Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion (91 page)

The Elector’s stubborn attitude displeased the Queen. On 14 July she confided to her doctor Sir David Hamilton that she considered George Ludwig’s treatment of her ‘had not been civil; if I had … treated King William my predecessor so it would [not] have been thought so’. In the coming weeks matters deteriorated further. Hanoverian troops were among those subsidised by the British to fight on the allied side, and the refusal to pay what was due to them naturally caused fury. In August Sophia remarked to an Englishman that the policy ‘hardly conforms with the Queen’s usual generosity … and still less with the friendship with which she seemed to honour and distinguish this family’.
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When Thomas Harley left Hanover, Sophia told him frankly, ‘I see no security for the succession’. She said the only means of easing her
concerns was for the Queen to ask Parliament to confer an official pension on her, but to her disgust Harley merely returned empty compliments. In November 1712 the Baron de Grote was sent to England as Hanoverian minister, and he too was instructed to demand a pension for Sophia. Although he was permitted to tell the Queen that if this was granted, no member of the Hanoverian family would go to England without her consent, the request was ignored. Grote wrote a series of pessimistic despatches, and passed on reports that Anne had expressed a wish to see her half brother in England as soon as peace was concluded. Shortly afterwards Grote died, but the Hanoverian Resident, Kreienberg, who took over his duties, held equally gloomy views, stating that the Pretender should now be looked upon as heir presumptive to the Queen.
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The Elector and his mother drew no comfort from the fact that at British insistence the Pretender was no longer resident in France. Having been obliged to leave Paris in September 1712, James Francis Edward had settled in Lorraine the following February, but in Hanover this was considered too close to England for comfort. As Lord Halifax observed, the young man was now ‘but a day’s journey further off’, remaining ‘still within call’ of his homeland.
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One of the Elector of Hanover’s leading advisers took the view that Oxford was ‘devoted irrecoverably to the Pretender and the King of France’, adding that even if the Lord Treasurer had been inclined to disengage himself, ‘it would be impossible for him to bring the Queen back to proper measures’. But despite the general pessimism at Hanover, George Ludwig was not ready to undertake the invasion of England that Marlborough desired. One of his ministers noted on 17 February that it was ‘impossible to think of it at present’, not least because the States General were most unlikely to offer any support. Such a venture would ‘meet with terrible difficulties from the party in the nation who love the Queen’, making it ‘almost certain’ the Elector would never countenance such a risk.
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It was true that Oxford was currently having dealings with the Pretender. When Gaultier had travelled to France in March 1712, he had carried friendly messages from the Lord Treasurer to James Francis Edward, though as well as suggesting that he was working in the Pretender’s interest, Oxford had taken this opportunity of declaring that James would soon be required to remove himself from France. The Prince’s advisers had urged him not to worry: the Duke of Berwick wrote cheerfully ‘I do
really believe that they mean well for your interest … but they are so afraid of its being known before the conclusion of the peace that they are unwilling of trusting anybody with their secret’.
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Leading figures at Saint-Germain reasoned that Oxford was in such bad odour with Hanover that championing the Pretender was his only option. For this reason Jacobite MPs in England were ordered to continue propping up the ministry. In the summer of 1712 a group including the Scot, George Lockhart, informed Saint-Germain that when Parliament next met they intended to introduce a bill overturning the established succession by allowing the Queen to bequeath the crown to the Protestant successor of her choice. Lord Middleton at once made clear ‘the King’s pleasure that all his friends should … give [the ministry] no uneasiness’, which ‘put a stop to the bustle’.
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At times the Pretender was assailed by doubts that too much trust was being placed in Oxford. On 12 October he wrote to Torcy ‘If Mr Oxford has good intentions towards me I don’t understand why he leaves me in ignorance of the steps he will take in the event of the Queen’s death’.
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In January 1713 James became even more worried when Oxford demanded that he dismiss his Secretary of State, Lord Middleton, on the grounds he was harming James’s cause. Understandably aghast, the Prince lamented that Oxford expected ‘a blind obedience’, despite keeping him in complete ignorance and wanting to deprive him of the only man whose advice he trusted.
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By this time James’s English supporters were losing patience. Oxford himself was becoming aware that more substantial undertakings would be required if the Jacobites were to retain any faith in him, and in early March he took a step in this direction. He ‘opened his heart’ to Gaultier, representing himself as one of the Pretender’s most devoted friends. Besides suggesting, somewhat bizarrely, that James would benefit from moving to a more distant country, he spoke of his ‘longing to do him service as soon as peace was made’. Oxford added that he would bring the Queen round to his views, which would present ‘no difficulty, for she thinks like him’.
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Oxford would have been well aware that in saying this he traduced Anne, but the fixed belief at Saint-Germain that the Queen was sympathetic towards her brother meant his assurances were eagerly swallowed. In fact, almost the only evidence that Anne had any kindly feelings for James comes from a letter sent to Lord Middleton in July 1712. It was written by the Duke of Buckingham, hardly the most reliable person. He warned that the Pretender’s only chance ‘to regain [Anne’s] good liking’
was to convert to Protestantism, for his current religion meant that she would never adopt him as her heir. Buckingham explained that whenever he ventured to ‘touch upon this string’ during conversations with the Queen, she invariably answered, ‘You see he doth not make the least step to oblige me’, and therefore the Act of Settlement must stay in force. The Duke claimed he had also tried to arouse Anne’s hostility to Hanover by mentioning the Elector’s meddling in English politics, whereupon the Queen allegedly said, ‘What would’st have me do? … You know as the law stands a papist cannot inherit and therefore should I alter my will it would be to no purpose … I had better do that with good grace that I cannot help’.

By his own account Buckingham then reminded Anne that the Elector had divorced his wife for adultery, so it was impossible to be sure his children were his own. At this the Queen appeared ‘very uneasy’, saying ‘You must not believe all that is reported upon that subject’. She maintained it was not her fault she had not done more for her brother, who must know ‘I always loved him better’ than her current heirs. In view of her hatred for Hanover, Buckingham did not doubt that if James ‘would return to the Church of England, all would be easy’.
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It is doubtful whether much reliance can be placed on Buckingham’s account. Certainly it gives a very different picture to that conveyed by Sir David Hamilton’s record of conversations with the Queen, which seems altogether more convincing. About the time that Buckingham was writing to Saint-Germain, Sir David mentioned to Anne that rumours of the Pretender’s intended conversion made people fear a plot to restore him. Anne was dismissive, whereupon Hamilton said they were worried that ‘though his coming in might not be directly with her consent’, she might be forced to yield to it. The Queen answered robustly, ‘Can any think me so blind as not to see through these things?’ Four months later a similar exchange took place, after Hamilton disclosed that Lord Cowper was saying ‘things looked as though the Pretender was designed’. ‘Oh fie!’ exclaimed the Queen. ‘There’s no such thing. What, do they think I’m a child and to be imposed upon, that I have only integrity?’
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In November 1712 Anne listened eagerly when Hamilton stated that he did not believe that the Pretender was James II’s son. The physician claimed to have known other cases when births had been faked, despite less being at stake. ‘Her Majesty received this with cheerfulness and by asking me several questions about the thing’. The following February Hamilton asked her if she approved that he ‘vented in all companies that she was not in the interest of the Pretender’. She answered, ‘Yes, you may
[do] so with the greatest truth’. The next day she showed the contempt for James Francis Edward that Swift claimed typified her attitude to him. Hamilton said he understood the Pretender had recently secured a Cardinal’s hat for a supporter, at which the Queen scoffed, ‘Poor creature, he has influence to do nothing’.
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By the spring of 1713 Anne had nevertheless to accept that the belief that she favoured the Pretender was becoming more widespread. In a bid to counter this, she summoned several lords to private meetings, including the Dukes of Grafton, Dorset, and Kent, and Lord Carteret. She told them she was surprised that people dared blacken her ‘by insinuating in the mind of her subjects that there was a design to bring the Pretender here’. She asked the peers to assure their friends that she would always take care of the Protestant religion, but by mumbling at the crucial point she conveyed the wrong impression. The noblemen later complained that she ‘spoke so low about the Pretender that they could not tell what to make of it’. When Hamilton passed this on to her, she demanded in exasperation, ‘Did they expect I should speak in a passion?’ In some people’s eyes her very attempt to vindicate herself actually made matters worse. Lord Hervey even compared her to a woman who aroused suspicions of impurity by protesting she was chaste.
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Even on 29 March Bolingbroke was despairing of bringing what he called ‘this hydra negotiation’ to a speedy conclusion, but within forty-eight hours the last problems obstructing peace were overcome. On 31 March/11 April Great Britain’s plenipotentiaries at Utrecht signed a peace with France and Spain. Prussia and Savoy did likewise, while Portugal settled her differences with France, though not with Spain. Despite efforts by an Imperial diplomat to dissuade them, the Dutch signed the treaty a few hours later. The news arrived in England on 3 April, prompting ‘popular rejoicings’ and huge relief in the ministry.
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The great eighteenth-century statesman William Pitt the Elder remarked that the negotiation of the Treaty of Utrecht constituted the most shameful chapter in British history, while the celebrated wit and notorious rake, John Wilkes, thought that like ‘the peace of God, the treaty passeth all understanding’. Britain could certainly account itself fortunate that Louis XIV’s surviving great-grandson (who succeeded as Louis XV in 1715) did not die young, for in that event it was questionable whether Philip V would have honoured his renunciation of the French throne. Considering the allies’ extraordinary victories in the course of the war, their gains at French expense were relatively modest,
and in some people’s view woefully inadequate. Sophia of Hanover commented acerbically that France had emerged ‘more powerful than ever’ and Bolingbroke too would later declare the outcome ‘not answerable to the success of the war’.
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He stated that France should have been forced to surrender more places on her frontier, failing to mention that, had it been up to him, Tournai would have been left in French hands.

Whether peace was attainable by more honourable means may be doubted. The terms of the Treaty of Ryswick had also been thrashed out in secret talks between France and England, rather than collective negotiations conducted by the allies. In 1713 Holland had cause to complain that Britain had violated the terms of the Treaty of Grand Alliance which specified that trading advantages secured from the enemy must be shared, but in June 1712 the Queen had remarked that gains such as Gibraltar and Minorca would merely ‘make my people some amends for that great and unequal burden which they have lain under through the whole course of this war’. Oxford had used the same argument to justify Britain’s obtaining of monopoly rights to supply Spanish America with slaves. ‘Envy us not the Asiento’ he had urged the Dutch, claiming that this ‘trifling advantage’ was the only return secured by Britain’s ‘expense of above one hundred millions in two wars’. While this was disingenuous, in that Oxford expected the Asiento to yield vast riches, it actually never was particularly profitable. The grant from Spain was hedged about with so many complicated conditions that it proved a ‘blind, lame misshapen, indigested monster’.
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The barrier awarded to Holland should ideally have been stronger, but the frontiers were certainly better protected than before the war. As for Britain’s other allies, almost all emerged from the war with significant gains. Though Sophia of Hanover complained the Emperor had been ‘cavalierly treated’, he recovered most of the Spanish Netherlands and enlarged his Italian possessions.
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The Duke of Savoy was made King of Sicily, while Portugal was granted advantages in Brazil. Of the confederates, only the Catalans were totally betrayed. They had entered into the war after being promised that Charles III would uphold their traditional privileges, but Philip V would not recognise these. When the Catalans continued to resist Bourbon rule, the allies abandoned them without compunction.

The Queen saw nothing shameful in the treaty, and nor was she worried by the Emperor’s refusal to come to terms. Noting that at the end of the last war, Charles VI’s father had likewise opposed the Treaty of Ryswick, she remarked cheerfully, ‘The Emperors always stood out
from coming in to a peace’.
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She prophesied that Charles would soon change his stance, although in fact it was not until March 1714 that the War of Spanish Succession officially ended when he concluded the Treaty of Radstadt.