1702]

SUMMARY OF POLITICAL PARTIES

905

upon the 11th of September, was the most bloody and hardly contested of the war. In their first assaults the allies were repeatedly driven back, but the pressure upon the wood of Taisnière was so strong, especially when it was outflanked and threatened from the extreme right of the allies under Withers, that Villars had to weaken his centre to hold his ground. Marlborough perceived the weakness and took advantage of it. The entrenchments in the centre of the line were broken through and captured, and thus the position forced. Villars had been severely wounded, and the command had devolved upon Boufflers, who brought off the French army in perfect order, and the fruit of the hard-earned victory was nothing but the field of battle. The English encamped the following night upon the French position, having lost in their disastrous victory 20,000 men. Mons fell, but the campaign had then to be closed.

Summary of

from 1702.

Thus far it has been possible to follow without interruption the general course of the war, but from this time forward the state of politics in England exercised so decided an political parties influence upon it, upon the negotiations which were to bring it to a close, and upon the position and conduct of Marlborough, that it becomes necessary to turn back and trace the history of parties since the Queen's accession. Speaking quite generally, that history consists in the gradual substitution of a Whig for a Tory Government. Rochester and the extreme high Tories were disinclined to a great offensive war, and consequently directly opposed to Marlborough. The Duke, not wishing to break with any great section of English politicians, attempted, as William had done, to govern by means of the moderate men of both parties. But there was a second question which, even after the dismissal of the Tories who disliked the war, prevented the completion of his plan. The Tories were desirous that stringent measures should be taken to support the exclusive authority of the English Church, and in this point were strongly supported by the feelings of the Queen. The Whigs, on whom Marlborough was induced for the purposes of the war more and more to rely, were on the other hand inclined towards more liberal measures. It was upon this point that the second secession of the Tories took place, leaving Marlborough entirely in the hands of the Whigs, and in a certain degree in opposition to the Queen. It was the Whig determination when triumphant to suppress the expression of High Church feeling that produced the complete overthrow of Marlborough's ministry. At the same time, as in the former reign, disputes between the Houses continued,

especially when a Tory majority in the Lower House came into collision with the constant Whig majority in the House of Lords.

Already, before the Parliament called by the late King had been dissolved, Rochester and the extreme high Tories had shown their disinclination to the war, and had besides given proof of a more exclusive party spirit than suited the views of Marlborough, to whom, as to William, the affairs of Europe and the conduct of the war were all in all, and who had no taste for party conflict. As was to be expected from the character of the ministry, a strong Tory majority was returned in October to the first Parliament of the Queen's reign. But Rochester's views were not shared by the whole of his party; indeed, the strength of party feeling tended for the time Tory Parliament. to give Marlborough the support of the Tories.

Oct. 1702.

In

their eagerness to throw blame upon the late King, they could not refrain from contrasting him with the Duke. Marlborough had by this time begun his successful career by capturing the towns of the Meuse, and the Commons proceeded to congratulate the Queen, saying, "The wonderful progress of your Majesty's armies under the conduct of Marlborough have singularly retrieved the ancient honour of the English nation.” The word retrieved, intended to imply censure on the late King, was, in spite of the opposition of the Whigs, carried by a large majority. For the present then, if merely out of opposition to William, the Tories as a whole seemed pledged to support Marlborough, liberal grants were made, and shortly after the close of the session, the Government, resting upon the general feeling in its favour, felt itself strong enough to get rid of Rochester. Displeased at receiving no more important office than that of LordLieutenant of Ireland, he left his government there, and remained in England. He thus afforded an opportunity to his enemies to order him to return to his duties. On his refusing to do so, the command was repeated in a more peremptory manner, and in his anger he sent in his resignation, which was accepted.

Dismissal of Rochester. 1703.

Before this, however, the question of Church government had been raised in the House, and the storm it excited had caused a somewhat hasty prorogation. It had been the habit of dissenting members of corporations so far to do violence to their conscience as to receive the Sacrament according to the law of the Church of England Conformity Bill upon their appointment to municipal offices. Having thus duly qualified themselves, they had continued to hold office, but had gone back to their old forms of worship. This

Occasional

thrown out.

1703]

THE METHUEN TREATY

907

habit, known as occasional conformity, was viewed with great jealousy by the Tories. In the first session of the Parliament a bill was brought in to render occasional conformity illegal, and to inflict heavy fines upon those who held office on such terms. The chief supporter of the measure was Henry St. John, afterwards so well known as Lord Bolingbroke. The Bill passed the House of Commons, but its amendment by the House of Lords produced such violent altercations, that the Queen found it necessary to put an end to the session. It was during this session that the Commissioners for the Union with Scotland first held their sittings. The progress of the negotiations which produced the Union in 1706 will be given subsequently.

The Parliament reassembled in November 1703, a month rendered remarkable by the greatest storm ever known in England; it is calculated that no less than 8000 lives were lost in it, while 800 houses and 400 windmills were reduced to ruins. The devastation caused among the forests in the country may be estimated by the fact that Defoe, travelling through Kent, counted 17,000 uprooted timber trees, and then desisted from reckoning them from weariness.

The session was again the scene of a great contest between the Houses. The war was still well supported, and the grants were upon a very liberal scale, rendered necessary by the additional troops required for Portugal and Spain, since Portugal had joined the Great Alliance, first under a treaty with Austria, and subsequently under the well-known Methuen Treaty with England. This The Methuen treaty, regarded as a triumph of diplomacy, was com- Treaty. pleted by Mr. Methuen, the English minister at Lisbon, at the close of 1703. It was in exact accordance with the commercial views of the time, and contained but two articles. By the first English woollen manufactures were admitted into Portugal, by the second it was arranged that the duty on Portuguese wines should always be less by one-third than that on the wines of France. It was supposed that this would not only secure the friendship of Portugal, but would also bring much gold and silver, of which the Peninsula was the great emporium, into England, an object regarded as of the first importance under the mercantile system. It was when the Bill against occasional conformity, which had been dropped Occasional in the preceding session, was reintroduced that the Conformity Bill contest began. The ministers who had been eager out. the preceding year that the Bill should be carried, had, since the resignation of Rochester and the opposition offered by his friends,

again thrown

grown less eager in their Tory views. In spite of their very lukewarm support, the Bill again passed the House of Commons by a large majority. But again it met with great opposition from the Lords, and was finally thrown out by a majority of eleven. As no amendments had been proposed, there was no room for angry conferences

Disputes on the Aylesbury election.

between the Houses. But an opportunity for quarrel was found in questions arising from the Aylesbury election. The returning officers for that borough had been notoriously guilty of tampering with the returns in favour of their own friends. At the last election the vote of Matthew Ashby had been rejected. He brought an action against the returning officer, and a verdict was found in his favour. The case was removed into the higher court, and three of the four judges of the Queen's Bench decided that all decisions with regard to votes rested entirely with the House of Commons. Upon this Ashby brought his case by a writ of error before the House of Lords, where the decision of the Queen's Bench was set aside, and the case finally settled in favour of Ashby. On this the Commons engaged in the quarrel, and declared that Ashby, by appealing to the law, was guilty of a breach of privilege. The Lords replied, declaring that the right of voting, like any other right, might be maintained by an action at the common law. There for the present the quarrel was left. It seems tolerably clear that on this point the Lords were in the right, but the newly won position of the House of Commons inspired its members with most overweening views of their own importance. In February of this year (1704) the Queen celebrated her birthday by surrendering her claim to the first-fruits of ecclesiastical benefices, which were hereafter to be employed for the benefit of the Church, and which have since been administered under the well-known name of Queen Anne's Bounty.

Dismissal of Nottingham, Jersey and Seymour. May 1704.

It was with the knowledge and co-operation of Marlborough-though he had himself taken the opportunity afforded by the prorogation to go abroad to fight the great battle of Blenheim-that his friends in the ministry succeeded in relieving themselves of the rest of the extreme Tories. For the removal of Rochester in the previous year had by no means cleared the Government of the party opposed to the active prosecution of the war. His views were accepted and supported by Nottingham and Jersey in the Upper House, by Hedges and Seymour in the House of Commons. Nottingham, true to his stacle in his power in the way principles, had thrown ey

1704]

DISMISSAL OF THE EXTREME TORIES

909

of a plan which had come before the Council for utilizing for the general purposes of the war the insurrection of the Cevennes Thwarted in his opposition, after the close of the session, he haughtily demanded of the Queen the immediate dismissal of all the Whigs in the Government, threatening in case of refusal to retire. The Queen, who loved the Tories, would probably have wished to retain him, Lut she was irritated at the tone of his demand. Her irritation was fostered by Godolphin and the Duchess of Marlborough, and she brought herself to dismiss both Nottingham and his followers, Jersey and Seymour. The ministry had to be reconstructed. Replaced by But Marlborough and Godolphin were by no means moderate isposed to put themselves into the hands of the Whigs; they therefore called to office another section of the Tories not adverse to the war. Harley, the Speaker of the House of Commons, was made Secretary of State, Mansell replaced Seymour, the Earl of Kent, a moderate Whig, succeeded Jersey, while the Secretary of War, an unimportant person, made room for St. John.

Tories.

These changes did not improve the position of the ministers, as the Tory Party had still a strong majority in the House of Commons. Marlborough's own popularity with the House was Parliament. shaken, and in the autumn session of 1704, the pre- Oct. 29, 1704. vailing feeling showed itself in the form given to the vote of thanks with which the Commons met the victory at Blenheim; this was so expressed as to place on a level with the great general who had saved the Empire the Tory Admiral Rooke, who had fought an indecisive battle in the Mediterranean, for which many men thought he deserved rather blame than praise, for though almost as strong as the enemy, he had withdrawn from the battle without effecting anything. The Tory temper of the House was again shown by the increased passion with which the Occasional Conformity Bill was introduced and supported. A considerable number of the most vehement Tories were eager to adopt their old method, and to tack it to a Bill for the Land Tax. The Government, and that section of the Tories who followed the newly-appointed ministers, were sufficiently strong to defeat this movement, and the Bill met its usual fate in the House of Lords. As in the preceding session, unable to quarrel with the House of Lords for exercising their undoubted right, the Commons found means of attacking them by renewing the question of the Aylesbury election. Resting upon the decision of the House of Lords, other inhabitants of Aylesbury had sued the returning officers. The House of Commons had committed them to Newgate. The Queen's Bench