Public School History of England and Canada/England/Chapter 21
CHAPTER XXI.
THE LAST OF THE STUARTS.
1. Queen Anne.— William was succeeded by Anne, the second daughter of James II. The nation was glad to have once more an English sovereign, and ‘‘Good Queen Anne” was, throughout her reign, popular with all classes of her subjects. She was a dull but kind-hearted woman, who had won the pity and sympathy of her people by losing all her many children. Her inclinations and feelings were on the side of the Stuarts and against the line of Hanover, which was to come after her. It would have pleased her much if her brother James, the Pretender (as he was called), had consented to give up his Roman Catholic faith and become a supporter of the English Church. This James refused to do, and Anne felt compelled, through her love for the Church, to refuse her assent to his claim to the throne.
Anne was much under the influence of Sarah, the Duchess of Marlborough, a beautiful but violent-tempered woman, who had been Anne’s friend from early years. They were on very familar terms, and called each other ‘‘Mrs. Morley” and ‘‘Mrs. Freeman.” This friendship had a great deal to do with the politics of the time, for in consequence of it Anne, though a Tory at heart, kept a Whig government in office for many years, because the Whigs supported the war in which the Duke of Marlborough was the chief commander. Marlborough himself, and Godolphin, the High Treasurer, were Tories, but they had to join the Whigs as the Tories were bitterly opposed to the war against France.
2. War of the Spanish Succession.—This war was to prevent Louis XIV. from placing his grandson on the throne of Spain. William had formed a Grand Alliance, the principal members of which were England, Holland, Portugal, Savoy, Prussia, Austria, and a small portion of Spain. Louis had Bavaria and nearly all Spain on his side. The chief leaders among the Allies were Marlborough, Prince Eugene of Savoy, and Heinsius of Holland, while the Earl of Peterborough during the early years of the war did good service for them in Spain. Louis, on the other hand, had large armies and great generals, and his troops had been successful in many battles during the preceding half century.
Marlborough had many difficulties to overcome abroad and at home. The Allies were not always willing to do as he wished, and the Tories in England put obstacles in his way. Yet he never lost patience, and by his tact and winning manners gradually succeeded in getting the Allies to follow his advice and leadership. His ability as a commander was not fully known until this war began; but he soon proved himself to be one of the greatest generals in all history. He was calm and heedless of danger on the battlefield, and his readiness of resource was equal to every occasion. He was great, also, as a statesman and diplomatist; but he was faithless and cold-hearted, and his love for money amounted to avarice. The pleasantest feature of his character and career was his love for his wife.
Marlborough could not do much during the first two years of the war, on account of the timidity of the Allies, and the hindrances their quarrels placed in the way. Meanwhile the Tories in England were trying to prevent, by an ‘‘Occasional Conformity Bill,” the Dissenters from holding any office. Some of the Dissenters, in order to get into parliament, would take the sacrament in the English church, and then attend worship in their own chapel. This the Tories sought to stop; but the Bill they brought in was defeated by the Whigs in the House of Lords.
Not until 1704 was the war carried on with much vigor. A large French army was then sent by Louis to Bavaria to attack Austria. Marlborough saw the danger, and, by a stratagem, managed to get his Dutch allies away from their own frontier. He then marched straight to Bavaria, where he joined Prince Eugene near the little village of Blenheim. Then was fought one of the most important battles of modern times. With an army not so numerous as that opposed to him, Marlborough defeated, with terrible loss, on the 13th of August, 1704, a veteran French force commanded by one of France’s best generals. Henceforth the French soldiers were no longer thought to be invincible. The same year the great rock fortress, Gibraltar, was taken by Admiral Rooke, and it has remained in England’s possession ever since. Marlborough’s great victory made the Whigs very popular in England, and Marlborough himself became the idol of the people.
In 1706, the Allies under Marlborough won another great victory over the French at Ramillies in Flanders, and took nine strong fortresses along the Flemish frontiers. While these victories were being won in Flanders, Peterborough was carrying on a spirited campaign in Spain. By a clever stratagem he took Barcelona, and succeeded in proclaiming the Archduke Charles king at Madrid. All these losses made Louis anxious for peace, but the Allies were so elated with their successes that they would not listen to the fair terms he offered. Marlborough and the Whigs knew that their power depended on the continuance of the war.
3. State of the Nation.—It so happened that England was very prosperous at this time, and her people did not feel the heavy expense of the war. Money was borrowed freely to pay the Allies, and the debt of the nation grew to over £50,000,000. This debt was useful in keeping the Pretender off the throne, for those who had lent money to the government were afraid if he became king their money would not be repaid. The Bank of England was doing a good work in helping trade and commerce; large towns like Manchester and Leeds were springing up, and Liverpool was fast becoming a great city. But the growth of large towns was at the expense of the country districts. The yeomanry of England began to disappear, as the small farmers found it paid better to sell their farms to rich men and put their money into trade in the towns than to till the soil.
4. Union of England and Scotland.—Much more important than all Marlborough’s victories was the Union of England and Scotland, which took place in 1707. The two nations had never been on very friendly terms, although, since the time of James I., they had been ruled by the same sovereign. The Act of Settlement had said that Anne was to be succeeded in England by the House of Hanover; but the Scotch Parliament had not agreed that it should reign in Scotland. The Scotch were angry with the English because they would not allow Scotland to trade freely with England, or in English foreign ports. So, when a Scotch colony on the Isthmus of Darien failed, the Scotch blamed the English laws, and the Scotch Parliament, in 1703, passed a Bill that when Anne died Scotland should not have the same sovereign as England. English statesmen foresaw this would lead to war, and they offered Scotland good terms if she would agree to unite with England. The Scotch people did not like to give up their independence; but their Parliament was bribed, it is said, to consent, and Scotland and England became one nation with a common flag and a common Parliament. The terms were that Scotland was to keep her own Established Church—the Presbyterian—and her own peculiar laws and courts. She was to send forty-five members to the House of Commons and sixteen elected peers to the House of Lords. Trade was to be free at home and abroad between the two peoples, and Scotland was to get a sum of money to make her coinage as good as that of England. The Union proved a great boon to both nations, although, for many years, the Scotch and English did not understand each other, and this led occasionally to bitter feelings.
5. Party Struggles.—While England and Scotland were settling their difficulties, the war against France was going on. In 1708, Marlborough defeated the French at Oudenarde and Lille; but the Allies lost ground in Spain after Peterborough was recalled. France was now greatly exhausted, and Louis again offered fair terms of peace, which the Allies would not accept, because Louis would not agree to help to drive his grandson out of Spain. The war again went on, and France at a great sacrifice put another large army in the field. In 1709, the Allies under Marlborough once more met the French and defeated them, this time at Malplaquet, in the north of France. The loss was very heavy on both sides; but the Allies suffered more than the French, and gained little by their victory.
The English had now become tired of the war, and they began to think that it was carried on to please Marlborough and the Whigs. What the people thought was shown very clearly when the Whig Government impeached Dr. Sacheverell for preaching a foolish sermon on ‘‘Divine Right” and the sin of resisting a rightful king. Had the Whigs been wise they would have paid no attention to Sacheverell; but they thought his sermon was an open attack on the right of Parliament to choose the sovereign, and so had Sacheverell tried before the Lords, who ordered his sermon to be burnt, and condemned him to cease preaching for three years. This made him a popular hero, and great crowds after the trial cheered him, rang the bells, and lit bonfires, to show their approval of his conduct, and their dislike of the Whigs.
The queen, who was in sympathy with the Tories, had just quarrelled with the Duchess of Marlborough, and had taken a new favourite, a Mrs. Masham, the cousin of Harley, a leading Tory statesman. Through Mrs. Masham’s influence, Anne now dismissed her Whig ministers and chose in their stead Tories, the chief of which were Harley and Bolingbroke, the latter a brilliant speaker and writer. A general election followed, which resulted in the Tory party gaining a large majority in the House of Commons. Marlborough was dismissed from his command of the army, and charged with taking wrongfully some of the public money given for the army. He was forced to leave England, and never again held any high position. So ended the career of England’s greatest general—one who never lost a battle nor besieged a fortress he did not take.
6. Peace of Utrecht (1713).—The new Tory ministry was very anxious for peace, for it knew that the war could not succeed without Marlborough. So it offered, secretly, good terms to Louis, and peace was agreed upon without the knowledge of England’s allies. It was a disgraceful act, although there was nothing to be gained by continuing the war. Louis gave up all his conquests in the Low Countries and Germany; Austria obtained Naples, Milan, and the Netherlands; while Philip of Anjou kept Spain and her possessions in America. England obtained Gibraltar, Minorca, Hudson’s Bay and Straits, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia. Louis, further, promised to acknowledge Anne and her Hanoverian successors, and never again to help the Pretender. But after all this bloodshed to drive Philip from Spain, he was allowed to remain king.
7. Death of Anne (1714).—The Peace of Utrecht was scarcely concluded when Anne died. The Princess Sophia died a few months before her, and George, Sophia’s son, was Anne’s successor. George was not in England at the time of the queen’s death: Anne’s dislike of her successor being so great that she would not allow him to visit England. A short time before Anne died, Bolingbroke, Harley (now Earl of Oxford), Ormond, and other Jacobites began to intrigue to restore the Pretender. Bolingbroke thought he had everything in readiness to place the Pretender on the throne; but the sudden death of the queen, and the prompt action of the Whigs and the Duke of Shrewsbury ruined his plans, and George I. became king without any opposition.
8. Literature of the Age of Anne.—The latter part of the 17th century, and the beginning of the 18th, are rich in great poets and prose writers. We have already mentioned Milton and Bunyan; but, besides these, there were Addison, Steele, and Swift, satirists and essayists; Bishop Burnet, the historian of his own times; Locke and Hobbes, great writers on philosophy and politics; the poets Cowley, Dryden, Pope, and Butler; De Foe, the author of Robinson Crusoe; and Pepys, the author of a Diary, which tells us what was going on in London at the court and among the people. These writers, excepting Milton, were not so great as those of the age of Elizabeth; but they wrote in simpler language and in plainer sentences, because their writings were read by people many of whom were not scholars, whereas, in the time of Elizabeth, few read much except educated men and women.