Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion (63 page)

Having come to dread what she saw as the Junto’s disproportionate political influence, the Queen was elated that Harley believed that he could bring about a more equitable distribution of power. On 16 December she cheerfully told Archbishop Sharp that ‘she meant to change her measures and give no countenance to the Whig lords, but all the Tories if they would come in, and all the Whigs likewise that would show themselves to be in her interests should have favour’. She now felt strong enough to go ahead with Blackall and Dawes’s appointments as bishops, believing that this could be done without endangering Harley’s scheme. Having announced her intentions in Cabinet, she asked the Dukes of Somerset and Devonshire to convey to backbench Whigs that she would soon make other ecclesiastical preferments more to their liking, and followed this up by appointing a Whig sympathiser Bishop of Norwich and Marlborough’s candidate Dr Potter the Professor of Divinity at Oxford. She made it clear to the Junto that she would not tolerate objections from them, reportedly sending word to Lord Somers in mid December that ‘they will receive no satisfaction for the two bishops that are making … She had given her word and honour and that she will through all difficulties abide by it’. She warned, furthermore, that if the Junto tried to stir up opposition in Parliament, ‘she will never more turn to consult them any more than Lord Rochester and that form of men’.
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In the Lords it was in fact diehard Tories who were currently causing the government most difficulties. They mounted an attack on the conduct of the war in Spain, alleging that operations there were being neglected because Marlborough diverted too large a share of military resources to the Low Countries, ‘to aggrandize and increase my Lord Duke’s reputation and glory’. Lords Nottingham and Rochester were particularly vocal, and when the former proposed that in the coming year Marlborough should be ordered to adopt a defensive strategy in Flanders so that 20,000 extra men could be sent to Catalonia, the Duke lost his temper. He revealed that the Queen had recently written to the Emperor, asking him to send Prince Eugene to take command of the army in Spain, although, since Marlborough knew that the Emperor was most unlikely to comply, he was taking a risk in making this public. For
the moment, however, the statement served to alleviate concern. The Tory peers had hoped that leading Whigs would support their complaints, but instead Lord Somers took the opportunity ‘to propose a question that he thought all could agree in, viz that no peace could be safe or honourable till Spain’ and all its empire had been removed out of Bourbon hands. The resolution passed unanimously and was subsequently presented to the Queen, who declared herself ‘fully of your opinion’. In this inconsequential way, securing the entire Spanish monarchy for Archduke Charles was officially enshrined as the war’s primary objective, despite the fact that one military man estimated that by now the allies had less chance of achieving this than ‘of gaining the Holy Land from the Turks’.
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The difficulties in Parliament only made the Queen more determined to pursue Harley’s project and at Christmas she remained confident that it was feasible. She gave out that she was ‘firmly resolved to govern’ without having ‘to side with the violence neither of Whig or Tory’, and instead would favour those ‘who, without expecting terms, come voluntarily into the promoting of her service’.
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Unfortunately, within six weeks everything would unravel.

The Tories’ criticism of the war in Flanders had made Marlborough less eager to see more of them brought into government, and this gave him second thoughts about Harley’s scheme. His faith in Harley was further shaken when Harley’s secretary William Greg was arrested on 31 December for betraying secrets to the French. Harley’s Whig enemies later did their best to establish Harley’s complicity in Greg’s crimes, hoping that he could be executed alongside his employee. They failed because Greg resisted all inducements to implicate his master, but even so Harley was tainted when it became clear he had maintained lax security in his office.

What was much more damaging from Marlborough and Godolphin’s point of view was that they gradually became convinced that Harley was behaving disloyally to them. They began to fear that Harley’s ultimate plan was to form a ministry with no place for either of them, and that he was attempting to turn opinion against them by spreading lies. Harley was apparently ‘possessing both sides with contrary stories’, telling Whigs that it was Marlborough and Godolphin who had stood in the way of their being taken into government, whereas Tories were informed that the duumvirs had forced the Queen to employ Whigs against her will.
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For all his alleged intriguing, Harley could not claim much success at managing Parliament. A recruiting bill that Marlborough favoured was
drastically amended, and the Scots Privy Council was abolished, despite the fact that the government desired its retention. It seemed doubtful that Harley had either the will or the ability to secure the majorities Marlborough and Godolphin needed, and their dissatisfaction with him deepened when they learned that he had voiced criticisms of them to the Queen, disclosing to her ‘some mismanagements of the ministers’. Harley infuriated the duumvirs still further when the ministry was attacked in Parliament over events in Spain. It had emerged that far fewer troops had been present at the Battle of Almanza than had been paid for, but when the matter was debated in the House of Commons on 29 January, Harley and the Secretary at War, St John, did little to explain the discrepancy, being ‘very cold and passive’ when it came to defending the duumvirs.
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For Godolphin, Harley’s lacklustre performance was the final straw.

Having received a message that Godolphin was angry with him, Harley did his best to repair the damage. He saw Marlborough the day after the debate, and believed that he had placated him, but Godolphin proved a tougher proposition. On 30 January the Lord Treasurer wrote to inform him he had irredeemably forfeited his good opinion, as ‘I cannot help seeing and hearing, nor believing my senses. I am very far from having deserved it from you. God forgive you!’
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In the next few days both Harley and the Queen went on trying to salvage things. It soon became apparent that Godolphin would never be won over, but the Queen formed the impression that Marlborough was still prepared to work with Harley. It remains unclear whether she simply misread the situation, or if Marlborough was giving out ambiguous signals. In a letter that was probably sent to the Queen on 7 February 1708, Marlborough himself would claim that for the past ten days he had tried to make her aware of Harley’s iniquitous behaviour, but that she had refused to listen to him. The Elector of Hanover’s diplomatic representative in England heard, on the other hand, that Marlborough had led the Queen to understand that, if he had only had himself to consider, he would have been willing to reach an accommodation with Harley. However, knowing that Godolphin would never forgive the Secretary, he was not prepared to betray their friendship by taking a different course to him. Swift had a different version of the story, for he heard that Marlborough appeared willing to break with Godolphin. According to him, when the Queen wrote to inform the Duke that if the Lord Treasurer would not fall in with Harley’s plans, she would instruct Harley to go ahead without him, Marlborough ‘returned a very humble answer’.
Others too formed the impression that Marlborough was preparing to ditch Godolphin. Joseph Addison learned that Harley and Anne ‘did not question, it seems, but my Lord Marlborough would have acted with them, and therefore thought their scheme good’; another politician believed that Marlborough had given them ‘too much reason to think’ this, and that Godolphin ‘had cause sufficient’ to suppose himself ‘abandoned and given up’ by the Duke. Certainly Prince George appears to have felt that Marlborough had failed to make his position clear. The Duchess of Marlborough later recalled that ‘the Prince reproached him afterwards in a very kind manner and said he was very sorry he had not told him of his intentions, that he might have prevented so disagreeable a thing as happened at that time’.
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At any rate, the Queen believed that Marlborough was not implacable against Harley, and would not alter her view even when the Duke sent her a letter that should have resolved all doubts on the matter. Probably on 7 February, Marlborough wrote that even though the Queen refused to acknowledge how badly Harley had behaved, his ‘false and treacherous proceedings … to Lord Treasurer and myself’ ensured that ‘no consideration can make me serve any longer with that man’.
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Yet Anne still clung to the hope that the position was not irretrievable, and that Marlborough would relent when he came to Cabinet the following day.

On 6 February the Queen’s birthday had been marked in a more subdued fashion than usual, for George was due to celebrate his birthday at the end of the month, and she wanted his festivities to outshine hers. It was just as well she did not have to preside over more elaborate entertainments, for besides being even more ‘lame and indisposed’ than usual, she was known to be ‘grieved’ about the political crisis.
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She could not, however, escape all unwelcome social obligations, for the Duchess of Marlborough came to call, ostensibly to wish her a happy birthday, but really with less pleasant things on her mind.

The Duchess had last been alone with the Queen just before Christmas, at what had been a notably frosty encounter. On that occasion things had started badly when Sarah had been told, as she waited to be admitted, that Anne had sent for Mrs Masham to come to her as soon as Sarah had gone. The Queen had deliberately tried to keep the visit as brief as possible, standing the whole time, and at the end giving Sarah ‘an embrace that seemed to have no satisfaction in it but that of getting rid of her’. Stung by this, the Duchess declared herself sorry to have ‘waited upon her so unseasonably’, and then uttered further bitter recriminations. What she said is not recorded, but once home the Duchess wrote
to Anne ‘by way of apology’ that losing her favour had given her ‘a mortification too great to be passed with silence’.
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Their meeting of 6 February 1708 was also strained. In tears, the Duchess declared that since it now seemed inevitable that Marlborough would resign, she too wanted to give up her court offices. She nevertheless sought permission to distribute them ‘as so many legacies in her lifetime’ among her three daughters who were currently Ladies of the Bedchamber. The Queen had tried to discourage people looking on royal household positions as disposable property, so the request was unwelcome from that point of view, but there were many other reasons why she found it unappealing. As she anyway still hoped that Marlborough could be prevailed upon to continue serving, she said she was sure that the situation would not arise, telling Sarah she ‘could not bear the thought … of parting with her: which … must never be’. ‘Laying hold on this seeming kindness’, the Duchess ‘pressed her the more vehemently’, pointing out that, in that case, ‘the promise would be nothing at all’. At length, as Sarah recorded, she wore down the Queen, who ‘promised she would do it, and I kissed her hand upon it’.
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This solemn undertaking, extracted so reluctantly, would cause Anne a great deal of trouble in coming years.

A Cabinet meeting was scheduled to be held on the evening of Sunday, 8 February, and the Queen had arranged to see Marlborough and Godolphin beforehand. Sarah was present too at this conference, and the Duke, Duchess and Lord Treasurer took it in turns to inform Anne they could not stay in office unless Harley was discarded. The Queen reportedly appeared ‘not much concerned’ at the prospect of losing Godolphin and Sarah. She told the former she would like him to think things over for twenty-four hours and ‘then he should do as he pleased’, for ‘she could find enough glad of that [treasurer’s] staff’. To Sarah she said that if she too declined to reconsider, ‘I shall then advise you to go to your little house in St Albans and there stay till Blenheim house is ready for your Grace’. But when Marlborough proffered his resignation, declaring it intolerable to find himself ‘in competition with so vile a creature as Harley’, the Queen was devastated. ‘If you do, my Lord, resign your sword let me tell you, you run it through my head’, she told him melodramatically. She then went into Cabinet, ‘begging him to follow’, but Marlborough refused to accompany her.
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The Duke’s firm stance was a grievous disappointment to Anne and to Harley, but they would not concede that their scheme was now in ruins. The Cabinet meeting proceeded without any mention of the
duumvirs’ absence, and Harley took charge of business by reading out a memorandum about projected loans to the Emperor. It soon emerged, however, that the moderate Whig magnates, whose support had been central to Harley’s calculations, would not stand by him without Marlborough’s endorsement. The Duke of Somerset ‘rose and said if her Majesty suffered
that fellow
(pointing to Harley) to treat affairs of the war without the advice of the General, he could not serve her; and so left the council’. The meeting limped on even though numbers were now so heavily depleted, but the other members ‘looked so cold and sullen that the Cabinet council was soon at an end’.
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By the end of the following day the Queen was forced to admit defeat. The Whig peers Newcastle, Devonshire, and Cowper, all of whom were supposed to occupy key positions in the new administration, warned her they would resign unless Marlborough was reinstated. In the House of Commons, government business ground to a halt, as MPs boycotted the Committee of Ways and Means, which determined how sums granted by Parliament would be raised. In the Lords, leading Whigs announced they would be mounting an enquiry into the Greg affair, hoping that the wretched clerk, now convicted of treason, would seek to save himself by claiming Harley had been involved in his criminal activities. Remarkably, Anne persisted in thinking she could tough things out, seeming determined to ‘put all to the hazard’, until George told her that the position had become untenable. As he was believed to have been strongly in favour of Harley’s proposals up to this point, his change of heart was very significant, and knowledgeable observers were of the opinion that Anne would never have consented to jettison Harley were it not for her husband persuading her ‘’twas for the good of the nation’.
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