X. 16. the Whigs; the which they had sacrificed the security and glory of their CHAP. country. The Whigs were on the alert, and were actively engaged in measures for securing the arsenals, 1714. the Tower, and seaports, and bringing troops to the Countermetropolis. Everything presaged a serious contest, if measures of not a civil war, and the agitation of the public mind and death became extreme. At this awful moment a committee of Queen. the Privy Council met at Kensington, and the Duke of Shrewsbury, throwing off his habitual indecision, acted with the vigour which so often, in a decisive crisis, is attended with success. While they were in the middle of their conference, the Dukes of Argyll and Somerset suddenly entered the room, and announced that the Queen was at the point of death. This being confirmed by a report of the physicians, the committee hastily passed a resolution, that the office of Lord-Treasurer should be instantly filled up, and that the Duke of Shrewsbury should be recommended to the Queen. Bolingbroke and his party were thunderstruck by this proposal, and turned deadly pale; but as the majority was against them, they offered no opposition, probably hoping the Queen would not act on the suggestion. deputation of the Council waited on the Queen, and stated the recommendation of the whole body. She faintly approved the choice, delivered the staff to Shrewsbury, and bade him "use it for the good of her people." These were her last words; she soon after sank into a lethargy, and expired at seven on the morn-289-292. ing of the 1st August.1 A Then appeared, in the clearest manner, the vital influence of decision in civil conflicts, and the vast importance of the advantage which the Whigs had gained by the appointment of Shrewsbury as Lord-Treasurer. 1 Coxe, vi. CHAP. Lord Somers instantly repaired to Kensington, and he X. was followed by the leading privy-councillors of his own 1714. party. party. Shrewsbury assumed all the functions of governInstantane- ment. Troops were ordered to march from all quarters sures of the to London; ten battalions were recalled from Dunkirk; an embargo was laid on all the seaports; a strong fleet 17. ous mea Whigs to secure the succession, August 1. broke's Boyer's sent to sea, under Admiral the Earl of Berkley, to cruise in the Downs; and a despatch sent to Hanover, urging the Elector to lose no time in coming to England 1 Boling through Holland, where a fleet would be ready to receive him. George I. was immediately proclaimed in the metropolis and principal cities of the kingdom; and Anne, 179. thus were the inestimable blessings of the Protestant succession and political freedom secured to this country, without the shedding of a drop of blood.1 Queen Coxe, vi. 290-292. 18. Marlbo rough lands and arrives This happy event made an immediate and most auspicious change in the fortunes of Marlborough. The at Dover, Jacobites, who regarded him with justice as the most in London, formidable of their enemies, were struck with consternaAugust 4. tion when they heard he was coming over to England. * He had been on terms of tolerable civility with Oxford, who had procured for him his passports, and also a grant of ten thousand pounds for the carrying on of Blenheim; but with Bolingbroke he was on no terms whatever. Foreseeing the crisis which was approaching, he left Antwerp and came to Ostend, where he was detained several days by an adverse wind; and was still there on the 1st August, when he received intelligence of the Queen's death. He then embarked, and was received at Dover by an immense crowd, who hailed him with * "M. de Torcy has very severe, and, I fear, very exact accounts of us. We are all frightened out of our wits upon the Duke of Marlborough going to England.”—Mr Price to Bolingbroke, Aug. 7, 1714; BOLINGBROKE's Corresp. iv. 579. X. 1714. acclamations; and proceeding to London, he was met CHAP. by Sir Charles Cox, member for Southwark, at the head of two hundred gentlemen, who escorted him into the city amidst the shouts of an immense concourse of citizens. These, with a volunteer company of the Guards who accompanied him, never ceased exclaiming, "Long live George I. !—Long live the Duke of Marlborough !" On the following morning he was sworn into the Privy Council, and visited by the foreign ministers and most of the nobility and gentry in and around the metropolis; and in the evening he appeared in the House of Lords, and took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. The Grenadier Guards, his old companions-in-arms, voluntarily fired a feu-de-joie on the occasion. One day effaced xviii. 311. the traces of years of injustice: the death of a single iii. 387. individual had restored the patriotic hero to the situa- 305-307. tion in which he stood after the battle of Blenheim. 1 1 Tindal, Ledyard, Coxe, vi. rough re solves to more litical situ hold no po ation under In the new go the vernment. Marlborough, however, had had too much experience 19. of the ingratitude of courts and the vacillation of the Marlbopeople to be led away by these flattering appearances. He resolved, therefore, most wisely, to give no hostages to fortune, but to retire from public life. this determination he was cordially supported by Duchess, who gives the following account of their conversation on the subject: "I begged of the Duke of Marlborough on my knees that he would never accept of any employment. I said that everybody that liked the Revolution and the security of the law had a great esteem for him; that he had a greater fortune than he wanted; and that a man who had had such success, with such an estate, would be of more use to any court than they could be of to him. That I would live civilly with them if they were so to me, but would never put it in the CHAP. X. power of any king to use me ill. He was entirely of this opinion, and determined to quit all, and serve them 1714. only when he could act honestly, and do his country service at the same time. Any extraordinary pay as general he had quitted at first, there being an end of the war, so that he had only an empty name of it; and 1 Conduct, his other preferments were Master of the Ordnance and vi. 308. his regiment of the Guards, for which he had only the settled allowances."1 337. Coxe, 20. George I. forms a Whig ad ministration, and arrives in Aug. 17. The first step of George I. after his accession was to intrust the formation of a new administration to Lord Townsend, who selected one composed, of course, entirely of Whigs. Lord Cowper, who had so honourably withEngland, stood the late queen's entreaties to him to retain the Great Seal when Oxford's administration was formed, was reappointed Lord-Chancellor; General Stanhope was Secretary of State for the war; Mr Walpole received the Home Office, and leadership of the House of Commons; Lord Wharton became Privy Seal, with a marquisate; the Duke of Somerset, Master of the Horse; the Duke of Shrewsbury, Lord-Chamberlain; the Duke of Devonshire, Lord High Steward; Lord Orford was put at the head of the Admiralty, Lord Halifax of the Treasury ; Lord Sunderland was made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; Lord Godolphin, Cofferer of the Household; the Earl of Bridgewater, Lord-Chamberlain of the Prince of Wales; while Marlborough's fourth son-in-law, the Duke of Montague, received a regiment, and his Duchess was made Lady of the Bed-Chamber to the Princess of Wales. Marlborough himself so far yielded to the solicitations of his friends as to resume his former offices of Commander-in-Chief and Master-General of the Ordnance ;2 but he was not a member of the cabinet, 2 Coxe, vi. 310-312. Conduct, 336. X. 1714. and had little share in political government. He was CHAP. received by the King with the most flattering distinction at court, who was proud to do honour to the chief under whom he had gained his first honours on the field of Oudenarde. 21. broke and outlawed, impeached. One of the first acts of the Whig Government was, in pursuance of an address of the House of Commons Boling-which, with the versatility so common at that period, Ormond are was now as thoroughly Hanoverian as it had formerly and Oxford been Jacobite in its policy-to prefer impeachments against Bolingbroke, Ormond, and Oxford, for their accession to the steps taken to overturn the Act of Settlement, and restore the Stuart family to the throne. The two former made their escape into France, where they soon after hoisted, with honourable consistency, their true colours, by openly taking office at the court of St Germains. Oxford, who was not, like them, conscious of having furthered the views of the Pretender, but, on the contrary, had frustrated them so much, as Berwick informs us in the passage already quoted, as to have led to his dismissal by Queen Anne, remained at home and braved the impeachment. After a long trial he was acquitted by the House of Peers, apparently on very sufficient grounds, as his conduct in bringing about the Peace of Utrecht, however culpable as a statesman, was no act of treason against the sovereign; and no overt acts directly favouring the Pretender could be brought home to him. Marlborough attended the House during the trial, and voted for the prosecution so far as the accession to the Treaty of Utrecht was 1 Parl. Hist. concerned; but, with a commendable delicacy to his vi. 1275old protegé and comrade in office, he did not take vi. 315,316. any part in the debates. 1 1292. Coxe, |