Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion

by Anne Somerset

  In the six weeks when Harley was recovering from his wounds, the Commons became more unmanageable than ever. Swift declared on 26 March, ‘All things are at a stop in Parliament for want of Mr Harley; they cannot stir an inch without him’.44 The same day the Commons voted against the Leather Tax, a vital contribution to war revenue. Twenty-four hours later they came to their senses and accepted a virtually identical measure, but the episode demonstrated the extent to which the ministry was dependent on Harley’s political skills.

  Guiscard’s attack had enhanced Harley’s prestige, but his temporary incapacitation prevented him from stopping an ambitious expedition to Quebec going ahead. The genesis of this project dated back to the visit to England in April 1710 of four Native American chiefs. Fed up with French incursions on their hunting grounds, local tribes in North America were willing to ally with the British to drive the French out of Canada and so, at the prompting of the Governor of Virginia, four of their chieftains sailed to England to urge that an amphibious expedition be mounted to capture Quebec.

  The ‘four Indian Kings’ caused a sensation. They were clothed and entertained at royal expense, and Anne commemorated their visit by commissioning Antonio Verelst to paint portraits of them in native garb. They were shown sights such as Greenwich Observatory, Windsor, and Hampton Court, and taken to the opera and Shakespeare plays. At a performance of Macbeth, the audience proved so eager ‘to survey the swarthy monarchs’ that the lead actor invited them onstage. When granted an audience with Anne they explained through interpreters that they had travelled to ‘the other side of the Great Water’ to beg their mighty ruler to proceed with the capture of Canada, which would bring them ‘free hunting and a great trade with our Great Queen’s children’. After a fortnight the exotic quartet returned to Boston bearing gifts from the Queen including her portrait, necklaces, hair combs, scissors, textiles, and a magic lantern.45

  Henry St John was inspired by the notion of securing for the Queen a massive North American empire, yet while it seems the Queen was in favour of the venture, Harley was sceptical. He requested Rochester to try to prevent it, but in Cabinet on 25 March, ‘the Queen declared the design of the expedition to Canada to the Lords’.46 The expedition sailed in May 1711, its destination a secret. The Tory Admiral Hovenden Walker was given command of the fleet, while Abigail Masham’s brother, Jack Hill, was put in charge of all troops on board. As yet Mrs Masham remained on good terms with Harley, but St John clearly hoped to ingratiate himself with her by this appointment. St John had been given sole charge of the expedition’s planning and, according to Harley, he took corrupt advantage of this. Harley later recalled that in June 1711 the Treasury was asked to pay out £28,000 to cover arms and clothing supposedly purchased to equip the expedition. Harley questioned the amount, whereupon St John came to see him in a rage. A fortnight later, ‘the Secretary of State signified the Queen’s positive pleasure to have that money paid’. This was duly done, but Harley had no doubt that the public had been ‘cheated of above £20,000’.47

  In early April 1711, during Harley’s convalescence, Abbé Gaultier was sent secretly to France to see what kind of peace terms the French were prepared to offer. Shrewsbury and Harley were still maintaining that nothing less than what France had acceded to at Geertrudenberg would be acceptable, but Gaultier had received ‘more moderate private instructions’ from Jersey, who declared the ministers were only pretending this to protect themselves. Gaultier also brought messages of encouragement for the Pretender. Torcy arranged for Gaultier to visit the Duke of Berwick, an illegitimate son of James II who was one of Louis XIV’s most successful generals and a Jacobite adviser. Berwick recorded that Gaultier wanted an undertaking that ‘Queen Anne should enjoy the crown in tranquillity during her life, provided that she confirmed the possession of it to her brother after her death’. To this Berwick ‘readily consented’. Berwick claimed that he then sent Gaultier to see the Pretender himself, but Torcy’s memoirs contradict this.48 Certainly Torcy’s main priority was to secure an end to the war, and he did not want to jeopardise that with projects to restore the Pretender.

  On 11/22 April Louis XIV’s council drew up peace terms to be sent to England. They were remarkably vague. Great Britain was promised security of trade in Spain, the Indies and the Mediterranean. The Dutch were also to have liberty of commerce and a barrier ‘agreeable to England’, a formula indicating it would be less substantial than that allocated in the Barrier Treaty of 1709. England and Holland’s allies would be given satisfaction and ‘new expedients’ would be found to regulate the monarchy of Spain.49

  Gaultier brought this schedule to England, and Jersey then showed it to the Queen. While it is unclear how much she knew of what had been going on during the past few months, she welcomed this initiative. She now longed for peace, being conscious that the country could not sustain the war for much longer, and feeling increasingly overwhelmed with what Harley called ‘her … Christian horror of bloodshed’. It appears that Harley had intended to pass on the overtures to Holland without notifying the Cabinet of their existence, partly because he wanted to exclude St John from the peace process. However, the Duke of Shrewsbury urged that the Queen should inform the Cabinet that these offers had arrived although, like the Dutch, the ministers should be given the impression that the proposals had emanated spontaneously from France. Reluctantly, Harley complied with Shrewsbury’s wishes.50

  By this time a development of the utmost significance had occurred. On 6/17 April 1711 the Emperor Joseph had died, and in due course his brother, the former Archduke Charles, succeeded him as Holy Roman Emperor. This meant that if Charles was also established as King of Spain, a formidable power bloc would be created, scarcely less dangerous to the balance of power in Europe than a union between France and Spain. As Swift observed, ‘To have the Empire and Spanish monarchy united in the same person is a dreadful consideration’, and for Britain to go on fighting to achieve such an outcome was little short of senseless. When the news arrived, several emergency Cabinet meetings were held to discuss the implications. Clearly, Anne was fully alive to these. In a later letter to the Earl of Orrery, St John referred to ‘the alteration made in the system of war by the Emperor’s death’, which had made the need for peace more apparent. ‘The Queen, my Lord, was of this mind’, he added.51

  When the Dutch were informed of France’s overtures, they were unenthusiastic. They pointed out that the offers were ‘very dark and general’, and needed clarification.52 Undeterred, Harley resolved to take matters further without reference to Holland.

  In late April Harley returned to work to address the nation’s finances. He had already raised sums through lotteries and had come to an arrangement with the Bank of England regarding the cashing of exchequer bills, but the country remained in dire financial straits. Swift had remarked in March, ‘This kingdom is certainly ruined as much as was ever any bankrupt merchant. We must have peace’.53 On 2 May Harley introduced in the Commons the South Sea Bill, intended to deal with the problem of unfunded debt, amounting to well over £9 million. The measure provided that State creditors would exchange their debts for shares in the newly created South Sea Company, set up to trade with Spanish America. The government set aside sufficient sums to pay shareholders a guaranteed interest rate of 6 per cent until 1716, after which time it was assumed that the riches from South Sea trade would bring handsome dividends. To achieve such profits, however, it would be necessary to secure the company the monopoly of supplying slaves to South America. This could only be done by negotiating a peace agreement with France and Spain that awarded particular advantages to Britain at Holland’s expense.

  The passage of the South Sea Act staved off an immediate debt crisis, but could not solve the underlying problem that the nation was massively overstretched. Cashflow remained so precarious that Harley had difficulty finding the money to pay the Queen’s employees. The salaries of royal servants such as Anne’s racing manager, Governor Frampton, Sir David
Hamilton and the maids of honour fell into arrears, causing the Queen considerable vexation.

  The Queen’s uncle the Earl of Rochester died suddenly on 2 May. Towards the end of his life, his character had become milder, and he had helped Harley by reining in the October Club’s excesses. In recent months he was known to be ‘more in the Queen’s confidence than he had ever been’ and she was described as ‘very upset at his death’. Harley may have flirted with the thought of pleasing the High Tories by making the Earl of Nottingham Lord President in Rochester’s place but, since Nottingham remained ‘disagreeable personally to the Queen’, this was impossible.54 Instead the Duke of Buckingham succeeded Rochester as Lord President.

  On 23 May the Queen honoured Robert Harley with the title Earl of Oxford, and six days later he was named Lord Treasurer. Yet, as St John remarked with distinct satisfaction, he remained ‘on slippery ground’. In some ways his removal from the Lower House weakened him, for whereas his Commons management skills were fabled, he was ignorant of Lords procedure. Furthermore, although the Tories had been willing to make allowances after the stabbing, they were unwilling to wait much longer for what they wanted. Swift recalled that the party ‘commonly understood and expected that when the session [of Parliament] ended, a general removal would be made, but it happened otherwise, for few or none were turned out’. According to Swift, the new Earl of Oxford gallantly protected Anne from blame, thinking ‘it became him to take the burthen of reproach upon himself rather than lay it upon the Queen his mistress’. Just how obstinate she could be upon such matters is shown by a letter she sent Oxford in October. Curiously enough, it was prompted by a complaint from Abigail Masham that her father-in-law, a moderate Whig, was ‘grieved’ that a friend of his was about to be sacked from the victualling department. Declaring it ‘very hard if a man who is honest and harmless’ should be removed ‘to gratify other people’ Anne declared firmly, ‘I will have Mr Bear continue in the same office, let there be never so much fault found with it’.55

  In October 1710 Harley informed Anne, ‘There is one weak place where the [Whig] enemy may attack and that is the affair of the House of Hanover; but that must be left to the Queen’s great wisdom to consider how to prevent it’. In hopes of soothing fears that she had any Jacobite leanings, when Parliament adjourned on 12 June the Queen declared in her speech ‘It is needless for me to repeat the assurances of my earnest concern for the succession in the House of Hanover’. Not everyone was reassured. In late 1710, Defoe had reported in alarm that Jacobites in Scotland were announcing that Anne intended to restore her half brother, which partly explains why Bishop Burnet had felt impelled to tackle her the following March on ‘the growth of the Pretender’s interest’. To the Queen, such worries were inexplicable, and she was apt to dismiss them with some impatience. On being told by Hamilton in November 1711 that ‘the great fear of people was the Prince of Wales, she said “There was none”’. When the Marquis of Carmarthen was denounced by his paramour Mrs Crisp for having declared in pillow talk that he planned ‘to go to bring over the Prince of Wales’, the Queen saw no cause for alarm, pointing out briskly, ‘It was spoke when he was drunk and in the night to his mistress’.56

  At Saint-Germain it was an article of faith that Anne was sympathetic to their cause, without there being much reason to think so. Obviously the messages sent to France by Lord Jersey encouraged such beliefs. The exiles’ hopes were raised further when a Jacobite supporter named Charles Leslie travelled to France in April 1711 and reported, ‘It is generally thought that the Princess of Denmark is favourably inclined towards the King her brother’. He was sure ‘she would choose rather to have him for her successor than the Prince of Hanover’ but the only evidence he advanced was that when the Duke of Leeds had ‘endeavoured to sound her’ on the possibility of her brother succeeding her, the Queen had ignored him. ‘Though she never chose to explain herself upon this point she says nothing against him [the Pretender]’ Leslie ended lamely.57

  There is in fact no reason to think Anne had abandoned the view – expressed to Sarah earlier in the reign – ‘that she was not sure the Prince of Wales was her brother and that it was not practicable for him to come here without ruin to the religion and country’. Swift heard that James Francis Edward’s ‘person and concerns’ aroused nothing but contempt in her, and that ‘at her toilet among her women, when mention happened to be made of the Chevalier, she would frequently let fall’ disparaging remarks.58

  Unfortunately the impression that Anne had Jacobite yearnings was encouraged by small acts of unfriendliness towards Hanover. In November 1709 she had accepted an invitation to stand as godmother to the Electoral Prince and Princess’s baby daughter. More than a year later, an English lady living in Hanover was embarrassed to hear from Sophia that the couple were upset at ‘not having received the smallest token from her Majesty’. Having insisted that, at the time, ‘the matter had seemed to give the Queen great pleasure’, the lady had written to Harley urging that a diamond necklace should be sent at once. In fact, almost another year went by before Anne presented the child with a miniature of herself in a diamond-studded frame. To Sophia’s mind the gift was insultingly meagre, the sort of thing one would give an ambassador as a leaving present. She commented ‘It seems to me … despite all the compliments they pay me, that the Queen is more for her brother than for us, which I find very natural’.59 Certainly the gift compared unfavourably with the endowment Anne had conferred in June 1711 on another godchild, Mrs Masham’s two-year-old daughter, who had been made Ranger of St James’s Park, a sinecure worth £800 a year.

  Further ill feeling was caused by an incident that occurred in Scotland that summer. At the end of June 1711 the Duchess of Gordon presented the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh with a medal calling for the Pretender’s restoration. It was received gratefully, with one of those present, a lawyer named Dundas, arguing that the Queen would be affronted if they rejected it. At first it seemed that the government would take a grave view of the matter. It was the main topic of discussion at the Cabinet meeting held at Windsor on 30 July, when it was decided that those responsible should be prosecuted. A few days later the issue was re-examined, and deemed less serious. On Sophia’s instructions the Hanoverian Resident Kreienberg then demanded that action was taken. On 14 October, Lord Dartmouth was ordered to write to Scotland that ‘the Queen would have Dundas prosecuted immediately and the Duchess of Gordon as soon’ as evidence could be gathered. Yet nothing happened, and a few days later the Duchess of Gordon was observed enjoying herself in London. Kreienberg assumed she was deliberately ‘mocking the proceedings with which she was threatened’.60

  The Pretender decided in May 1711 that the signals coming from England were so encouraging that it was time to ‘break through all reserve’ and contact his half sister. He wrote her a letter saying they must no longer allow the ‘violence and ambition’ of ill-disposed people to keep them apart, telling Anne, ‘The natural affection I bear you, and that the King our father had for you till his last breath’ impelled him to seek ‘perfect union’ with her. He explained that though he could never abandon ‘my own just right … yet I am most desirous rather to owe to you, than to any living, the recovery of it’. The young man continued, ‘The voice of God and nature calls you to it; the promises you made to the King our father enjoin it’. He therefore did not doubt that if ‘guided by your own inclinations you will … prefer your own brother … to the Duchess of Hanover, the remotest relation we have’.61

  James sent this draft to Torcy for approval. After making some minor amendments, the French foreign minister sent it to Gaultier in England, with instructions that Oxford should present it to the Queen. Then, suddenly, an urgent message was delivered from Gaultier that his ministerial contacts in London were adamant that, for the present, James must not think of writing to the Queen, as this would upset everything. Despite this rebuff James Francis Edward let himself hope that Oxford was merely waiting for the right moment
to help him. Some reward was considered in order, so in November 1711 Jacobite MPs in England were given instructions by Saint-Germain to vote for the ministry whenever their support was required.62

  Those who believed that Anne wanted to reach an understanding with her brother would have been surprised to know of a struggle that took place between her and Oxford in the summer of 1711. Hoping that Jersey’s dealings with France would go better if he had an official position, Oxford tried to persuade the Queen to give the Earl a place in the Cabinet, but Anne proved reluctant because of Jersey’s reputation as a Jacobite. The previous autumn she had already refused to put Jersey in charge of the Admiralty, and she now proved equally unwilling to accede to Oxford’s request that the Earl should be made Lord Privy Seal. The Lord Treasurer employed Mrs Masham as a ‘female solicitrix’ on Jersey’s behalf, but Anne could not be budged. Oxford then wrote the Queen an imploring letter, warning that unless she gave way, ‘This great affair now upon the anvil may languish … Your ministry will crumble all to pieces’. Knowing how strongly she objected to being pressured to appoint men of whom she disapproved (not least because in the past he had inflamed her feelings about this) he told her that if she conceded this point she would be acting not by ‘importunity but for the good of the service … If I could find any expedient in this case I would not trouble your Majesty upon this head’.63

  Still Anne held out, until Jersey produced what Oxford called his ‘vindication from Jacobitism’, and begged Oxford to arrange a private meeting with the Queen so he could justify himself.64 It is unclear whether this meeting took place but, after another three weeks had passed Anne finally relented. Jersey’s appointment as Lord Privy Seal was due to be announced on 26 August, only for the Earl to die of a stroke that very day.