Gloucester’s demise made it imperative that the question of the succession was addressed, for it had now become obscure who would have the crown once William and Anne were dead. Jacobites and the French were described as ‘greatly elated’ that Anne had been left without an heir, for they naturally hoped that James or his son would be considered her logical successor. However, by the terms of the Bill of Rights the throne could only be occupied by a Protestant. If this proviso was observed, not only were James’s children by Mary Beatrice excluded, but also the descendants of Charles II’s and James II’s sister, Henrietta Anne, whose Catholic daughter had married the Duke of Savoy. For England to secure herself a Protestant hereditary monarch, it was necessary to turn to distant relatives of the House of Stuart.
The Stuarts had some German cousins who descended from James I’s daughter Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia. She had had thirteen children, most of whom had either died without legitimate heirs or disqualified themselves for the English throne by converting to Catholicism. However, Elizabeth’s penultimate child and youngest daughter, Sophia of Hanover, was Protestant. She was the widow of the late Elector of Hanover, and in 1700 she was already aged seventy. It therefore could not be assumed that she would outlive William and Anne. If she died, her son George Ludwig of Hanover, Anne’s former suitor and the current Elector of Hanover, would become next in line. Although there were fifty-seven individuals who, in terms of blood, had a better right to the throne than Sophia or her son, these two individuals were the nearest to it once all Catholic claims were overlooked.156
In 1689 King William III had wanted the succession to be regulated so that Sophia would inherit if both he and Anne died childless, but at that time Parliament had baulked at this. William had tried to attract support by putting it about that ‘the Prince and Princess of Denmark desired it as well as himself’, but when Anne produced a son, he decided it was pointless to press on with so contentious a measure.157 Now, however, the matter needed revisiting.
There still was not much enthusiasm for introducing legislation. Some people suggested that it would be preferable to do nothing in the hope that Anne would have more children. Failing that, William could remarry and produce an heir. Yet there was an obvious danger that ‘if there be not a visible successor appointed, the Prince of Wales will be put upon us very soon’. Xenophobes who grumbled, ‘What, must we have more foreigners?’ were told ‘It is better to have a Prince from Germany than one from France’.158
The Act of Settlement, regulating the succession in favour of Sophia and her heirs, was steered through Parliament by a Tory administration that came into power at the end of 1700. Later the Tories came to be thought of as inimical to the Hanoverian succession, but their support was crucial at this stage. The bill went through the legislature with surprisingly little difficulty, and protests lodged by the Duchess of Savoy that her and her son’s claims were being flouted were ignored. Perhaps remembering a time when he had aspired to be Anne’s consort, the former Lord Mulgrave, now the Earl of Normanby, proposed that if Prince George outlived Anne, the crown should go to him. However, the idea was dropped for want of support. According to the diplomat Monsieur Bonet, who was keeping the Elector of Brandenburg informed upon English affairs, Anne was in favour of the succession being established on the House of Hanover. He wrote, ‘I do not observe that Madam the Princess of Denmark takes offence at this ruling; far from it, she regards it as a support for her’.159
After the Act of Settlement passed into law in June 1701, there was talk in some quarters of inviting Sophia to visit England, but the very idea was intensely disagreeable to Anne. She still hoped to have a child who would take precedence over Sophia in the succession, rendering the Act of Settlement redundant. In the circumstances the last thing she wanted was Sophia making herself at home.
Although there is no reason to think that Anne had been against naming the Hanoverians as her heirs presumptive, she was happy for Jacobites to think otherwise. The death of her son had made it easier for her to pretend that she was sympathetic to their cause, for it now appeared more plausible that once she was on the throne she would seek to reinstate her half brother as her successor. In 1701 Marlborough and Godolphin were in contact with the Jacobite agent James St Amand, codenamed Berry. It appears they had some success in persuading him that the Princess was well disposed, and this encouraged the idea at Saint-Germain that her accession could be desirable.160
The English succession had been settled to both Anne and William’s satisfaction but a succession crisis in another country was about to plunge Europe into war. It had long been anticipated that the death of Carlos II, the childless and feeble-minded King of Spain, would destabilise the Continent, for in the absence of direct heirs, it was unclear which of Carlos’s Habsburg and Bourbon cousins would succeed him. Louis XIV and the Austrian Emperor Leopold I had both had Spanish mothers, and had themselves married Infantas, meaning that their male descendants were all potential claimants to the Spanish throne. In the last years of the seventeenth century Louis XIV and William III had made more than one attempt to prevent war breaking out between Austria and France on Carlos’s death by pre-emptively carving up the Spanish empire. In 1699 they had agreed that when Carlos died, the Dauphin of France would be allocated Naples, Sicily, and various Tuscan ports, while Leopold I’s younger son, Archduke Charles, would have the rest of the King of Spain’s lands. Carlos’s own wishes on the matter had been dismissed as an irrelevance, but he was not such an imbecile as to be incapable of taking strong exception to this. Shortly before he died in November 1700, he made a will leaving all that he owned to Louis XIV’s second grandson, Philip Duke of Anjou. He further specified that the bequest would be nullified if not accepted in its entirety, and the Spanish empire should then go to Archduke Charles instead. When informed of these terms, Louis XIV understandably felt he had no alternative but to accept what had been offered.
At first it appeared that this would not cause war between France and England. William’s partition treaty had not been popular with the English merchant community, whereas initially, the prospect of Louis’s younger grandson becoming King of Spain did not inspire alarm. The assumption was he would wish to be an independent monarch, not unduly subject to French influence. King William, it is true, feared from the start that the power of France would be dangerously enhanced, but his subjects saw things differently. A diplomat noted ‘it appears there is indifference here as to which family the King of Spain comes from, provided that English commerce does not suffer’.161 England accordingly recognised Louis’s grandson as Philip V of Spain, and although Emperor Leopold began preparing to fight France, England showed little interest in joining the conflict.
At this point, Louis exacerbated the situation with a series of provocative actions. With the agreement of his grandson, in February 1701 he sent troops to occupy Dutch strongholds in the Spanish Netherlands between France and Holland, thus rendering the latter much more vulnerable to French invasion. In addition Louis raised the spectre that one day the French and Spanish throne would be united by registering Philip’s hereditary rights in the Paris Parlement. It became apparent that Philip V was very much under his grandfather’s control, and soon English merchants found that their trade with Spain was being restricted. Louis then turned the screw by imposing crippling tariffs on English exports to France.
As a result public opinion in England began to favour war with France. For a time the Tory administration ignored the clamour, being absorbed in impeachment proceedings against their political opponents. By May 1701, however, the House of Lords accepted that the threat France posed to the balance of European power was too serious to ignore. They therefore requested that William not only implement England’s existing defensive treaty with Holland, but also that he open negotiations for a full alliance between England, Austria, and the Dutch republic. Holland was promised the assistance of 10,000 English troops to defend the country from French attack and on 31 May the King put
the Earl of Marlborough in command of these forces.
On 28 June Marlborough’s astonishing rise continued when he was named as ambassador extraordinary to the United Provinces. In that capacity he was ordered to accompany King William to Holland in order to negotiate an alliance designed to reduce ‘the exorbitant power of France’. Astute observers concluded that the King had overcome his reservations about Marlborough’s character because he felt that, once he was dead, Marlborough alone could keep Anne committed to pursuing a war with France. As Monsieur Bonet saw it, if Holland still needed help when Anne mounted the throne, she would go on providing it, ‘if only to favour the said Earl’.162
In July Marlborough travelled to The Hague with William, and negotiations took place between various powers. On 27 August/7 September 1701 a treaty of grand alliance was signed between Great Britain, Holland, and the Habsburg Empire. They named terms that would form an acceptable basis for a future settlement, which in many ways were very moderate. It was accepted that Philip V should remain as King of Spain, but with the proviso that the Spanish and French crowns could never be united. Although Carlos II’s will had stipulated that the Spanish empire must not be partitioned, such a solution was now envisaged. Not only would the Emperor be given Naples, Milan, and Sicily, but the Spanish Netherlands would be placed under Austrian sovereignty, ensuring they were preserved as a protective barrier between France and the United Provinces. The treaty provided that if war with France broke out, England would contribute 40,000 troops and 40,000 seamen; Holland would furnish 100,000 men and the Empire 82,000. Separate agreements were negotiated with other allies such as various German states who were subsidised to bring more troops into the struggle. As yet, however, a slim chance of peace remained, for France was given two months to accept the allies’ terms.
A week after the signing of the Treaty of Grand Alliance an event occurred that made war a certainty. On 22 August/2 September, Anne’s father, the former James II, collapsed while hearing Mass. When it became clear that he was dying, Louis XIV called on him to promise he would always look after the interests of his son. James’s last injunction to the thirteen-year-old Prince of Wales was ‘Never separate yourself from the Catholic religion; no sacrifice is too great when it is made for God’. He then announced that ‘he pardoned his enemies from the bottom of his heart’, mentioning by name the Prince of Orange and the Princess Anne of Denmark.163
James died on 5/16 September 1701. Almost immediately Louis XIV recognised his son as James III of England, in blatant disregard of his obligations under the Treaty of Ryswick. News of this reached England on 12 September and caused nationwide fury. William at once withdrew his ambassador from France. When Louis issued a ban on English ships importing goods into France, Evelyn noted ‘War is in a manner begun’.164
On Queen Mary’s death, James had not put his exiled court into mourning, saying he no longer regarded her as his daughter. Despite this Anne expected that she would be allowed to mourn her father in the manner that she considered fitting. William was still in Holland when James died, but whereas everyone else of note in England awaited his instructions as to how to mark the former King’s passing, the Princess wasted no time in decreeing that her apartments at St James’s were to be hung with black cloth. Even after word came that Louis had recognised the Prince of Wales, Anne went ahead with her plans, assuming full mourning for her father on Sunday 14 September.
On 16 September King William sent word from abroad that he intended only to adopt partial mourning, and that although his coaches and servants would be put in dark liveries, his rooms were not to be draped in black. ‘He desired the Princess would do the same’, and from The Hague Marlborough wrote warning Godolphin that if Anne observed deeper mourning, it would be assumed she had Jacobite sympathies. Unaware that she had already decked St James’s in black, Marlborough remarked ‘that if she had thoughts of it, you see it can’t be’.165 Anne was incensed at having to modify her arrangements. She complained bitterly to Godolphin ‘It is a very great satisfaction to me to find you agree with Mrs Morley concerning the ill-natured cruel proceedings of Mr Caliban which vexes me more than you can imagine, and I am out of all patience when I think I must do so monstrous a thing as not to put my lodgings in mourning for my father’.166 She seems even to have imagined that she might be remembered favourably in her father’s will, for she asked Godolphin to obtain a copy for her.
Shortly after returning to England in November 1701, King William dissolved Parliament. Having become disenchanted with his Tory ministers, he had decided the Whigs would suit him better, but after the election his new government was shaky, as Tories remained numerous in Parliament. All through the winter, according to Sarah, the Tories paid ‘the Princess more than usual civilities and attendance’, hoping to exploit Anne’s continued sense of grievance against William. When Parliament reassembled in late December 1701, William’s candidate for Speakership of the Commons was defeated. Instead the leading opposition politician Robert Harley was chosen, gaining victory partly thanks to the votes of a number of ‘false servants’, of whom the most prominent were affiliated in some way to Anne.167
Since there was now near-unanimous agreement that war was necessary, all sides cooperated in voting supplies for the coming struggle. In other respects, however, party divisions remained bitter. The Tories tried to cause trouble by implanting fears in Anne’s mind that William wanted her to be bypassed as a successor, so that the crown could go directly to the Hanoverian line. Bishop Burnet recalled, ‘Great endeavours were used, and not altogether without effect, to infuse this jealousy into the Princess and into all about her, not without insinuations that the King himself was inclined to it’. William relied on Marlborough to convince Anne that such slurs were groundless, and the Princess drew comfort from the knowledge that if any move was made to encroach upon her right, Marlborough was there to protect her. As he himself put it, ‘By God if they ever attempted it, we would walk over their bellies’.168
Anne was careful to ensure that her Hanoverian cousins were kept at a safe distance. At one point William allegedly told her that he believed it would be desirable if Sophia’s grandson, the electoral Prince George August, came to England, but Anne stymied the move. She informed the King, possibly in good faith, that she was pregnant. It subsequently turned out not to be so, but time ran out for William before he could revive the proposal.169
The government sought to allay any fears that they might be scheming against Anne by passing an act making it treason to attempt to prevent her accession to the throne. They also passed another measure attainting the ‘pretended Prince of Wales’, meaning that if he ever came to the British Isles he was liable to be executed. Despite such supportive gestures, it is clear that for Anne the last months of William’s reign were by no means devoid of tension.
The Princess had to be watchful against being outflanked by supporters of the Hanoverian claim. She simultaneously managed to make it less likely that her accession would be contested by adherents of her half brother, or ‘the Pretender’, as he came to be known. Mary Beatrice was now acting as regent for her teenaged son and she proved surprisingly gullible about accepting that Anne was eager to make amends for past actions. After James’s death Mary Beatrice wrote to the Princess to inform her that her father ‘gave you his last blessing and prayed to God to … confirm you in the resolution of repairing to his son the wrongs done to himself’. In Jacobite circles it was thought that Anne had been ‘moved by this letter’.170
Marlborough and Godolphin’s recent contacts with Saint-Germain had paid off handsomely, and they continued to nurture these links on Anne’s behalf. They managed to convey the idea that although at the moment the Princess was not in a position to advance her brother’s cause, once she was Queen she would try to help him. In January 1702 the Jacobite agent ‘Berry’ received a message from Mary Beatrice expressing her delight that he was in regular communication with ‘Gurney’, a code name for Marlborough. The mess
age then alluded to Anne, referring to her as ‘your friend Young’. ‘I am very sorry his [her] hands at present are tied’, Berry was informed, ‘but he [she] has a good heart and that in time will set all things right to [her] own and [her] friends’ satisfaction’.171 The Jacobites’ principal concern at this point was Anne might be cheated of the throne by those who wanted the Hanoverians to rule England immediately.
King William’s health had been very bad for years. He had suffered from a variety of complaints, including chronic asthma, swollen legs, and gout. On 21 February 1702 he fell off his horse and broke his collarbone. Initially he was expected to make a good recovery but he then caught a chill and his condition rapidly worsened. When it became clear that the King was unlikely to survive, George went to Kensington, but William had no particular desire to have him hovering at his deathbed. It was conveyed to George that it would be inappropriate to remain long in the King’s bedchamber, ‘so he virtually came in and went straight out’. Anne too expressed a desire to go to Kensington, saying that she was prepared to remain in the antechamber to the King’s room, but she was somehow persuaded that it would be best to stay away altogether.172
The Princess was kept informed of the dying man’s condition by reports from the King’s chamberlain Lord Jersey. When Anne had fallen out with her sister ten years earlier he had shown her scant respect, but now he proved much more obliging, shocking Sarah by ‘writing and sending perpetually … as [William’s] breath grew shorter and shorter’. On 6 March the King underwent a further deterioration, after being seized with ‘vomiting and looseness’. He died around eight o’clock on the morning of Sunday, 8 March 1702.173
Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion Page 24
