had refused to interfere; the prisoners demanded a writ of error. The Commons addressed the Queen against the writ, and put the prisoners into the custody of their own serjeant-at-arms. The heat of the dispute rendered a prorogation necessary (March 14). Gradual intro duction of Whig ministers. But the conduct of the Tory majority had tended still further to incline the ministry towards the Whigs. Rooke was superseded as commander-in-chief of the fleet, Sir Cloudesley Shovel, a Whig, put in his place, and as the three years of the Parliament were now run out, the Government influence was exercised at the elections against all those who had voted for tacking the Occasional Conformity Bill. Even stronger signs were visible of the intention of the Government to form a junction with the Whigs; the ministers began an intrigue with the Junto, promising before long to give the Great Seal to William Cowper (a promise which was shortly after fulfilled), and admitted the Duke of Newcastle to the ministry as Privy Seal in the place of the Tory Duke of Buckingham. Nor was it the Government only which was changing its views. The nation at large, thoroughly interested in the war and disgusted at the conduct of the Tories, returned at the new elections a large majority of Whigs. The growing influence of the Whigs was supplemented by a family tie which connected Marlborough with that party; as Godolphin, whose son had married one of his daughters, formed a link with the Tories, so Sunderland, who had married another, connected him with the Whigs. It seemed as though a bargain advantageous to both sides might be struck between the Duke and the Whig party. The accession of Sunderland to the ministry would on the one side strengthen Marlborough's personal position, and render it more possible for him to carry on his plan of government without parties; while, on the other, it would secure to the Whigs a means of at once influencing the character of the administration. It was determined therefore that Sunderland should enter the ministry, and as there was then no vacant office, he was employed at once as extraordinary ambassador to Vienna, and in the course of the following year (1706) was raised to the office of Secretary of State. His appointment, and the gradual inclination of the Government to the Whigs, was followed, at the beginning of the year 1707, by the creation of several Whig Peers, and by a final breach with the High Tories, when the names of Buckingham, Nottingham, and Rochester were struck from the list of the Privy Council. Marlborough seemed now to have gained his object. The adminis Marlborough's composite ministry. 1707. 17071 THE COMPOSITE MINISTRY 911 tration was a thoroughly composite one. On the one side were a number of Whigs led by Lord Sunderland, on the other a section of more moderate Tories headed by Harley and St. John. But Marlborough underrated the difficulty of managing a coalition. In his necessary absence abroad this difficult operation was in the hands of Godolphin, always a timid minister, without any real political convictions, and ill qualified for a great party struggle. And such a party struggle was now inevitable. All the ministers were indeed at present willing to uphold the war. On other points their views were diametrically opposed, and both sections were anxious for a more complete admission to power of their own friends. It was the personal influence of the Churchills alone which could support so strange a conjunction. That influence depended upon the favour of the Crown, which by its indirect power of influencing Parliament was practically rather strengthened than weakened by the Revolution. If that favour could be withdrawn the ill-assorted ministry must inevitably fall. This truth was clear to Harley, a man of intriguing character and the leader of the Tory section of the Cabinet. He perceived that it might be possible to Harley, seeing rise upon the fall of the Churchills, and saw how their its weakness, power might be undermined. The Queen was a devoted High Churchwoman; Marlborough and his friends, especially since his growing predilection for the Whigs, were avowedly careless, if they were not Low Church; Harley, on the other hand, had a great reputation for religion and orthodoxy. Again and again patronage had been bestowed on what the Queen considered Latitudinarian principles. Displeased and hurt, she was yet too timid to stand alone, Harley supplied her with the support she wanted. His cousin, Mrs. Abigail Hill, who was a cousin and protégée also of the Duchess of Marlborough, ingratiated herself with the Queen; she was appointed bedchamber woman, and married with the Queen's influence, without the knowledge of the Duchess of Marlborough, to Mr. Masham, a member of Prince George's household. Her quiet, even temper formed a happy contrast to the termagant vio- against lence of the Duchess, and Harley succeeded in making her his instrument. He roused in the Queen a dread of the subversion of the Church, and she found courage to make several Bishops without consulting her ministers. intrigues Marlborough. The Whig Junto was even more angry than the ministers themselves at this conduct. They suspected Harley's design, and determined to drive him from the ministry. Both parties felt that the crisis had Failure of arrived. One or other of them must become predominant. They both determined to make their power felt, and by a strange manœuvre the extremes of both sides joined to attack the ministry. The chief points of attack were the naval administration,-which, as it implicated her husband, was always a tender point with the Queen,—and the determination of Marlborough to pursue the course William had marked out, and to carry on the war chiefly in Flanders. It was in this session of Parliament, which began on October 23, 1707, that the joint assault upon the Government was made. The maladministration of the navy was the chief topic, but the Tories also introduced a motion in the House of Lords, recommending a change of the seat of war from Flanders to Spain, where the battle of Almanza had lately proved disastrous to the allied armies. Marlborough pointed out in vain that this would produce an immediate peace with the Dutch, who would feel their country open to invasion from France; and although the Whigs, pledged as they were to support the policy of William, could not join in such a motion, Somers drew up a declaration, embodying both the disapprobation felt for the management of the fleet, and as much of the Tory feeling in favour of a change in the seat of war as was possible for his party to accept. The declaration stated that "it is the opinion of this Committee that no peace can be honourable or safe to her Majesty or her allies, if Spain and the West Indies be suffered to continue in the power of the house of Bourbon." But the manœuvre of the Whigs in joining in the assault against Government had been successful; it was not necessary to press the hostile resolution. Godolphin had been thoroughly frightened, and recognized the necessity of breaking up the unnatural friendship and of allying himself with one or other of the great parties. With the war still continuing he could not but choose the Whigs. At once entering into negotiations with the chief of that party, he induced Somers, as President of the Committee charged with the duty of throwing the late resolutions into the form of an address, to change the resolutions, by a slight alteration in the words, from an attack upon Government into a pledge for the continuation of the war till the French had been entirely broken. The suggested resolutions mentioned the West Indies, reflecting on the comparative weakness of our naval efforts, and Spain, implying a change of the scene of war. The introduction of the words "or any other part of the Spanish monarchy," entirely destroyed these hostile allusions. The Whigs had shown their power, it was no longer possible to refuse Harley and his colleagues resign. Feb. 11, 170S. 1708] THE WHIG MINISTRY 913 them their reward. It became necessary to break with Harley and the moderate Tories. The discovery that a man of the name of Gregg, a clerk in Harley's office, was in treasonable correspondence with France, threw some suspicions on his master's fidelity, and Marlborough and Godolphin agreed on Harley's dismissal. The Queen was more difficult to move. It required a threat of resignation on the part of the ministers to induce her to give up one who, as she believed, thought entirely with her on Church matters, but she was not yet free from the influence of the Churchills, and she yielded. With him retired St. John, Harcourt, and Mansell, whose places were taken by Boyle, a zealous Whig, as Secretary of State, John Smith as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Robert Walpole as Secretary of War. Marlborough and Godolphin had apparently triumphed by means of the Whigs, but their victory was won at the price of the Queen's favour and of submission to the dictation of the Whig party, who at once set to work to secure office for themselves; nor were they scrupulous in the means they used, the threat that they would turn their assault on the naval administration directly and by name upon her husband, then on his deathbed, induced the Queen to remove Pembroke and give the Presidency of the Council to Somers. Sunderland, though himself a minister, intrigued with the Scotch Jacobites to throw out the ministerial candidates at the election of Peers held in accordance with the Union. To all this the General and Treasurer had to submit. The administration was completed upon a Whig basis, when Orford was forced upon the Queen as head of the Admiralty. Marlborough was fully alive to the insecurity of his position. It is often attributed, though perhaps without sufficient reason, to the desire to keep up his personal ascendancy, that he refused the terms offered by Louis; and in the following year the disastrous victory of Malplaquet has also been con- Marlborough's sidered a political battle. A truer view of the case seems to be that, afraid of taking any decided steps, he chose to occupy merely the position of an agent of Government, and obey even against his own convictions the dictation of the Whig party. At the same time, he made two desperate efforts to obtain a position independent of home politics-he applied to the Archduke Charles for the office of Governor of the Low Countries, which would have produced about £60,000 a year, and he also demanded from Queen Anne the position of Captain General for life. In both cases his efforts failed. As far as England was concerned, he probably owed his disappointment chiefly to the conduct of his wife. Finding herself supplanted Insecurity of position. by Mrs. Masham, she lost all command of her temper, and perpetually outraged the feelings of the Queen by her violent complaints. The triumph of the Whigs, which had seemed so complete, was of Fall of the Whigs. 1710. Dr. Sacheverell. very short duration. Their fall was caused by a fault which had been too prevalent among them since the Revolution-whenever they had the upper hand, they became dictatorial and overbearing. Already they had made themselves distasteful to the Queen by the eagerness with which they had forced themselves into power, and an unnecessary exhibition of that power rendered them distasteful to the people. A certain Dr. Henry Sacheverell, a strong upholder of the doctrine of non-resistance, had preached two sermons, one at the Assizes of Derby, one before the mayor and aldermen at St. Paul's. The mayor, who sympathized with his views, suggested that he should print the sermons, and though the common council, when consulted, declined to authorize this step, the preacher acted on the mayor's suggestion and published both. They became a sort of political manifesto, which was largely circulated through the country. The Whigs were naturally angry at this semi-official production of doctrines subversive of all the principles of the Revolution. They determined to take notice of the sermons, and, foolishly disregarding the advice of Somers, they proceeded by the extraordinary method of impeachment instead of the common process of law. This naturally raised the foolish utterances of a clergyman to the dignity of a party question; and when they further insisted upon a ceremonious hearing in Westminster Hall, the trial became the fashionable topic of the day. The excitement throughout England was very great. All other public business came to a standstill, and when the Lords, though they found Sacheverell guilty, took a very moderate view of his guilt, and punished him only with three years' suspension, the verdict was regarded as a virtual acquittal, and celebrated as a party triumph. The exhibition of feeling called forth by this trial proved both to the Queen and to her secret advisers how great a hold the Tory party had upon the country. Encouraged by Harley, who loved an underhand intrigue, and by his creature Mrs. Masham, she proceeded to act upon her new-found knowledge, and it became evident how formidable the power of the Crown still was. Without Dismissal of consulting Godolphin, she made the Duke of Shrewsbury Lord Chamberlain. Godolphin, instead of resigning at this marked act of distrust, put up with the affront. Still further emboldened by this weakness, the Queen dismissed Lord |