The Queen rejected Oxford’s offer of resignation and instead patched up a reconciliation ‘on certain conditions’ between the Secretary and Treasurer on 24 March. According to Bolingbroke it was agreed that the Queen ‘would now take steps through himself, Harcourt, and Ormonde to purge the government and armed forces of the Whigs’. When Oxford and Bolingbroke together attended a Tory meeting in early April, they put on a united front, with those present being assured that ‘the Queen was determined to proceed in the interests of the Church’. Bolingbroke nevertheless remained watchful for signs of backsliding on Oxford’s part. A week later some Tories complained to the Secretary that too many of their political opponents still held places, whereupon ‘Lord Bolingbroke swore it was not his fault and that … if there was one Whig in employment at the rising of this session he would give anyone leave to spit in his face’.43
Bolingbroke had hoped to outflank his rival by capturing Tory support, but Oxford believed he had the advantage of the Secretary in one important respect. He was confident the Queen had faith in his ability to keep relations with Hanover on an even keel, and that she would not lightly entrust the management of such matters to anyone else. Determined to demonstrate his mastery of the question, in the spring of 1714 he sent his cousin Thomas Harley on a new mission to Hanover. Harley was empowered to offer the Electress Sophia a pension, albeit one which came out of the Queen’s Civil List, rather than being sanctioned by a parliamentary grant. Besides this Anne volunteered to do anything ‘consistent with her honour, her safety and the laws’ to safeguard the succession.44
By this time Parliament had reassembled. In her speech at the opening of the session on 2 March, the Queen complained about the excesses of the press, singling out as ‘the height of malice’ printed attacks that insinuated ‘that the Protestant succession in the House of Hanover is in danger under my government’. This was a reference to a work by the Whig MP Richard Steele, entitled The Crisis, dwelling at length on the threat posed by the Pretender. Steele had earlier annoyed the government by writing another vitriolic piece in which he addressed the Queen, according to Mrs Delarivier Manley, in the manner ‘an imperious planter at Barbados speaks to a Negro slave’.45 Now the ministry took steps to disable this vociferous critic, and on 18 March Steele was expelled from the House of Commons. Yet it proved something of an own-goal for the ministry, as during the debate the Whig Robert Walpole defended Steele on the grounds that his concerns had been well founded, instilling further doubts in the mind of some Hanoverian Tories as to whether their leaders could be trusted.
In other respects Parliament proved mutinous and hard to control. The problem of managing it was made worse because Oxford and Bolingbroke were distracted by their personal vendetta. Swift compared the pair to ‘a ship’s crew quarrelling in a storm’, oblivious to their true danger.46
The ministry’s difficulties began with demands in both Houses on 17 May that the Queen should apply pressure on the Duke of Lorraine, forcing the Pretender to leave his dominions. The Whigs next called for a debate on the plight of the Catalans. The Queen’s treatment of her former allies had indeed been shameful, for Bolingbroke had persuaded her that the Catalans had been unreasonable in rejecting the amnesty offered them by Philip V. Instead of exerting herself to secure them their ancient privileges, she had resolved ‘to punish them for their insolence’ in committing acts of piracy in the Mediterranean.47 The navy had been sent to blockade Barcelona, currently under siege on its landward side from French and Spanish forces.
Oxford secured the ministry a breathing space by obtaining a ten-day adjournment over Easter, ‘to be set apart for works of piety’, but it was no more than a temporary reprieve. Instead of spending the recess planning how to repel the impending Whig onslaught, Oxford was largely preoccupied by his attempts to resign. The Whigs used the time more productively, striking a deal with some prominent Hanoverian Tories, who agreed to join them in attacking the ministry.48
On 2 April the Catalan situation was debated, and three days later the ministry was ‘torn to pieces, tooth and nail’ on a variety of other issues. The peace was attacked and ‘no quarter given’ to those responsible for it, with Bishop Burnet stating that the Treaty of Utrecht was ‘founded on perfidy’. The ministry was fortunate that the subject had ‘been so sifted for two years past’ that a majority was still prepared to vote that the peace was honourable and advantageous.49
The government fared worse when the question whether the Protestant Succession was in danger was formally posed in the Lords. The ministry succeeded in adding the words ‘under her Majesty’s administration’, ignoring complaints that this was being done ‘only to screen an ill ministry by bringing the Queen into the question’. In the view of one person the debate was ‘the warmest perhaps that ever was known’, with Lord Anglesey being particularly intemperate. He said the ministers ‘all deserved to be sent to the Tower, and he would willingly charge himself with conducting them there’. When the vote was taken, the ministry squeaked home by the narrow majority of twelve, ‘in reality a kind of defeat’ that prompted the Earl of Wharton to jeer, ‘Lord T, you carried it by your dozen’. It was particularly disturbing for the ministers that William Dawes, who had been named Archbishop of York in February, following the death of Archbishop Sharp, voted in support of the motion. With only three exceptions, all the bishops present followed his example, evidently fearing that a Popish monarch was about to be imposed upon them. The French envoy Iberville commented, ‘Affairs are becoming so embittered that civil war looks inevitable in England’.50
The ministry was subjected to more punishment when the opposition demanded that the Queen place a price on the Pretender’s head. Initially the Whigs wanted a reward given to anyone who brought him in ‘dead or alive’, but fears that the Queen would deem this offensive led to the wording being modified, so that money was offered simply for his apprehension if he landed in Great Britain. It was also conceded that the Queen need not issue a proclamation unless she judged it timely, but even in this form the request placed her in a dilemma. A supporter of Oxford’s noted it was bound to make her ‘more uneasy’ than any address previously presented to her, ‘for she has no inclination to do it, and yet if she does not it will be construed by some to proceed from a favourable disposition towards’ her brother. Oxford believed she should respond in as conciliatory a manner as possible, but in the event Anne dealt sharply with the matter. She not only declared that at present she saw no necessity to issue such a proclamation, but stated that in her view the House of Hanover would be better served if ‘an end were put to those groundless fears and jealousies which have been so industriously promoted’.51
When this message was delivered to the House of Lords, the Earl of Wharton declared himself ‘afflicted to the last degree with this unkind answer’. Suggesting that it had been prompted by ‘some bold whisperer’, he nearly procured another address obliging Anne to issue a proclamation without delay. Although in the end the Queen was spared this, the Hanoverian Resident Schutz noted that her response had confirmed the Whigs in their belief that everything was lost ‘if matters were allowed to continue in that condition’.52
The Queen’s speech to Parliament on 2 March had made it clear that she remained as implacably opposed as ever to permitting a member of the Electoral family to come to England. She was against the idea not merely because she correctly foresaw that the presence of an heir would cause her great difficulties, but because it might actually undermine the established succession. Anne told Sir David Hamilton that if, as some people desired, the Electoral Prince came over, ‘his hot temper he was said to have would injure him’. She was not alone in thinking this, for the French envoy Iberville noted that if the Prince behaved as rudely as he had to the allies during the siege of Lille, it could only benefit the Pretender.53
The Whigs did not dare to move an address calling for the Electoral Prince to come to England, but they pressed Schutz to take action, assuring him that ot
herwise there was no hope for the Protestant Succession. The Electress Sophia had given Schutz somewhat ambiguous instructions, ordering him to make enquiries why her grandson had never been accorded a writ of summons to attend Parliament, and Schutz decided this authorised him to demand the immediate issue of such a writ. Accordingly on 12 April he presented himself at the Lord Chancellor’s door and made his wishes known. Well aware of Anne’s likely reaction, Harcourt ‘changed colour’ and said he would have to refer the matter to the Queen.54
That evening an emergency Cabinet meeting was held that went on from 8 p.m. till midnight. Oxford noted ‘I never saw her Majesty so much moved in my life’ at finding herself ‘treated with scorn and contempt’. She expressed the conviction that Schutz had not only acted without orders from Hanover, but had allowed himself to be manipulated by ‘angry people here’, and that the entire proceeding ‘slighted her authority’. It enraged her that her frequent avowals of friendship for Hanover had been dismissed as insufficient, and that Schutz had not even done her the courtesy of applying directly to her. She wanted to reject the demand outright, and Bolingbroke supported her, but Oxford argued that there were no legal grounds to withhold a writ that had been requested by a peer of the realm.55 After the Queen reluctantly accepted this, it was agreed that the writ would be handed over, but on the understanding that the Electoral Prince must not make use of it. Schutz had to slink out of England in disgrace after a message was sent to Hanover demanding his recall.
On 13 April Oxford sent an express to Thomas Harley in Hanover, making clear the gravity of the situation. He warned it would be ‘stark madness’ in the Electoral Prince to defy the Queen by taking up his seat in the Lords. ‘If the world should get it in their heads that a Queen so much beloved is hardly used, God knows what may be the consequence’, he cautioned. The Lord Treasurer also wrote to an adviser of George Ludwig, insisting that the Electoral family had nothing to fear since ‘Lady Masham the Queen’s favourite is entirely for their succession. I am also sure the Queen is so’. He repeated that the only thing that could prejudice the dynasty’s position would be an attempt ‘to bring … any of them over without the Queen’s consent’.56
At this point Oxford was strengthened by the imbroglio, for he was careful to tell the Queen that Schutz had been provoked by the ‘too violent conduct of mylord Bolingbroke’, and that this had prompted him to make his move. By late April the Dutch diplomat l’Hermitage believed that Oxford had ‘regained the ascendant with the Queen and even the favourite [Lady Masham] by showing that [Bolingbroke] was ruining everything with his hasty and arrogant ways’.57
The news of Schutz’s writ request had swiftly become ‘the talk of the town’. Such was the current alarm about the perilous state of the succession that the prospect of the Electoral Prince’s arrival was welcomed, and soon ‘bells were ringing … and healths drunk to his good journey’. In Parliament, the opposition were heartened by the affair, as was shown on 15 April, when the Commons held their own debate as to whether the succession was in danger. Although the ministry once again secured a majority, the debate revealed that many of their natural supporters were genuinely worried by the situation. The widely respected Sir Thomas Hanmer made a speech that attracted much notice, saying that he quite understood why there was such concern on the subject. One Tory commented, ‘As Pyrrhus said, many such victories will ruin us’.58
By 19 April Oxford was uncomfortably aware that it was now widely believed ‘that her Majesty, Lady Masham and her Majesty’s chief servants are against the Protestant Succession’, and he urged the Queen to have private chats with bishops and peers who were known to be fearful on this score. The Queen complied, and Lord Anglesey and the Archbishop of York were among those summoned to see her towards the end of April. She told Archbishop Dawes that she did not recognise James for her brother, and that she could hardly do for him what she had denied her own father. According to the Hanoverian envoy Kreienberg, her words had little effect, for ‘this prelate cannot reconcile all this with what he himself and everyone sees’.59
In a further bid to ease disquiet, the Queen wrote on 30 April to the Duke of Lorraine, requesting that he cease harbouring the Pretender. Oxford, meanwhile, was hoping to ingratiate himself with Hanover by ensuring that the arrears owed to the Elector’s soldiers were paid. He had arranged for his brother, who chaired the Commons finance committee, to include this provision as an article of the supply bill, and he put it about that the Queen approved. However, on learning this, Bolingbroke insisted that she was against paying the arrears. When one peer questioned this, the Secretary ‘said if he would go along with him to the Queen he should hear it from herself that it was not her desire’. He then summoned a meeting of Tories and told them a proposal so ‘inexcusable to the Queen’ could not just be nodded through. On 12 May a debate was held on the matter and payment of the arrears was not authorised. Bolingbroke laughingly told the French envoy Iberville that he knew Oxford would never forgive him, and soon afterwards it was reported that the two men were quarrelling worse than ever.60
In the first week of May the Queen’s health had given fresh cause for concern. She had another bout of fever, and the infection on her leg was proving so persistent that there were even fears it might turn gangrenous. Her psychological state made matters worse, for her dread of the Electoral Prince’s arrival preyed on her mind to such an extent that there were physical repercussions. Marlborough’s former Quartermaster General, Cadogan, reported to one of the Elector’s ministers, ‘She sleeps little and eats nothing and she is in such dreadful anxiety that her mind suffers no less than her body’.61
Her fever soon died down and the pain in her thigh subsided, but there was little balm for the Queen’s troubled spirit. On 26 April/7 May the Elector and his mother had handed Thomas Harley an uncompromising memorandum that showed no regard whatever for the Queen’s sensibilities. Besides demanding that the Pretender be forced to move to Italy and that the Electress should have a pension bestowed on her by Parliament, they stated that it was essential that a member of the Electoral family should take up residence in England.62
Kreienberg gave a copy of this document to Oxford on 18 May, no longer leaving grounds to hope that Hanover would voluntarily defer to the Queen’s wishes. Though grievously disappointed, Anne responded robustly. On 19 May she wrote a trio of fierce letters to Sophia, George Ludwig, and the Electoral Prince. To the Electress she said she had assumed Sophia would never lend herself to the project to establish a prince of her blood in England, which could only be a boon to ‘disaffected persons’. George Ludwig received a similar admonition, while the sharpest rebuke of all was reserved for the Electoral Prince, whom she castigated, ‘As the opening this matter ought to have been first to Me, so I expected you would not have given ear to it without knowing before my thoughts about it’.63
When these letters arrived, Sophia was shaken to the core. ‘This affair will make me ill; it will prove the death of me’, she lamented. Nevertheless, she made no effort to hush up the scandal, and instead ‘wrote very moaningly to several’ about what had happened. She also forwarded copies to the Duchess of Marlborough, with a hint that they deserved a wider circulation.64
On 28 May/8 June, only days after receiving Anne’s letter, the eighty-three-year-old Electress went on one of her famously strenuous evening walks. As usual her attendants were struggling to keep up with the energetic old lady as she strode at high speed through her gardens at Herrenhausen, when she suddenly collapsed and died. Inevitably many people believed that shock at Anne’s stern words had brought about her demise.
When the news arrived in England, the Queen dismissed Sophia’s death as ‘chipping porridge’, a slang term meaning ‘of no consequence’. Her view seemed vindicated when the Elector sent another letter to Oxford reiterating all the demands expressed in his recent memorandum. He also announced that he would send Baron Bothmer to England on a diplomatic mission, knowing well that both Queen and ministry
detested him.65
These latest developments had left Oxford floundering. The Queen felt that he had failed her by his inability to persuade the Elector to heed her wishes, and on 7/18 June the diplomat l’Hermitage reported, ‘Today, appearances are against the Lord Treasurer’. Worse still, Bolingbroke and Lady Masham had succeeded in implanting in her mind the suspicion that the entire writ affair had been ‘a contrivance of the Treasurer’s’. Bolingbroke advanced the theory that Oxford had secretly encouraged the Hanoverian demand in hopes of impressing the Queen with the skilful way he handled it, but that this had exploded in his face.66
Fearing that his rival was drawing ahead of him, Oxford thought to save himself by an accommodation with the Whigs. He sent messages via his brother that he was interested in doing a deal with them, and sedulously put it about that Bolingbroke was a Jacobite. He was aided by the indiscreet remarks Bolingbroke let fall when ‘carried away by merriment, as often happened’. The Duchess of Marlborough heard that Oxford was now ‘going about with tears in his eyes … complaining of Lord B and his designs to bring in the P[rince] of W[ales]’, and Bolingbroke himself was alarmed that insinuations were being spread ‘that I leaned to … the Pretender’s cause’.67
Unfortunately for Oxford, the Whigs made it clear that they would not do business with him unless he showed his goodwill by bringing the Elector’s son to England. Oxford knew that if he did this, Anne would never forgive him. He struggled to convince the Whigs that he ‘would not be sorry that the Electoral Prince were here, although he is obliged to declare and to publish the contrary for fear of losing entirely the Queen’.68 While this did not satisfy the Whigs, his double dealing did not escape Bolingbroke’s attention, making it easier for the Secretary to persuade the Queen that Oxford was playing her false.
Another reason why Oxford’s negotiations with the Whigs did not advance was that he expressed himself so obliquely that they were unsure what he was offering them. After a meeting at which Oxford waffled in vague generalisations, Robert Walpole emerged baffled. When Bothmer arrived in England, Oxford sought to convince him he was trustworthy, but the diplomat reflected ‘One has always to count with his inscrutable duplicity and perfidy’. ‘Steeped in subtleties and incapable of correcting an attribute that was part of his nature’, Oxford failed to persuade anyone of his sincerity.69
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