Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion (40 page)

From the very start of the reign Anne was determined that neither Sophia nor any other member of her family should settle in England in her lifetime, knowing that a rival court within the kingdom would create a natural focus for disaffection. Within days of her accession the idea was being aired in diplomatic circles, but it soon became apparent that the Queen was implacably against it.

Seeing that Anne was resolute that Sophia should not set foot in England, Sarah formed an alternative project, advocating that Sophia’s grandson should be invited in her stead. She later recalled telling Anne it would be ‘good for her as well as for England’ to ‘breed him as her own son’, although since the Electoral Prince George August was actually aged nineteen in 1702, bringing him to England would hardly have satisfied Anne’s maternal instincts. Sarah argued that such a move ‘would … secure [Anne’s] own life against the Roman Catholics and make the young man acquainted with the laws and customs of a country that one day (though I hoped it was a great way off) he would govern’. Anne protested that she still hoped for children of her own, but to Sarah this appeared completely unrealistic. Fortunately for the Queen, because the Elector was currently on very bad terms with his son, he was ‘positively resolved not to suffer’ his visiting England.
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Those of Anne’s subjects who regretted ‘that our court kept too cold civilities with the house of Hanover and did nothing that was tender or cordial-looking that way’, were scarcely reassured when the Earl of Winchilsea was sent there on a diplomatic mission. He had been the only peer to have voted against the Act of Settlement, so this was an unfortunate choice of representative. However, other noblemen had not been eager to serve as the Queen’s envoy to Hanover. The Earl of Dartmouth,
for one, had declined, being ‘sensible that whoever was employed between her Majesty and her successor would soon burn his fingers’. Before Winchilsea set off, there was a tremendous fuss as to whether he should kiss Sophia’s hand at his presentation. Secretary Hedges noted ‘The Queen thinks it should not be, and in my humble opinion her Majesty is in the right; but then she is told it has been done before and that makes the difficulty’. In the end it was grudgingly agreed that the precedent meant ‘it would be a downright affront for an Englishman not to do it’.
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Since the Act of Settlement Sophia had referred to herself as the Hereditary Princess of Great Britain, but to her annoyance diplomats who came from England neither listed this title in their credentials, nor accorded her the status of Royal Highness. ‘I don’t see them treating me as a Princess of the blood’, she grumbled in October. When she heard soon afterwards that plans were afoot to make George a King Consort, she grew despondent, although she acknowledged that in Anne’s place, she would have wanted to do the same. Her mind eased somewhat when the matter was not raised in Parliament, and she drew further comfort from another development later in the session. In January 1703 Tories in the Commons successfully proposed that the deadline for taking the abjuration oath should be extended, but in the Lords Whig peers added a clause to the measure, decreeing that any attempt to set aside the succession established by law should be classed as treason. However when Schutz, the Hanoverian Resident in England, claimed that ‘at bottom’ the Queen was well intentioned to Hanover, Sophia was less sure of this. The best course, she decided, was to ‘go on in my own way, while showing respect to the Queen’.
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The question of the succession also complicated relations between England and Scotland, although this was not the sole cause of friction. In William’s reign much bitterness had been aroused by the collapse of a Scots commercial venture, known as the Company of Darien. Hoping to reap vast riches, in 1698 the Scots had established a trading settlement on the Isthmus of Panama but it had fared disastrously. Not only had the English reneged on their original promise of investment, but in their anxiety not to provoke Spain (who laid claim to the entire area) they would not even permit the Scots settlers to obtain supplies from English colonies. The result was that 2,000 Scots colonists died and many more investors lost massive amounts of capital. Understandably, at William’s death the Scots were ‘in a very chagrine humour’ with England’.
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Matters were made worse by the fact that the English Parliament had not deigned to consult the Scots before passing the Act of Settlement. Evidently they just assumed that the northern kingdom would accept a successor chosen by England. One Scots Member of Parliament raged in 1703, ‘Was this not to tell us plainly that we ought to be concluded by their determinations and were not worthy to be consulted in the matter?’
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At Anne’s accession, the question of who would succeed her on the Scottish throne had still to be resolved.

William III had become convinced that the only way of establishing the two countries on a better footing was to bring about a formal Union. One of his last acts was to send a sickbed message to the English Parliament, urging them to introduce the necessary legislation. It was clear, however, that many difficulties stood in the way. Not only would sorting out trade arrangements be highly problematic, but each country’s Church was organised differently. At Charles II’s restoration in 1660, bishops had been imposed on his northern kingdom, but following the Revolution of 1688, Episcopacy had been swept away there. To High Tories, the prospect of a closer affiliation with a country that had such an appalling system of ecclesiastical governance was repugnant.

As a girl Anne had spent some time in Scotland, but the Scots character still puzzled her. At one point she would refer feelingly to ‘these unreasonable Scotchmen’, and a little later complained of ‘all the unjust, unreasonable things those strange people desire’. Nevertheless, from the very beginning of her reign she was a convinced proponent of Union. Having to deal separately with each kingdom’s ministers and Privy Councillors perhaps meant that she, more than anyone, saw the inefficiency the current system entailed. Confident that integration would be in the interests of both countries, she did not accept that ecclesiastical differences formed a barrier. Her first speech to Parliament on 11 March 1702 contained the firm declaration that she considered it ‘very necessary … to consider of proper methods towards attaining of a Union between England and Scotland’.
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When a motion was put forward proposing that commissioners for a Union be appointed, some vociferous Tories in the Commons resisted it ‘with much heat and not without indecent reflections on the Scotch nation’. The Queen ‘appeared very displeased’ by their comments, even while drawing consolation from their failure to prevent the motion securing a majority.
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In Scotland itself, the Queen’s reign began badly. The law stated that on her accession Anne must either dissolve the Scots Parliament or
convene the existing one within twenty days, but neither option was taken. Worried that elections would go badly for the court, Anne’s commissioner in Scotland, the Duke of Queensberry, advised against a dissolution, but delayed summoning Parliament. By the time the Scots Parliament met on 9 June, war had already been declared on France. Anne had written blithely to Scotland on 10 May that since ‘the exorbitant power of the French King’ threatened ‘the liberties of all Europe’, she counted on their support, ‘not doubting but you are affected with the same sense of these wrongs and indignities’ as her English subjects.
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While the Scots could hardly refuse to join the allies without precipitating a total breach with England, they naturally felt resentful that their consent had been taken for granted.

Before the Scots Parliament assembled, the Duke of Hamilton came to see the Queen in London. One of Scotland’s leading noblemen, he was a troublesome figure. In William’s reign he had been arrested for Jacobite intrigues, and under Anne he would maintain contacts with Saint-Germain. However, his loyalty to the exiled Stuarts appears to have been compromised by his hope that, if the Hanoverians were denied the crown of Scotland, he might become its king. While sometimes flirting with the idea of rebellion, fear of being deprived of his considerable property made him ‘against all desperate notions; he had much to lose’.
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Yet while he was hesitant about committing to the Jacobite cause, he was happy to be the figurehead of the Scots parliamentary opposition.

The Duke of Hamilton asked Anne to dissolve the Parliament, but she replied that she had promised Queensberry that she would not, and could not break her word. When the Scots Parliament met three weeks later, Hamilton stood up to proclaim that it had no legitimacy, and then walked out with a group of supporters. Filled with ‘just resentment’ at Hamilton’s proceedings, the Queen ‘positively refused to receive’ the address he sent her justifying his conduct.
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Yet in one way his boycott proved advantageous, as it enabled the Duke of Queensberry to push through legislation appointing commissioners for Union negotiations. However, an attempt to pass an Abjuration Bill, avowing that James Francis Edward had no right to the Scots throne, backfired. Wisely, the Scots wanted to keep open the question of succession, seeing it as a means of pressuring the English into treating them better. Furthermore, after Queensberry ended the session on 30 June, problems arose when efforts were made to collect taxes granted by Parliament. Large numbers of people refused to pay on the grounds that the Parliament had no
validity. To avoid similar trouble in future, Parliament was finally dissolved in the autumn of 1702.

On 22 October 1702 Union commissioners from the two countries met at the Cockpit at Whitehall. The Queen sent a message urging them to conclude an ‘indissoluble Union … which her Majesty thinks the most likely means under heaven to establish the monarchy, secure the peace and increase the trade, wealth and happiness of both nations’. In coming weeks, she continued to take a keen interest in proceedings, addressing the commissioners in person on 14 December ‘to quicken matters’. There were, however, few others in England who shared her enthusiasm. Some of the English commissioners were so lackadaisical that on several occasions meetings between the two nationalities had to be abandoned because a quorum was lacking. The English proved unwilling to share colonial trade with Scotland, while the Archbishop of York wanted to make the restoration of Episcopacy a condition of Union, which was utterly unrealistic. Hardly surprisingly, negotiations stalled, and on 3 February 1703 the Queen had to adjourn the Commission. The missed opportunity was viewed with widespread indifference: one observer reported ‘Very few speak at all about’ the failed talks, ‘and those who do … speak with too little concern’.
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The Queen was inclined to blame the English Whigs on the Commission for not doing enough to help, even though they had initially pretended to be ‘extremely for the Union’. She complained, ‘The Duke of Somerset was one of those that proposed my recommending it to the Parliament in my first speech, but as soon as commissioners were named to treat and came up on purpose, then they were as much against it as they were for it before and the Duke of Somerset was very rarely at their meetings, and the meaning of this I cannot comprehend’.
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Whether or not it was fair to hold the Whigs responsible, for the moment the Union project had to be abandoned because the political will was lacking.

6

The Weight and Charge of a Kingdom

Addressing the Privy Council on the day of William’s death, the Queen had spoken of ‘the great weight and burden it brings in particular upon myself’. In view of her inexperience, lack of education, and current perceptions about the incapacity of women, the challenge that confronted her was certainly formidable. Even after her reconciliation with William, ‘she was not made acquainted with public affairs’, but ‘lived in a due abstraction from business’. Following the death of the Duke of Gloucester, she had become positively reclusive, shutting herself up in her closet to read for three or four hours at a time. According to Saunière de l’Hermitage, a diplomat in Dutch service, having to abandon these solitary habits reawakened her pain at losing Gloucester. He believed that nothing other than ‘considerations of the public good’ could have ‘dragged her out of a retired life that suited her so greatly’. Her poor health made it still more of a struggle for her to carry out her duties. On 9 March, having received complimentary visits from ‘all the lords and ladies of the court’ and accepted addresses from the House of Commons, the Mayor, and Corporation of London, ‘she was so tired that in the evening she said she would not see anyone’.
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