Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion (92 page)

In late March Swift had groaned, ‘We have lived almost these two months past by the week expecting that Parliament would meet and the Queen tell them that peace was signed’, but finally on 9 April the long wait was over. At the opening of Parliament Anne triumphantly announced, ‘I have been enabled to overcome the difficulties contrived to obstruct the general peace … The treaty is signed and in a few days the ratifications will be exchanged … We have happily obtained the end we proposed’.
⁸⁷

When the Lords responded by proposing an address of thanks, Lord Halifax queried whether it was beneath the dignity of the Upper House to thank the Queen for securing a treaty of which the precise terms had yet to be disclosed. Lords Townshend, Sunderland and Cowper also spoke ‘with a great deal of warmth and peevishness’, only to find themselves ignored. Cowper complained about the Queen’s use of the phrase ‘general peace’, even though the Emperor had not put his name to it, but Anne later told Sir David Hamilton that she considered his objection ‘very silly’.
⁸⁸

In her speech the Queen stated serenely, ‘What I have done for securing the Protestant succession and the perfect friendship there is between me and the House of Hanover’ meant there was no likelihood that divisions would arise in future. Unfortunately, stating that everything was harmonious between her and her Hanoverian cousins scarcely sufficed to convince people. As one MP remarked, succession was currently ‘the circumstance that sits heaviest upon the hearts of all thinking and serious men’, and in the remaining months of her reign Anne would face a huge challenge persuading her subjects that the Act of Settlement was safe in her hands.
⁸⁹
Fears that the Pretender was poised to reclaim his inheritance provoked such bitterness that some predicted it would end in civil war.

15

The Last Troublesome Scene of Contention

Now that the war had finally ended, the Tories envisaged they would entirely dominate the domestic political scene. Hitherto, their complaints that Whigs still occupied too many subordinate positions had been dismissed by the Earl of Oxford on the grounds that negotiations with France must first be completed, but it was understood that their patience would not be taxed indefinitely. As Bolingbroke observed, ‘things which we pressed were put off upon every occasion till the peace: the peace was to be … the period at which the millenary year of Toryism should begin’.
¹

Inevitably therefore, the Tories grew angry when not much changed after the Treaty of Utrecht. The Whig Lord Cholmondeley was dismissed from his post of Treasurer of the Household, and Lord Harcourt was promoted to Lord Chancellor. Otherwise the most significant concession made to Tory sensibilities was creating the High Church zealot Francis Atterbury Bishop of Rochester. Since he was a vile-tempered man who had already exacerbated divisions within the Church, Anne raised him to the Bench of Bishops most unwillingly. She told Lord Dartmouth ‘she knew he would be as meddling and troublesome as the Bishop of Salisbury’, but that Harcourt had pushed for the appointment. She had ‘lately disobliged him by refusing the like request for Dr Sacheverell and found if she did not grant this she must break with him quite’.
²

It was not enough to make the Tories feel that they were being treated correctly. In April they had been dismayed when it emerged that Oxford was keeping in contact with leading Whigs, having met with several at Lord Halifax’s house. On being asked to reveal what had passed at the conference, Oxford did himself no favours by replying haughtily, ‘What! Am I not fit to be trusted?’ As far as Bolingbroke was concerned, the answer was no, and together with Atterbury and Harcourt he ‘endeavoured to raise a great prejudice in the Church party against the Treasurer’ by circulating lists showing how many Whigs remained in office. When Oxford’s brother taxed the Secretary with disloyalty, Bolingbroke
retorted that since Oxford appeared unwilling to place himself at the head of the Tory party, ‘Somebody must’.
³

Keenly aware of the necessity ‘to humour the country gentlemen’, in April Oxford had courted their approval by halving the rate of Land Tax, even though the country’s perilous financial situation made it unwise to reduce it so significantly. Unfortunately this meant that other sources of revenue became more important, and in consequence it was decided that Scottish malt should be taxed at the same rate as English, despite being of inferior quality. In the view of many Scots who were already profoundly disenchanted with the Union, this was a provocation too far. On 26 May a deputation of Scots peers went to see the Queen ‘in a high mutiny’, and warned her they would seek to have the Union dissolved. Anne was ‘thunderstruck’, fearing, according to one source, that such a move would cause a civil war. Professing amazement at their ‘rash and hasty’ resolve, she promised the malt tax would not be rigorously enforced.
⁴
To her distress the Scotsmen refused to be deflected from their purpose.

On 28 May a Scots motion seeking leave to introduce a bill dissolving the Union was debated in the Lords. Because it was stipulated that the Hanoverian succession would be preserved intact, most Whig Lords felt able to support the motion. Scots peers who had been instrumental in securing Union earlier in the reign now argued that it was hopelessly discredited, and even ministry supporters who defended it agreed that the Scots had cause for resentment. Lord Peterborough argued that, like all marriages, the Union was indissoluble, while acknowledging that the English ‘had been a little rough to our spouse’.
⁵
In the end the motion was rejected by the narrow margin of four votes.

Oxford also had to apply to Parliament for help in reducing the Civil List debt, which had reached alarming levels. Many employees of the royal household were owed more than a year’s salary, and Oxford was authorised to borrow £500,000 to pay at least some of what was due. It would take thirty-two years to pay the loan off, but the dire situation left the Lord Treasurer with little alternative. Anne had no doubt that such desperate measures were justified. When her doctor, Sir David Hamilton, drew her attention to ‘the cry of the poor for what is owing them’, she made excuses for Oxford, pointing out ‘there had been such vast occasions for money lately but now this would pay the arrears’.
⁶

Although Oxford could congratulate himself on having obtained this measure, in other respects the parliamentary session went badly for him. Peace had been officially proclaimed on 8 May amid great celebrations
in London, but when the full terms of the Treaty of Utrecht were laid before Parliament the following day, unexpected difficulties arose. Most of the clauses did not require Parliament’s approval, but legislation was necessary to enact the commercial treaty negotiated with France. When its terms were debated over the next six weeks, there were objections that it would damage trade with Portugal, and England’s silk and woollen industries. The Queen was annoyed by opposition in Parliament towards the commercial treaty, insisting it was ‘done … from personal disrespect to her’. She told Sir David Hamilton, ‘They were hot, but the bill would be carried’, but her confidence proved misplaced. Tories such as Sir Thomas Hanmer were among those who would not support the treaty, a ‘defection … of more danger’ to the ministry than the predictable protests from the Whigs.
⁷
On 18 June the commercial treaty was rejected, with almost eighty Tories voting with the opposition.

The government experienced another setback when on 30 June and 1 July addresses were moved in both Houses, demanding that the Duke of Lorraine should be pressed to expel the Pretender from his dominions. The development came as a ‘perfect surprise’ to the ministers, and implied that they had been negligent about the danger posed by the Pretender.
⁸
The Queen sent an answer that she would repeat her requests to the Duke of Lorraine to evict his guest, whereupon the Duke of Buckingham embarrassed his colleagues by declaring in the Lords that he was unaware that any such instances had been made.

Bolingbroke and Oxford now detested each other so much that they were more intent on waging their private feud than attempting to unify the Tory party. In August, Bolingbroke was furious when Oxford carried out a ministerial reshuffle, installing William Bromley as Secretary of State, and transferring the Earl of Dartmouth to be Lord Privy Seal. Bolingbroke resented this because it undermined his hopes of building up his own following, and ‘the rage this caused, as perfectly defeating’ his plans, was considerable.
⁹

Elections took place in August and September, with the Whigs faring badly, largely because the peace was popular with voters. They had hoped to overcome this disadvantage by persuading the Electoral Prince of Hanover to come to England and indicate that his family favoured their party, exposing as a falsehood the Queen’s claims that she and the ministry were on good terms with her heirs. The Dutch Resident in London, who corresponded regularly with George Ludwig’s advisers, argued that the Prince’s presence would ‘have a mighty influence on the elections … and by that means we shall have a good parliament’.
‘Everyone will turn to him as the rising sun, seeing the Queen’s health is so broken’, he enthused, adding that if the Queen attempted to send the Prince home, ‘an infinite number of people who currently dare not declare against the court would do so’.
¹⁰
Such remarks illustrate how wise the Queen was in not wanting any member of the Hanoverian family to take up residence in her kingdom.

At this stage the Elector was not prepared to ‘occasion an open rupture’ with the Queen by letting his son go to England, and the Whigs had to fight the election without the benefit of a Hanoverian endorsement. But though the Tories did well at the polls, the contest highlighted the party’s internal divisions, with distinctions being drawn between ‘English Tories and French Tories’.
¹¹
In the next session of Parliament, the Whigs would capitalise on these differences, playing on the fears of some Tory backbenchers that the ministry was hostile to the Protestant succession.

Satisfied that he had strengthened himself by his ministerial changes, in August Oxford absented himself from court for several weeks. This proved a mistake, for while he was away, Bolingbroke gained ground. Mindful of the way that Oxford had advanced himself by using Lady Masham, he ingratiated himself with her, hoping that by ‘ploughing with the same heifer’ that Oxford had found so serviceable, he would secure the Queen’s favour. He was aided by the Countess of Jersey, who made trouble for Oxford when she came to court in October. She told Abigail ‘it was a shame she was not provided for, nor of the Bedchamber that had done so many great things’, and Bolingbroke encouraged Lady Masham to think that he would treat her better. In November he was heard to complain that ‘I and Lady Masham have borne [Oxford] upon our shoulders and have made him what he is, and he now leaves
us
where we were’.
¹²

On his return to court, Oxford committed what he later called ‘my never enough to be lamented folly’. When arranging his son’s marriage to the wealthy daughter of the late Duke of Newcastle, he had promised the girl’s mother that he would secure the lapsed ducal title for his new daughter-in-law. However, when he asked Anne to create his son Duke of Newcastle, she refused. Lady Masham and Bolingbroke criticised the way Oxford showed his disappointment, and Abigail even claimed ‘he never acted right in the Queen’s affairs’ thereafter. Knowing that Anne had been ruffled by Oxford’s request, the pair sought to exacerbate her displeasure, and the Treasurer would later mournfully acknowledge, ‘This was made my crime’.
¹³

Oxford irritated the Queen in other ways about this time. Having told him she intended to appoint Lord Delaware her Treasurer of the Chamber, she was infuriated when Oxford sent her a blank warrant that made no mention of Delaware, presumably intending to insert the name of his own candidate once Anne had signed it. This prompted the Queen to issue a stinging rebuke. ‘I desire you would not have so ill an opinion of me as to think when I have determined anything in my mind I will alter it’, she wrote fiercely, ordering Oxford to bring her a correctly filled-out warrant without delay.
¹⁴

The Lord Treasurer’s inefficiency and disorderly habits further tried the Queen’s patience. In October, shortly before leaving England to take up the post of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Shrewsbury urged Oxford to ‘bring yourself into a method of keeping better hours’ for in his view there was ‘nothing … more destructive … than late hours of eating and sleeping’. Jonathan Swift, who had been absent for some months in Ireland after being named Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in April 1713 – an appointment conferred on him by the current Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Ormonde, rather than the Queen – was appalled on his return in the autumn to find everything in chaos. Vital measures were being neglected, with ‘no orders of any kind whatsoever given till the last extremity’.
¹⁵