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CHAP.

XI.

1714.

of their talents and influence to aid in the propagation of the libels calculated to destroy him. Those triumphs, however glorious to England, however vital to its existence as an independent state, were all adverse to their political principles. They threatened to extinguish the monarchical and Roman Catholic principles in the person of Louis XIV., and raise to supremacy, in their stead, the morose doctrines of the Covenanters, the Solemn League and Covenant, the principles of the Dutch republicans. Queen Anne, with the usual instinct of crowned heads, when in secure possession of power, inclined to the same opinions. She felt the same repugnance to the Whigs, who had placed her after William on the throne, that Louis Philippe, in after times, did to Lafayette and the patriots of 1830, who had erected the throne of the Barricades. These principles and feelings were not confined to the leaders of the party and the sovereign on the throne: they pervaded the whole body of their followers, and took deep root in the noblest and most generous affections of the human heart.

The warmest partisans of royalty in Great Britain It was these and Ireland were to be found in the French ranks:

causes

24.

which over

turned Marlborough.

they embraced many of the most generous and exalted, because disinterested, persons in the British dominions. Their appearance excited profound sympathy and admiration wherever they appeared on the Continent.*

* "Leurs aventures furent dignes des beaux jours de Sparte et d'Athènes. Ils étaient tous d'une naissance honorable; attachés à leurs chefs, et affectionnés les uns aux autres; irréprochables en tout. Ils se formaient en une compagnie de soldats au service de France. Ils furent passés en revue par le Roi à St Germain en Laye: le Roi salua les troupes par une inclination de la tête et le chapeau bas. Il révint, salua de nouveau, et fondit en larmes. Ils se mirent à genoux, baissants la tête contre la terre, puis se rélevants tout à la fois, ils lui firent le salut militaire. Ils furent envoyés delà à les frontières

The Pretender himself combated at Malplaquet against Marlborough in the midst of the chivalry of France. It would be erroneous, therefore, to consider the intrigues and animosity which at length effected the downfal of Marlborough, and brought about the peace of Utrecht, as entirely the result of a revolution du Palais,-a bedchamber affair, in which the interests and glory of nations were sacrificed to the spite or the jealousies of women; and still more unjust would it be to stigmatise Bolingbroke and Harley as worthless adventurers, who were actuated in their opposition to the great hero of the age by mere personal envy or political hostility. Mrs Masham's bedchamber intrigue, and Bolingbroke's cabinet measures, were merely the form which a great principle, at all times strong in English society, and then peculiarly active, took in order to avert a danger with which, in their estimation, English institutions were threatened. And that principle is expressed in the words, "Fear God and honour the King."

CHAP.

XI.

1714.

25.

lations of

moral rectimode of

tude in the

It is evident, from what has been said, that the Tory party had much argument on their side in this great Great viocontroversy; and that though we, instructed by the event, may now see very clearly that they erred on the occasion, yet there is much to be said on their behalf; and the strongest judgment, as well as the purest patriotism, might at the time have found it difficult to

d'Espagne, ce que formait un marche de 900 milles. Partout où ils passaient ils tiraient des larmes des yeux des femmes, obtenaient le respect de quelques hommes, et en faisant rire d'autres par la moquerie qui s'attache au malheur. Ils étaient toujours les premiers dans une bataille, et les derniers dans une retraite. Ils manquerent souvent des choses les plus nécessaires à la vie, cependant on ne les entendit jamais se plaindre, excepté des souffrances de celui qu'ils regardaient comme leur souverain."-CHATEAUBRIAND, Mémoires sur le Duc de Berry, Euvres, ii. 68.

their attack on Marlbo

rough.

CHAP.

XI.

1714.

say on which side the scales of reason preponderated. But there is one point for which no apology can be made, and for which all the heat of party and all the reality of impending danger can afford no excuse. This was the manner in which they prosecuted their hostility against Marlborough and the war. They did not dispossess the one, and terminate the other, as they might have done, by a simple vote of the House of Commons. They did not venture for long on any open attack on either. They were afraid to measure their strength in open combat with the conqueror of Blenheim. They preferred the covert attacks of envy, malice, and uncharitableness. Their weapons, with the people, were malignant libels; at court, underhand bedchamber intrigues. They did not deprive the hero of his command, but they strove to thwart his measures so that they might prove unsuccessful. Openly they declared that any minister deserved to lose his head who should propose to abandon Spain and the Indies to a Bourbon prince in secret they were negotiating with Louis at that very moment a treaty of peace, the basis of which was that very relinquishment. Ostensibly they still paid to Marlborough the external marks of respect, but they ceased to admit him to their confidential counsels; they denied him the thanks of Parliament for his services; they encouraged the circulation of the most malignant falsehoods regarding his character; they did their utmost to load him with indignities and mortifications at Court. Their object seems to have been to induce him, through disgust at their ingratitude, to resign; and thus to have spared them the discredit of removing the greatest general of England from a command which he had held with so much glory. And

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when the temper or patriotism of Marlborough was
proof against their attack, they descended to the infamy
of charging him with peculation, on grounds so false
that they did not venture to bring them to judicial
investigation, even in the House of Peers, which they
had swamped for his overthrow. At last they drove the
greatest general of England, and the most signal bene-
factor that ever had arisen to his country, into disgrace,
in order to bring about a discreditable peace, which
deprived the nation of the chief fruit of his victories.

And the result has now decisively proved that
Bolingbroke and the Tories were as wrong on this oc-
casion in their general policy as in the means for its
accomplishment; and that the course which Godolphin
and Marlborough contended for, and, but for the change
of ministry, undoubtedly would have carried into effect,
was the one imperatively required by the honour and
interests of England. Spain and France were the two
powers by whom the independence of this country had
been separately threatened for two centuries. The
narrow escape made from invasion, and possibly dis-
memberment, on occasion of the Spanish Armada
in 1588, and the battle of La Hogue in 1692, suffi-
ciently demonstrate this. The union of the two under
one head, therefore, could not but prove in the highest
degree perilous to the independence of England.
parties seemed to admit this; but they proposed dif-
ferent means to avert the danger. Marlborough and
the Whigs maintained that it could be effectually done
only by separating, in a permanent manner, the reigning
families in France and Spain-and to effect this, they
proposed to settle the crown of Spain on Charles VI.,
Archduke of Austria. Provided this was done, they

Both

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CHAP.

XI.

1714.

27.

has proved

the Tories

were wrong

in their po licy regarding it.

had no objections that an appanage for the Duke of Anjou, the other competitor for the throne, should be carved out of the other possessions of the Spanish crown in Italy and Sicily. This was substantially the basis they assumed in the conferences of Gertruydenberg in 1709. Bolingbroke and the Tories, again, contended that it was unnecessary to separate the reigning families, provided only that the two crowns were prevented from uniting on one head; and to prevent this they introduced the stringent clauses into the treaty of Utrecht, already mentioned, providing that the Salic law, which excludes females from the succession, should be the law of the Spanish throne, and that in no event, and under no circumstances, should the crowns of Spain and France be united on the same head.

These provisions appeared, at first sight, to guard, in The result part at least, against the danger which threatened; and this circumstance, coupled with the natural desire of men to terminate a long and burdensome war, rendered the peace of Utrecht generally acceptable to the nation. It was foreseen, however, at the time, and loudly declared by the Whigs, both in Parliament and the country, that this security was seeming only, and that leaving a grandson of Louis XIV. on the throne of Spain, with the name of an independent kingdom, was in reality more dangerous to the security of England than the junction of the two crowns on the same head would have been. The event has now decisively proved the justice of this view. Had the crown of Spain been openly placed on the same head as that of France, the alliance of the two powers could not have been of long continuance. Castilian pride would have revolted at the idea of being subjected to the government of Paris :

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