Mr. Vernon; Rochester, the queen's uncle, was made lord-lieutenant of Ireland; the duke of Somerset, lord president of the council, was dismissed to make way for the earl of Pembroke, who could scarcely rank as a tory, but disclaimed being a whig; the earl of Bradford was made treasurer of the household through the influence of Rochester; the marquis of Normanby received the privy seal—a reward for his happy flattery; and the earl of Jersey retained his post of chamberlain for his assiduous transmission of the news of William's "shortening breath." Howe, one of the most insolent and noisy insulters of the late king in the house of commons, was made one of the joint paymasters of the forces; and himself, Grenville, Gower, and Harcourt were sworn privy councillors. Peregrine Bertie was now vice-chamberlain under Jersey; Gower was also made chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster: Harcourt solicitor, and Northey attorney-general. Sir Nathaniel Wright remained lord-keeper: and Sharp, archbishop of York, became the queen's adviser in all ecclesiastical matters. The only whigs who retained office were the duke of Devonshire, lord high steward, and Mr. Boyle, chancellor of the exchequer; and, on Shrewsbury's refusing the post of master of the horse, the duke of Somerset, though displaced as lord-president, was induced to accept that office.
The prince of Denmark appointed a counsel for himself, into which he introduced none but tories. At the head of this board, which was deemed wholly illegal, but which was not called in question by parliament from respect to the queen, he placed Sir George Rooke, a most decided antagonist to the whigs, and made him president of the commission for managing the fleet. To him was added George Churchill, the brother of Marlborough, who was a tory, and something more—a Jacobite; Sir David Mitchell, and Richard Hill.
The queen manifested an earnest desire to restore the venerable old non-juring bishop Ken to his see of Bath and Wells, as is supposed, at the instigation of Rochester. Ken had lived in a state of great poverty, passing his winters in London with his nephew, the Rev. Izaak Walton, and his summers at Longleat with his friend, lord Weymouth. Anne sent Weymouth to propose his again returning to his diocese, offering to remove Dr. Kidder, the then bishop, to Carlisle; but Ken, though he would have taken the oath of allegiance, could not take that of abjuration of the prince of Wales, as it implied the calumny on his birth, which he did not believe; and, therefore, the queen's effort did not at this time succeed.
On the 23rd of April the coronation took place, being St. George's day. The queen was so corpulent and so afflicted with gout that she could not stand more than a few minutes at a time, and was obliged to be removed from one situation to another during this fatiguing ceremony in an open chair. Tennison, the archbishop of Canterbury, officiated, and the whole ceremony and banquet did not end till eight in the evening. Everybody, say the newspapers, was satisfied, even the thieves, who managed to carry off the whole of the plate used at the banquet in Westminster Hall, together with a rich booty of table-linen and pewter.
During March and April there was a continual arrival of ambassadors-extraordinary to congratulate her majesty on her accession. Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, most of the German states, and particularly those of Zell and Hanover, sent their envoys; and there was a strong discussion in the council on the necessity of declaring war against France. Marlborough and his faction were, of course, for war, in which he hoped to win both glory and affluence; but Rochester and the majority of the council, including the dukes of Somerset and Devon, and the earl of Pembroke, strongly opposed it, on the ground that the quarrel really concerned the continental states and not us, and that it was sufficient on our part to act as auxiliaries, and not as the principal. The queen, however, being determined by the Marlborough influence to declare war, laid her intentions before parliament, which supported her, and, accordingly, war was proclaimed on the 4th of May, the emperor and the States-General issuing their proclamations at the same time. Louis was charged with having seized on the greater part of the Spanish dominions, with the design of destroying the liberties of Europe, and with grossly insulting the queen by declaring the pretended prince of Wales the real king of Great Britain and Ireland. When these charges were read over by De Torcy to Louis, he broke out into keen reproaches against the queen of England, and vowed that he would make Messieurs the Dutch repent of their presumption. He delayed his counter-declaration till the 3rd of July.
The house of commons, on the 6th of May, passed—but not without strong opposition from Sir Edward Seymour and other tory members of the house and the cabinet—a bill to appoint commissioners to treat with the Scots concerning a union of the two nations. Some of the enemies of the late king charged him with having designed to exclude the present queen from the throne, and introducing the elector of Hanover as the immediate successor to the throne. They were in the habit of drinking to the health of Sorel, the horse which fell with the king, and to the mole which threw up the hillock over which the horse stumbled. Under the name of "the little gentleman in velvet," a Latin epigram was circulated, insinuating that, as Sorel had been Sir John Fenwick's horse, it was a judgment on the Dutchman. The spirit became so indecent, that the friends of the late king in the house of lords demanded of those peers who had examined William's papers whether they had found anything warranting such a blot on his memory as that of endeavouring to exclude the queen from her rights. These noblemen replied that they had found nothing of the kind; and the house immediately voted that it was a false, scandalous, and villanous libel, and that any one found repeating it should be prosecuted by the attorney-general. The same censure was passed on the other base attempts to promote faction in the kingdom. The commons presented an address to her majesty, praying her majesty to unite with the emperor and the States to prohibit all intercourse with France and Spain, and at the same time to promote commerce in other directions, and the lords addressed her, praying her to sanction the fitting out of privateers, to make reprisals on the enemies' ships, which interrupted our trade, and also to grant charters to all persons who should seize on any of the French and Spanish territories in the Indies. The queen thanked them for their zeal, and prorogued parliament on the 25th of May.
In Scotland a violent contest took place betwixt the
