The Leading Facts of English History Part 49

Addison ill.u.s.trates the feeling that then prevailed by an amusing story of an earlier occurrence. A boy who had lost his way in London was called a "popish cur" by a Whig because he ventured to inquire for Saint Anne's Lane, while he was cuffed for irreverence by a Tory when, correcting himself, he asked bluntly for Anne's Lane.

The Queen, although she owed her crown mainly to the Whigs (S479), sympathized with the Tories (S479) and the High Church, and did all in her power to strengthen both. As for the leaders of the two parties, they seem to have looked out first for themselves, and afterwards-- often a long way afterwards--for their country. During the whole reign they were plotting and counterplotting, mining and undermining.

Their subtle schemes to secure office and destroy each other become as incomprehensible and fathomless as those of the fallen angels in Milton's vision of the bottomless pit.

508. The War of the Spanish Succession, 1702.

Anne had no sooner come to the throne than war broke out with France.

It had its origin in the previous reign. William III had cared little for England compared with his native Holland, whose interests always had the first place in his heart. He had spent his life battling to preserve the independence of the Dutch republic and fighting Louis XIV of France, who was determined, if possible, to annex the Netherlands, including Holland, to his own dominions (S502).

During the latter part of William's reign the French King seemed likely to be able to accomplish his purpose. The King of Spain, who had no children, was in feeble health, and at his death it was probable that Louis XIV's grandson, Philip of Anjou, would receive the crown. If that happened, Louis XIV, who was then the most powerful prince in Europe, would obtain the control of the Spanish dominions, which, besides Spain, comprise a large part of the Netherlands,[1]

parts of Italy, and immense provinces in South America. The possession of such an empire would make Louis irresistible in Europe, and the little, free Protestant states of Holland could not hope to stand before him.

[1] The whole of the Netherlands at one time belonged to Spain, but the northern part, or Holland, had succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng its independence, and was protected on the southern frontier by a line of fortified towns.

Not long afterwards, the King of Spain died and bequeathed the crown to Philip of Anjou. When Philip left Paris for Madrid, Louis XIV exultingly exclaimed, "The Pyrenees no longer exist." That was simply his short way of saying, Now France and Spain are made one, and FRANCE is that one.[2]

[2] When Philip of Anjou went to Spain, Louis XIV, by letters patent, conditionally reserved the succession to the Spanish throne to France, thus virtually uniting the two countries, so that the Pyrenees Mountains would no longer have any political meaning as a boundary between the two countries.

Louis at once put French garrisons in the border towns of the Spanish Netherlands, and he thus had a force ready at any moment to march across the frontier into Holland. Finally, on the death of the royal refugee, James II (S9491), which occurred shortly before King William's death, Louis XIV publicly acknowledged the exiled monarch's son, James Edward, the so-called "Old Pretender" (SS490, 491), as rightful sovereign of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

This effectually roused the English people; they were prepared for hostilities when William's sudden death occurred (S504). Immediately after Anne came to the throne (1702) war with France was declared, and since it had grown out of Louis's designs on the crown of Spain, it was called the "War of the Spanish Succession."

The contest was begun by England, mainly to prevent the French King from carrying out his threat of placing the so-called "Pretender," son of the late James II, on the English throne and so overturning the Bill of Rights (S497) and the Act of Settlement (S497), and thereby restoring the country to the Roman Catholic Stuarts. Later, the war came to have two other important objects. The first of these was to defend Holland, now a most valuable ally; the second was to protect the colonies of Virginia and New England against the power of France, which threatened, through its own American colonies and through the extensive Spanish possessions it expected to acquire, to get control of the whole of the New World.[1]

[1] At this time England had twelve American colonies extending from New England to South Carolina, inclusive, with part of Newfoundland.

France and Spain claimed all the rest of the continent.

Thus England had three objects at stake: (1) The maintenance of Protestant government at home.

(2) The maintenance of the Protestant power of Holland.

(3) The retention of a large part of the American continent.

For this reason the War of the Spanish Succession may be regarded as the beginning of a second Hundred Years' War between England and France (S237),[2] one destined to decide which was to build up the great empire of the future in the western hemisphere.[3]

[2] During the next eighty years fighting was going on between England and France, directly or indirectly, for a great part of the time.

[3] Seeley's "Expansion of England."

509. Marlborough; Blenheim, Gibraltar, and Other Victories (1702-1709).

John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough (S491), commanded the English and Dutch forces, and had for his ally Prince Eugene of Savoy, who led the German armies. The Duke, who was known in the enemy's camps by the flattering name of "the handsome Englishman," had risen from obscurity. He owed the beginning of his success to his good looks and a court intrigue. In politics he sympathized chiefly with the Tories (S479), but his interests in the war led him to support the Whigs (S479).

He was avaricious, unscrupulous, and teacherous. James II trusted him, and he deceived him and went over to William (S491); William trusted him, and he deceived him and opened a treasonable correspondence with the dethroned James; Anne trusted him, and he would undoubtedly have betrayed her if the so-called "Pretender"

(SS490, 491) had been able to bid high enough, or if he could have shown him that his cause was likely to be successful. In his greed for money the Duke hesitated at nothing; he took bribes from army contractors, and robbed his soldiers of their pay.[1]

[1] See Hallam, Macaulay; and Thackeray's "Henry Esmond."

As a soldier, Marlborough had no equal. Voltaire says of him with truth that "he never besieged a fortress which he did not take, nor fought a battle which he did not win." This man, at once so able and so false, to whom war was a private speculation rather than a contest for right or principle, now opened the campaign. He captured those fortresses in the Spanish Netherlands which Louis XIV had garrisoned with French troops to menace Holland, but he could not induce the enemy to rish a battle in the open field.

At length, Marlborough, by a brilliant movement (1704), changed the scene of the war from the Netherlands to Bavaria in southern Germany.

There, at the little village of Blenheim,[2] he, with Prince Eugene, gained a victory over the French which saved Germany from the power of Louis XIV. (See map opposite.) England, out of grat.i.tude for the humiliation of her powerful enemy, presented the Duke with the ancient royal Park of Woodstock, near Oxford, and built for him the palace of Blenheim, which the architect called "the biggest house for the biggest man in England." It is still occupied by descendants of the Duke's family. A few days before the battle of Blenheim, a powerful English fleet had attacked and taken Gibraltar (1704). England thus gained and still holds the command of the great inland sea of the Mediterranean. In the course of the next five years Marlborough fought three great battles,[3] by which he drove the French out of the Netherlands once for all, and finally beat them on a hotly contested field in northern France. The power of Louis XIV was now so far broken that England no longer felt any fear that he would overcome her colonies in America (S508).

[2] Blenheim: The palace grounds are nearly twelve miles in circ.u.mference. The Marlborough family hold Blenheim on condition that they present a flag every year (August 2) to the English sovereign at Windsor Castle.

[3] Ramillies (1706); Oudenarde (1708); Malplaquet (1709).

510. The Powers behind the Throne; Jennings against Masham.

But if the Duke of Marlborough was remarkable, so too was his wife.

While the war was going on, the real power of the Crown, though it stood in Anne's name, was practically in the hands of Sarah Jennings, d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough, who held the office of Mistress of the Robes.

She and the Queen had long been inseparable, and it was her influence that cause Anne to desert her father (S491) and espouse the cause of William of Orange.

The imperious temper of the d.u.c.h.ess carried all before it, and in her department she won victories which might well be compared with those the Duke, her husband, gained on the field of battle. In time her sway over her royal companion grew to be so absolute that she seemed to decide everything, from questions of state to the cut of a gown or the color of a ribbon. Finally, it became a common saying that "Queen Anne reigns, but Queen Sarah governs."[1]

[1] For years the Queen and the d.u.c.h.ess corresponded almost daily under the names of "Mrs. Morley" (the Queen) and "Mrs. Freeman" (the d.u.c.h.ess), the latter taking that name because, she said, it suited the frank and bold character of her letters.

While the d.u.c.h.ess continued in power, she used her influence to urge forward the war with France undertaken by England to check the designs of Louis XIV on Spain and Holland, and also to punish him for his recognition of the claim of the Pretender to the English crown (S491). Her object was to advance her husband, who, as commander in chief of the English and Dutch forces on the Continent, had won fame and fortune,--the first by his splendid ability, the second by his unscrupulous greed (S509).

After a number of years, the Queen and the d.u.c.h.ess quarreled, and the latter was superseded by her cousin, a Mrs. Masham (1711), who soon got as complete control of Anne as the former favorite had possessed.

Mrs. Masham was as sly and supple as the d.u.c.h.ess had been dictatorial and violent. She was cousin to Robert Harley, a prominent Tory politician (S479). Through her influence Harley now became Prime Minister in everything but name. He succeeded in putting a stop to further fighting, and Marlborough was ordered home in disgrace on a charge of having robbed the government. Thus it was, as Hallam remarks, that "the fortunes of Europe were changed by the insolence of one waiting woman and the cunning of another."[1]

511. Dr. Sacheverell (1710).

An incident occurred about this time which greatly helped the Tories (S479) in their schemes. Dr. Sacheverell, a violent Tory and High Churchman (S507), began preaching a series of vehement sermons in London condemning the Whig policy which called for the reopening of the war. He also endeavored to revive the exploding theory of the Divine Right of Kings (S419, 429), and declared that no tyranny on the part of a sovereign could by any possibility justify a subject in resisting the royal will. The Whig leaders brought the preacher to trial for alleged treasonable utterances (1710). He was suspended from his office for three years, and his book of sermons was publicly burned by the common hangman.

This created intense popular excitement; Sacheverell was regarded as a political martyr by all who wished the war ended. A reaction against the Government set in; the Whigs (S479) were driven from power, and the Tories pa.s.sed two very harsh laws[2] against Dissenters (S472), though they were repealed a few years later. The d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough had to leave her apartments in the palace of St. James, and in her spite broke down marble mantels and tore off the locks from doors. Mrs. Masham's friends, the Tories (S479), or peace party, who had now triumphed, prepared to put a complete end to the fighting.

[2] These were the Occasional Conformity Act and the Schism Act (S518).

512. The Peace of Utrecht, 1713.

Not long after this change a messenger was privately dispatched to Louis XIV to ask if he wished for peace. "It was," says the French minister, "like asking a dying man whether he would wish to be cured."[3] Later, terms were secretly agreed upon between the Tories (S479) and the French, and in 1713, in the quaint Dutch city of Utrecht, the allies, together with France and Spain, signed the treaty bearing that name.

[2] Morris's "The Age of Anne."

By it Louis XIV bound himself: (1) To acknowledge the right of England to limit the succession to the crown to Protestant sovereigns (S497).

(2) To compel Prince James Edward, the so-called "Pretender" (SS490, 491) to quit France.

(3) To renounce the union of the crowns of France and Spain; but Philip was to retain the Spanish throne (S508).

(4) To cede to England all claims to Newfoundland, Acadia, or Nova Scotia, and that vast region known as the Hudson Bay Company's Possessions.

Next, Spain was to give up: (1) The Spanish Netherlands to Austria, an ally of Holland, and grant to the Dutch a line of forts to defend their frontier against France.

(2) England was to have the exclusive right for thirty-three years of supplying the Spanish-American colonists with negro slaves.[1]

[1] This right (called the "a.s.siento," or Contract) had formerly belonged to France. By its transfer England got the privilege of furnis.h.i.+ng 4800 "sound, merchantable negroes "annually," "two thirds to be males" between ten and forty years of age.

This trade had long been coveted by the English, and had been carried on to some extent by them ever since Sir John Hawkins entered upon it in Queen Elizabeth's reign. Sir John grew very rich through his traffic in human flesh, and he set up a coat of arms emblazoned with a slave in fetters, so that all might see how he had won wealth and distinction.

513. Union of England and Scotland, 1707.

Since the accession of James I (1603), England and Scotland had been ruled by one sovereign, but each country retained its own Parliament and its own forms of wors.h.i.+p. In 1707 the two countries were finally united under the name of Great Britain.