 
 the Hanover rats !" was frequently raised ;f while 
 more serious still, the British Guards were discon- 
 tented, nominally at the quality of their clothes, 
 
 * 'History of Europe from the Peace of Utrecht,' by Lord John Russell, 
 Book ii. p. 3. 
 
 t Coxe's ' Life of Marlborough,' vol. vi. p. 318. 
 
 P 
 
210 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Marlborough finding it necessary to ply them well 
 with beer before even he could bring them into a 
 contented state of mind.* 
 
 The violent party spirit displayed by the triumphant 
 Whigs had doubtless raised this alarming ferment. 
 The leaders of the late Ministry, Oxford and Boling- 
 broke, were impeached on the charge of high 
 treason for collusion with the late Queen's enemies ; 
 Walpole and his political associates undertaking, in 
 effect, to show that there was a settled resolve to 
 bring back the Pretender. 
 
 The Tory party, broken to pieces, made but little 
 open resistance, while circumstances were conspiring 
 to tempt the doubting section of that party into the 
 purely Jacobite ranks. Who, for instance, believes 
 Sir William Wyndham had any natural inclination 
 in that direction ? Lord Bolingbroke, as . is well 
 known, did not await the risks of a trial. He felt 
 sure that those of his enemies who were in power, 
 and therefore able to compass his destruction, had 
 determined to take the life they held forfeit for the 
 manner in which its owner concluded the Treaty of 
 Utrecht, and for the alleged design, attributed to 
 him by these unrelenting detractors, of forcing the 
 Pretender upon this country in defiance of law and 
 without regard to liberty. He fled without even 
 waiting for the attainder, and in contravention of 
 his assurances to Lord Stair, the English Ambassador 
 at Paris, joined the Pretender. It is said that the 
 
 ♦ Coxe's • Life of Marlborough/ vol. vi. p, 319. 
 
THE "1715." 211 
 
 Duke of Marlborough had warned Bolingbroke not 
 to await the decision of a tribunal called together to 
 register the adverse decision of his enemies, probably 
 to condemn him to death, and that he retreated to 
 France in consequence. 
 
 Lord Oxford, on the other hand, never quailed 
 before the tempest roused by his political foes, and, 
 conscious that the case against him could not be 
 proved, he comported himself with manifest dignity, 
 being taken to the Tower amidst varying expressions 
 of popular opinion. In this enforced retirement he 
 employed his leisure in inditing from time to time 
 letters in the Latin language, so that the warders 
 might not understand them.* Amongst these epistles 
 was one, indited during a moment of resentment, 
 which engaged the writer to assist the Pretender. 
 
 It was impossible that the country gentlemen of 
 England as a class, together with nearly all the 
 learned clergy in the country, should be denied a 
 just share in the Government, and yet that leaders, 
 such as Bolingbroke and Oxford, should still remain 
 faithful to a new regime which professed to desire 
 their degradation and death, and really did intend 
 to exclude them, together with those they repre- 
 sented, from power.f 
 
 It has been generally assumed that the danger to 
 
 * The ' Welbeck Papers ' contain most of these communications. They 
 are to be catalogued and arranged at the Record Office. 
 
 t That great Whig magnate, the late Earl Russell, has left on record 
 that his party were goaded to resentment because of " glory missed " in 
 1710-11. — ' History of Europe from the Peace of Utrecht,' vol. i. p. 335. 
 
 p 2 
 
212 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 the Brunswick dynasty was greater in 1708 and 
 1745, and franglit with more danger in 1718 and 
 1719, when the Pretender was at Madrid under 
 Cardinal Alberoni's protection, than in 1715, because 
 on the latter, occasion England was at peace. The 
 death of Louis the Fourteenth in this eventful year, 
 1715, rendered any renewed hostility from France 
 improbable, and so deprived the Jacobites of their 
 great family general, the Duke of Berwick, whose 
 presence in Scotland would probably have altered 
 the course of events. For in spite of the fact that 
 Lord Mar's precipitate counsels caused the struggle 
 to be practically concluded before the Pretender 
 reached Peterhead, near Aberdeen, yet there is 
 reason to believe that a prompt and resolute advance 
 might have carried all before it in Scotland, while 
 the conflict in England would then have been 
 determined under totally different conditions. For 
 the people were undoubtedly less favourable to 
 the Brunswick family in 1715 than at any other 
 period during which their rule was in question ; 
 while, most portentous fact of all! Marlborough 
 had sent the Pretender a sum of nioney to defray 
 the charges of his expedition,* and yet nomi- 
 nally directed George the First's military affairs. 
 Even when instead of — as in Berwick's opinion he 
 ought to have done— pushing on to Stirling and 
 Edinburgh with his whole force. Mar remained 
 
 * Lord Stanhope's 'History of England from the Peace of Utrecht,' 
 vol. i. Appendix, p. 33, 4th edition. 
 
THE "1715." 213 
 
 inactive at Perth, the danger to the Protestant 
 dynasty was still very real. Detached from, the 
 main Jacobite body, Colonel Macintosh, with two 
 thousand picked Highlanders, joined hands on the 
 Tweed, at Kelso, with Lord Kenmure, who had 
 raised the southern counties of G-alloway and 
 Dumfries. Argyll was thus placed between two 
 fires, while in the northern counties of England an 
 insurrection smouldered, such as, had it not been 
 promptly suppressed when it burst forth prema- 
 turely, must have brought about the conditions 
 which Marlborough expected and was prepared to 
 recognise. Lancashire was undoubtedly ready to 
 rise, and a single success would have brought thou- 
 sands to the Jacobite standard. However, when 
 Mr. Forster and Lord Derwentwater, with 1400 
 men, were surrounded at Preston and forced to sur- 
 render, the rebellion became isolated in Scotland, 
 and so lost its sting. For Ormond had failed to 
 arouse the west, and the Highlanders of Macintosh, 
 shrinking from crossing the border, had left the 
 deluded insurgents of Cumberland, Northumberland, 
 and Lancashire to their fate. 
 
 These events occurred in November, 1715, so that 
 it was not until the 13th of December that Mar 
 fought the celebrated and indecisive battle of 
 Sheriffmuir, near Dunblane. " Oh for one hour of 
 Dundee ! " is said to have been the cry of Gordon 
 of Grlenbucket, an old Killiecrankie man, during 
 the first vieUe of the clans, when but for a Dutch 
 
214 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 contingent which succoured A.rgyll, the Jacobite, 
 Highlanders would have outnumbered their loyal 
 countrymen from Argyleshire. 
 
 A week after this event, and when the insurrec- 
 tion had already spent its force in England, while it 
 languished in Scotland, James Edward, to use his 
 own words, appeared in his ancient kingdom.* How, 
 disguised as a naval officer, he passed from Peterhead 
 through Feteresso to Perth, and thence to Scone, 
 and designed his coronation there in January, 1716, 
 is well known. How also, when Mar retreated a 
 month afterwards, the Pretender — for we can hence- 
 forth give him no other name even in Scotland — 
 escaped to Montrose, and embarked for France, 
 February 4, 1716, is likewise familiar to every 
 one who has read the history of his country. On 
 the other hand, probably few have gauged the im- 
 mensity of the peril from which this nation was 
 then delivered. 
 
 Had Lord Bolingbroke — still on friendly terms 
 with Marlborough — been allowed to shape the course 
 of the rebellion from his Parisian hiding-place, there 
 is little doubt that the outbreak would not have con- 
 sisted of isolated explosions, the smoke of which 
 James Edward was called in to view when there was 
 no more powder available. Therefore it is that we 
 regard the subsequent attempts to overthrow the 
 
 * While Lord Stanhope's and other accounts of this rebellion have been 
 consulted, we owe much to the late Sir Archibald Alison's ' Marlborough,' 
 vol. ii. pp. 273-286. Sir Archibald knew the country, and was in the 
 habit of visiting every battlefield he described. 
 
THE "1715." 215 
 
 Brunswick dynasty as of minor importance. Bng- 
 lislimen, for instance, would never have permanently 
 agreed to accept a king at Spanish dictation, because 
 Cardinal Alberoui had revived the resources of that 
 country in 1717. Nor is it possible to believe that 
 if the persevering Ormond had not been driven 
 from Scotland in 1719 by the adverse elements, his 
 presence would have saved from capture the handful 
 of Spaniards who then surrendered near that lovely 
 spot between Arisaig and Fort William yclept Grlen- 
 finnan, where Charles Edward's standard was first 
 set up in 1745. As for the threatened rebellion of 
 1722, which brought about the discovery of Atter- 
 bury's treason, this danger happily arose when 
 Bolingbroke was constrained by reason of his pardon 
 to remain at least neutral, and when Marlborough 
 had really resolved to throw his influence into sup- 
 porting the Brunswick cause. 
 
 The Jacobites seem to have been lured on from 
 day to day by confident belief in a Restoration, and 
 Mary of Modena's own statement to the Abbess of 
 Chaillot proves this. She says : " When I first 
 passed over to France, if any one had told me I 
 should have to remain here two years, I should have 
 been in despair, and I have been upwards of two 
 and twenty." * On the other hand, the Stuart papers 
 at Windsor concerning Atterbury, which Mr. J. H. 
 Grlover edited, showf how active the eloquent bishop 
 
 * Miss Strickland's ' Princesses of the House of Stuart,' p. 362. 
 t See p. 18, also p. 130, where an attempt to re-enlist Bolingbroke is 
 mentioned. 
 
216 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 had been even before bis historic trial and able 
 defence, the adverse result of which compelled him 
 to make Paris the base of his secret operations agaiiist 
 G-eorge the First. Nor is it possible to ignore the 
 fact that between the years 1Y22-24 the Scotch 
 Episcopal Bishops were elected by the Pretender's 
 direct orders.* In England the clergy, led by Bishop 
 Atterbury and Dr. Snape, Head-master of Eton, 
 pressed the doctrine of non-resistance in 1717 to its 
 logical conclusion, and raised such a tempest — known 
 as the Bangorian controversy — -that Convocation was 
 suspended, never to meet again until 1854, under 
 Lord Aberdeen's administration. 
 
 We revert to Alberoni's projects for the purpose 
 of calling attention to a very interesting document 
 preserved in the Hanover Papers, that magazine of 
 eighteenth-century history. A few introductory re- 
 marks are necessary. One of the first things Cardinal 
 Alberoni did on gaining supreme power in Spain, 
 was to take the Chevalier de St. Greorge under his 
 protection, as a means of strengthening himself 
 against England, and detaching France, if possible, 
 from the triple alliance which that nation had 
 formed with England and Holland. However, with- 
 out proclaiming war, the English Government sent 
 Sir George Byng into that part of the Mediter- 
 ranean where the Spanish fleet had been ordered to 
 rendezvous. 
 
 The British Admiral found them off Messina, and 
 
 * ' Lockbart Papers,' vol. ii. p. 23. 
 
THE "1715." 217 
 
 an action ensued, in which the Enghsh fleet, carrying 
 1400 guns, nearly destroyed the Spanish, with only 
 1284 guns, one wing alone escaping to Malta under 
 Admiral George Cammock, who was acting under 
 the Pretender's orders.* Byng received a letter 
 from Cammock, calling on him to take his fleet into 
 Messina and, joining with that of Spain, sail towards 
 England. This letter, after threatening him with 
 divers penalties ordained of God and St. Paul, on 
 the ground " that whosoever resisteth the ordinance 
 shall receive to himself Damnation," goes on, " a 
 death-bed repentance will avail but little, for with- 
 out Restitution repentance availeth nothing." He 
 must therefore restore the Pretender, whose appear- 
 ance and character he thus describes : — ■ 
 
 " As England has now at this time only a Cypher of a King 
 and a sham pretending Prince of Wales, now Sir George give 
 me leave to lay before you and that with truth the true character 
 of yours and mine lawful master whom God preserve. 
 
 " He is tall, slender, comely, the upper part of his face very 
 much like Charles II.,f the lower part very much like the late 
 Queen Mother, sharp, quick, Eye very perceptable, his Judgment 
 extremely good on all subjects that are talked on. 
 
 " He speaks as good English as if he had had his Education 
 in England, he is well acquainted with the Laws of his Country 
 and perfectly with Clarendon's History and the manners of the 
 people of England, whenever he talks of his Subjects it is with 
 great compassion and affection for his poor deluded people. As 
 to his natural dispositions he is affable, Courteous, kind, generous. 
 
 * Mahon's ' History of England,' vol. 1. p. 315. 
 
 t There must have been some truth in this likeness, for Mr. Leslie, the 
 well-known Non-juror, describes the Chevalier as tall and active in his 
 person, resembling Charles the Second in countenauce. — Lord Kusst'll's 
 ' History of the Peace of Utrecht,' Bk. ii. ch. i. p. 6, 
 
218 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 brave, and of a forgiving temper, te has no desire of reyeng© 
 to his worst of enemies on the contrary, for I have had the honour 
 to hear him say at his table to the Duke of Ormond that he 
 would forgive even Marlborough, Sunderland, Townsend and 
 Stanhope, his greatest enemies if it should please God to restore 
 him." 
 
 Admiral Cammock proceeds to set forth the main 
 
 object of his letter, and offers bribes all round 
 
 if Sir George will only embrace the project in 
 
 question :— 
 
 " The King commands me to tell you that if you will bring 
 into Messina or any port of Spain the majority of your fleet, so 
 that it may be capable in conjunction with the Spanish fleet to 
 beat the remainder of the Usurper's fleet, that he will reward 
 you with the same title as General Monk had for the restoring 
 Charles II. And for the better maintaining the honour and 
 dignity of Duke of Albemarle, his Majesty will give you one 
 hundred thousand pounds sterling as his royal bounty, for 
 which security the King of Spain will be guaranty, and further- 
 more First Lord of the Admiralty, or Admiral Commander and 
 chief of his Majesty's fleet, which of those two you will make 
 choice of." 
 
 Cammock goes on to promise each captain of the 
 fleet who complies 10,000Z. sterling, making him 
 also knight of a newly created order. As to the 
 subaltern officers, they who gave proof of loyalty 
 were to be preferred accordiug to merit. Able 
 seamen and soldiers, on the other hand, were to be 
 paid all arrears of wages due to them during the 
 time they served the so-called usurping King, George 
 the First.* 
 
 * We quote from a summary of Cammock's letter, which the author 
 of this worli contributed in October 1885 to the 'English Historical 
 Review,' taken straight from the Hanover Papers, j 
 
THE "1715." 219 
 
 This remarkable statement concludes, as it com- 
 menced, with mingled adulation and threatening. 
 It is dated October 14, 1Y18, and was apparently- 
 withheld until the general action off Messina which 
 resulted so disastrously for Spain. Cammock, escap- 
 ing with his wing of the fleet, added a postscript at 
 Yaletta. This disaster, although it by no means 
 appalled Alberoni, weakened Spain on the sea, while 
 the death of the Swedish king, Charles the Twelfth, 
 made one enemy less to England and the Protestant 
 Succession, Ultimately all efforts to break up the 
 alliance between France and England having failed, 
 Alberoni's bold projects collapsed, and he was sent 
 back to Italy. 
 
 Our task is practically finished when a date is 
 reached after which due consideration makes it 
 possible to declare that the Gruelph family remained 
 secure upon that throne they have rendered so 
 famous. There remains, therefore, but to sum up 
 shortly what have been the constitutional influences 
 which have attended their elevation. Of course 
 this security was really brought about by "Walpole ; 
 although it is well to correct an error frequently 
 made, to the effect that this great financier became 
 the First Minister of Greorge the First, whereas his 
 elevation did not take place until after Townsend, 
 Stanhope, and Sunderland had severally occupied 
 the post. He was then placed in power, because 
 the national finance was completely broken down 
 by the bursting of the South Sea Bubble. It is true 
 
220 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 that the Septennial Act was really initiated by this 
 pre-eminent Whig leader, but Lord Townsend was 
 nevertheless Minister at the time; while the Tri- 
 partite Treaty which united France, England and 
 Holland, was owing to the diplomatic sagacity of 
 Stanhope and Sunderland, which defeated for the 
 nonce that tendency of France and Spain to unite 
 adversely to English interests which Professor 
 Seeley has detected and fixed, as we think unfairly, 
 upon the Treaty of Utrecht and its designers. 
 
 Befoi'e bringing this chapter to a conclusion by 
 mentioning the dangers which threatened the person 
 of our first Guelphic King, we transcribe Horace 
 "Walpole's striking picture of his father's Royal 
 master : — 
 
 " I must suppose," he says, " that the female attendants in 
 the family must have put it into my head to long to see the 
 King. This childish caprice was so strong, that my mother 
 solicited the Duchess of Kendal to obtain for me the honoiir of 
 kissing his Majesty's hand before he set out for Hanover. A 
 favour so unusual to be asked for a boy of ten years old, was 
 still too slight to be refused to the wife of the First Minister 
 for her darling child ; yet not being proper to be made a pre- 
 cedent, it was settled to be in private and at night. 
 
 " Accordingly, the night but one before the King began his 
 last journey, my mother carried me at 10 at night, to the apart- 
 ment of the Countess of Walsingham, on the ground floor 
 towards the garden of St. James, which opened into that of her 
 aunt the Duchess of Kendal ; apartments occupied by George 
 the Second after his Queen's death, and by his successive 
 mistresses the Countesses of Suffolk and Yarmouth. Notice 
 being given that the King was come down to supper, Lady 
 Walsingham took me alone into the Duchess's ante-room, where 
 we found the King and her. 
 
THE "1715." 221 
 
 " I knelt down and kissed his hand. He said a few words to 
 me, and my conductress led me back to my mother. 
 
 " The person of the King is as perfect in my memory as if I 
 saw him but yesterday. It was that of an elderly man, rather 
 pale, and exactly like his pictures and coins ; not tall, of an 
 aspect rather good than august, with a dark tie wig, a plain 
 coat, waistcoat, and breeches of snuff-coloured cloth, with 
 stockings of the same colour, and a blue riband over all. 
 
 " So entirely was he my object, that I do not believe I looked 
 once at the Duchess ; but as I could not avoid seeing her on 
 entering the room I remember that just bej'ond his Majesty 
 stood a very tall, lean, ill-favoured old lady; but I did not 
 retain the least idea of her features, nor know what the colour 
 of her dress was." 
 
 Walpole records in another place that the King- 
 took him in his arms, kissed him, and chatted some 
 time. It is remarkable that notwithstanding the 
 fierce religious political controversies which raged 
 over the question of the Succession, once only was 
 the life of George the First endangered from assassi- 
 nation. A fanatic boy of eighteen, James Shepherd, 
 apprentice to a coachmaker, did meditate the death 
 of the King in 1.718 ; not that vsrith the Prince of 
 Wales alive the youthful regicide could hope to gain 
 his end, and make way for the exiled Stuarts. How- 
 ever, refusing to express the slightest contrition or 
 sorrow for his intended crime, Shepherd was hanged 
 at Tyburn in March of the same year.* 
 
 G-eorge the First was in great danger of shipwreck 
 on his return from Hanover in 1726, inasmuch as 
 his vessel was caught in a violent storm, and after 
 
 * Jesse's 'Court of England,' vol. ii. p. 30i. 
 
222 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 beating about for two days in the Channel, he was 
 with difficulty landed at Rye, in Sussex.* This did 
 not, however, prevent him from setting out on the 
 final journey to his Electorate during the ensuing 
 year 1727, when he died on the road to Osnaburg, 
 June 11, aged 68. 
 
 * ' Lives of Eminent Englishmen,' 1838, vol. iv. p. 16. 
 
( 223 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE LATER GUELPHS. 
 A.D. 1727-1887. 
 
 Sir Robert Walpolb, the Premier, conscious that 
 a coaHtion of parties assailed him, expected that 
 he would be called upon to make room for Sir 
 Spencer Oompton on the King's demise. That Greorge 
 the Second preferred in the first days of his reign to 
 retain his father's faithful servant in oflSce was due 
 to the intervention of that wonderful woman Queen 
 Caroline, who had heard the late King say, when 
 threatened with an apparent financial necessity 
 for disbanding tbe Hanoverian troops, — " No, for 
 Walpole can convert stones into gold." Impressing 
 this fact upon her husband while representing the 
 extraordinarily wide scope of Walpole's genius for 
 government, the Queen bade fair to carry ber point, 
 when her womanly wit led her to suggest casually, 
 as it were, that Sir Robert intended to augment the 
 Civil List to the amount of £130,000. This con- 
 sideration seems to bave decided tbe battle, and with 
 Walpole once more supreme at Whitehall, the barrier 
 
224 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 to Jacobite advance was strengthened at the critical 
 moment.* 
 
 Compton had actually received an offer of the' 
 Premiership from the King, and had shed tears 
 as he avowed his incapacity to undertake the office. 
 Little did he think that the Queen had divined 
 the situation so completely that she would speedily 
 persuade her husband that his throne depended 
 on retaining Walpole in power. It is said that 
 Sir Robert, passiug through St. James's Square 
 at this moment, saw Compton's house besieged 
 by persons of all ranks anxious to pay court to 
 the new Minister, whereupon Sir Robert remarked, 
 " My house is deserted, and how that door is 
 crowded with carriages ! It will be different to- 
 morrow." f 
 
 The nation is still reaping the advantage which 
 accrued from Queen Caroline's sagacious interposi- 
 tion. Under the guidance of a Minister endowed 
 with remarkable breadth of view and foresight, the 
 course of policy pursued in G-eorge the Second's 
 reign tended to render the government of Great 
 Britain more popular, and by consequence more 
 stable. Up to this point the account of the progress 
 of the Brunswick dynasty has concerned us with the 
 actions of sovereigns, princes, and their personal 
 advisers, seeing that even the events which were 
 most inspired by the popular will, took shape and 
 
 * Ooxe's ' Walpole,' vol. i. pp. 285, 286. 
 t Ibid., p. 287. 
 
THE LATBE GUELPHS. 225 
 
 colour from the characters and actions of such exalted 
 individuals. But the strength of the throne tenanted 
 by G-eorge the First and his son was based on a 
 popular desire to preserve a rational form of mon- 
 archical government in the interests of personal 
 freedom and social order. These national blessings 
 were both threatened by the danger of a Jacobite 
 restoration which would have involved the entrance 
 of the Jesuits from St. Grermain on the political 
 stage of Great Britain. 
 
 Walpole had therefore one leading object in view 
 when he strove to propitiate France at almost any 
 hazard, aind preserved peace under circumstances 
 which men believed calculated to injure English 
 influence abroad if the nation remained inactive. 
 He was resolved to provide no haven for the Pre- 
 tender near our own shores. This policy succeeded 
 so well, that despite the inevitable rustiness of the 
 defences both by sea and land, which ensued upon 
 neglect of military and naval preparation, the 
 resources of the country were husbanded, and her 
 finance placed upon a scientific basis. Urged by 
 that able adviser Mr. Arthur Moore, who supported 
 "Walpole as fervently as he formerly had stood 
 by Bolingbroke, the policy initiated when framing 
 the Treaty of Utrecht, became that of the great 
 Whig party in their hour of triumph. In the 
 matter of Foreign Policy, however, it is impossible 
 to believe that had Sir Robert Walpole, or his 
 able diplomatic coadjutor and brother Horatio 
 
 Q 
 
226 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Walpole,* together with Mr. Arthur Moore, been 
 unshackled, they would ever have pursued the line 
 which they elected almost continuously to follow, 
 until at last public excitement forced them into the 
 war known as that " of Jenkins' ear," f which com- 
 menced in October 1739. It was in reality a 
 struggle for the trade of South America, and — oh ! 
 shades of Wilberforce and Clarkson ! — one waged to 
 retain a monopoly in the slave traffic which disgraced 
 those regions. 
 
 Popular in its inception, this war was welcomed by 
 the people with ringing of bells, on hearing which 
 Walpole remarked, "they will soon be wringing 
 their hands ; " and well might that remark have 
 proved true if Spain had possessed her former 
 strength ; but, despite the English unpreparedness 
 which soon became notorious, the Walpole Adminis- 
 tration got more respectably out of their difficulties 
 than, under the circumstances, they had any right to 
 expect. 
 
 * It is necessary, for the sake of those unfamiliar with this period, to 
 distinguish between Sir Eobert's brother, the diplomatist, and his younger 
 son Horace, the brilliant letter writer and literary character. Mr. Speaker 
 Onslow says regarding Mr. Arthur Moore : " Mr. Moore had very extra- 
 ordinary talents, with great experience and knowledge of the world, very 
 able in Parliament aLd capable of the highest parts of business, with a 
 manner in it, and indeed in his general deportment, equal almost to any 
 rank. He knew everybody, and could talk of everybody, which made his 
 conversation a sort of history of the age. 
 
 " He was generous and magnificent ; wrote and spoke accurately and 
 politely; but his figure was awkward and disadvantageous."— Burnet's 
 ' History of his own Times,' edition 1838, p. 898. 
 
 t A certain English captain, Jenkins by name, was said to have been 
 half-hanged at the yard-arm by some Spaniards, who then cut off his ear. 
 The story is a very doubtful one. 
 
THE LATER GUELPHS. 227 
 
 Porto Bello, on the Isthmus of Panama, was 
 taken, and mysterious signboards in remote portions 
 of England commemorate the victory in question to 
 this day.* Drifting on languidly and without 
 definite result, this contest between England and 
 Spain continued until the peace of Aix-la-Ohapelle in 
 1748, before which the war of the Austrian Succes- 
 sion had given fresh hopes to the Stuart exiles at Rome. 
 The Emperor Charles the Sixth, who had been the 
 cause of the last European war when Imperial 
 candidate for the throne of Spain, left his hereditary 
 dominions in Austria and Hungary to his daughter 
 Maria Theresa, and so in his death brought about 
 another continental struggle, because the King of 
 Spain and the Duke of Bavaria preferred claims 
 which it suited Frederick the G-reat to second in- 
 directly by invading Silesia. G-eorge the Second had 
 given his word to the late Emperor Charles the Sixth 
 to support the so-called Pragmatic Sanction which 
 was designed to retain the throne for Maria Theresa, 
 and straightway England and Walpole were dragged 
 into the general fray. With a condition of war ceased 
 Walpole's usefulness^indeed his very raison d'itre, 
 as to guarding the Succession soon to be again 
 threatened when France was once more in the field 
 as England's enemy. A vote of the House of 
 Commons in 1742 put a seal upon what had been 
 long evident, viz. that Walpole was, owing to the 
 
 * What hunting-man has not at some time or other gruelled his horse 
 at some hostel of the uame ? 
 
 Q^2 
 
228 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 direction of his ends and aims, no War Minister. He 
 stands, it is true, probably second to none wbo bave 
 ruled England in the science of government, although 
 mixed with the pure gold of his domestic statesman- 
 ship was the alloy of borough corruption, the latter 
 being part of the price paid for our liberty, the 
 remaining portion of which was the unreadiness for 
 war associated with the policy of retrenchment then 
 in vogue. 
 
 When peace ceased and Walpole's useful career 
 closed, the English had the satisfaction of contem- 
 plating the gallantry of their King at Dettingen in 
 1743, the campaign on the Main resulting favour- 
 ably for Maria Theresa. Handel, as is well known, 
 celebrated the event in his celebrated Te Deum, and 
 but for the advent of Marshal Saxe on the scene, 
 the truthful historian might still have told of 
 unchequered British triumph in the field. For 
 Dettingen, despite its comparative inutility, may be 
 so classed. 
 
 This celebrated hireling — for he was really Count 
 Maurice of Saxe, and no Frenchman — was destined 
 to undo all Marlborough's work, and inflict defeat 
 after defeat upon the English on the Flemish frontier, 
 starting from a base of operation whence the former 
 victories and sacrifices of Great Britain should have 
 precluded her from being assailed. We read then 
 in the triumphant advance of Marshal Saxe in 1745 
 a condemnation of the premature haste in which the 
 frontier was settled at Utrecht in 1712, and with 
 
THE LATBE GUELPHS. 229 
 
 these facts before his eyes Bolingbroke made his 
 famous apologies to Sir "William Wyndham, when he 
 acknowledged that France was too leniently treated 
 in 1713. The battle of Fontenoy left the fortress of 
 Tournay in French hands, while it is mere pinch- 
 beck patriotism which seeks to obscure the fact, 
 that stubbornly as the English fought, they came off 
 second best on that occasion. Led by the Duke of 
 Cumberland, a youth of 24, the English were 
 separated from their Austro-Dutch allies at the 
 critical moment of this battle, after one of the most 
 desperate charges recorded in military history.* 
 
 It followed as a matter of course that the Stuarts 
 would make some effort to regain the English throne 
 when they saw " Dapper Greorge," as the British 
 King was called, involved in a losing struggle with 
 France, Prussia, and Spain. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that Sir Robert Walpole, 
 who foresaw, and strove to prevent such a con- 
 juncture of affairs as had arrived, died in March, 
 1745, while in May came Fontenoy. 
 
 Before three months had ensued, James Edward's 
 son, Charles Edward, then twenty-five years old, full 
 of energy and enthusiasm, had landed in Scotland. 
 He had been sent for from Rome by the French 
 Ministry, which had arrived at a resolution to invade 
 England — Marshal Saxe and 15,000 men being 
 
 * We owe this account of the military situation to Morris's ' Early 
 Hanoverians,' from whose pleasant pages much may be learnt by those 
 who have not leisure for consulting longer histories. 
 
230 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 destined to escort the young prince to his father's 
 hereditary dominions. 
 
 Not only, however, did the English fleet put in 
 what to Franco-Jaoobite eyes must have seemed an 
 unwelcome appearance, but the elements were ad- 
 verse, as indeed they always have been when such 
 expeditions were in progress. 
 
 We shall avoid here any description of the " 45." It 
 has occupied alike the pen of romance and historical 
 description. 
 
 Charles Edward at Derby with his Highlanders, 
 George the Second encamped at Finchley amidst his 
 guards and the London train bands; the Duke of 
 Cumberland at Lichfield, and Greneral Wade two 
 days' march behind on the track of Charles Edward. 
 Such was the situation, out of which the late Lord 
 Stanhope has deduced the opinion, that if instead of 
 retreating back into Scotland the Highlanders had 
 pressed on to the Metropolis, the Jacobite partisans 
 would have risen to the occasion, and the Brunswick 
 regime have temporarily come to a close.* It is 
 reasonable to respect the opinion of a competent 
 historian who had made the subject in question his 
 special study, and so we leave the matter — thankful 
 beyond all telling that the Highlanders did quarrel 
 amongst themselves at Derby, for the alternative 
 otherwise presented was at the very best of it no- 
 
 * Lord Stanhope argues that if the battle of Falkirk had beeti won 
 near London, the Metropolis would have declared for the victors, and 
 James Edward have been proclaimed King. But even then Wade and 
 the Duke of Cumberland would have had to be reckoned with. 
 
THE LATEE GUBLPHS. 231 
 
 thing but renewed rebellion and civil war. For the 
 principles which James the Second put in practice, 
 and James Edward refused to desert, had been in- 
 stilled into Charles Edward in Rome, and having 
 drunk them in, so to speak, with his mother's milk, 
 he would not have been likely either to influence his 
 father in a contrary direction, or give parliamentary 
 government free play when the Royal mantle should 
 fall upon his own shoulders. 
 
 The more deeply the history of this period is 
 studied and pondered over, the more will the day be 
 blessed on which the bravery and chivalry of gallant 
 Prince Charlie were relegated to the delightful region 
 of Scotch romance, while the sceptre of England was 
 still grasped by her Brunswick kings. 
 
 The insurrection of 1745 occurred during the so- 
 called Broad Bottom Administration of the brothers 
 Pelham — Sir Henrj^ of that ilk, and the Duke of 
 Newcastle, who, for a short period after the former 
 moderate and high-minded Minister died, held the 
 Premiership of England. But they were soon to be 
 eclipsed by the magic power of a great mind, the 
 qualities of which had enchanted the people of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Clearer in the style of oratory which he adopted 
 than even his great predecessor, Bolingbroke, who 
 had died in 1751,* the elder Pitt forced himself into 
 power by the sheer force of genius, which he then 
 straightway applied to the task of crippling France, 
 
 * See Appendix. 
 
232 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 who in 1758 was committed to a struggle for 
 empire all over the world with her ancient foe. 
 The French were driven from Canada, and their 
 hopes of supreme empire in the East Indies blasted, 
 while the British flag floated triumphantly oyer the 
 world. On the other hand, although the elder 
 Pitt withdrew our armies from the Continent after 
 the battle of Minden, fought in defence of Hanover 
 in 1759, he subsidised Frederick the Great in his 
 struggle with Russia, Saxony, Sweden, France, and 
 the Empire, thus initiating a mode of waging war 
 that the son availed himself of in the struggle 
 with revolTitionary France. And so it was that 
 before that venerable sovereign Greorge the Second, 
 bereft of the counsel of the wife and the Minister 
 on whom he had relied so long, died at the age 
 of sixty-eight years, a.d. 1760, England was at 
 last supreme in all four quarters of the globe. 
 
 Greorge the Second fills no mean niche in the 
 history of this nation ; and his name has so often 
 been mentioned here, both as Electoral Prince and 
 King of England, that he cannot be dismissed with- 
 out further comment. 
 
 There is an amusing story told of this King, 
 how that, having been induced to witness a perform- 
 ance of Richard the Third by Grarrick, he had his 
 Royal fancy taken by the man who acted Lord 
 Mayor, and, ignoring the great actor altogether, 
 kept on repeating, " I like dat Lor Mayor ; when will 
 he come again." 
 
THE LATEE GUELPHS. 233 
 
 The sober side of the King's somewhat incongruous 
 character is seen at its best whenever his affection 
 for Queen Caroline peeps out through the brusqueries 
 and passionate outbursts which fill the pages of Lord 
 Hervey's ' Memoirs.' 
 
 We would adduce two instances culled therefrom, 
 namely, the letter full of tenderness and exquisite 
 feeling which the King wrote to the spouse who ruled 
 him, when in 1736 he had nearly lost his life at sea, 
 between Holland and England,* and secondly, the 
 words in which, after her death, he again disclosed 
 the depth of the affection which enchained him.f 
 
 It is not generally known that he caused their 
 dust to be mingled in death, the late Dean Milman 
 when a Prebendary of "Westminster having seen the 
 stone sarcophagus which contained the two coffins, 
 each of which lacked one side.| 
 
 This appreciation of womanly influence in his 
 family was further exemplified by an abiding affec- 
 tion for his unfortunate mother, Sophia Dorothea, 
 whose picture, full length in royal robes. Lady 
 Suffolk in her ' Memoirs ' tells us was found both in 
 the late Queen's dressing-room and in Greorge the 
 
 * We give an excerpt from the original French, being anxious not to 
 disturb the proportion of the King's feeling sentences : — 
 
 "Malgr^ tout le danger que j'ai essuid dans cette tempgte, ma chJre 
 Caroline, et malgrd tout ce que j'ai souffert, en 6tant malade k un point que 
 je ne croiois pas que le corps humain pourroit souffrir, je vous jure que je 
 m'exposerois encore et encore pour avoir le plaisir d'entendre les marquea 
 de votre tendresse que cette situation m'a procurd" — Lord Hervey's 
 ' Memoirs,' edition 1884, vol. iii. p. 25. 
 
 t Lord Hervey's ' Memoirs,' vol. iii. p. 347. 
 
 } See note oy the late J. W. Croker, ibid., pp. 347, 348. 
 
234 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 Second's bed-chamber after his death. These por- 
 traits, we are told, he bad lill then kept concealed.* 
 
 His respect for women, and his being completely 
 under Queen Caroline's influence, are quite enough 
 to account for the mutual hatred which late in their 
 lives existed between Frederick Prince of Wales and 
 his parents, although an earlier dislike to this child 
 of high destiny was evinced before the Electoral 
 Prince and Princess had left Hanover. And this 
 because, as Lord Hervey tells us, the Prince of Wales 
 was a veritable woman-hater, and despised Greorge 
 the Second for his subjection to the Queen, of which 
 the contemporary ballad speaks, 
 
 " You may strut, dapper George, but 'twill all be in vain ; 
 We know 'tis Queen Caroline, not you, that reign — 
 You govern no more than Don Pbilip of Spain." 
 
 Brave the King undoubtedly was, as his behaviour 
 at Oudenarde, and afterwards at Dettingen, proved, 
 while the above-mentioned danger of shipwreck, 
 almost a replica of the peril undergone by his father 
 in 1726, displayed this quality to great advantage. 
 But then he was always boasting of this natural gift, 
 and kept the softer side of his nature hidden from 
 his subjects, and hence we prefer to dwell thereon. 
 Shortly before his sudden death the Duchess of 
 Hamilton, formerly the beautiful Miss Gunning, 
 thoughtlessly said to the King in conversation, "there 
 is only one other sight in the world which I should 
 
 * Lord Hervey's ' Memoirs,' vol. ill. p. 349, note by late J. W. Croker. 
 
THE LATER GUELPHS. 235 
 
 wish to behold, and that is a coronation." The King 
 took her hand and added sadly, " you will soon have 
 your desire."* The death of this venerable monarch, 
 although sudden, was not unexpected. 
 
 The reign of Greorge the Third saw the fusion of 
 the various branches pertaining to the British Royal 
 Family happily accomplished, when the events of 
 the French Revolution caused Henry Stuart, Car- 
 dinal of York, the last of the eldest branch, to turn 
 in dire need to his Royal kinsman at ' St. James's. 
 A.nd so when the said Cardinal died in 1807, 
 all the crown jewels which James the Second 
 took away from England were restored, and the 
 iamily papers found their way to the King's library 
 at Windsor, an acknowledgment that the Royal 
 mantle had fallen on the owner of that ancient 
 palace. 
 
 It is not possible to pass by the wonderful reign 
 of George the Third without a few words about the 
 three controverted points regarding the last forty 
 years of the 18th century on which men debate 
 energetically to this day, the historian scarcely 
 daring to speak with certain sound regarding any 
 one of them. 
 
 1. Did King George the Third and Lord North, 
 without the support of a majority of the people, or 
 indeed, as some have averred, guided only by their 
 own stubborn wills, drive the American colonists into 
 
 * Cunningham's ' Lives of Eminent Englishmen,' Edition 1836, vol. v. 
 p. 11. 
 
236 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 rebellion ; or had the people of England, as the late 
 Earl Russell believed, act and part in that fell 
 fiasco ? 
 
 2. Did the younger Pitt, as Charles Fox, Lord 
 Shelburne, and Lord Grey believed, and as a certain 
 class of "Whig writers and speakers still declare,* 
 create Napoleon the First by not welcoming the 
 principles of 1789, which under the attempt at 
 international coercion became those of the Jacobins 
 and reached a climax in 1793 ? Or was Lord 
 Chatham's son, as George Canning thought/ the 
 British pilot " who weathered the storm ? " 
 
 3. Finally — and the question is, alas ! being bitterly 
 debated even now — were the Ministry of 1799-1800 
 justified by the events of the Irish Rebellion, and 
 the assumed dangers to England of threatened Hi- 
 bernian dependence on foreign powers, in extin- 
 guishing the Protestant Parliamentary institution 
 which Grattan had established in Dublin ? Answers 
 to questions such as these cannot be looked for in a 
 summary dealing with a subject purely dynastic, but 
 we look with interest for the verdict of a living writer, 
 regarding the last two problems, seeing that Mr. 
 Lecky, if he has ventured to express no very positive 
 conclusions as to other controversial points submitted 
 to his judgment, is yet thoroughly in touch with the 
 last century and its stirring events. 
 
 Before taking a final glance at the personal influ- 
 
 * Mr. Bright lias placed these views clearly before his countrymon, and 
 they have been endorsed by Mr. Gladstone. 
 
THE LATER GUBLPHS. 237 
 
 ence of the several Brunswick Sovereigns, it is 
 necessary to notice shortly the Dukes of Brunswick 
 proper, whose line came to an end in 1884. Ernest 
 Duke of Oelle, the friend of Luther, and common 
 father of all the Anglo-Grerman Gruelphs, had a 
 second son, Henry, who lived in retirement, but 
 bequeathed his fortune, when he died in 1596, to his 
 own child, Augustus Duke of Wolfenbiittel, who 
 had similar tastes, although of a more pronouncedly 
 literary character. 
 
 Nor did Augustus's successor, Ferdinand Albert 
 the First, write his name in the roll of worldly fame. 
 Then occurred a coincidence most uncommon in any 
 family record.* 
 
 Three generations of the Ducal Brunswickers 
 successively became famous as commanders in the 
 field. 
 
 Ferdinand Albert the Second, disgusted with the 
 spectacle of Hanover under the hoof of a French 
 occupation, in which the convention of Closter-seven 
 had forced the people to concur in 1757, rallied his 
 countrymen to an assertion of their rights and 
 liberties. 
 
 Encouraged by Frederick the Grreat's triumph at 
 Rosbach, the gallant Brunswickers were equal to the 
 occasion, proving in 1759, at the battle of Minden, 
 that the spirit of Henry the Lion lingered amongst 
 them. Hanover was thus cleared of the invader, 
 
 * Sir A. Halliday's ' House of Guelph,' pp. 115, 116. 
 
238 THE BEUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 who is believed to have escaped on terms greatly to 
 his advantage.* 
 
 The next Duke of Brunswick is even more famous 
 than his predecessor, because after learning the art 
 of war under the great Frederick, it fell to Charles 
 William Ferdinand's lotf to conduct the army of 
 the first European Coalition against revolutionary 
 France into the territories of that distressed country. 
 The clash of arms took place at Valmy, in the north- 
 east of France, on the 20th of September, 1792, 
 when the world stood amazed to see the veteran 
 hosts of Prussia arrested by the citizen levies of 
 G-aul under Kellermann. The battle of Yalmy was a 
 wondrous event, but not so astounding as the subse- 
 quent retreat of the Prussians under their Brunswick 
 leader, for at the very uttermost a serious check, and 
 nothing beyond, can, from a military point of view, 
 be registered as the direct result of Yalmy. Its 
 consequences, however, were stupendous when the 
 general retired in consequence of secret orders from 
 home, and military Europe confessed itself unable to 
 execute a mandate against hastily summoned multi- 
 tudes in France, the untrained champions of the 
 
 * Ruasell's ' Modern Europe,' Edition 1827, vol. ii. p. 471. There was 
 a i'amous controversy between Lord George Saokville and Ferdinand of 
 Brunswick regarding the inactivity of the troops led by the former. 
 
 t As Captain-General of Holland he sustained the cause of the Stadt- 
 holder William the Seventh against the Eepublican party during a 
 minority of 15 years. Duke Charles William Ferdinand must have been 
 the more moved by his failure to settle the internal affairs of France by 
 force of arms in that during 1787 he had conducted a similar project 
 successfully in the Low Countries, taking Amsterdam and defeating the 
 Republicans. — ' Annual Register,' 1787, p. 63. 
 
THE LATER GUELPHS. 239 
 
 Revolution. After an interval of seclusion, Duke 
 Charles William Ferdinand again took the field in 
 the year 1806, when on Oct. 4 he fell nobly at 
 Auerstadt, and was happily saved from witnessing 
 Prussia's period of agony. 
 
 The name of his son Frederick William, who died 
 at the head of his Black Brunswickers at Quatre 
 Bras on June 16, 1815, has been for ever rendered 
 famous by Lord Byron. Some of us who know 
 Geneva will remember the gorgeous monument to 
 his eldest son Charles William Ferdinand, while 
 the bequest of the surviving brother to his cousin, 
 the Duke of Cumberland,* claiming still to be 
 King of Hanover, awakens memories connected with 
 the war of 1866, and Prince Bismarck's subsequent 
 determined assertion of G-erman Unity at all price. f 
 
 Probably no one in Europe more fully appreciates 
 the military skill, combined with conspicuous bravery, 
 shown by the Hanoverians at Langensalza in June 
 
 * Hanover was elevated into a kingdom by the Treaty of Vienna in 
 1814-1815, and the then Duke of Cambridge acted as British Viceroy until 
 Ernest Duke of Cumberland, fifth son of George the Third, was made King 
 of Hanover after the death of his brother William the Fourth. Queen 
 Victoria was debarred from this kingdom, as the Salic law prevailed 
 throughout Brunswick-Luneburg, so that henceforth a complete separation 
 ensued between England and the Guelphic territories in Germany. The 
 Duke of Cumberland's son George Frederick was known as the blind 
 king, and lost his sovereign independence in 1866. His son Ernest 
 Augustus, who married the Princess Thyra of Denmark, is the present 
 Duke of Cumberland. 
 
 t These two last Dukes were Children of a Baden Princess, and when 
 Napoleon held Prussia in his grasp between 1806 and 1813, they were left 
 in the former principality. Napoleon, however, attempted to seize their 
 persons by stratafcnm, but failed. — Sir A. Hallidav's ' House of Guelph,' 
 p. 201. 
 
240 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 1866, than the Emperor William's great Minister. 
 The victory they won was brilliant, but on the 
 following day King George's soldiers were over- 
 whelmed by superior numbers, and forced to 
 surrender. 
 
 Speaking brbadly, the reigns of George the First 
 and George the Second were rendered famous by 
 the intellectual struggle waged for political supre- 
 macy between Walpole and Bolingbroke, much as in 
 George the Third's time Pitt and Fox have cast a 
 halo around the days wherein they lived. Chatham, 
 on the other hand, shone forth resplendent without 
 a rival near his oratorical throne, at the end of 
 George the Second's reign and far into that of his 
 successor. George the Fourth had a Minister in 
 George Canning whose pictorial eloquence and 
 happy wit has not been surpassed. The reign of 
 William the Fourth was celebrated for the struggles 
 of Lyndhurst and Oroker against the Reform Bill, 
 and its defence by the eloquence of Macaulay and 
 the skilful debating of Stanley. 
 
 But it may be doubted if two greater forensic 
 giants than Disraeli and Gladstone have ever con- 
 tended for supremacy oh the floor of the House of 
 Commons. In the early part of Queen Victoria's 
 reign Lord Melbourne, the Whig Prime Minister, 
 guided the young Sovereign's counsels with tact and 
 devotion, while the Tories were led by the Duke of 
 Wellington and Sir Robert Peel. Palmerston has 
 written his name indelibly in history by his long and 
 
THE LATER GUELPHS. 241 
 
 successful tenure of the Premiership. Lord Aberdeen 
 will be best remembered as the great Duke of Welling- 
 ton's Foreign Minister, and in connection with the 
 origin of the Crimean war. Lord Salisbury, the 
 present Premier, having made his mark as an 
 excellent orator and leader, and a first-rate Foreign 
 Minister, has now been chosen to deal with problems 
 calculated to tax to the utmost the powers of the 
 greatest statesman. Divers other famous names occur 
 to us all, but space forbids their mention here. 
 
 The reign of William the Fourth is indelibly con- 
 nected with royal advocacy of the Reform Bill ; and 
 amongst many grounds for grateful admiration of 
 Queen Victoria, not the least important will be Her 
 Grracious Majesty's readiness to accept a far wider 
 extension of the franchise. It is no doctrinaire 
 opinion, that the Sovereigns of England have placed 
 their throne on a sure basis when they have trusted 
 the majority of their subjects. Those who have held 
 social and political converse with the masses know 
 what a trustworthy class the working man represents, 
 while alas ! the helpless residuum is only restless 
 because its members are miserable, and in common 
 with the waifs and strays of upper and middle society, 
 become dangerous when hopeless and desperate. 
 
 The present statesmen of England have here a 
 problem to solve which concerns national existence. 
 The population of this country at the Peace of 
 Utrecht in 1713 amounted to 5,000,000. At that 
 signed in Paris during 1815 it was 15,000,000, 
 
 R 
 
242 THE BRUNSWICK ACCESSION. 
 
 while in 1878 the total was 33,881,966. The 
 figures of 1888 remain to be ascertained. 
 
 Little wonder is it that men look towards the 
 Colonies for the expansion their country needs, while 
 a steady resolve to stand shoulder to shoulder in 
 defence of the unity of the Empire, avoiding the 
 mistakes made when we lost America, is perhaps the 
 one general sentiment upon which we all agree. 
 
 But the means to such an end, and the measure of 
 federation to be attained, are not yet whispered 
 officially, although experts agree that the Mother 
 Country and her Colonies should be protected by a 
 common navy, and rely on the same hands and 
 hearts in the hour of periLP 
 
 That constant inquiry' should be made as to the 
 possibility of relieving the pressure of unemployed 
 workmen in large cities and their commercial 
 
 * Mr. J. A. Froude, after examining the question througli converse 
 with, the statesmen of our Australian Colonies, has arrived at the conclusion 
 that a cordon of maritime defence may be and should be forthwith drawn 
 around the British Empire, although he deprecates hasty efforts, to secure 
 complete Imperial Federation. Moreover he says, " We can give them 
 back the old and glorious flag." — ' Oceana,' new edition, 1886, p. 339. 
 The same view is held by Mr. 0. Kinlooh Cooke, who, speaking of 
 Australian preponderance, says : " The area of Australia is so vast, and its 
 interests so varied, when compared to the other dependencies of Great 
 Britain, that these interests cannot be adequately treated by a Board of 
 Advice that includes representatives from all our colonial possessions." — 
 'Nineteenth Century Eeview,' November, 1886. In the late Sir Peter 
 Scratchley's opinion, " the several Grovernments should combine and 
 establish one general scheme of naval defence to be worked in conjunction 
 with the Imperial navy." — ' Australian Defences and New Guinea,' 
 C. Kinloch Cooke, p. 58. The English Government will have to sacrifice 
 several prejudices if they are to remain in complete unison with their 
 Colonial brethren, who naturally ask for such social equality before the 
 law as circumstances allow the Mother Country to give. 
 
THE LATER GUELPHS. 243 
 
 suburbs, is patent to all who have dwelt in such 
 localities and mingled with the people.* 
 
 It is not within the province of this work to 
 encroach upon the task of contemporary chroniclers 
 bent on recording the wonderful changes in science, 
 art, medicine, and philanthropy, which have charac- 
 terised the reign of Queen Victoria. But it is never- 
 theless right to join in the almost universal chorus 
 which hails the sage Sovereign of Great Britain as 
 a genuine defender of Religion, and an ever careful 
 guardian of the interests of all her subjects. 
 
 The history of no time and no land records a 
 period so glorious in progress of every kind as the 
 fifty years of England under the rule of Queen 
 Victoria. Though clouds hang threatening on the 
 horizon, the past offers happy augury that they will 
 vanish ere long before the sun of Plenty, Content- 
 ment and Peace. 
 
 * Lord Salisbury has said that he waits for the pressure of public opinion 
 to arm him in dealing with this demon of over-population. Unfortunately, 
 now that the great Prince Consort and the good Lord Shaftesbury are gone, 
 no external agency is likely to bring sufBcient influence to bear, for political 
 it must not be. 
 
 The writer desires to record an experience of several months spent 
 amongst these distressed ones in Battersea during the past winter wheu 
 administering a fund for the relief of dire local want by means of supply- 
 ing labour. Week by week would the sad procession of eager seekers for 
 subsistence pass through the bureau of labour, 80 per cent, at least being 
 workmen professing recognized trades. Half fed, half clothed, stunted in 
 height, and unkempt in person, nothing saved these poor people from 
 desperation but the desire to feed their wives and little ones. A large 
 proportion tell us they are never sure of employment even in the height of 
 summer, and their hopelessness bids fair to increase as time goes on. 
 
 0. V. Morgan, Esq., M.P., and John S. Grilliat, Esq., M.P., have the 
 statistics of this attempt to touch the fringe of a great subject, and that they 
 may bring the matter before Parliament is the fervent hope of the writer. 
 
 R 2 
 
( 244 ) 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 The writer of this work, being Churchwarden of St. 
 Mary's, Battersea, for the year ending Easter 188Y, 
 became aware of the fact that no inscription marked 
 the exact spot where Lord Bolingbroke's remains 
 rested. In the year 1878, it became necessary, for 
 sanitary reasons, to disturb the crypt, and accordingly 
 a faculty was obtained from the Home Office for the 
 re-arrangement of the coffins under St. Mary's Church. 
 The dust of the statesman who negotiated the Treaty 
 of Utrecht was straightway placed under the crypt 
 below the Communion-table. 
 
 Now although the archives of St. Mary's Church 
 might have furnished data enabling some future 
 antiquarian to localise approximately the place of 
 Lord Bolingbroke's sepulture, yet the exact spot 
 could only be determined by local tradition, after the 
 eye-witnesses of the above-mentioned changes had 
 passed away. To furnish a more trustworthy record 
 — the present Lord Bolingbroke having given ready 
 acquiescence, and Edward Wood, Esq., the people's 
 Churchwarden, heartily concurring — the following 
 inscription was placed on a raised stone tablet in the 
 
APPENDIX. ! 245 
 
 crypt, over the exact place where the eloquent 
 Minister rests : — 
 
 Henkt St. John, 
 YISOOUNT BOLINGBROKE, 
 
 Secretary of State 
 
 TO Queen Anne. 
 
 Born 1678. Died 1751. 
 
 A visit to the old Manor-house of the Bolingbrokes, 
 within a stone's throw of St. Mary's Church, or 
 such part of it as has escaped destruction, discloses 
 frescoed apartments of the style of Verrio, while the 
 famous Cedar-Chamber, where Pope and the elder 
 Pitt met the noble owner, is none the worse for an 
 occasional irruption of Father Thames, who looks in 
 when there is a very high tide. The premises are in 
 the possession of Messrs. Dives and Mayhew, corn- 
 merchants. 
 
( 246 ) 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Adelheid, Abbess of Quedlingburg, accomplice in the murder of Eckbert 
 the Second, of Brunswick, 12. 
 
 Aix-la-Ohapelle, Peace of (1748), 227. 
 
 Alberoni, Cardinal, protects the Pretender at Madrid, 216 — failure of his 
 projects, 219. 
 
 Albert the Great, Duke of Brunswick, 10. 
 
 Anne, Queen, confers favours upon Abigail HiU, afterwards Mrs. Masham, 69 
 — and withdraws her regard from the Duke and Duchess of Marl- 
 borough, ib. — the Queen's friendly relations with her brother, 75 — 
 disturbed by his attempt on the Scottish throne, 76 — the Queen's 
 title to rule attacked by Sacheverell, 77 — dismissal of Godolphin, 79 — 
 release of Lord Middleton's sons, 96 — Lord GrifSn's life spared, ib. — 
 failure of the Pretender's attempt to invade Scotland, 97 — the Treaty 
 of Utrecht, 129 — Ormond replaces Marlborough in command, 131 — 
 Louis the Fourteenth sends presents to the Queen, 141 — death of 
 Prince George of Denmark, 146 — the Queen resents Whig interference 
 in her private affairs, 148 — friendly reception of Lookhart, the 
 Jacobite, at Court, ib. — death of the Duke of Hamilton, 150 — the 
 Queen's views on the succession to the throne, ib. — her kindly 
 feelings towards her brother, 151 — her letter to Louis the Fourteenth, 
 ib. — her father's last letter to herself, 154 — her loyalty to her duty, 
 155 — her brother's letter to her, 156— her strong desire to detach him 
 from the Church of Eome, 157 — her faithfulness to her trust, 158 — 
 a glimpse at one of her journeys, ib. — ^her sentiments on public affairs 
 under her own hand, ib., 172 — her volrmtary assurance to Archbishop 
 Dawes as to the Succession, ib. — alleged plot against the Queen's life, 
 175 — rumoured treachery in the army in Ireland, 177 — ^more plots, 
 178^ — demands of the Blectress Sophia and her son, 188 — pressed by 
 the Hanoverian Minister at Whig instigation, ib. — and firmly refused 
 by the Queen, 189 — Lord Clarendon sent to Hanover, ib. — death of 
 the Blectress Sophia, ib.- — the Queen's letter to the Blectress, and 
 Lord Clarendon's instructions, 191 — Baron Schutz's action disavowed 
 by the Elector, 192— death of the Queen, 193. 
 
INDEX. 247 
 
 Argyll, John, Duko of, proposes Shrewsbury as Lord Treasurer, 196 — 
 
 previous military career, 199 — made Commander of the Forces in 
 
 Scotland, ih. — battle of Sheriifmuir, 213. 
 Arras saved by Marlborough's strategy, 58. 
 Atterbury, Bishop, 194, 215. 
 
 Augustus of Brunswick-Luneburg assists Gustavus Adolphus, 16. 
 Augustus of Saxony dethroned by Charles the Twelfth, 93. 
 Azo, Marquess of Bste (Italian G-uelph) mai-ries Cunigunda of Altdorf 
 
 (German Guelph), 2 — chosen by the Emperor, Henry the Third, to 
 
 represent him in Italy, ih. 
 
 Bangorian Controversy, the, 216. 
 
 Battles mentioned: Anerstadt (1806), 239— Blenheim (1704), 73, 93, 122 
 — Bouohain (1711), 131— Boyne (1690), 85— Brihuega (1710), 130, 
 199 — Consarbrilck (1675), 25 — Denain (1712), 104 — Dettingen 
 (1743), 228— Falkirk (1746), 230— Fleurus (1622), 43— Fontenoy 
 (1745), 229— Landen (1693), 29— Langensalza (1866), 239— Malpla- 
 quet (1709), 58, 124— Messina (1718), 217— Minden (1759) 232, 237 
 — Mublburg (1547), 15— Oudenarde (1708), 67, 98— Prague (1620), 
 38, 41— Pultowa (1709), 125— Quatre Bras (1815), 239— Quebec 
 (1759), 232— Eamillies (1706), 93— Eosbach (1757), 237— Sheriff- 
 muir (1715), 213— Steenkirk (1692), 29— Valmy (1792), 238. 
 
 Belhaven, Lord, opposes the Union, 65. 
 
 Bernhard, Duke of Brunswick, invades Brandenburg (1389), 10. 
 
 Bernsdorff, Count, 117, 119. See also " Hanover Papers." 
 
 Berwick, Duke of, first sight of William the Third, 29 — letter to the 
 Pretender, 153. 
 
 Blenheim, Battle of (1704), 73, 93, 122. 
 
 Bolingbroke, Viscount (Henry St. John), bis early career, 160 — leads the 
 House of Commons, 67, 73 — leaves the Ministry with Harley, 67 — 
 becomes Lord Bolingbroke, 79 — letter to Drummond on the Succession, 
 80 — attempts to seize Quebec, 138 — his share in the negotiations at 
 Utrecht, 129 — split in the Tory party, 166 — all the bishops in op- 
 position, 167 — the Schism Bill passed, 168 — bis quarrel with Harley, 
 179 — favours the Hanoverian Succession, ib. — is dismissed from office, 
 202 — is impeached, and flies to the Pretender, 210 — his death, 231 — 
 Appendix, 245. 
 
 Bothmar, Baron. See " Hanover Papers." 
 
 Bouohain taken by Marlborough (1711), 131. 
 
 Boyne, the. Battle of (1690), 85. 
 
 Brihuega, Battle of (1710), 130, 199. 
 
 Brunswick : the Cathedral of St. Blase and tombs of the Guelph Princes, 
 12. 
 
 Brunswick the House of, its great antiquity, 2 — its Bavarian origin, ih. — 
 
248 INDEX. 
 
 its power restricted to the territory of Hanover, 9 — its later Dukes, 
 
 237. 
 Buda, capture of (1686), 28. 
 Burnet, Bishop, proposes the Hanoverian Succession in the House of 
 
 Lords, 50 — his courteous reception by Pope Innocent XI., 82. 
 Byng, Admiral, destroys the Spanish fleet off Messina, 217- — Cammock's 
 
 attempt to seduce Byng and his officers, ib. 
 
 Cassar, Charles, imprisoned for accusing Godolphin of corresponding with 
 
 the Stuarts, 62. 
 Caffoni, the secretary of Innocent XI., intrigues against James the Second, 
 
 83. 
 Cammock, an Irish Admiral in the Spanish service, tries to bribe Admiral 
 
 Byng and his ofBcers to desert, 217. 
 Canada, Bolingbroke's attempt upon (1711), 138 — taken from the French 
 
 (1759), 232. 
 Caroline, Queen of George the Second, 223, 233. 
 Ohamberlayne, John. See " Hanover Papers." 
 Charles Philip, Prince, of Hanover, killed in action, 19. 
 Charles the Twelfth, of Sweden, dethrones the King of Saxony and 
 
 threatens Hanover, 93 — defeated and captured by the Eussians, 125 — 
 
 his hostility to the Hanoverian Succession, 183. 
 Christian, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg, assists Frederick and Elizabeth, 
 
 of Bohemia, 16, 43. 
 Christian, Prince, of Hanover, drowned, 19. 
 Christian Lewis, Duke of Oelle and Luneburg, 16. 
 Clarendon, Lord, his mission to Hanover, 189. 
 Conrad, the Ghibelltne, elected Emperor, in opposition to Henry the Proud, 
 
 Duke of Bavaria, 5. 
 Consarbriick, Battle of (1675), 25. 
 Convocation suspended (1717), 216. 
 Crequi, Marshal, defeated and taken prisoner (1675), 25. 
 Ounigunda, of Altdorf. See Azo. 
 
 Dawes, Sir William, Archbishop of York, 153, 166, 172. 
 
 De Bothmar, Baron. See " Hanover Papers." 
 
 D'Estrees, Cardinal, on the Dutch intrigue with Caffoni, 83. 
 
 De Torcy, M., Minister of Louis the Fourteenth, 92, 94, 99, 129, 130, 
 
 132, 152, 167. 
 Dettingen, Battle of (1743), 228. 
 
 Eckbert the Second, Margrave of Brunswick, killed by assassins in the 
 pay of the Emperor, Henry the Fourth, 12. 
 
INDEX. 249 
 
 Eleanor Olbrenze. See George William, of Celle. 
 
 Elizabeth, Princess, only daughter of James the First, marries Frederick 
 the Fifth, Elector Palatine, and persuades him to assist the Bohemian 
 Protestants in their revolt against the House of Austria, and to 
 accept the Bohemian crown, 37 — ^his defeat and exile, 38 — her subse- 
 quent sorrows, 43-45 — and death (1662) in London, 47. 
 
 Elizabeth, Princess, Abbess of Hervorden, 113. 
 
 Ernest, Duke of OeUe (Zell), styled " the Confessor," studies under Luther, 
 and joins the Protestant League against Charles the Fifth, 14 — is 
 taken prisoner at Muhlburg (1547), 15. 
 
 Ernest Augustus, of Brunswick-Luneburg, created in 1692 (by the 
 Emperor Leopold) first Elector of Hanover, 17 — ^marries Sophia, 
 granddaughter of James the First, ib. — introduces primogeniture into 
 bis branch of the House of Brunswick, ib. — ^becomes Duke of Celle, 
 ib. — ^his eldest son, George Lewis, made heir to the Hanoverian prin- 
 cipality, 18 — his seven children, 19 — description of his court, 107 — 
 friendship of William the ThirS, 110 — represented at Ryswick, ib. — 
 his death, ib. 
 
 Ernest Augustus, Prince, Bishop of Osnaburg, accompanies George the 
 First to England, 20 — is created Duke of York, Albany, and Ulster, 
 ib. 
 
 Este. See Azo. 
 
 Fletcher of Saltoun opposes the Union, 65. 
 
 Fleuras, Battle of (1622), 43. 
 
 Fontenoy, Battle of (1745), 229. 
 
 Eraser, Simon (Lord Lovat), his treachery, 92. 
 
 Frederick of Suabia, a defeated candidate for the Empire, unsuccessfully 
 rebels against Lothair the Second, 4. 
 
 Frederick the First, called Barbarossa, his alliance with Henry the Lion, 
 of Brunswick, 6 — his quarrel with bim, 7. 
 
 Frederick, Duke of Brunswick, elected King of the Romans, but murdered 
 (1400) on his journey to Frankfort, 10. 
 
 Frederick of Luneburg helps Gustavus Adolpbus, 16. 
 
 Frederick Augustus, of Hanover, killed in action, 19. 
 
 Frederick the Fifth, Elector Palatine, married (1613) to Elizabeth, 
 daughter of James the First, 37 — is made King of Bohemia, ib. — 
 defeated by the Imperial forces at Prague (1620), 38 — loses both 
 kingdom and electorate, 42 — unsuccessfully endeavours to regain 
 the Palatinate, 43 — loses a son by drowning, 45 — dies (1632) at 
 Metz, 46. 
 
 Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, 23, 28, 227. 
 
 Gaultier, Abbd. See Jacobite Schemes. 
 
250 INDEX. 
 
 George William, Duke of Celle and Luneburg, father of Queen Sophia 
 Dorothea, 16. 
 
 George Lewis, Prince of Osnaburg, afterwards Elector of Hanover, and 
 subsequently King George the First of Great Britain, his birth, 19 — 
 his early life, 24 — first campaign in 1675, 25 — subsequent military 
 career, ib. — visits Prance, ib. — and England, 26 — coldly received at 
 Court, ib. — but welcomed by the University of Oxford, 27 — recalled 
 by his father, ib. — marries Princess Sophia Dorothea, of Celle, ib. — 
 birth of a son, ib. — and a daughter, 28 — -beginning of conjugal dis- 
 sension, ib. — serves the Emperor Leopold against the Turks, ib. — 
 capture of Buda (1686), ib. — the Emperor makes Hanover an 
 Electorate (1692), ib. — Prince George serves under William of 
 Orange, 29 — laxity of the Elector's court, 30 — the alleged intrigue 
 between Princess Sophia Dorothea and Coimt Kbningsmark, ib. — the 
 evidence examined, 31 — the Princess refuses to return to her husband, 
 ib. — and is sent to the Castle of Ahlen, 32 — death of Koningsmark, 
 ib. — Prince George becomes Elector (1698), 34 — danger of attack by 
 the Danes, 110 — the Elector and the Duke of Celle restrain the 
 Dukes of Brunswick- Wolfenbtittel from joining Louis the Fourteenth, 
 111 — troops sent to aid Marlborough, ib. — the English Act of 
 Succession passed (1701), 113 — the Hanoverian ministers, Bobethon, 
 114 — ^Bernsdorfif, Platen, Schutz, Goertz, and Kreyenberg, 117 — de 
 Bothmar, 118 — the Elector consulted by Marlborough, 122 — corre- 
 sponds with Queen Anne and Lord Peterborough, ib. — battle of 
 Oudenarde, 123^ — the Sacheverell controversy 'n England, 124 — letter 
 from Marlborough, 126 — the Elector's alleged parsimony, 182- — his 
 difficult position, ii.— his ministers distrust the English Cabinet, 187 
 — he declines to correspond personally with Bolingbroke, ib. — joint 
 memorial from the Elector and the Eleotress Sophia, 188^supported 
 in London by the Hanoverian minister, 189 — Queen Anne opposes, 
 ib. — death of the Electress Sophia, ib. — repudiation of the Hanoverian 
 minister's demands by the Elector, 192 — George Lewis ascends the 
 British throne (1714), 193 — arrives in England, 203 — is crowned at 
 Westminster, 204 — ^anecdotes of the king, ib. — Sacheverell excites 
 the populace at Birmingham, 208 — unpoprdarity of German courtiers, 
 209 — Oxford and Bolingbroke impeached, 2 10 — the rebellion of 1715, 
 212 — its collapse, 214 — Horace Walpole's description of the King, 
 220 — Shepherd's meditated attempt on the King's life, 221 — death of 
 George the First, 222. - 
 
 George the Second is induced by the Queen to retain Walpole as premier, 
 223 — ^the war with Spain in 1739, 226 — war of the Austrian Succes- 
 sion, 227 — fall of Walpole's administration, ib. — the King's gallantry 
 at Dettingen, 228 — French success at Fontenoy, 229 — the rebellion 
 of 1745, ib. — the " Broad Bottom (or Pelham) administration," 231 
 
INDEX. 251 
 
 — Bucceeded by that of the elder Pitt, 231 — French reverses, 232 — 
 battle of Minden, ib. — death of George the Second, ib. — anecdotes 
 illustrative of his character, i6.-233. 
 
 Gteorge the Third befriends Henry, Cardinal of York, the last of the 
 Stuarts, 235 — the King, Lord North, and the American colonists, ib. 
 —Pitt, the younger, and Napoleon the First, 236— the Irish rebellion 
 and the Union, ih. 
 
 Qertruydenberg, peace proposals at (1710), 78-141. 
 
 Godolphin, Lord, his early public life, 55 — his administration under 
 Queen Anne, 56 — his sympathy with James the Second, 59 — 
 Godolphin and Marlborough in correspondence with the Stuarts, ib. 
 — Godolphin accused by Charles Osesar, 62 — makes "Wharton Lord- 
 Lieutenant of Ireland, in order to checkmate the Whig Junto, 63 — 
 projects the Union with Scotland, ib. — refuses the Irish request for 
 Union with Great Britain, 64 — Scotch objections to the Union, 65 — 
 collapse of the opposition, 66 — the Act passed, 67 — suspension of 
 party warfare, 68 — the Masham intrigue, 69 — possibility of the 
 Stuart succession, 70 — the Whig Junto, 72 — Jacobite designs in 
 Scotland, 76 — Saoheverell attacks Godolphin, 77 — the Queen dismisses 
 the latter, 79 — his retirement, and death, 79. 
 
 Goertz, Baron. See " Hanover Papers." 
 
 Grilfin, Lord, imprisoned in the Tower, 96. 
 
 Guelphs, the, their origin and early history, 1. 
 
 Guelph and Ghibelline, first used as war-cries, 6. 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus, King of Svsreden, 16, 45, 46. 
 
 Hamilton, Duke of, leads the opposition to the Union, 65 — ^negotiates 
 between Anne and the Pretender, 76 — letter to Lord Middleton, 149. 
 
 Hanover created an Electorate in 1692, 17-28 — its position and resources, 
 18 — its Chapel, and the Eoyal vault, 35. 
 
 Hanover Papers, the, quoted or referred to, 15, 16, 20, 22, 23, 25, 32, 33, 
 52, 60, 62, 75, 80, 92, 93, 94, 95, 98, 99, 101, 103, 104, 111, 114, 
 116, 118, 120, 122, 124, 126, 134, 142, 156, 169, 172, 173, 174, 180, 
 182, 183, 185, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 195, 103, 216, 
 218. 
 
 Hanoverian Junto, the, 118, 187. 
 
 Harley, Eobert. See Oxford. 
 
 Harley, Thomas, sent on a mission to Hanover, 187. 
 
 Henry the Proud, Duke of Bavaria and Saxony, marries the daughter of 
 Lothair the Second, and becomes Sovereign of Brunswick, 4 — aspires 
 to succeed the Emperor, Lothair the Second, but is supplanted by 
 Conrad of Hohenstaufen, 5 — is declared a rebel, and forced to fly, ib. 
 — raises an army to meet Conrad, ib. — ^dies in camp, 6. 
 
 Henry the Lion saves Brunswick from the attack of the Emperor Conrad, 
 
252 INDEX. 
 
 6 — his alliance sought by Conrad's successor, Frederick Barbarossa, 
 ih. — he marries the English Princess Matilda, ib. — ^builds the Cathedral 
 of St. Blase, iJ.— gains Lubeck, 7 — his quarrel with the Emperor, 
 Frederick, ih. — is sheltered by Henry the Second at Winchester, i6. 
 returns, and successfully opposes the new Emperor, Henry the Sixth, 
 with help from Oceur de Lion, iJ.^builds Luneburg, ib. — helps to 
 procure the liberatfon of Coeur de Lion, 8 — Bichard obtains the 
 Emperor's forgiveness for Henry, ib. — Henry's death, ib. — names of 
 his children, ib. — his tomb at St. Blase's, 12. 
 
 Hill, Abigail. See Masham. 
 
 Howard, Cardinal, 83. 
 
 Innocent XL, Pope, his disapproval of the conduct of James the Second, 
 82 — supplies money to William of Orange, 84. 
 
 Jacobite schemes, 50, 59, 60, 62, 64, 66, 68, 70, 75, 76, 77, 79, 87, 92, 94, 
 95, 96, 97, 98, 101, 103, 113, 126, 132, 133, 142, 148, 150, 153, 155, 
 162, 165, 169, 170, 171, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 186, 197, 202, 
 209, 210, 211, 212, 216, 217, 229, 230. 
 
 James the First, family of, 36. 
 
 James the Second, his later years, 82 — his letter of advice to his son, 
 87. 
 
 " Jenkins's ear," the war so called (1739), 226. 
 
 John Frederick, Duke of Hanover, forsakes the Protestant cause, 17. 
 
 Kbningsmark, Count, ' accused of misconduct with Princess Sophia 
 
 Dorothea, 80 — his death, 32. 
 Kreyenberg, Baron. See " Hanover Papers." 
 
 Landen, Battle of (1693), 29. 
 
 Le Gut and Le Petit discover the Caffoni intrigue, 83. 
 
 Leopold, the Emperor, makes Duke Ernest Augustus the first Elector of 
 
 Hanover (1692), 17, 28. 
 Lockhart of Carnwarth, 148, 164. 
 Lockhart Papers, the, quoted or referred to, 66, 95, 97, 98, 147, 163, 164, 
 
 170, 171, 216. 
 Lothair the Second, Emperor, 4. 
 Louis the Fourteenth acknowledges the Protestant succession in Great 
 
 Britain, 137 — his delight with the Peace of Utrecht, 141 — dies 
 
 (1715), 212. 
 Louisa, Princess, Abbess of Maubuisson, 112. 
 Lovat, Lord, 92. 
 
 Lubeck made a free port by Henry the Lion, 7. 
 Luneburg built by Henry the Lion, 7. 
 
INDEX. 253 
 
 Luther, Martin, his cause espoused by Ernest the Confessor, Duke of 
 Celle, 14. 
 
 Macclesfield, Earl of, his mission to Hanover (1701), 114. 
 
 Magnus the Pious, Duke of Brunswick, 10. 
 
 Magnus Torquatus the Chain-bearer, Duke of Brunswick and Lunebnrg, 
 
 10. 
 Malplaquet, Battle of (1709), 58, 124. 
 Mar, Earl of, rebellion in Scotland (1715), 212. 
 Maria Theresa of Austria and Hungary, 227. 
 Marlborough undertakes the conduct of the war in Flanders, 57 — Battle of 
 
 Oudenarde (1708), 67 — losing the Queen's favour, 69 — -Battle of 
 
 Blenheim (1704), 73— Battle of Eamillies (1706), 93— consults George 
 
 Lewis of Hanover, 122 — Battle of Malplaquet, 124 — ^letter to George 
 
 Lewis, 126 — captures Bouchain, 131 — close of his military career, ib. 
 
 — sends money to the Pretender, 212. 
 Mary, Princess of Orange, recognised by Parliament (1688) as heiress to 
 
 the throne left vacant by her father's abdication, 49 — the succession 
 
 provided for, ib. 
 Mary of Modena, Queen of James the Second, 52, 89, 92, 100, 154, 215. 
 Masham, Mrs., 68, 76, 147, 179. 
 Matilda, daughter of Henry the Second of England, married to Henry the 
 
 Lion, of Brunswick, 6. 
 Maximilian of Hanover becomes a Venetian general, 20 — claims the 
 
 Duchy of Celle, ih. — is imprisoned, renounces his pretensions, and 
 
 enters the Imperial service, ib. 
 Middleton, Lord, 66, 91, 92, 94, 96, 103. 
 Minden, Battle of (1759), 232, 237. 
 Mons, Capture of (1709), 58. 
 Moore, Arthur, 130, 140, 179, 180, 225, 226. 
 Muhlburg, Battle of (1547), 15. 
 
 Namur, Siege of (1692), 29. 
 
 Ormond, Duke of, succeeds Marlborough in command, 131 — professes 
 
 devotion to the House of Brunswick, 180 — See also Jacobite Schemes. 
 Otho the Fourth, of Guelph, son of Henry the Lion, becomes hostage for 
 
 Coeur de Lion, 7 — is elected Emperor, 8 — excommunicated by the 
 
 Pope, and obliged to resign, 9. 
 Otho of Wittelsbach murders Philip of Suabia, 9. 
 Otho of Luneburg, a suitor for the hand of Mary Tudor, 15 — offers his aid 
 
 to her brother, Edward the Sixth, against France, ib. 
 Oudenarde, Battle of (1708), 67, 98. 
 Oxford, Earl of (Robert Harley), makes his way into power, 61, 66, 67, 68, 
 
254 INDEX. 
 
 69, 73 — is created a peer, and sueceeds Godolphin in office (1711), 79 — 
 gives a living to Sacheverell, 127 — is wounded by Guisoard, 128 — tlie 
 Peace of Utrecht, ib., 129 — communications, with the Pretender, 132 
 —details of the treaty, 139 — hostile criticisms upon it, 141, 143 — 
 parliamentary troubles, 163 — Mrs. Masham's intrigues, 167 — the 
 Schism Bill carried, 168 — alarm of the Whigs, 171 — refuses to abolish 
 triennial parliaments, 174 — violence of both parties, 175 — ^alarming 
 rumours, 176 — his quarrel with Bolingbroke, 179-186 — distrusted by 
 the Elector and his Ministers, 187 — sends his brother, Thomas, on a 
 mission to Hanover, ib. — the joint memorial of the Eleotress Sophia 
 and her son, ib. — Lord Clarendon's mission decided on, 189 — is dis- 
 missed from ofBce (1714), 192 — is impeached for high treason, 210 — 
 sent to the Tower, 211. 
 
 Pelham Administration, the, 231. 
 
 Philip of Suabia, murder of, 9. 
 
 Pitt (the elder), his rise to power, 231 — and successes, 232. 
 
 Pitt (the younger) and Napoleon the First, 236 — the Union with Ireland, 
 ib. 
 
 Platen, Baroness, intrigues against Sophia Dorothea and Koningsmark, 34. 
 
 Platen, Count. See Hanover Papers. 
 
 Porto Bello, capture of (1739), 227. 
 
 Portugal joins the league against France, 74. 
 
 Pragmatic Sanction, the, of Charles the Sixth (1723) gives rise to the war 
 on behalf of Maria There.sa (1741), 227. 
 
 Prague, Battle of (1620), 38-41. 
 
 Pretender, the (James Edward Stuart), his father's advice, 88 — his early 
 life, 89 — pretensions acknowledged by the Kings of France and Spain, 
 91 — intervenes in public affairs, 93 — attempted invasion of Scotland 
 (1708), 95— joins the French army, 98 — his friendship for Marshal 
 Villars, 99 — his views on religious freedom hurtful to his cause, 101 
 — ^he retires to Lorraine, 102 — projected marriage, 105— the Duke of 
 Lorraine refuses the English demand for his ejection, 143 — his corre- 
 spondence with Queen Anne, 155 — he is proscribed by the British 
 Government, 163 — Bolingbroke intrigues, 165 — the Queen gives up 
 his cause, 171 — plots and counter-plots, 174 — the rising in 1715, 208 
 — he appears in Scotland, 214, and escapes to Prance, ib. — at Madrid 
 under Alberoni's protection, 212 — Cammock's attempt to bribe British 
 officers, 217. 
 
 Pretender, the Young (Charies Edward Stuart), lands in Scotland (1745) 
 229. 
 
 Prior, Matthew, assists in negotiating the Treaty of Utrecht, 129. 
 
 Quietists, the, and the Abbess of Hervorden (Princess Elizabeth), 113. 
 
INDEX. 255 
 
 Eamillies, Battle of (1706), 93. 
 
 Eastadt, Peace of (1714), 183. 
 
 Richard Coeur de Lion assists Henry the Lion against the Emperor, 7 — is 
 
 made prisoner by the Duke of Austria, . ib. — Mediates between the 
 
 Emperor and Henry, 8. 
 Eobethon, M. See Hanover Papers. 
 Eyswick, Peace of (1697), 110. 
 
 Sacheverell, Dr., 77, 127, 208. 
 
 St. Blase, the Cathedral of, 6, 12. 
 
 St. George, the Chevalier de. See Pretender. 
 
 St. John, Henry. See Bolingbroke. 
 
 Savoy, Duchess of, her protest against the Act of Succession, 53. 
 
 Saxe, Marshal, his successes against England, 228. 
 
 Schutz, Baron. See Hanover Papers. 
 
 Settlement, Acts of, 1689, 50—1701, 53, 113. 
 
 Sheriffmuir, Battle of (1715), 213. 
 
 Shrewsbury, Duke of, 166, 196, 198, 200. 
 
 Somerset, the Duke of, 196, 198. 
 
 Sophia, the Electress, her marriage, 17 — her friendship towards the Stuarts, 
 21 — her " Jacobite " letter, ih. — her religious tolerance, 23 — recognised 
 as heiress to the British crown, 50, 53 — her life at Herrenhausen, 107 
 — her later years, 119 — her correspondence with Lord Strafford, 134 
 —her death, 189. 
 
 Sophia Charlotta, Queen of Prussia, 20, 119. 
 
 Sophia Dorothea, of Celle. See George Lewis, Prince of Osnahurg. 
 
 Sophia Dorothea, Queen of Prussia, 24. 
 
 South Sea Bubble, the, breaking of, 219. 
 
 Spires captured by Henry the Proud, 5. 
 
 Stanhope, General, 130, 171, 196. 
 
 Stemkirk, Battle of (1692), 29. 
 
 Strafford, Lord, and the Electress Sophia, 134. 
 . Stuart Eamily, the. See Pretender, also Jacobite Schemes. 
 
 Stuart Papers, the, referred to, 98, 102. 
 
 Swift, Dean, 105, 127. 
 
 Thirty years' war, the, its origin and results, 40. 
 
 Tonningen, the siege of, raised (1700), 110. 
 
 Treaties referred to. Aix la Chapelle (1748), 227— Eastadt (1714), 183— 
 
 Eyswick (1697), 110— Travengale (1700), 110— Utrecht (1713), 128, 
 
 139— "Westphalia (1648), 40, 46. 
 Treves, Siege of (1675), 25. 
 
 Ulm captured by Henry the Proud, 5. 
 
 Union of England and Scotland proposed by Godolphin, 63 — had been 
 
256 INDEX. 
 
 desired by William the Third, 64— Disliked by the Scotch, 64 — 
 Opposed in the Scottish Parliament, 65 — Highland chiefs threaten 
 resistance, 66 — the opposition withdrawn, ib. — the Act of Union 
 passed (1707), 67. 
 Utrecht, Peace of (1713), 128, 132, 139. 
 
 Villars, Marshal, 58, 99, 102, 103, 104, 131, 135, 142. 
 
 Walpole, Sir Eobert, succeeds St. John as leader of the House of Commons, 
 67 — made premier by George the First, 219 — is supported by the 
 Queen (Caroline) of George the Second, 223 — War of " Jenkins's ear," 
 226 — War on behalf of Maria Theresa, 227 — loss of of&ce, ib. — and 
 death, 229. 
 
 Walpole, Horace, his interview with George the First, 220. 
 
 Walpole, Horatio, 225. 
 
 Warming-pan story, the, its falsehood exposed, 52. 
 
 Webber, Samuel, his pretended disclosures, 175. 
 
 Westphalia, Treaty of (1648), 40, 46. 
 
 Whig Junto, the, 60, 61, 63, 72, 97, 137. 
 
 William of Winchester, Ancestor of Queen Victoria, becomes hostage for 
 CcEur de Lion, 7. 
 
 William of Orange, afterwards William the Third, recommends the 
 Brunswick succession, 18 — his character and abilities, 29 — is himself 
 recognised by Parliament as joint-heir to the throne, 49 — Succession 
 continued in the Hanoverian line, 50. 
 
 WUliam the Victorious, Duke of Brunswick, 10. 
 
 Wlph. See Guelph. 
 
 Wortley-Montagu, Lady Mary, and George the First, 206. 
 
 York, the Cardinal of (Henry Stuart), 155, 235. 
 
 ianson; pkimted bt William clowks ajjd sons, limited, stamfoed stbeet 
 and chaiuko cbo£«.