I. 1713. CHAP. ence with Torcy. At nearly the same time, July, 1712, he was raised to the peerage by the title of Viscount Bolingbroke, and on this new political theatre displayed the same talent and won the same ascendancy as in the House of Commons. These two statesmen, Oxford and Bolingbroke, were the leading members of the Tory administration. At the head of the opposition, at this period, were Lords Somers, Cowper, and Halifax, in the House of Peers; General Stanhope and Mr. Robert Walpole in the Commons. One far greater than all the illustrious Marlborough-was no longer in England. Mortified at the unworthy personal attacks to which he was exposed, and more especially at the base charge of peculation levelled against him under the name of Sir Solomon Medina, he had withdrawn to the Continent in November, 1712, and was rejoined by his Duchess in the following spring. spring. After some wandering they fixed their residence at Antwerp, where they could carry on a close correspondence with their political friends, and from whence (as was shown by the event) a very short notice might, on any sudden emergency, summon them to England. CHAPTER II. eyes II. AFTER the conclusion of the peace of Utrecht, CHAP. the of all England were turned with anxious and undivided attention to the chances of the Royal 1713. succession. That this could be no very distant prospect became evident from the frequent illnesses and declining strength of the Queen. A few months more, it seemed probable, would sever the last remaining link which united the posterity of Charles the First with the throne of England. Warned by her Majesty's precarious health to look forward, her ministers were much divided in their wishes; all, indeed, professing alike their attachment to the Hanover succession, but the greater number of them secret partisans of the Pretender. The Lord Treasurer, on this as on every other occasion, appears doubtful in his objects and crooked in his means. So early as 1710, he had sent, through Abbé Gaultier, an overture to Marshal Berwick, the Pretender's natural brother, to treat of the restoration of the Stuarts; Anne retaining the crown for her life, and securities being given for the religion and liberties of II. 1713. CHAP. England. Peace was, however, he declared, an indispensable preliminary; and he seemed no less anxious that the whole negotiation should be carefully concealed from the Court of St. Germains, of whose usual indiscretion he was probably aware. Berwick, as may well be supposed, raised no objection to these or any other terms; and Oxford promised that next year he would transmit a detailed and specific plan for their common object. No such plan, however, arrived; and, when pressed by the French agents, the Treasurer only descanted on the importance of first securing the army, or returned such answers as "Let us go gently," and "Leave it all to me." As the general election approached, Oxford became somewhat more explicit, but still gave nothing in writing beyond one insignificant sentence*, and no more in conversation than seemed requisite to secure the powerful support of the Jacobites for his administration. The advice he offered was also sometimes of a very questionable nature, as that James should leave Lorraine, and go, for example, to Venice, where he might indeed, as Oxford urged, have more easy intercourse with the travelling "Je parlerai à M. l'Abbé (Gaultier), avant son départ, au sujet "de M. le Chevalier." April, 1713. The secret letters of Gaultier and Iberville to Torcy are not amongst the Stuart Papers, but in the French diplomatic archives. Sir James Mackintosh had access to them in 1814; and some extracts from his collections, by an accomplished literary friend of his and acquaintance of mine, in the Edinburgh Review, No. 125., have been very useful to me. II. 1713. English; but where, on the other hand, he would CHAP. have been very far removed from England, and unable to profit by any sudden conjuncture in his favour. On the whole, Marshal Berwick and the Pretender himself soon became convinced that Oxford's view was chiefly his own present maintenance in power, and that he had no serious intention of assisting them.* In fact, notwithstanding this negotiation, there are several strong reasons for believing that Oxford was, at heart, no enemy to the Hanover succession. He had mainly helped to establish that succession in 1701, and his vanity had, therefore, an interest in its success. It was the safer and the legal side very timid man. no small recommendation to a His Presbyterian connections --his frequent overtures for a reconciliation with the Whigs-his perpetual disagreements with his more decided Jacobite colleagues-his avowed contempt of the old Stuart policy-might all be pleaded as arguments on the same side. I say nothing of his loud and eager professions of zeal at the Court of Hanover; but, on the whole, I do not doubt that he would readily have promoted the accession of that family, if he could have been assured of their favour afterwards, or if he could have brought "Il est moralement certain que toutes les avances qu'il "nous avait faites n'avaient eu pour motif que son propre in"térêt, afin de joindre les Jacobites aux Torys, et par là se "rendre le plus fort dans le Parlement, et y faire approuver la "paix." Mém. de Berwick, tom. ii. p. 132. ed. 1778. CHAP. them in with small trouble and no hazard to himII. self. But indolence and caution were always the 1713. inain springs of his character; and, perhaps, those of his contemporaries knew him best who believed that he had no fixed design at all.* Bolingbroke, on the contrary, had plunged into the Jacobite intrigues headlong and decisively. Of the usual incitements to Jacobitism high doctrines of divine right and indefeasible allegiance— he was, indeed, utterly destitute; but he was no less destitute of that zeal for civil rights and the Protestant religion which bound the hearts of his countrymen to the Hanover succession. Without any prejudice on either side, he looked solely and steadily at his personal interests. He perceived that his Tory connections and his ties with France made him an object of suspicion at Hanover, and left him little to expect from that family upon the throne. The same reason, however, would render him a favourite with "6 King James the Third," especially should that empty title become more substantial through his aid. He, therefore, determined to forward the views of the Jacobites. We find him, at the end of 1712, in secret communication with them t; and, during the two following years, he is repeatedly mentioned by the French agents, Gaultier and Iberville, in their private let * See Bolingbroke's Letter to Wyndham, and Cunningham's Hist. vol. ii. p. 303. The latter, however, is, I must admit, very poor authority for any fact or opinion. + Macpherson's Papers, vol. ii. p. 367. |