He animated the Dutch to a full exertion of their vigour: he concerted the operations of the campaign: he agreed with the states general and the Imperial minister, that war should be declared against France on the same day, at Vienna, London, and the Hague: and on the third of April embarked for England, after having acquired the entire confidence of those who governed the United Provinces.

IV. By this time the house of commons in England had settled the civil list upon the queen for her life.* When the bill received the royal assent, she assured them, that one hundred thousand pounds of this revenue should be applied to the public service of the current year: at the same time she passed another bill, for receiving and examining the public accounts. A commission for this purpose was

granted in the preceding reign, but had been for some years discontinued; and, indeed, always proved ineffectual to detect and punish those individuals who shamefully pillaged their country. The villany was so complicated, the vice so general, and the delinquents so powerfully screened by artifice and interest, as to elude all inquiry. On the twenty-fourth day of March the oath of abjuration was taken by the speaker and members, according to an act for the further security of her majesty's person, and the succession of the crown in the protestant line, and for extinguishing the hopes of the pretended prince of Wales. The queen's inclination to the tories plainly appeared in her choice of ministers. Doctor John Sharp, archbishop of York, became her ghostly director and counsellor in all ecclesiastical affairs. The earl of Rochester was continued lord lieutenant of Ireland, and enjoyed a great share of her majesty's confidence: the privy seal was intrusted to the marquis of Normandy: the earl of Nottingham and sir Charles Hedges were appointed secretaries of state: the earl of Abingdon, viscount Weymouth, lord Dartmouth, sir Christopher Musgrave, Grenville, Howe, Gower, and Harcourt, were admitted as members of the privy council, together with sir Edward Seymour, now declared comptroller of the household. The lord Godolphin declined accepting the office of lord high treasurer, until he was overruled by the per suasions of Marlborough, to whose eldest daughter his son

* An. 1702.

was married. This nobleman refused to command the forces abroad, unless the treasury should be put into the hands of Godolphin, on whose punctuality in point of remittances, he knew he could depend. George, prince of Denmark, was invested with the title of generalissimo of all the queen's forces by sea and land; and afterwards created lord high admiral, the earl of Pembroke having been dismissed from this office with the offer of a large pension, which he generously refused. Prince George, as admiral, was assisted by a council, consisting of sir George Rooke, sir David Mitchel, George Churchill, and Richard Hill. Though the legality of this board was doubted, the parliament had such respect and veneration for the queen, that it was suffered to act without question.

SV. A rivalship for the queen's favour already appeared between the earls of Rochester and Marlborough. The former, as first cousin to the queen, and chief of the tory faction, maintained considerable influence in the council: but even there the interest of his rival predominated. Marlborough was not only the better courtier, but by the canal of his countess, actually directed the queen in all her resolutions. Rochester proposed in council, that the English should avoid a declaration of war with France, and act as auxiliaries only. He was seconded by some other members: but the opinion of Marlborough preponderated. He observed, that the honour of the nation. was concerned to fulfil the late king's engagements; and affirmed that France could never be reduced within due bounds, unless the English would enter as principals in the quarrel. This allegation was supported by the dukes of Somerset and Devonshire, the earl of Pembroke, and the majority of the council. The queen being resolved to declare war, communicated her intention to the house of commons, by whom it was approved: and on the fourth day of May the declaration was solemnly proclaimed. The king of France was, in this proclamation, taxed with having taken possession of great part of the Spanish dominions; with designing to invade the liberties of Europe, and obstruct the freedom of navigation and commerce; with having offered an unpardonable insult to the queen and her throne, by taking upon him to declare the

pretended prince of Wales king of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The three declarations of the emperor, England, and the states general, which were published in one day, did not fail to disconcert, as well as to provoke, the French monarch. When his minister de Torcy recited them in his hearing, he spoke of the queen with some acrimony; but with respect to the states general, he declared with great emotion, that "messieurs the Dutch merchants "should one day repent of their insolence and presumption, in declaring war against so powerful a monarch;" he did not however, produce his declaration till the third day of July.

VI. The house of commons, in compliance with the queen's desire, brought in a bill, empowering her majesty to name commissioners to treat with the Scots for an union of the two kingdoms. It met with warm opposition from sir Edward Seymour, and other tory members, who discharged abundance of satire and ridicule upon the Scottish nation but the measure seemed so necessary at that juncture, to secure the protestant succession against the practices of France, and the claims of the pretender, that the majority espoused the bill, which passed through both houses, and on the sixth day of May received the royal assent, together with some bills of less importance. The enemies of the late king continued to revile his memory. They even charged him with having formed a design of excluding the princess Anne from the throne, and of introducing the elector of Hanover as his own immediate successor. This report had been so industriously circufated, that it began to gain credit all over the kingdom. Several peers interested themselves in William's character; and a motion was made in the upper house, that the truth of this report should be inquired into. The house immediately desired that those lords who had visited the late king's papers would intimate whether or not they had found any among them relating to the queen's succession, or to the succession of the house of Hanover. They forthwith

a In their hours of debauch they drank to the health of Sorrel, meaning the horse that fell with the king; and, under the appellation of the little gentleman in velvet, toasted the mole that raised the hill over which the horse had stumbled. As the beast had formerly belonged to sir John Fenwick, they insinuated that William's fate was a judgment upon him, for his cruelty to that gentleman; and a Latin epigram was written on the occasion.

declared, that nothing of that sort appeared. Then the house resolved, that the report was groundless, false, villanous, and scandalous; to the dishonour of the late king's memory, and highly tending to the disservice of her present majesty, whom they besought to give order that the authors or publishers of such scandalous reports should be prosecuted by the attorney general. The same censure was passed upon some libels and pamphlets, tending to inflame the factions of the kingdom, and to propagate a spirit of irreligion. On the twenty-first day of May, the commons, in an address, advised her majesty to engage the emperor, the states general, and her other allies, to join with her in prohibiting all intercourse with France and Spain; and to concert such methods with the states general as might most effectually secure the trade of her subjects and allies. The lords presented another address, desiring the queen would encourage her subjects to equip privateers, as the preparations of the enemy seemed to be made for a piratical war, to the interruption of commerce: they likewise exhorted her majesty to grant commissions or charters to all persons who should make such acquisitions in the Indies, as she in her great wisdom should judge most expedient for the good of her kingdoms. On the twenty-fifth day of May, the queen having passed several public and private bills, dismissed the parliament by prorogation, after having, in a short speech, thanked them for their zeal, recommended unanimity, and declared she would carefully preserve and maintain the act of toleration,

§ VII. In Scotland a warm contest arose between the revolutioners and those in the opposition, concerning the existence of the present parliament. The queen had signified her accession to the throne, in a letter to her privy council for Scotland; desiring they would continue

b Doctor Binkes, in a sermon preached before the convocation, on the thirtieth day of January, drew a parallel between the sufferings of Christ and those of king Charles, to which last he gave the preference, in point of right, character, and station.

c During this short session, the queen gave her assent to an act for laying a duty upon land; to another for encouraging the Greenland trade; to a third for making good the deficiencies and the public credit; to a fourth for continuing the imprisonment of Counter, and other conspirators against king William; to a fifth for the relief of protestant purchasers of the forfeited estates of Ireland; to a sixth enlarging the time for taking the oath of abjuration; to a seventh obliging the Jews to maintain and provide for their protestant children.

to act in that office, until she should send a new commission. Meanwhile, she authorized them to publish a proclamation, ordaining all officers of state, counsellors, and magistrates, to act in all things conformably to the commissions and instructions of his late majesty, until new commissions should be prepared. She likewise assured them of her firm resolution to protect them in their religion, laws, and liberties, and in the established government of the church. She had already, in presence of twelve Scottish counsellors, taken the coronation oath for that kingdom: but those who wanted to embroil the affairs of their country affirmed that this was an irregular way of proceeding, and that the oath ought to have been tendered by persons deputed for that purpose, either by the parliament or the privy council of the kingdom. The present ministry, consisting of the duke of Queensberry, the earls of Marchmont, Melvil, Seafield, Hyndford and Selkirk, were devoted to revolution principles, and desirous that the parliament should continue, in pursuance of a late act for continuing the parliament that should be then in being, six months after the death of the king; and that it should assemble in twenty days after that event. The queen had, by several adjournments, deferred the meeting almost three months after the king's decease; and therefore, the antirevolutioners affirmed that it was dissolved. The duke of Hamilton was at the head of this party, which clamoured loudly for a new parliament. This nobleman, together with the marquis of Tweedale, the earls Marshal and Rothes, and many other noblemen, repaired to London, in order to make the queen acquainted with their objections to the continuance of the present parliament. She admitted them to her presence, and calmly heard their allegations: but she was determined by the advice of her privy council for that kingdom, who were of opinion that the nation was in too great a ferment to hazard the convocation of a new parliament. According to the queen's last adjournment, the parliament met at Edinburgh on the ninth day of June, the duke of Queensberry having been appointed high commissioner. Before the queen's commission was read, the duke of Hamilton, for himself and his adherents, declared their satisfaction at her majesty's accession to the