On 27 July the Queen went ahead with Oxford’s dismissal, ‘teased into it’, in the opinion of Lord Berkeley, just as she had earlier been prodded into removing Godolphin. Yet she betrayed little sign of regret when she announced in Cabinet ‘the reasons of her parting with him, viz, that he neglected all business; that he was seldom to be understood; that when he did explain himself, she could not depend upon the truth of what he said; that he never came to her at the time she appointed; that he often came drunk; that last, to crown all, he behaved himself towards her with ill manner, indecency and disrespect’.93
Anne’s irritation with Oxford had only been increased by the way he had avoided her for the last few days, inventing ‘shifts and excuses’ for staying away. Accordingly she informed him of her decision in a letter that reached him at eleven in the morning of 27 July. At two that afternoon she granted him a brief meeting, at which, according to his brother, she treated him graciously. By appointment he returned to Kensington at 8 p.m. to hand over his staff of office, and remained with her for three quarters of an hour. At this last encounter he strove to unsettle her, hoping that even if he could not avert his dismissal, he could ensure that she brought him back after a brief time in the wilderness. He told her she should not have deprived him of his office until she had named the Treasury commissioners to replace him, a shrewd point that shook her. It is probable that he also repeated that Bolingbroke was a Jacobite, for, within hours, he would inform Baron Bothmer that he could prove that the Secretary was working in the Pretender’s interests. Certainly he warned Anne against trusting Marlborough, declaring that the former Captain-General was returning only to betray her and cause civil unrest. To this the Queen ‘answered very little’.94
Troubled by what Oxford had said to her, Anne was still more upset by an unpleasant scene that took place when he emerged from his audience. The Queen had earlier insisted to Hamilton that, contrary to rumour, Oxford’s dismissal had nothing to do with his blocking grants to Abigail, observing that ‘if he said so, he was very ungrateful to Lady Masham’. Undoubtedly, however, Oxford was consumed with bitterness at his downfall. As he came out he encountered Lord Chancellor Harcourt and Lady Masham, and ‘strong words passed between them, which reached the Queen’s ears’. He told Harcourt, ‘My Lord, I found you a poor rascal and by my means you became rich and great, but by God I’ll … make you again what you was at first. I go out an honest man, but you stay in a rogue’. Deeply distressed to hear the fallen minister shouting that ‘he had been wronged and abused by lies and misrepresentations; but that he should be revenged, and leave some people as low as he found them’, the Queen later told her physicians and attendants, ‘She should not outlive it’.95
Bolingbroke, meanwhile, was exultant at having triumphed over his rival, and did not mind that, rather than giving him Oxford’s place, the Queen had decided to place the Treasury in commission. He was satisfied that he would be the effective leader of a new government, even if the administration’s shape remained unclear. Earlier that day he had dined with several Whig politicians, but it is hard to say what he hoped to achieve by this. It is improbable that he contemplated offering them places, but perhaps he thought that establishing friendly links with them would make it easier for him to gain the support of Hanoverian Tories. At any rate, the meeting was a failure. They made various unacceptable demands, including that Marlborough should be put back at the head of the armed forces.96 If Bolingbroke had already reached an understanding with Marlborough, as some people thought, it is odd he felt unable to fulfil this condition.
After the Queen’s audience with Oxford had ended, a Cabinet meeting was held to discuss the composition of the Treasury commission. Still disturbed by what Oxford had said to her, Anne was prey to ‘uneasy suspicions … of being abused and deluded’. The proceedings in Cabinet, which went on till two in the morning, did nothing to reassure her. They were ‘particularly heated’, and by the end those present had managed to choose only one of the five commissioners who were to run the Treasury.97
Since her brief illness in May, the Queen had been in relatively good health, and as recently as 9 July there was comment upon how well she looked as she prorogued Parliament. Nevertheless, the anxiety of the last few weeks had taken its toll. Baron Bothmer noted, ‘She had followed every phase of the ministerial feud with the personal interest with which she … always followed matters of state, and this had brought her into a state of constant emotional turmoil, which damaged her body no less than her spirit’.98
Being in no doubt that stress adversely affected her physical condition, her doctors were fearful that the intense disquiet that had lately oppressed her would have dangerous consequences. Both Hamilton and Dr Arbuthnot believed that mental strain accounted for the onset of her final illness, with Arbuthnot stating categorically that ‘the last troublesome scene of contention among her servants’ shortened her life. Abigail and Bolingbroke unhesitatingly put the blame on Oxford, but their own behaviour had indisputably added to Anne’s worries. A Prussian diplomat later remarked that it was fortunate for the future of the British monarchy that the Electoral Prince had stayed away from England, as otherwise everyone would have said he was responsible for Anne’s collapse.99
On 28 July her condition began giving rise to concern. She had slept very little the previous night, was in low spirits, and had lost her appetite. She also had what Dr Shadwell considered a worryingly high pulse rate. Yet she was granted no rest, for that evening she attended another Cabinet meeting, which again went on till late. When it finished, there was still no agreement as to who should be appointed to the Treasury commission. More worryingly still, the Queen had embarrassed those present by asking the same question three times in quick succession, apparently unaware she was repeating herself.100
That night she again slept badly, and the next morning seemed more dispirited than ever. She had several nosebleeds, was flushed, and had trembling hands, as well as feeling ‘a dozing heaviness and a shooting pain in her head’. Accordingly the scheduled Cabinet meeting was cancelled, and she was cupped, which she preferred to being bled.101
On the morning of 30 July, she showed some improvement. However, when she was having her head combed by her long-serving dresser, Mrs Danvers, the waiting woman noticed her staring fixedly at the clock. Mrs Danvers asked if she felt all right, and was horrified when the Queen turned to her ‘with a dying look’. Her physicians were summoned and ordered her to be blooded, whereupon the Queen became more alert. Hearing a commotion outside, ‘she asked what the matter was’. She was told, ‘The Lady Masham, being informed of her Majesty’s indisposition, had fainted away’, and was being carried to her apartment.102
The Queen then suffered a convulsion, and for the next three hours was ‘speechless, motionless and insensible’. The doctors initially identified this as ‘a fit of apoplexy’, or what is now called a stroke, almost certainly a correct diagnosis. Lupus sufferers have a heightened risk of stroke, being vulnerable to inflammation in the arteries of the brain and its surrounding tissues. Alternatively, a stroke could have been caused by a blood clot in one of the brain’s arteries. Later her physicians revised their view regarding the nature of her last illness, deciding that a ‘violent agitation of the Queen’s spirits’ had caused a ‘translation of the gouty humour from the knee and the foot, first upon the nerves and then upon the brain’, with fatal results.103
The Duchess of Ormonde was in waiting at Kensington that morning, and at once alerted her husband that the Queen was seriously ill. He and his fellow Lords of the Committee rushed to Kensington, where Lord Harcourt entered her closet and ‘to his thinking saw her dead in a chair, with her ladies and physicians about that’. He approached the comatose figure, but she gave no sign of recognition. When he rejoined his colleagues they agreed they must nominate a new Lord Treasurer, for if Oxford was not replaced he would be entitled to serve as one of the Regents charged with overseeing the handover of power.104 They unanimously agreed
that the Duke of Shrewsbury was the best choice.
Hearing that the Queen had recovered consciousness, the ministers went in and informed her of their decision. She indicated she approved and, as she handed Shrewsbury his staff of office, she reportedly bade him to ‘use it for the good of her people’. Whether she was capable of articulating these words may be doubted: one account notes that after coming to, the Queen had ‘her understanding perfect, but from that time answered nothing but aye and no’. A courtier heard she was too weak to give Shrewsbury his staff unaided, ‘my Lord Chancellor holding her hand to direct it to the Duke’.105
For the rest of the day the Queen drifted in and out of consciousness, while the physicians subjected her to the usual deeply unpleasant treatments. As well as enduring ‘bleeding, vomiting and blistering’, the Queen had her head shaved so that hot irons could be applied. Garlic was placed on her feet, and her soles were blistered all over. When, towards evening, she complained of the pain this caused her, it was considered an excellent sign.106
The Queen at least derived some comfort from the presence of the Duchess of Somerset, or so Hamilton thought. He was impressed by ‘the soft courteous way of the Duchess’s speaking to the Queen, and her Majesty’s look and motion of her face in receiving it, though so ill’. Although the Queen did not utter a word, he could see the ‘solid inward satisfaction’ her Groom of the Stole’s attentions afforded her.107
Whether Lady Masham provided her mistress with comparable support is not clear. One person heard that on 30 July she ‘left the Queen for three hours to go and ransack for things at St James’s’. Another courtier was sceptical of this report, as he believed Abigail to be genuinely grief-stricken. On the other hand, the Mashams’ behaviour the previous December gives some credence to the story. At seven o’clock on Christmas morning, only hours after Anne had fallen dangerously ill, Samuel Masham had woken up the Clerk of the Signet Office with a request to make out his patent as a Remembrancer to the Exchequer, a post worth £1,500 a year.108
Having possibly had another stroke about three in the afternoon of 30 July, Anne continued all that night ‘in a kind of lethargic dozing’. Next morning all the physicians despaired of her life. As a last resort, they invited Dr Radcliffe to Kensington but he excused himself, not wanting to be saddled with the blame for her death. He said that apart from the fact he was ill himself, he knew she would not want him there. This earned him the fury of many people, who wrongly believed he could have saved her life.109
A little later on 31 July, the Queen briefly rallied. She took some broth and asked those at the bedside to pray for her. Her pulse picked up, giving her doctors some hope, ‘but this was but the flash of a dying light’. She died at seven-thirty in the morning of Sunday 1 August without having been able to receive communion from John Robinson, Bishop of London, who, throughout her final hours, had been waiting to administer the sacrament.110
As the Queen neared her end, executive power was wielded by the Privy Council. All the current ministers served on this, and they were joined by former colleagues such as the Dukes of Argyll and Somerset. They kept Baron Bothmer informed of Anne’s condition, and on 31 July invited him to bring in the black box containing the list of Regents nominated by the Elector. To ensure that everything went smoothly, the Councillors ‘sat … all day and night, taking it by turns to go out and refresh themselves’.111
In the last months of Anne’s life, Whig soldiers such as James Stanhope, who feared that the Jacobites would try to seize power if she became terminally ill, had taken a series of precautions. An ‘Association’ had been formed to purchase arms, and its members were pledged to take action at the least sign of Jacobite aggression. The Whig drinking society, the Kit Cat Club, had also arranged that a Major-General in the Foot Guards would ‘seize the Tower upon the first appearance of danger’. In Scotland, similar steps had been taken by supporters of the Protestant Succession.112
All these measures turned out to be unnecessary, as nothing occurred to impede George Ludwig’s accession. To be on the safe side the Council called out the militia, put the fleet on alert, and asked the States General to stand by to send military aid. Ports were closed, Catholics’ weapons were confiscated, and the heralds instructed to hold themselves in readiness to proclaim King George. No one created any difficulties. The Duke of Buckingham, whom the French had believed would be the first to welcome the Pretender, fulsomely assured Baron Bothmer that every care was being taken to secure his master’s succession. Bolingbroke sought to outdo all his colleagues in expressing loyalty towards the new King, and within days of Anne’s death both he and the Duke of Ormonde cautioned the French envoy Iberville that the Pretender must do nothing to endanger the kingdom’s repose.113
One observer remarked, ‘I think to contemplate my Lord Bolingbroke’s fortune would cure ambition’, since what had seemed a glittering future now lay in ruins. Bolingbroke himself wrote ruefully, ‘What a world is this, and how does fortune banter us! … I have lost all by the death of the Queen but my spirit’. Proclaiming himself ‘pierced with pain’ at the demise of his royal mistress, he told Iberville that had she lived but six weeks longer, ‘things would have been put in such a state that there would have been nothing to fear from what has just happened’.114 In reality it is far from certain how his administration would have fared. He had struggled to find suitable men to serve in the ministry, and it is doubtful how much support they would have commanded when Parliament mounted an enquiry into Bolingbroke’s business affairs.
While Anne’s life seeped away the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough were being tossed about at sea. When their yacht entered Dover harbour on the morning of 1 August, a messenger came on board and informed them she had died. A few days later Marlborough entered London in what many people considered distasteful pomp. His coach was preceded by servants shouting, ‘Behold your liberator, behold the restorer of national glory!’ A cheeky butcher called out that Marlborough came too late, as the country already had a new monarch.115
George I was proclaimed King in London at two in the afternoon of 1 August. Iberville heard there were few cheers. On the other hand, the crowd displayed marked hostility towards Oxford and Bolingbroke, who were both present. The two men were hissed and halters thrown through their coach windows to symbolise the fate they deserved.116
The Queen had made no mention of her half brother on her deathbed and, now she was gone, his prospects could not have been more bleak. It was unfortunate for him that when she became ill, the Duke of Berwick was absent at the siege of Barcelona, but probably this did not make much difference, for the French were not prepared to offer their royal protégé any help. As soon as he heard his sister was dead, James rushed to Paris incognito, but Louis XIV refused to see him. Torcy was instructed ‘to persuade him to return from whence he came’, and to intimate that if he did not go voluntarily, ‘they should be … obliged to compel him’. Back in Lorraine, the young man wrote to Torcy that he was devastated that all was quiet in Great Britain, ‘but since that is so, patience is the sole resource’.117
A draft will of the Queen’s was found, drawn up a couple of years earlier, but never finalised. Although it contained a series of bequests, the names had been left blank. She did leave £2,000 to the poor, and George I honoured this, despite being under no legal obligation to do so. Apparently the Queen had been wrongly told that to validate her will, she had to have it sealed by the Lord Chancellor, and had never summoned up the energy to do this. This was particularly disappointing for Lady Masham, whose financial situation was assumed to be ‘deplorable’. The Duchess of Somerset fared better, for as Groom of the Stole tradition entitled her to a share of the Queen’s property. According to the Duchess of Marlborough, the Duchess of Somerset asserted her right to a pair of valuable pendant earrings she claimed to have been in Anne’s pocket when she died. The matter was resolved in December 1714 when she was awarded £3,000 ‘in consideration of her relinquishing certain goods, plate and
other things of the late Queen’.118
Every effort was made to locate a more satisfactory will, but the search yielded nothing other than a mysterious sealed bundle of papers. Bolingbroke had earlier spoken of this to Iberville, claiming that the Queen always slept with it under her pillow. Despite speculation that it contained letters from the Pretender, there is no reason to think so. Written on the packet in the Queen’s own hand was a request to burn it unopened after her death. After consulting Bothmer, the Lords of the Regency carried out her wishes.119
There was huge relief that predictions of civil unrest had proved so wide of the mark. One person commented, ‘The event of the Queen’s death was generally expected to be attended with confusion; nothing like it has occurred’. Daniel Malthus noted joyfully on 6 August that ‘a dark cloud which I feared hung over our heads seems to be blown over’, while Bolingbroke wrote in wonderment, ‘Sure there never was yet so quiet a transition from one government to another’. The sense that the country had escaped lightly meant there was little sadness at Anne’s passing. Indeed, when it had been prematurely reported on 31 July that she had died, the news was welcomed and stocks had risen. Sir John Perceval argued, ‘This could not be upon her Majesty’s account, for all the world must have loved her’, but the feeling that a great cataclysm had been averted explained the buoyant mood. Even known Jacobites made no demonstration in favour of the Pretender. Instead ‘They contented themselves with showing regret for the Queen without any sign of affection for him, happy to be safeguarded from civil war’.120
Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion Page 73
