of the War of Succession, had rendered them over-confident, and an act of foolish severity had been followed by their complete overthrow. The natural inclinations of the Queen, and the weakness of her character, which rendered her constantly liable to be subjugated by the influence of those around her; the talents and intriguing ambition of St. John, and the energy and compactness of the Jacobite body resting upon the general Conservative feeling of the nation, had rendered the return of the Stuarts to the throne a very probable event. A few weeks only were wanting for the completion of the plot, and James Edward would probably have been received as heir to the throne, and the work of the Revolution have been undone. The unexpected illness of the Queen, the rapidity and energy with which the Hanoverian Lords of the Council had carried out what was virtually a coup d'état, had destroyed these hopes. When the Lord Treasurer's staff was placed in the hands of the Duke of Shrewsbury, all hope of carrying out this counter-revolution with the aid of the executive was at an end. Although he had more than once faltered in his allegiance to the Whig party, it was now well understood that he was endowed with something not far short of a dictatorship, for the express purpose of carrying out the enactments of the Act of Succession. Everything was done as arranged by that Act. There was no difficulty with regard to the regency; sealed packets containing the names of those who were to act as the Council of Regency, chosen by the Protestant successor, were in his hands. On their being opened, the Regency. names of eighteen Lords, almost exclusively of the Whig party, were found, who, together with the seven great officers named in the Statute, were to act, under the title of Lords Justices, as an interim Government until the arrival of the new King. It is to be observed that the name of the Duke of Marlborough was not among them.

Council of

Parliament was to continue for six months before dissolution, and

Peaceful accession

of the King.

everything for the present passed off quietly; the Civil List was voted as in the preceding reign; and on the 18th of September the King and his eldest son arrived in England. He was not a man to excite enthusiasm. An unostentatious man, used to a Court where his will was law, but where the manners were singularly primitive and plain, he was little suited to the peculiar position of an English Parliamentary sovereign, from m, along with the possession of but little real power, much and some magnificence were required. Unable therefore to

1714]

WHIG MINISTRY

931

comprehend the working of that constitution over which he had come to preside, and without ability sufficient to carry on a policy of his own, he naturally threw himself into the arms of that party to which he owed his Crown. The great offices, several of which had been for the last month united in the hands of Shrewsbury, were therefore distributed among the Whigs. Townshend was New Whig put at the head of the Government, and with him were ministry. Halifax, General Stanhope, Lord Cowper, Nottingham, and Lord Townshend's brother-in-law, Sir Robert Walpole; while Sunderland was made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and the Duke of Marlborough (though the King had already shown his well-founded mistrust of him) reassumed the offices of Commander-in-chief and Master of the Ordnance. His power, however, was gone.

The establishment of the Hanoverian house had thus very much the appearance of a triumph of a faction. There were Triumph of no attempts at conciliation, such as had been made after the Whigs. the Revolution, no efforts to give a general and national character to the Government. The King came forward as the head of the triumphant Whig party. This attitude naturally at the time excited much ill-feeling, yet on the whole it was wise. George was not the man to carry out a scheme of comprehensive government which had already twice failed in the abler hands of William and of Marlborough. The questions at issue were too vital to admit of compromise, and the Whig party were wise in their view of the crisis. A crushing victory was necessary to teach both their conscientious and factious opponents a lesson,-the one must yield to the force of circumstances, the other must discover that their only road to office lay in concession to principles which they were too weak to shake. Conscientious upholders of the Stuarts must be taught that their choice lay between submission and the resignation of their claim to be regarded as Englishmen; those who used the Stuarts as a road to power must be led to see that they must henceforward limit their opposition to points of minor importance, that the main principles of government were fixed for ever.

But the conduct of the King and of the Whigs, though wise, was such as to drive the Jacobites to extremities, and to Riots in the render an appeal to arms sooner or later almost certain. country. The irritation of the high Tories at once showed itself. In January, as the six months had elapsed, the House was dissolved, and on the meeting of the new House in March, it was found, as was at that time usually the case, that the party in power commanded a large

majority. This however had not been secured without serious riots. In Manchester and the midland counties the riots assumed the form of an attack upon the dissenters, and were so serious as to necessitate the passing of a Riot Act. By this Act, which is still in force, it is enacted, that "If any twelve persons are unlawfully assembled to the disturbance of the peace, and any justice of the peace, sheriff, &c., shall think proper to command them by proclamation to disperse, if they contemn his orders, and continue together for one hour afterwards, such contempt shall be felony, without benefit of clergy.”

Impeachment of the late ministers.

March.

Having secured their majority, it became evident that the Whigs intended to use their regained ascendancy to the uttermost. The Address, both in the House of Lords and in the Commons, was obviously pointed against the framers of the Peace of Utrecht, and before three weeks were over a secret committee was appointed to consider that peace. Bolingbroke had already fled and taken service with the Pretender. Ormond, who till this time had remained in England, putting himself ostentatiously forward as the leader of the Jacobite opposition, followed his example. Oxford alone awaited his trial. The two fugitives were proceeded against by bill of attainder. The impeachment of Oxford was after a while dropped; in fact, it was difficult to substantiate the charge of treason against him. It was not till long afterwards that any real proof existed of treasonable correspondence with the Pretender; and it was scarcely possible to twist the faults and weaknesses of the Peace, the desertion of the Catalans, even the surrender, unasked, of Tournay, one of our conquests, 'into crimes under the law of treason; nor was the doctrine of the responsibility of ministers as yet sufficiently established to allow the majority at once to answer Oxford's solemn declaration, that he had acted distinctly upon the royal authority. It is true that the plea had been overruled in the case of Danby; but even in the last reign the Whigs had themselves sought shelter, after the battle of Almanza, behind the royal authority, and it was not till more than twenty years of regular party government had intervened that the doctrine was thoroughly understood and adopted.

conspiracy.

Meanwhile the aggressive policy of the Whigs was hurrying on Jacobite an outbreak of the conspiracy which the timely death of the late Queen had checked. It was widespread. Ormond, until his flight, had been busily engaged in organizing it in England, while Bolingbroke had taken it in hand in France :

1715]

DISAFFECTION IN SCOTLAND

Disaffection

933

for then, as always, it seems to have been accepted, that any insurrection would be useless without material help from France. In many parts of the country, particularly in the west, the feeling against the Hanoverian succession was strong, and measures had been taken to secure Bristol and Exeter, and other great western towns. In Scotland the difficulty was rather to restrain than to urge forward the Jacobite feeling. Many causes combined to create a widespread discontent in that country. In the north the feeling of loyalty to an hereditary chief was part of the in Scotland. national character, inwoven with the whole system of clanship. The national pride was flattered by the thought of a Stuart, a Scotchman, sitting upon the throne of England. Moreover, there was one chief of predominant power whose interests had been always Whig, and jealousy of the ascendancy of the clan Campbell, and of its head, the Duke of Argyle, or Mac Callum More, on this, as on several other occasions, tended to throw all rival clans into the arms of any party of which he was the declared enemy. In the Lowlands other influences were at work. The Presbyterians were not likely to forget the unsparing cruelty of the later Stuarts, and now that they had the upper hand, the tolerated Episcopalians met with no great courtesy at their hands; a constant source of quarrel was thus opened, and the Episcopalians and Catholics might be well expected to seek refuge from the intolerance of their victorious rivals, and a restoration even of their former superiority, in the establishment of the exiled dynasty. But more than that, everything English was unpopular. Two great imaginary injuries were rankling in the national mind. The nation had never forgiven King William's treatment of the Darien Scheme, and were still smarting under the supposed yoke which the Union had laid upon them. Whoever was King of England was their natural enemy, so that, except in those places where settled industry had already felt the advantage of the union with England, there was great readiness to join in any enterprise which would be injurious to her. There were therefore ready to join the cause of the Stuarts in the north all the great clans except the Campbells, and in the south the Episcopalians, and those nationalists who regarded as righteous any act of antagonism to England.

But the movement, both in Scotland and in England, was held to depend on the conduct of France, and it was probable Failure of the that, under Bolingbroke's able management, assistance would come from that country. The King was indeed

CON. MON.

Jacobite hopes
assistance.
[1]

of French

far different from the Louis of other days. Enslaved by the religious influence of Madame de Maintenon, and surrounded by bitter party disputes with regard to the legitimization of his bastards, his energy was gone, while war and taxes and persecution had much depressed the power of France. Still, irritated by the Whig assault upon his friends in England, the champion as he believed himself of legitimacy, and angry at the opposition raised by the English ministry to his new fortifications at Mardyke, he had used his influence with Spain to procure sums of money for the conspirators, had himself supplied arms, and had allowed a small squadron to be equipped at Havre at the expense of France. The flight of Ormond, the first blow to the conspiracy, was followed, on the 1st of September, by the death of Louis. The Government passed into the hands of the Regent Orleans, whose policy was of a purely personal character, his chief aim being the exclusion of the Spanish house from the succession should the young King die. To secure his plans at home external peace was necessary. Personal friendship, both for Stair the English ambassador, and for Stanhope the English secretary, rendered him still more disinclined to break with England. Hope from France was gone. Bolingbroke saw at once the course affairs were taking, and despatched a messenger to tell the leaders of the conspiracy that, as Scotland could not rise without England, and England could not rise without France, and France had no intention of moving, all thoughts of insurrection had better be dropped.

in Scotland.

The Pretender, weary of

His prudent message came too late. waiting, had taken matters into his own hands, and a leader had already been despatched to raise the northern counties Mar organizes the insurrection of Scotland. This leader was the Earl of Mar. At Anne's death Mar was Secretary for Scotland, a man of no very great ability, but who, for his skill in trimming his sails to the wind, had earned the nickname of "Bobbing John." He once more tried to play his old game, but found himself mistrusted, and had to give place to the Duke of Montrose. He now hurried to London, sought favour at Court, took a wife from among the leaders of the Whig party, and having thus thrown people off the scent, hurried back to Scotland to organize the insurrection. His chief influence was in Aberdeenshire, north of the Grampian hills; and there, early in September, he contrived a meeting of the chief clans of the neighbourhood. He was joined by Tullibardine, the heir of Duke of Athol, who brought with him the Murrays, and by the

of the Gordons, with Lord Panmure, from the north of Perth