Sarah’s letter also contained ominous hints that she was thinking of making an unspecified use of Anne’s past correspondence to her. She reminded the Queen that she possessed ‘a thousand letters’ from her, full of ardent protestations, and enclosed a couple of examples. On 12 June Anne returned what Sarah described as a ‘short, harsh and … very undeserved answer’. She wrote that having understood from both Marlborough and Sarah ‘you would never speak to me of politics nor mention Masham’s name again, I was very much surprised at receiving a long letter upon both … looking on it to be a continuation of the ill usage I have so often met with, which shows me very plainly what I am to expect for the future’. As for the letters Sarah had mentioned, ‘I must desire all my strange scrawls may be sent back to me, it being impossible they can now be agreeable to you’.51
Just before receiving this Sarah had written again, begging ‘your Majesty upon my knees’ not to dismiss Sunderland until Marlborough had returned from campaign. When Anne’s letter arrived, the Duchess was ashamed at having been ‘too submissive’, and resolved not to repeat this mistake. She took up her pen to express astonishment to find herself accused of ‘meddling with the politics in a way that is improper for me’. She menaced the Queen regarding her letters: ‘Though your Majesty takes care to make them less pleasing to me … I cannot yet find it in my heart to part with them … I have drawers full of the same in every place where I have lived’. Anne’s failure to send back the letters enclosed in Sarah’s of 7 June ‘obliges me to take a little better care of the rest’.52
By this time Marlborough was aware of Sunderland’s impending dismissal, which led him to write bitterly to Anne that he had assumed his service ‘would have deserved a better turn’ than to see his son-in-law ejected from his place. ‘Your Majesty must forgive me if I cannot but think that this is a stroke rather aimed at me than him’.53 He sent another letter to Godolphin, declaring that he was ‘sorry Lord Sunderland is not agreeable to the Queen, but his being … singled out has no other reason but that of being my son-in-law’. Marlborough added that unless the dismissal was deferred until the end of the campaign, it was obvious that his enemies intended to provoke him into retiring. He authorised the Lord Treasurer to show the letter not just to the Queen but to whomever he thought fit.54
Godolphin duly read this to the Queen, but it did not have the desired effect. Later that day she informed the Lord Treasurer she had already made arrangements to dismiss her Secretary, and she did not see why Marlborough’s letter should alter things. ‘It is true, indeed, that the turning a son-in-law out of his office may be a mortification to the Duke of Marlborough; but must the fate of Europe depend on that? And must he be gratified in all his desires and I not, in so reasonable a thing as parting with a man who I took into my service with all the uneasiness imaginable and whose behaviour to me has been so ever since, and who, I must add, is obnoxious to all people, except a few?’55
Although the Queen would not relent, she sacked Sunderland in as considerate a manner as she could, sending him medicine for a cold just before the blow fell. She asked Sunderland’s fellow Secretary of State, Henry Boyle, to collect the seals from him on the morning of 14 June, and when he expressed reluctance because Sunderland was a friend, she told him ‘those things were best done by a friend’. She also offered Sunderland a pension, knowing him to be financially overstretched, but he proudly turned it down, declaring ‘if he could not have the honour to serve his country he would not plunder it’.56
The moderate Tory, Lord Dartmouth, was chosen to replace Sunderland. The appointment came as a surprise as he was considered rather frivolous and ineffectual. However, the Queen had consulted Lord Somers beforehand, and he had indicated the Whigs would not object to the office being given to one who, ‘though … looked upon as a Tory … was known to be no zealous party man’.57 Within weeks Somers would regret this, but for the moment he believed he could work with the new Secretary.
In one letter, Sarah had warned the Queen, ‘It is vain to say that you mean only to remove Lord Sunderland. The rest cannot stay in long after him’. She prophesied too that his dismissal would be the prelude to Anne’s dissolving Parliament, ‘a most rash and desperate step’. Godolphin would inevitably resign and, since the leading men in the City ‘would not lend a farthing’ once he was out of office, ‘your army must starve and you must be glad of any peace that the French would give you’. The Queen, however, believed that Sunderland’s departure need not cause such major upheavals. She wanted to retain Whig ministers she found congenial and desired Godolphin to remain at the Treasury. She even hoped that she could keep the Parliament in being until its three-year term had finished, but it was obvious that this would pose a challenge. The Whigs currently had a majority in the Commons, and if they could not be relied on to support the government, an election would be necessary. Realising this, the Queen authorised her physician Sir David Hamilton to tell his friends ‘she would make no other change, but not to disown the dissolution of the Parliament’.58
To the Queen’s relief, none of Sunderland’s colleagues decided to follow him out of office. Just before sending for the Secretary’s seals, Anne had assured Lord Somers that although ‘nothing could divert her’ from this step, ‘she was entirely for moderation’. He appeared content with this, and his fellow ministers likewise made no difficulties even when Godolphin showed them Marlborough’s letter warning that Sunderland’s dismissal was intended to provoke him into retiring. They expressed regret that the Queen had ignored his concerns but, far from offering their collective resignation, merely wrote a joint letter to the Duke, urging him not to give up his command. Once he grasped that the ministers intended ‘to remain tamely quiet’, Marlborough agreed to continue.59
To impress upon the Queen that further changes were indeed undesirable, the Bank of England sent a deputation to her. The country’s finances were currently in a parlous state. The war was now costing twice what it had cost in 1703, but taxes were producing lower yields than anticipated. At £4 million, the navy debt was becoming unmanageable, and a recent attempt to raise money through a lottery had been unsuccessful. On 15 June, four directors of the Bank of England obtained an audience with the Queen to warn her in ‘tragical expressions’ of the dire consequences of disbanding her current ministry. If she did this, they said, ‘all credit would be gone, stock fall, and the Bank be ruined’, resulting in the collapse of the economy. The Queen’s answer was ‘very differently reported’. It was ‘industriously given out’ by the Bank Directors that she had promised no more changes lay in store, and this later gave rise to allegations that Anne had lied. In fact she had given a far more ‘equivocal assurance’, with her exact words being a matter of dispute. She may only have told them ‘that she had at present no intentions to make any more alterations’ and that ‘whenever she should, she would take care that the public credit might not be injured’. In all likelihood the Queen was somewhat unnerved by the bankers’ visit, but it served only to infuriate High Tories. On Sunderland’s dismissal the Duke of Beaufort had offered Anne his congratulations on the grounds that ‘Your Majesty is now Queen indeed’. To hear that she had been subjected to this ‘insolent admonition and reproof from four citizens’ left him spluttering with rage.60
Godolphin and Marlborough now sought to exert pressure on the Queen through other channels. They stirred up the Grand Pensionary of Holland, Heinsius, with the result that the Dutch envoy to England presented Anne with a memorial from the States General. It expressed concern that a change of ministry or Parliament could not only lead to Britain’s defecting from the Grand Alliance, but ‘might endanger’ the Hanoverian succession.61
On receiving it the Queen merely remarked, ‘This is a matter of such great importance that I must think about it before giving an answer’. However, in Cabinet on 2 July she dealt with it in a style ‘worthy of Queen Elizabeth’, dictating a reply ‘without consultation upon it, and in such a manner that there was not a wo
rd offered against it’. She ‘ordered (herself) an answer to be written by Mr Boyle … to acquaint the States she was very much surprised at so extraordinary a proceeding’. While emphasising that ‘nothing should lessen her affections to the States’ she made it clear that, ‘as it was the first of this kind, she hoped it would be the last, and ordered Mr Boyle should show her the letter before he sent it’. Yet despite the fact that the Queen had made it plain that she did not welcome interference from her allies in domestic affairs, this did not deter the Imperial envoy Count Gallas from handing her a letter from Emperor Joseph on 1 August. It, too, warned that dissolving Parliament would have ‘pernicious consequences’ for the Common Cause.62
The Queen was now free of Sunderland, but casting off the Duchess of Marlborough posed greater problems, particularly if Anne was to do it without honouring her promise to distribute Sarah’s posts among her daughters. To resolve the situation, the Queen started using her doctor Sir David Hamilton as a go-between. On 15 June he saw the Duchess and reproached her for writing aggressive letters to the Queen. Sarah protested that since she only wanted ‘to keep her from hurting herself … it was hard to be denied that liberty’, but it soon occurred to her that adopting Hamilton as an intermediary might have its advantages. By this time her husband had instructed her to stop writing to the Queen, as her letters were only ‘making things worse’. If she started a correspondence with Hamilton, on the private understanding that he would read her letters to Anne, she ‘could write … what could not be said to the Queen’ without disobeying her husband outright.63
After seeing Hamilton again, Sarah gave him copies of the narrative she had sent Anne in October 1709, and talked of the many letters from the Queen in her possession. Making it clear for the first time that she had it in mind to publish them, she declared that these materials would form ‘part of the famous history that is to be’, which would contain ‘wonderful things’. On 8 July Hamilton warned the Queen that the Duchess was ‘extremely angry … her intercessions … in so humble a manner’ about Sunderland had been rejected, and said he feared that if Anne provoked her further, ‘That may force her to print’. Two days later he reported that the Duchess had said ‘She took more pleasure in justifying herself than your Majesty did in wearing your crown, and that she wondered when your Majesty was so much in her power you should treat her so’. The Queen was appalled at the prospect of seeing her letters in print, telling Hamilton, ‘When people are fond of one another they say many things, however indifferent, they would not desire the world to know’.64 It was clear that, in the face of this blackmail threat, she would have to consider carefully how to proceed.
Harley still had no official status but knowledgeable observers did not doubt he was now directing matters, and Sarah told the Queen in mid June, ‘He … talks as if he were your first minister’. He was abetted from within the government by the Dukes of Somerset and Shrewsbury, although the latter tried to shrug off responsibility for controversial developments. After Sunderland was dismissed, Shrewsbury tried to shift all the blame on Mrs Masham, claiming she ‘could make the Queen stand upon her head if she pleased’. As for Somerset, he envisaged a major role for himself in a reconstituted administration, being ‘so vain’ (as Godolphin harshly put it) ‘as not to be sensible he is uncapable of being anything more than what he is’.65
Throughout the summer, Harley worked to refashion the ministry. If he had ever entertained the idea that it would be possible to form a partnership with Godolphin (which is unlikely) he soon concluded it to be impracticable. Although Godolphin declared he would not automatically oppose proposals from Shrewsbury and Harley, he set himself against a dissolution of Parliament. In late June he informed the Queen that it would cause ‘present ruin and distraction and therefore it was never possible for [him] to consent to it’. Knowing that a dissolution could not be ruled out, Anne merely responded stiffly, ‘It was a matter which required to be very well considered’. On 3 July Harley noted he planned to advise the Queen: ‘You must preserve your character and spirit and speak to Lord Treasurer. Get quit of him’. Soon afterwards a letter of dismissal was apparently drawn up, but the Queen could not yet bring herself to send it.66
Harley was, however, keen to retain some prominent Whigs in government. He had meetings with Lord Somers, and appears to have led him to believe that he might succeed Godolphin at the Treasury. Knowing that the Queen respected him, Somers accepted these offers as genuine, and he had no objection to Godolphin losing office. During July, Harley was also negotiating with another Junto member, Lord Halifax. He probably hoped that this would lead to Lords Cowper and Orford remaining in place, and that Secretary Boyle would do likewise. However, his plans ran into trouble with the breakdown of peace talks with France.
In March 1710, discussions had opened with France at Geertrudenberg in the United Provinces. The Queen reportedly told Marlborough before he left England that ‘the nation wanted a peace and that it behoved him to make no delays in it’.67 Anne was ready to grant French demands that if Philip V renounced his throne he would receive the crown of Sicily, but unfortunately the Emperor and the Duke of Savoy vetoed the proposal. The French needed peace so badly they then dropped their insistence that Philip V must be compensated, but this meant they had no leverage to persuade him to leave Spain. Louis XIV withdrew his own army from Spain and promised that if the allies went on fighting to oust Philip, he would subsidise their forces. He still drew the line, however, at making war on his own grandson, as the allies continued to insist. Godolphin, for one, believed that Parliament would not vote for peace unless this condition was imposed.
Although the collapse of peace talks arguably owed much to Whig intractability, others put the blame elsewhere. Marlborough believed that the French were resisting allied demands because they anticipated that Britain would soon have a new government that would be prepared to offer them better terms. He mused, ‘If these new schemers are fond of a peace they are not very dextrous, for most certainly what is doing in England will be a great encouragement to France for the continuing the war’. In June he bluntly told the Queen, ‘Your new councillors … have done a good deal towards hindering the peace this year’.68
After Louis XIV published a letter on 9/20 July announcing that allied intransigence had forced him to withdraw from peace negotiations, Lord Somers also took the line that recent developments in England were responsible for French defiance. Having made this plain in Cabinet, he ‘gave his opinion very strongly for the continuance of the war’. Since peace formed an essential part of Harley’s programme, this clearly made a working relationship between them more difficult. Harley’s hopes of inveigling prominent Whigs into serving alongside him received another setback when Lord Wharton expressed ‘a detestation of having anything to do with Harley’ and advised colleagues who had shown interest in his overtures that, provided they stayed aloof, ‘all things would be in such confusion as to force the Queen back again into the hands of the Whigs’. Furthermore, even those Whigs who were dealing with Harley made their support conditional on Parliament being retained. On several occasions in July and early August the question of whether Parliament should be dismissed was debated in Cabinet, and Marlborough was delighted to hear that several lords ‘spoke their mind freely and honestly’ on the subject. Yet it remained unclear how Harley could secure Commons majorities for his measures in the current Parliament, and when he raised the matter with Lords Cowper and Halifax, it proved ‘impossible to bring [them] out of general terms to particulars’. This made the Queen unwilling to listen to Whig lectures on the importance of keeping on this Parliament. On 30 July Lord Orford spoke in Cabinet against a dissolution, but Anne ‘interrupted him and broke off the debate, saying they were not then upon that business’.69
Harley reasoned that if Godolphin was dismissed, the other ministers might become ‘more treatable’, but the Queen remained reluctant to sack the Lord Treasurer. On 20 July she told Shrewsbury that she was determined to
make Godolphin and Harley agree, although next day, perhaps realising the magnitude of the task, she appeared to reconsider. By 22 July Shrewsbury believed that she now accepted that it would be impossible to retain Godolphin, but since he himself flatly refused to take on ‘an employment I do not in the least understand and have not a head turned for’ by becoming Treasurer himself, this caused further delays.70
In the end it was Godolphin’s discourtesy to her that resolved Anne to part with him. In June he had told Sarah proudly that he habitually talked to the Queen ‘so plainly and in such a manner as … will not be said by anybody else in the world to her’, but he now carried this too far. At the end of July he had a row with Shrewsbury in Cabinet, accusing him of favouring ‘French counsels’. When Anne defended Shrewsbury, the Lord Treasurer rounded on her, and though it is unclear what he said, she was mortally offended. On 5 August Harley reported cheerfully that it was plainly ‘impracticable that [Anne and Godolphin] can live together. He every day grows sourer and indeed ruder to [her], which is unaccountable, and will hear of no accommodation, so that it is impossible that he can continue many days’.71
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