dles, leather, cards and dice, and on the postage on 1711. letters. In one branch of this, the house of commons seemed to break in upon a rule that had hitherto passed for a sacred one. When the duty upon leather was first proposed, it was rejected by a majority, and so, by their usual orders, it was not to be offered again during that session: but, after a little practice upon some members, the same duty was proposed, with this variation, that skins and tanned hides should be so charged: this was leather in another name. The lotteries were soon filled up; so by this means money came into the treasury: and indeed this method has never yet failed of raising a speedy supply. There was no more asked, though in the beginning of this session the house had voted a million more than these bills amounted to; which made some conclude there was a secret negotiation and prospect of a peace. of Marlbo commanded As the duke of Marlborough was involved in the The duke general censure passed on the former ministry, so he rough still had not the usual compliment of thanks for the suc-our armies. cesses of the former campaign: when that was moved in the house of lords, it was opposed with such eagerness by the duke of Argyle and others, that it was let fall. For this the duke of Marlborough was prepared by the queen; who, upon his • This, I have heard, was carried against Harley by the private instigation of St. John, who had got the violent tories into his separate management, and was recovered in the way here mentioned, by the help of the whigs; to whom, for that purpose, Harley, by his brother and others, made some very submissive applications, with 1711. coming over, told him that he was not to expect the thanks of the two houses, as had been formerly: she added, that she expected he should live well with her ministers, but did not think fit to say any thing of the reasons she had for making those changes in her ministry P. Yet he shewed no resentments for all the ill usage he met with; and having been much pressed by the States and our other allies to continue in the command of the army, he told me, upon that account, he resolved to be patient, and to submit to every thing, in order to the carrying on the war; and finding the queen's prepossession against his duchess was not to be overcome, he carried a surrender of all her places to the queen: she was groom of the stole, had the robes, and the privy P Upon the duke of Marlborough's coming home, I asked the queen, how she would have the servants live with him? She said, that would depend upon his behaviour to her. I told her, I was sure that would be all submission, ́since other means proved ineffectual; and asked her, if she could stand that? She said, from him she could. After he had been with her, she told me it was just as I said, only lower than it was possible to imagine. When I went to wait upon him, he received me with seeming kindness and civility, and put me in mind of our relation; which I had not heard of for many years before: and hoped I would do him good offices to the queen, who, he knew, had an entire confidence in me, which he was sincerely glad of. He 564 purse'; in all which she had served with great eco- 1711. Her grace and the duke together had above ninety thousand pounds a year salary; besides whatever else they pleased for themselves and the rest of the family and had the insolence, as well as meanness, to refuse to pay any thing towards the tax upon Whitehall, which, being a sum certain, the rest of the queen's servants were obliged to pay it for them. They used every thing belonging to the queen as if it had been their own; and the very linen that went with him every year to the army was furnished by her majesty. The duchess has asserted in her Memoirs, that the queen, after she came to the crown, never gave her a diamond, or any thing worth taking notice of. Lord Oxford told me, that after the battle of Blenheim, the queen presented her with the duke of Marlborough's picture, covered with a flat diamond that had brilliant edges, which cost eight thousand pounds. I myself did see, some years after the queen's death, an advertisement in the newspapers, that such a diamond was in the hands of a Jew to be disposed of: therefore suppose her grace may not have it by her, and has forgot that, with many more such trifles, not worth taking notice of. But I suppose she could not meet with a chapman for so valuable a jewel, because I find by the codicil to her grace's will, she has left to her daughter, the duchess of Montague, a picture of her father covered with a large diamond. D. s Lord Cowper told me, he went at this time to the duke of Marlborough, and found him in bed, with a great deal of company in the chamber, and the duchess sitting at the bedside, railing in a most extravagant manner against the queen, and said she had always hated and despised her; but that fool, her daughter Henrietta, (who stood by,) had always loved her, and did so still, which she should never forgive her. That surprised him very much, though he had heard more of her temper than he believed: but the duke told him, he must not mind what she said, for she was used to talk at that rate when she was in a passion, which was a thing she was very apt to fall into, and there was no way to help it. D. t The duchess of Somerset was the best bred, as well as the best born lady in England. (She was the daughter of the last Percy, earl of Northumberland.) Her immense wealth in her younger days had occasioned great misfortunes to herself and other people, which concluded in her being married to 1 1711. the duke of Somerset, who treated her with little gratitude or affection, though he owed all he had, except an empty title, to her. She maintained her dignity at court, with great respect to the queen, and sincerity to all others. She was by much the greatest favourite, when the queen died; and it would have continued: for she thought herself justified in her favour to her, when she was ashamed of it elsewhere. Not long before the queen died, she told me she designed to leave some of her jewels to the queen of Sicily, (who was the only relation I ever heard her speak of with much tenderness,) and the rest to the duchess of Somerset, as the fittest person to wear them after her. Mrs. Danvers, who had served her mother, the duchess of York, and been about her from her infancy, told me, she never wondered at her favour to the duchess of Somerset, but always had to the duchess of Marlborough, who was the most the reverse of the queen that could have been found in the whole kingdom. D. This was the most prudent and best accepted thing that then was done by the ministers; for she was in all respects a credit and an ornament to the court. Yet afterwards she came to be in their displeasure, and they suffered her to be treated with the most indecent language by Swift, their tool, and the chief writer of their libels, who, with great parts of wit and style, had the most impudent and venomous pen of any man of this age. Proud, insolent, void of all de Icency, offensive to his friends almost as much as to his enemies; hating all men, and human nature itself; wanting to be a tyrant, to gratify his ambition and his disdain of the world; which he did obtain over many by the awe of his satire and ridicule, and in that he was restrained by the consideration neither of age or sex, character or rank of any person whatsoever, who happened to fall within the rage of his generally false and sudden resentment. Even in his defences (as he called them) of religion, his manner of doing that created doubts of his own belief, and often fortified the unbelief of others. He was, from all that was known of him, of a very bad nature, and a very odious man; and, with all his great talents of writing, had certainly a very foul and corrupt imagination. His History of the Four last Years of Queen Anne is, except the style, a mean performance, and so deemed by every body. A few years before he died, he fell (as he had often foretold of himself) into a state of idiotcy, and was a sad and piteous sight. He left a good part of his fortune to the building and endowing of an hospital for persons in that miserable condition: a great charity in this world, and may it cover his sins in the world he gone to! O. is u Mrs. Masham was an indigent relation of the duchess of Marlborough's, (had been a waiting-woman to a lady Rivers of Kent,) and put about the queen, as one she could trust. I had little conversation favour Palatines. The house of commons found the encouragement 1711. given the Palatines was so displeasing to the people, Complaints that they ordered a committee to examine into that upon the matter. The truth of this story was, that in the shewed the year 1708, about fifty Palatines, who were Lutherans, and were ruined, came over to England: these were so effectually recommended to prince George's chaplains, that the queen allowed them a shilling a day, and took care to have them transported to the planta with her, nor was the queen pleased that any body should apply to her. I was desired to propose her husband's being made a lord, which I found was not very acceptable. The queen told me, she never had any design to make a great lady of her, and should lose a useful servant about her person: for it would give offence to have a peeress lie upon the floor, and do several other inferior offices; but at last consented, upon condition she remained a dresser, and did as she used to do. She was exceeding mean and vulgar in her manners, of a very unequal temper, childishly exceptious, and passionate. The queen told me, I was not in her good graces, (which I did not know before,) because I lived civilly with the duchess of Somerset; which, she said, she hoped I would continue, without minding the other's ill humours. At last she grew to be very rude and jealous, which I took no notice of; but the queen had a suspicion, that she or her sister listened at the door all the time I was with her; which, with some disrespects shown to the duchess of Somerset, gave VOL. VI. her majesty some thoughts of making of her a lady of the bed-chamber, and laying of her down softly. She had credit enough to hurt lord Oxford, by which she destroyed her own foundation; and was senseless enough to fancy she had gained a great point, in having got rid of her surest friend and best support; but would soon have found the ill effects of her passion and folly, having received many a deep wound in the contest, and run her mistress into difficulties she could not well tell how to extricate herself out of, and must have been accommodated at her expense, though probably not in so gentle a manner as the queen proposed. D. (Was it then intended by the friends of lord Oxford, with whom lady Masham had quarrelled, that she should be removed from the queen's presence by a parliamentary address, in the way formerly meditated by the whigs, and so much and so justly reprobated by these tories? It is however asserted, that she had lately been guilty of some corrupt practices, which, if true, much alters the case.) D |