joined by his Duchess in the following 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.

1713.

INTRIGUES OF OXFORD.

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CHAPTER II.

AFTER the conclusion of the peace of Utrecht, the eyes of all England were turned with anxious and undivided attention to the chances of the Royal 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 illegitimate 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 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 English; but where, on the other hand, he would 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. was the safer and the legal side-no small recommendation to a very timid man. His Presbyterian connections

It

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 them in with small trouble and no hazard to him

* "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, Mr. John Allen, in the Edinburgh Review, No. cxxv., have been very useful to me. +"Il est moralement certain que toutes les avances qu'il nous avait "faites n'avaient eu pour motif que son propre intérêt, 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.

1713.

INTRIGUES OF BOLINGBROKE.

33

self. But indolence and caution were always the main springs of his character; and, perhaps, those of his contemporaries knew him best who believed that he had no fixed designs 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 "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†; and during the two following years, he is repeatedly mentioned by the French agents, Gaultier and Iberville, in their private letters, as holding with them most confidential intercourse, and giving them most friendly counsels.

Of the remaining members of the Cabinet, the Jacobites could also reckon on Secretary Bromley ‡, and the Dukes of Buckingham and Ormond. Some others, such as Lord Chancellor Harcourt, may be considered as uncertain or wavering; and several, like the Bishop of London, as sincere friends to the Protestant Succession.

It may easily be supposed that an administration thus variously composed could not long remain cordially united. Oxford and Bolingbroke gradually came to be considered

* 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. Bromley is mentioned in Iberville's instructions as un homme "attaché presque ouvertement au parti du Roi (Jacques)." Sept. 26.

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as leaders of separate and jarring divisions. The former, as far as professions could go, was indeed most smooth and complying. In his own expression, "If the company "should say Harrow on the Hill or Maidenhead were the "nearest way to Windsor, I would go with them, and never dispute it, if that would give content, and I might 66 not be forced to swear it was so.' " But, in practice, Lord Oxford was by no means the easy colleague he describes. All those who knew him bitterly complain of his little jealousies and want of confidence, of the undue share which he claimed in business, of his dilatory manner of transacting it. So early as May 1711, we find Bolingbroke write to Lord Orrery, "We who are reputed to "be in Mr. Harley's intimacy have few opportunities of seeing him, and none of talking freely with him. As he "is the only true channel through which the Queen's "pleasure is conveyed to us, there is and must be a per"fect stagnation, till he is pleased to open himself, and set "the water flowing." The feuds between the two Ministers were frequently composed, more especially by Swift, their common friend. But as the subject matter of division still remained, it always broke out afresh with aggravated rancour.

Such was the state of parties when Parliament met in April, 1713.

At this period the Ministers were by no means apprehensive of defeat in either House. Of the Upper, Swift writes, on the day before the meeting, "Lord Treasurer "is as easy as a lamb. They are mustering up the "proxies of the absent Lords, but they are not in any fear "of wanting a majority, which death and accidents have "increased this year." In the Commons their preponderance was even more secure. But that House being then under the operation of the Triennial Act, and in its third and last Session, both parties showed great timidity in all their movements, and were anxious not to commit them

* Harley to Lord Godolphin, Sept. 10. 1707. Append. to Somerville, p. 625.

† Journal to Stella, April 8. 1713. Bolingbroke also expected that "the Session will be quiet and short." To Lord Orrery, March 6. 1713.