On 21 June the Queen adjourned Parliament. Until now St John’s presence in the Commons had been vital, but with the session finished he could be elevated to the House of Lords. Having been promised that he would enter the peerage at a higher rank than those given titles the previous December, he hoped to be created Earl of Bolingbroke. Oxford passed on his wishes to the Queen, but she considered a Viscountcy quite sufficient for the Secretary. Swift noted, ‘He was not much at that time in her good graces, some women about the court having infused an opinion into her that he was not so regular in his life as he ought to be’. It does not appear she was misinformed, for Bolingbroke’s correspondence to his friend Matthew Prior abounded with references to women he was chasing. In one letter he boasted of writing ‘upon the finest desk in the universe: Black Betty’s black ass’.40
St John had promised that if there was any difficulty about giving him an earldom, ‘I will forget that I was refused it’, but in the event he proved much less gracious. Initially he tried to turn down the peerage altogether, and though on 7 July he deigned to accept it, he admitted he ‘felt more indignation than ever in my life’ at being ‘clothed with as little of the Queen’s favour as she could contrive to bestow’. Blaming the Lord Treasurer for his disappointment, he indulged himself by ‘raving and railing at the Queen, Lady Masham, R. Harley and everyone else’.41
To try and cheer him up Oxford agreed that the new Lord Bolingbroke could go to France to resolve some of the difficulties that stood in the way of peace, but the Viscount was ordered to confine himself to matters such as scrutinising the text of the King of Spain’s renunciation, and devising terms that would satisfy the Duke of Savoy. Having arrived in Paris in early August, Bolingbroke was soon enjoying himself hugely. He had an affair with a former novice nun, Claudine de Ferriol, an imprudent move in view of the fact that Torcy may have bribed her to pass on to him Bolingbroke’s papers.42 Having dealt with the matters entrusted to him – perhaps rather too speedily, for the wording he approved for the King of Spain’s renunciation had later to be amended – Bolingbroke did not see why he should be constrained by his instructions. For some time he had taken the view that the Queen should ‘make use of the ill behaviour of the allies’ by reaching an agreement with France that excluded them. As well as leading the French to believe that, with the Duke of Savoy’s support, she would make a separate peace, he gave Torcy the impression that Tournai would be given back to France. His final misjudgement was failing to leave the theatre when the Pretender (who should in theory have already been expelled from France) appeared in a nearby box at the opera. On his return the Queen was ‘highly and publicly displeased’ that he had allowed himself to be ‘seen under the same roof with that person’.43
Far from being chastened, back in England Bolingbroke continued to encourage the French to pursue a separate peace. He argued that Louis XIV was entitled to demand Tournai, as the Dutch’s conduct ‘has been such and the situation of affairs so altered’, that the Queen was no longer bound by what she had said to Parliament on 6 June. This, he wrote on 10 September, was his ‘own opinion, and I believe I speak the Queen’s on this occasion’. He also conspired with the enemy to obstruct Holland from forwarding negotiations at Utrecht. The French had claimed that their plenipotentiaries had been insulted by a drunken Dutchman, and Bolingbroke encouraged them to use this is an excuse to halt talks. Anne, however, appears to have experienced qualms about what was happening. In mid September Matthew Prior, who had remained in France as Britain’s representative after Bolingbroke had gone home, warned Torcy ‘the Queen is of opinion that it is proper the conferences at Utrecht should be renewed’. By this time Bolingbroke himself was becoming conscious of having gone too far, but this did not stop him being enraged when Oxford asked Lord Dartmouth to take over all future correspondence with France.44
On 28 September the Dutch notified the Queen that in the interests of peace they ‘desired her good offices with France’. They would be prepared to accept a less extensive barrier than that demanded in the past, but would not surrender Tournai. Bearing in mind his own assurances to Parliament against a separate peace, Oxford was in no doubt that their wishes must be accommodated. Bolingbroke thought otherwise, and on the evening of 28 September this prompted a dreadful row in Cabinet. Bolingbroke accused Oxford of needless delay and Dartmouth of incompetence, and he was initially supported by the Lord Keeper, Harcourt. However, as it became clear that the Dutch were willing to give up so many frontier towns to France, opinion in the Cabinet veered round. Several members commented that Holland was not to blame for the lack of progress at Utrecht, and Harcourt declared that in these circumstances it would be more than his head was worth to seal a separate peace. Seizing his advantage, Oxford attacked Bolingbroke for exceeding his instructions while in France, and said the Dutch would have just cause for complaint if Britain abandoned them. When Bolingbroke disagreed, ‘both sides grew heated and strong words were spoken’. If the Queen had ever been tempted by Bolingbroke to contemplate a separate peace, she now accepted it could not be countenanced. The painful scene that had taken place before her left her very upset, and the Hanoverian diplomat Kreienberg reported, ‘The Queen cried copiously that evening’.45
Oxford had won that clash with Bolingbroke, but he had no grounds for complacency. His position was weakened by the Tories’ continued displeasure at his failure to do more for them. Not only was the Lord Treasurer himself reluctant to allow the Tories to dictate to him on patronage matters, but his freedom of manoeuvre was limited by the Queen, who remained as determined as ever to deny employment to individuals she disliked. The Deanery of Wells was still vacant after the incumbent’s death the previous February, but despite being ‘teased to prefer Swift’, Anne would not oblige. In late 1712 she appears to have had a row with Oxford over appointments. She wrote to him on 27 November, ‘I … am very sorry anything I said on Tuesday morning should make you think I was displeased with you. I told you my thoughts freely, as I have always and ever will continue to do on all occasions. You cannot wonder that I who have been ill used so many years should desire to keep myself from being again enslaved; and if I must always comply and not be complied with, [it] is, I think, very hard and what I cannot submit to, and what I believe you would not have me’.46
One reason why the Queen was not invariably supportive of the Lord Treasurer was that he was not as efficient as she would have liked. The Queen was also so irritated by his late arrivals at Windsor that in November 1712 she wrote firmly, ‘When you come next, pray order it so that you may be here by daylight and take more care of yourself’. Perhaps this was a hint that he was drinking too much, for one source claimed that already he would ‘scarcely … go sober once in a week and not before four in the morning to bed’. With so many things to attend to, it was perhaps inevitable that some would be neglected, but even his friends believed he made matters worse by his dilatoriness. ‘Delay is rooted in Eltee’s heart’ (as in L. T. for Lord Treasurer), Swift wrote sorrowfully. According to Bolingbroke, this affected the conduct of peace negotiations, for though Oxford insisted on keeping them in his hands, he ‘showed himself every day incapable of that attention, that method, that comprehension of different matters’ that was needful.47 While there were times when Oxford showed himself more steely in his dealings with the French than Bolingbroke, it is true that the peace process sometimes languished inexplicably. Lack of application on Oxford’s part may have contributed to this.
In her letters the Queen kept directing his attention to items overlooked. In August 1712, for example, she reminded him to set in place voting arrangements for Scots lords who were currently overseas. Such lapses on Oxford’s part could not fail to be provoking to one who was herself so meticulous that Sir David Hamilton remarked, ‘I wonder that under the load of so much business she could remember to regulate every such little circumstance’. Lack of money in the Treasury doubtless explained why sums owing to individuals were not paid on time, but th
e Queen inevitably wondered if Oxford’s inattention and forgetfulness were to blame. Her letters made frequent mention of matters such as the £100 overdue to Lord Bellenden, and the amount outstanding to Lord Abingdon.48
Oxford did not help himself by his enigmatic and devious manner. He wished it to be thought that he knew more than he could reveal, but often gave the impression that he was simply muddled. He tended to talk ‘very darkly and confusedly’ throwing out ‘obscure and broken hints’ that left his interlocutors perplexed. George Lockhart recorded, ‘he was indeed very civil to all who addressed him but he generally spoke so low in their ear or so mysteriously that few knew what to make of his replies’. This undermined people’s trust in him, and Bolingbroke did not fail to exploit this, making no secret of his belief that he was better fitted for leadership.49
In the past Oxford had derived strength from his association with Abigail Masham but he now looked on her as less of an asset. On coming to power he had been careful to humour her, and when Swift had first been introduced to Abigail at a dinner at Oxford’s house in August 1711 he had been impressed by the deference with which she was treated. ‘She was used with mighty kindness and respect, like a favourite’, he recorded. That November, Swift went to see the Lord Treasurer one evening but was not immediately admitted because ‘Mrs Masham was with him when I came; and they are never disturbed’. ‘’Tis well she is not very handsome: they sit alone together settling the nation’, he wrote mischievously. Over the following year, however, Abigail may have begun to feel that Oxford was insufficiently attentive to her. Swift acknowledged, ‘I believe the Earl was not so very sedulous to cultivate or preserve’ her favour, which gave the impression he did not have ‘it much at heart, nor was altogether sorry when he saw it under some degree of declination’.50
If Abigail’s influence had been curbed, it was partly because the Queen was determined not to allow her to assert herself too much. Lord Dartmouth, who disliked Lady Masham, observed that Anne was not ‘pleased that anybody should apply to her’. He recorded that at one point, ‘the Queen told me I was not in [Lady Masham’s] good graces … because I lived civilly with the Duchess of Somerset; which, she said, she hoped I would continue without minding the other’s ill humours’. He also claimed that ‘the Queen had a suspicion that she or her sister listened at the door all the time’ and this, coupled ‘with some disrespects shown to the Duchess of Somerset’ made Anne consider seeing less of Abigail. Hamilton clearly feared that Abigail upset the Queen by nagging her, but Swift’s account suggests that Anne never let herself be intimidated. According to him, whenever Lady Masham ‘moved the Queen to discard some persons who upon all occasions with great virulence opposed the court, her Majesty would constantly refuse, and at the same time condemn her for too much party zeal’. In January 1713 Anne intervened after Louis XIV sent some expensive gifts to England. She wrote to Oxford, ‘My Lady Masham told me she heard one of the chaises that are come out of France was intended to be given to her. Do not take any notice of it to her but find out if it be so and endeavour to prevent it; for I think it would not be right’.51
In October 1712 a Dutch diplomat reported that some people detected ‘a certain coolness’ between the Queen and Lady Masham, but only a fortnight before, Anne had given striking proof that she remained extremely fond of her Bedchamber Woman. For some reason Abigail, who was heavily pregnant, had lost her temper with the men carrying her sedan chair. Having leapt out in a fury, she tripped in the courtyard of Windsor Castle, giving herself a black eye and bruising herself badly. For a time it looked as if she might lose her baby, whereupon Anne became so ‘very much concerned for her, that there was as much care taken of her as it had been the Queen herself; she was pleased to sit by her three hours late at night by her bedside’.52
Swift still believed Lady Masham provided the Tories with invaluable assistance. He became very alarmed when, after suffering a miscarriage in March 1713, she absented herself from court to care for a very sick child. Grumbling that ‘she stays at Kensington to nurse him, which vexes us all’, he ranted, ‘She is so excessively fond it makes me mad; she should never leave the Queen, but leave everything to stick to what is much in the interest of the public as well as her own. This I tell her but talk to the winds’.53
Following his humiliation in Cabinet, Bolingbroke had flounced off to sulk in the country, and Oxford too had retired from court for a fortnight to nurse ill health. On 14 October 1712 the two men had a long conference in London, and next day returned to Windsor to see the Queen. Unfortunately any hope of a reconciliation between them was overturned at the end of the month when Anne held a chapter of the Knights of the Garter. Oxford was given the Garter, as was the Duke of Hamilton and several others, but Bolingbroke was not made a member of the order. This resulted in a fresh burst of ‘outrageous expressions’ from Bolingbroke.54
Bolingbroke vented some of his anger on his fellow Secretary, Lord Dartmouth. He remorselessly bullied his colleague, treating him ‘in so rough a manner’ that Dartmouth was on the verge of quitting. However, after the Queen declared she would be ‘very sorry’ to part with Dartmouth, ‘for I believe him an honest man and I think it would be prejudicial to my service’, matters were smoothed over. By mid November the two Secretaries had reached an understanding, with Bolingbroke back in charge of communications with France.55
By the end of October 1712, Louis XIV had accepted that he could not obtain peace on such favourable terms as he had hoped. Instructions drawn up on 25 October/5 November for the Duc d’Aumont, named as French ambassador to England, stated that the poor state of Anne’s health raised concerns that negotiations would be broken off in the event of her death, and for that reason the King had decided to ‘abandon his just demand to have Tournai’. Another favourable development occurred the following day, when Philip V formally signed his renunciation of the French crown, now couched in a form acceptable to Britain. When confirmation arrived of this Anne wrote cheerfully to Oxford, ‘I think one may reasonably hope now the great work of the peace is in a fair way of coming to a happy conclusion’.56
To finalise details it was necessary to send an ambassador to negotiate directly with the French. There was shock when the Duke of Hamilton was selected for the task, for there was ‘not a man more obnoxious in the whole kingdom for the suspicion of a favourite of the Pretender’. Oxford probably chose him because he wanted the Duke to persuade the Scots representative peers to support the government in Parliament, but his appointment occasioned ‘melancholy speculations’ in those already fearful for the Protestant succession. As for the Jacobites, they engaged in wild fantasies that Hamilton had official instructions to conclude an agreement with the Pretender. It is true that the Duke of Hamilton had sought the Pretender’s permission before accepting the post of ambassador, but it is highly doubtful that he would have exerted himself further to advance James’s cause. In January 1712 he had written to the Pretender’s Secretary of State, Lord Middleton, stating that while the Queen was saddened by her brother’s misfortunes, her sympathy was lessened by his ‘imbibing tenets repugnant to her people’.57
Hamilton had delayed setting off for France because he was awaiting a favourable outcome to a bitter lawsuit he was engaged in against the Whig Lord Mohun. The Queen had done her best to hasten him on his way, but just when the Duke was on the point of departure, Mohun challenged him to a duel. On 15 November both men died after a dawn encounter in Hyde Park. A witness claimed that the fatal sword thrust against Hamilton had been delivered not by Mohun, but by his second, the Whig General Macartney, one of the officers Anne had cashiered from the army in late 1710. Macartney was already odious in the Queen’s eyes, and she had no doubt of his guilt. She took a keen interest in the manhunt for him, and was disappointed when Macartney escaped abroad. Tories alleged that the Whigs had masterminded Hamilton’s murder in order to obstruct the peace, while the Pretender was downcast, telling Torcy, ‘We have all lost a good friend in the poor Du
ke of Hamilton’.58
In late 1712 the Duke of Marlborough decided to leave England after being harried by the ministry for much of the year. At a Cabinet meeting in April Marlborough’s alleged malpractice had been discussed, and Dartmouth had been ordered to inform the Attorney General that ‘the Queen would have him prosecuted according to the desire of the House’. However, after receiving legal advice that proceedings against Marlborough were unlikely to be productive, the ministry thought again. It was easier to try and ‘cover him with eternal infamy in the mind of the people’ by publishing unpleasant articles dwelling on his cheating. This had such an effect that at a performance of Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer in July 1712 the audience clapped and cheered when a song was sung satirising Marlborough’s avarice. Marlborough’s daughter, the Duchess of Montagu, who happened to be present, ‘blushed scarlet’.59
In August it was reported that an action was being brought in the Exchequer to force Marlborough to return sums he had misappropriated. All building at Blenheim had been stopped and there was also talk of obliging the Duke to reimburse some of the previous construction costs. It is possible that over the next few months Oxford came to ‘a kind of composition’ with Marlborough, indicating that proceedings against him would be dropped if he went overseas.60
Anne was pleased by Marlborough’s decision to go abroad, describing it as ‘prudent in him’, but the Duke was ‘denied the favour of paying his personal duty to the Queen’ prior to his departure on 25 November.61 Sarah would join him on the Continent early the following year. Neither would ever see the Queen again.
Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion Page 67
