Unfriendly relations had long existed between King George and the Czar, Peter the Great, that powerful and erratic genius, who by his personal merit laid the foundations of a great empire. He had made advances to France.
The Dutch were slow in deciding, but in October, 1716, the preliminaries of the treaty were signed by Stanhope and the Abbé Dubois only. On the 6th of January, 1717, the ratifications were finally exchanged at the Hague. "I signed at midnight," wrote Dubois, triumphantly, to the regent; "you are no longer a page, and I have no more fear." The treaty of the Triple Alliance gained for Dubois the office of secretary of foreign affairs. It disturbed the English ministry and disorganized momentarily the Whig party. Lord Townshend was hostile to the haste shown by Stanhope in concluding the treaty; his brother-in-law, Horace Walpole, had refused his signature. Court intrigues aggravated this discontent; the king, besides, was irritated against Lord Townshend and Robert Walpole, whom he regarded as favorable to his son. Always honest, often rude, and with but little tact, Lord Townshend believed he could obtain from George I. discretionary powers for the Prince of Wales. This rendered his fall inevitable. Even before his return to England, the king dismissed his minister, offering to him in exchange for his office, the vice-royalty of Ireland; but scarcely had the session opened, when the animosities became more aggravated, and the apparent reconciliations were broken off. Lord Townshend and Robert Walpole withdrew from public affairs. Lord Sunderland, as able, although not as corrupt as his father, became secretary of state; Addison, at the same time, was called to the ministry, and General Stanhope was appointed First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. In spite of the ministerial modifications, the power remained in the hands of the Whigs. "While there remain Whigs disposed to serve him, the king is decided to be served by the Whigs," wrote Stanhope, while yet in Hanover, with George I., "and I will not be the one to turn his Majesty from this good resolution, by refusing to take some trouble, or to expose myself to whatever peril may arise."
The ministry and England were at this epoch greatly disturbed by a new intrigue, organized in Europe, in favor of the Pretender. Spain was governed by Cardinal Alberoni, the crafty, ambitious, and bold Italian who had placed Elizabeth Farnese upon the throne with Philip V., and through her exercised the power. He had regulated the finances and industry, he had prepared a fleet and an army; "meditating," he said, "the peace of the world;" and he began this great enterprise, by maneuvres which could lead to nothing less than setting fire to the four corners of Europe, in the name of a feeble and dull king, and of a queen ambitious, artful, and unpopular, "whom he had locked up, carrying the key in his pocket," says St. Simon. He dreamed of establishing the empire of Spain in Italy, of disturbing the government of the regent in France, of overthrowing the Protestant king of England by re-establishing the Stuarts upon the throne, and of raising himself to the supreme power in Church and State. Already he had obtained from Pope Clement XI., the cardinal's hat, by concealing, under the pretext of war against the Turks, the preparations which he was making against Italy. Having remained neutral during the Jacobite insurrection of 1715, he entered into the projects of Görtz, a passionate intriguer, animated against King George by an ardent rancor, and using his influence upon the heroic madman who reigned in Sweden, in order to engage him also in the Jacobite plots. The alliance with the Czar, Peter the Great, was to advance the projects of the Chevalier. A first naval enterprise delivered Sardinia into the hands of Alberoni. The Spanish troops entered Sicily. The Emperor and Victor Amadeus were aroused; the Pope, overwhelmed by reproaches from these two princes, wept, according to his custom, saying that he had damned himself by raising Alberoni to the Roman purple. Dubois profited by the agitations created in Europe by the belligerant attitude of the all-powerful minister, to finally draw the emperor into the alliance with France and England. He renounced his pretensions to Spain and the Indies, and returned Sardinia to Savoy, receiving Sicily in return. The succession to the Duchies of Parma and of Tuscany was assured to the children of the Queen of Spain. The Quadruple Alliance seemed to promise peace to Europe; the Dutch and the Duke of Savoy reluctantly consented. France and England engaged to gain the consent of Spain by force of arms, if they were not able to obtain it peacefully within a certain time.
King George I. demanded from Parliament an increase of naval subsidies. A considerable fleet, under the orders of Admiral Bing, soon appeared in Spanish waters. Lord Stanhope departed for Madrid in order to support by negotiations the salutary effect of the presence of the English fleet. Neither the persuasions of the minister, nor the long line of ships presented by the admiral, acted upon the spirit of Alberoni. He tore up the paper which the admiral presented. "Execute the orders of the king your master," said he, angrily. Upon learning of the departure of Lord Stanhope, he had immediately written: "If my Lord Stanhope comes as a legislator, he may dispense with his journey. If he comes as a mediator, I will receive him; but in any case I inform him that at the first attack of our vessels by an English squadron, Spain has not an inch of ground where I would be willing to answer for his person."
Lord Stanhope had scarcely left Spain, when Admiral Bing, in conjunction with General Daun, who commanded for the emperor, attacked the Spanish fleet off Cape Passero. The Spaniards had recently taken possession of Palermo; Messina opened its gates to them. The Piedmontese garrison had crowded into the citadel, when the victory of the English and the destruction of the growing Spanish fleet suddenly changed the face of affairs. Messina delivered, and Palermo blockaded, without hope of succor, were to Cardinal Alberoni a mortal blow. Furious, he seized the persons and the goods of English residents in Spain, and drove out the consuls. Trumpeters were sent through the streets of Madrid, with orders to the people, forbidding any discussion regarding the affairs of Sicily.
The hope of a diversion in the north, favorable to the projects of the Jacobites, as well as those of Alberoni, was destroyed by the death of the King of Sweden, Charles XII., killed on the 12th of December, 1718, before Frederickshall.
Alberoni summoned the Pretender to Madrid. The conspiracy of Cellamare, absurd and frivolous, organized in Paris against the power of the regent, by the Spanish ambassador and the Duchess of Maine, was discovered by Dubois early in December, 1718. The declarations of war from France and England succeeded each other rapidly (Dec. 17, 1718, Jan. 9, 1719). At the same time King Philip V., by a proclamation, on the 25th of December, 1718, pronounced all his renunciations null and void, and claimed his rights to the crown of France upon the death of Louis XV. At the same time he made an appeal to the States-General against the tyranny of the Regent, who had allied himself, he said, to the enemies of both countries.
In England, as in France, Alberoni counted upon internal divisions and party animosities. The Pretender occupied the royal palace of Buen Retiro, at Madrid; the King and Queen of Spain visited him. A small squadron, secretly armed at Cadiz, put to sea, under the orders of the Duke of Ormond. Public anxiety in England was so great, that the government of King George accepted auxiliary forces sent by the emperor and the States-General. The regent offered troops, and sent to London all the information which he received. A reward was offered for the capture of the Duke of Ormond. Once more the sea protected the coast of England, and the king whom she had chosen. The Spanish flotilla was dispersed by a tempest; two frigates only, having on board Lord Keith, known in Europe under his hereditary title of Earl Marischal, Lord Seaforth, and the Marquis Tullibardine, landed upon the coast of Scotland, with three hundred Spanish soldiers. Some gentlemen joined them. The force of the rebels had increased to about two thousand men, when General Wightman marched against them. Some unimportant engagements were favorable to the rebels, but finally they were defeated. The Highlanders disappeared in the inaccessible recesses of their mountains; the Spaniards were taken prisoners and conducted to Edinburgh. The three leaders of the insurrection withdrew to the western isles, from where they soon embarked; the one to return some years later to Scotland (Lord Seaforth), another to die of grief in the Tower, after the insurrection of 1745 (Tullibardine), and the third to enter the service of the King of Prussia and to add his name to the diplomatic intrigues of Europe. Voltaire and Rousseau were in turn associated with Lord Marischal.
As usual, the humble partisans of the fallen house suffered bitterly for their blind fidelity. "I made a tour through the difficult passes of the country of Seaforth," wrote General Wightman, "and we terrified the rebels by burning the houses of the guilty, while we spared the peaceful subjects."
Alberoni, weary of the ill-fortune of the Stuarts, and of the useless burden that it imposed upon all those who desired to serve them, informed the Pretender that he should leave Madrid. His intended bride, the Princess Clementine Sobieski, recently arrested by order of the emperor, at the instigation of England, had escaped from her prison; James joined her at Rome, where their marriage was solemnized.
The war was brilliant, notwithstanding the deceptions with which Alberoni incessantly quieted his master. "The regent is able, whenever he desires, to send a French army," wrote the cardinal, on the 21st of November, 1718.
"Assure him publicly that he will not have a shot fired against him here, and that the king our master will have supplies ready for him." The army in fact entered Spain in March, 1719. The old Marshal Villars declined the honor of commanding against the grandson of Louis XIV. The Prince of Conti bore the title of general-in-chief. The Duke of Berwick, less scrupulous than Villars, accepted the effective functions; notwithstanding his former connection with Spain, the presence of his eldest son the Duke of Leria, in the Spanish ranks, and the services that Philip V. had just rendered to the head of the house of Stuart. Alberoni conducted the king, the queen, and the prince of Asturias to the camp. Philip V. expected the defection of the French army, en masse. No one moved; some refugees made an attempt with some officers; their messenger was hung. Fuenterabra, St. Sebastian, and the castle of Urgel soon fell into the hands of the French. Another division burned six vessels which were upon the docks. Everywhere the English brought ruin upon the Spanish navy. Their fleets, separate or united to the French, destroyed the Spanish vessels at Santona, at Centera, and in the port of Vigo; everywhere the magazines were delivered to the flames. This cruel and disastrous war against an enemy whose best troops were fighting at a distance, usefully served the passions as well as the interests of England.
"It is very necessary," wrote Berwick, "that the government be able to make the next Parliament believe that they have spared nothing in order to decrease the Spanish navy." During this time the English fleet, and the troops of the emperor, under the orders of the Count of Mercy, attacked the Spanish army in Sicily; it defended itself heroically, but was without resources, without reinforcements, and diminishing every day. After a momentary success at Franca Villa, the Marquis of Leyde held only Palermo and the environs of Etna.
An attempted insurrection, poorly seconded by some Spanish vessels, failed in Brittany. Three gentlemen and a priest perished upon the scaffold. "Never have I seen a plot more poorly organized," says Duclos, in his Memoirs; "many did not know what they were fighting for." The attempt of Alberoni to excite a revolt in England and France, did not succeed any better than the war in Spain or Sicily. The Spaniards were everywhere defeated, and the cardinal was vigorously attacked at home. He made overtures of peace at London and at Paris. Dubois wrote to Stanhope, who responded immediately: "We would commit a great error if we did not consolidate the peace by the overthrow of the minister who has caused the war. His insatiable ambition has been the only cause of hostilities; if he is compelled to accept the peace, he will yield momentarily to necessity, but with a confirmed resolution of seizing the first opportunity for vengeance. Thank God he does not know either what he can do or what he ought to attempt. He recognizes no other condition for peace than exhaustion and weakness; let us not leave him time to recover himself. Demand from the king that he be sent from Spain. No stipulation could be more advantageous for his Catholic Majesty and for his people. It is a good thing thus to give to Europe an example which may intimidate turbulent ministers, unfaithful to treaties, and who allow themselves to attack impudently the persons of princes."
Three months later, on the 4th of December, 1718, after a prolonged audience with Philip V., who had treated him with his usual kindness, Alberoni suddenly received an order to leave Madrid within eight days, and Spain within three weeks. No entreaty would induce the king or queen to see him. The cardinal retired at first to Genoa, and then to Rome, where he passed the remainder of his life, in the peaceful enjoyment of an immense fortune. The country which he had oppressed, but reanimated and served, soon fell into its former lethargy. "The queen is possessed with a devil," said he, in his retirement; "if she finds a soldier who has any resources of mind, and is a good general, she will cause an uproar in Europe." The queen did not find a general, and on the 17th of January, 1720, the preliminaries of peace were signed at the Hague. The definitive articles were not agreed upon until the 13th of June, 1721. In the interval, thanks to the union with France, England was enabled to put an end to the war with Sweden and Denmark. King George gained the Duchies of Bremen and of Verden, for which he had long entertained pretensions. Peter the Great alone remained in arms. Europe had at last gained the repose which she was to enjoy for many years.
The war had not suspended parliamentary struggles. In 1718, upon a sincerely liberal proposition of Lord Stanhope, the Acts of Schism and of Occasional Conformity were repealed by the Houses. The ministers desired to go further and amend the Test Act, in order to place the Dissenters upon a footing of legitimate religious equality with the members of the Anglican Church.
The bishops were divided upon the question. "We have already had much trouble," said Lord Sunderland; "but if we touch the Test, all will be lost." Lord Stanhope desired to include the Catholics; the day of liberty and justice for them had not yet arrived.
King George had just returned to London, after a recent voyage into Germany, when a bold proposition was made in the House of Lords. The peers had not yet forgotten the numerous creations hazarded by the Earl of Oxford in order to assure a majority to the court; the character of the Prince of Wales offered few guarantees, and the foreign favorites were eager for honors and distinctions. The thought was conceived of limiting the number of peers by restraining the royal prerogative. The king made no objection. "His Majesty has so strong a desire to establish the peerage of the realm upon a basis which will assure forever the constitutional liberty of Parliament," said Lord Stanhope, "that he consents not to hinder this great work by the exercise of his prerogative."
The discussion was long, animated, and many times resumed; the good judgment of the nation finally prevailed over the rancors of the past, and over the jealousies of the future. Adopted by the Lords, the bill was rejected in the House of Commons by a large majority. "The road to the temple of fame formerly passed through the temple of virtue," said Walpole; "this bill makes it necessary to arrive at honor through the winding sheet of an old decrepid lord, or the grave of an extinct noble family." It is the sole happiness of England, and one of the sources of her grandeur, as well as of her security, to have maintained upon the ancient bases a force in the state constantly renewed and liberally recruited by personal merit.
This check to the ministry was important; but a greater shock, which was to overthrow it and overwhelm the country in ruin, was preparing. At the same time that Paris and France were a prey to the fever for wild speculations, excited by the system of Law, England, for other reasons and from other pretexts, suffered an analogous contagion, accompanied by the same fatal results. The South Sea Company had been founded in 1711, by Harley. In guarantee for the payment of the national debt, important privileges had then been accorded to him. In 1719 the directors of the company proposed to liquidate the public debt in twenty-six years, upon condition that the different claims were to be concentrated in their hands, and that they would be supplied with new privileges as well as great latitude in their negotiations. The Bank of England disputed with the South Sea Company the honor and supposed profit of this enterprise, which was put up at auction. A bill of Parliament assured the monopoly to the company, which had engaged to pay seven and a half million sterling. In order to sustain this enormous burden, the directors plunged into the wildest speculations. Walpole had predicted the fatal effects, but without measuring the criminal folly of the leaders, and the stupid avidity of the followers. The shares of the company increased from one hundred and thirty to a thousand pounds sterling; while new societies were formed for the working of the most insane industries. Raising the wrecks upon the coast of Ireland, the freshening of the waters of the sea, the fabrication of the oil of turnsole, the importation of donkeys from Spain, the fattening of pork, formed simultaneously the objects of fictitious speculations, suddenly arrested at the instigation of the South Sea Company, jealous and anxious to concentrate upon their enterprise all the energy of the stock-jobbers. Exchange Alley became the rival of Quincampoix street; the greatest lords, the most delicate ladies; ecclesiastics elbowed merchants and servants, all hurrying to secure for themselves the new stocks put in circulation, and the fabulous profits which were expected from them. The Prince of Wales himself consented to become a director of the company for the working of copper mines in Wales. The intervention of the ministry was necessary to threaten the company with prosecution, before his royal highness would consent to withdraw with a profit of £40,000.
The edifice of Law, in France, began to totter; the ruin of the fictitious companies in England soon involved all reasonable and legitimate speculations. In a few weeks the stock of the South Sea Company fell below three hundred pounds sterling; the suddenness of the catastrophe seriously involved the English speculators. Everywhere families were ruined, fortunes the most solid were shaken, and character and reputations were lost. "The very name of the South Sea Company became odious," says a contemporary. In vain was Walpole, who had recently retired to his country house at Houghton, recalled to London to seek a remedy for the evils which he had foreseen; but the ruin was beyond his efforts and power. Public anger and indignation knew no bounds. The king, who was in Hanover, returned precipitately, and Parliament was convoked for the 8th of December. "I avow," said Lord Molesworth, to the House of Commons, "that the ordinary laws do not reach the directors of the South Sea Company, but extraordinary crimes call aloud for extraordinary remedies. The Roman lawgivers had not foreseen the possible existence of a parricide; but as soon as the first monster appeared, he was sewed in a sack and cast headlong into the Tiber; and I shall be content to inflict the same treatment on the authors of our present ruin."
The calm good sense of Walpole, as well as his prudent foresight, powerfully advanced his ascendancy in Parliament. He succeeded in controlling the unchained passions. "If London was on fire, wise men would endeavor to extinguish the flames before they sought the incendiaries. We have a matter of still greater urgency: to save the public credit." Able and wise measures had been presented to Parliament, but public vengeance was not satisfied; a thorough inquiry ended in the discovery of grave evidences of corruption and bribery. The discussions became so violent that the doors of the House were closed and the keys placed upon the table. The German favorites of the king, the Duchess of Kendal and the Countess of Platen, the Lord Treasurer, the Earl of Sunderland and Mr. Aislabie the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and many other inferior officers of the government, were found to be seriously compromised. A parliamentary quarrel between Lords Wharton and Stanhope agitated the latter so violently that he had an apoplectic fit and died the next day, to the great regret of the public who had never doubted his honesty.
The Secretary of State, Craggs, justly accused of having received a bribe from the directors of the company, died of the small pox; his father, the Postmaster-General, took poison. Aislabie was sent to the Tower, and the greater part of his property was confiscated. All the property of the directors was seized, and they were declared forever incapable of holding any public office or of sitting in Parliament. Lord Sunderland had lost considerable sums: "He is a dupe, but not an accomplice," scornfully said even his enemies. He was acquitted, but nevertheless could not preserve his power. Walpole succeeded him as first Lord of the Treasury. Sunderland died on the 17th of April, 1721, some weeks after the general elections, and two months before his illustrious father-in-law, the Duke of Marlborough.
Robert Walpole had finally attained the power which he was to exercise during twenty years, for the repose, if not always for the honor and moral grandeur of his country. Jealous of his authority, to the extent of removing from the circle about the king all those not his friends, and even those of his friends whom he could not control absolutely, he encountered, at the outset, the intrigues of the Jacobites, re-awakened by the general discontent and by the new aspirations which the birth of a son awakened in the Pretender.
A new expedition was prepared under the orders of the Duke of Ormond, and matured and directed from England by a council of five members who conducted the affairs of "King James III." The soul of this little clique was the Bishop of Rochester, Francis Atterbury, indefatigable in his zeal as well as inexhaustible in his resources; sincerely attached to the Protestant faith, but sacrificing all to his political passions, and more occupied in preparing for the landing of the invaders and in fomenting an insurrection during the absence of the king in Hanover, than in the care of his diocese. When the plot was discovered, the inferior agents were promptly arrested, and the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Orrery, and Lord North, at first imprisoned in the Tower, were soon released: the bishop remained gravely compromised. Walpole resolved to risk a trial. Among the accomplices a young barrister named Layer alone suffered the extreme penalty; the property of some others was confiscated; but public interest concentrated itself upon the bishop, who was kept in close confinement in the Tower.
Atterbury was eloquent and convincing; when he appeared before the House of Lords, all his efforts tended to prove that the testimony against him was forged. Walpole was compelled to defend himself: "A finer passage at arms between two such antagonists was never seen," said Onslow, the speaker of the House of Commons; "one fighting for his reputation, the other for his life." The evidence was overwhelming against the bishop; he had evidently conspired against a sovereign to whom he had sworn allegiance. His address was as eloquent as able. "I have suffered so much," said he, "that the little strength which I enjoyed at the time of my arrest, in the month of August last, has completely disappeared, and I am not in a state to appear before your lordships, still less to defend myself in an affair of so extraordinary a nature. I am accused of having conspired. What could I gain, my lords, by going thus out of my way? No man in my order is less urged by ambition for higher dignities of the Church. I have always scorned money; too much so, perhaps, for I may now need it. Could I have been drawn by a secret attraction towards papacy? My lords, since I have known what papacy is, I have exposed it; and the better I have known it, the stronger I have opposed it. For the last thirty-seven years I have written in favor of Martin Luther. Whatever may happen to me, I am ready to suffer all, and by the grace of God to perish at the stake sooner than depart from the Protestant faith as set forth by the Church of England. I have awaited my sentence these eight months, my lords, separated from my children, who have not been able to write me or even send me a message without express authority. When the illustrious Earl of Clarendon, accused of treason, was compelled to retire into exile, he had passed the greater part of his life abroad, and was well known there; he understood the language, and he enjoyed a large fortune; all these consolations are wanting to me. I resemble him only in my innocence and my punishment. It is not in the power of any man to alter the first resemblance, but it is in the power of your lordships to profoundly modify the second; I hope for it and I expect it from you." Atterbury was condemned; a majority of the prelates voted against him.
The English Catholics had ardently espoused the cause of the house of Stuart, and they were to pay once again for their illusive imprudence and folly. The attempt which had just cost the Bishop of Rochester his episcopal see and the freedom of his country, served as a pretext for Walpole to propose a tax of £100,000, to be collected from the estates of the Catholics. "Many of them are guilty," said the minister. This contempt for justice and liberty, which long pursued the Catholics in England, weighed upon the French Protestants still longer and more heavily. The bill which passed the Houses included all the gentry who had refused to take the oath of allegiance. Many who had resisted, up to this time, in consequence of a sincere repugnance, now hastened to take the oath to the established order of things.
"I have observed well," said the Speaker Onslow, who was opposed to the measure of Walpole, "and it was a strange and ridiculous spectacle to see the crowd which gathered at the quarterly Sessions in order to pledge their allegiance to the government, while, at the same time, cursing it for the trouble which it was giving them and for the fear which it inspired. I am convinced that the attachment for the king and his family has received a severe shock from all that happened at this time."
As the exiled bishop put his foot upon the soil of France, at Calais, he learned that Lord Bolingbroke had been pardoned by the king, and had arrived in that city on his way to England. "I am exchanged, then," said Atterbury, smiling. "Assuredly," wrote Pope, the intimate and faithful friend of the bishop, "this country fears an excess of talent, since it will not regain one genius without losing another."
It was to the venal protection of the Duchess of Kendal that Bolingbroke owed the royal pardon. Walpole had not received favorably the overtures which had been made to him in favor of the exile. "The attainder ought never to be abolished, and crimes ought never to be forgotten," said he, in the Council. The Marquise de Villette, niece of Madame Maintenon, at first the friend and subsequently the wife of Bolingbroke, had succeeded in interesting the favorite in his behalf. Eleven thousand pounds sterling were paid, it was said, for permission to return to England. He had as yet recovered neither his title, his rights, nor his fortune. The offer of his services was refused by Walpole. It was not until 1725, and even then, through the intervention of Madame Villette and the Duchess of Kendal, that Bolingbroke, having returned to France, finally obtained permission to present to Parliament a petition that Walpole consented to support. More clear-sighted than he had often been during his public life, Bolingbroke while in France had served continually and to the utmost, the interests of the English minister, by sustaining his brother Horace and his brother-in-law Lord Townshend, in their rivalry against Lord Carteret, the Secretary of State. The amnesty voted by Parliament restored to Bolingbroke his personal fortune, and his rights to the heritage of his father, but without giving him the right of disposing of it. The king had promised Walpole, it was said, that Bolingbroke should never again hold any political position. "I am restored to two-thirds," wrote he to Swift, from his country house at Uxbridge. He received his friends, occupying or at least pretending to occupy himself exclusively with his estate and in literary pursuits. Voltaire was one of his visitors, when driven from France by his quarrel with the Chevalier Rohan, and passed two years in England. This event had a powerful effect upon Voltaire's mind, and many traces of the same may be found in his writings. The relations of the poet with Bolingbroke were of long standing; they had often met at the Chateau de la Source, near Orleans, where the exile lived for some time. "One thing which interests me," wrote Voltaire, "is the recall of milord Bolingbroke to England. He will be at Paris to-day, and I shall have the grief of bidding him farewell, perhaps forever." When Voltaire, in his turn, again reached his own country, he dedicated to Bolingbroke his tragedy of Brutus: "Permit me to present to you Brutus," wrote he, "although written in another language, docte sermonis utriusque linguœ, to you who have given me lessons in French as well as in English, to you who have taught me at least to give to my language that force and that energy which noble liberty of thought inspires: for vigorous sentiments of the soul always pass into the language, and he who thinks forcibly speaks likewise." Voltaire, on asking permission to visit England, had remarked: "it is a country where they think freely and nobly without being restrained by servile fear."
Troubles in Ireland, caused by the recoinage of money, and in Scotland, by a tax upon beer, which had been substituted for the malt tax, had for some time detained King George in England. Finally, in 1725, he departed for Hanover, accompanied, as usual, by Lord Townshend and the Duchess of Kendal. The state of affairs in Europe had become critical. In France the regent had died on the 2nd of December, 1723; the Duke of Bourbon, who had succeeded him, governed ostentatiously and violently, but without either true force or authority, and abandoned to the influence of his favorite, the corrupt and avaricious Marquise de Prie. Both desired to assure the duration of their power by giving to the young King Louis XV. a wife who would owe to them her elevation, and who would remain submissive to them.
The Infanta of Spain had been educated at the French Court, treated as queen, and was only waiting until her age would permit her to wed the young King Louis XV., according to a treaty solemnly negotiated with Philip V. She was sent back to Madrid, and Marie Leczinska, daughter of Stanislaus, the dethroned and ruined King of Poland, was chosen in her place for the sad honor of sharing the throne of Louis XV. "It is necessary that the Infanta depart immediately, in order that this may be done sooner," said the Count of Morvilliers, who was charged with the marriage negotiations.
The anger and indignation of Spain were extreme. "All the Bourbons are true demons," said the queen; then turning towards the king, whose origin she had forgotten, in her fury, she added: "Save your Majesty." The fragile edifice of the Quadruple Alliance succumbed beneath the imprudent insolence of the French government. Philip V. gave his daughter to the Prince of Brazil, the heir to the throne of Portugal. By this alliance, agreeable to England, the faithful friend of Portugal, the King of Spain hoped to gain the support of George I. "We will put confidence only in your master," said the queen to William Stanhope, the English minister at Madrid, "and we desire no other mediator but him in our negotiations." The English government nevertheless refused to break with France. Philip V. formed an alliance with the Emperor Charles VI., the most ancient, and even then, the most implacable of his enemies. The Archduke had no son, and wished to secure the succession to his eldest daughter, the Archduchess Maria Theresa. The Pragmatic Sanction which declared this will, awaited the assent of Europe. That of Spain was of great value. She offered, besides, to open her ports to the company of Ostend, recently founded by the Emperor to compete with the Dutch commerce.
The house of Austria divided the house of Bourbon by opposing to each other the two branches of France and Spain. The treaty of Vienna was concluded on the 1st of May, 1725. The two sovereigns renounced all pretensions to their respective states, and proclaimed a full amnesty for their partisans. The emperor recognized the hereditary rights of Don Carlos to the Duchies of Tuscany, Parma and Plaisance; he promised, at the same time, his good offices, to obtain from England the restitution of Gibraltar and Port Mahon. In spite of negotiations already entered into with the Duke of Lorraine, the hands of the Archduchesses, the daughters of the emperor, were promised to the two sons of Elizabeth Farnese, Don Carlos and Don Philip.
King George was in Hanover when the secret articles of the treaty became known. "On this occasion, it was not the ministers of his Majesty who instructed him," subsequently said Walpole, "but it was his Majesty who gave his ministers the information. The information which the king had received in Hanover was so sure, that they could not be deceived." The Count de Broglie went to Germany to join George I. The King of Prussia, Frederick William I., was called to the conference; the Empress Catherine I., widow of Peter the Great, made advances to Spain in consequence of her antipathy towards England. The necessity for strong alliances was felt; the King of Prussia hesitated, realizing the danger he ran from his nearness to the emperor; he signed, nevertheless, but soon afterwards abandoned his allies. The Treaty of Hanover was concluded on the 8th of September, between England, France, Prussia, Denmark and Sweden. "Hanover advances itself triumphantly upon the shoulders of England," said Lord Chesterfield. George I. was accused of having defended his electorate at the expense of his kingdom; in Hanover the elector was reproached for having protected the commercial interests of England by exposing his native country to great perils. The Count de Broglie shared the English opinion: "His Majesty regards England as a temporary possession, by which it is necessary to profit while at his service, more than as a durable heritage," wrote he, on the 20th of January, 1724, to Louis XV. The Duke of Bourbon had just been replaced at the head of the French government by Cardinal Fleury, moderate and prudent, favorable to the English alliance and sincerely desirous of preserving peace in Europe. Lord Townshend directed the negotiations of the treaty of Hanover. Walpole was secretly jealous and censured certain clauses. The secret articles, concluded at Vienna, greatly pre-occupied England. "I know, from a source, which cannot be doubted," said George I., in his address at the opening of Parliament, in 1727, "that the re-establishment of the Pretender upon the throne of this kingdom, was one of the secret articles signed at Vienna. If time proves that by abandoning the commerce of this nation to one power, and Gibraltar and Port Mahon to another, a market has been made of this kingdom, in order to impose upon it a papist Pretender, what will not be the indignation of all English and Protestant hearts."
The emperor protested boldly against the address from the throne, and appealed from the king to the nation. The Pretender, recently filled with hope, by the alliance of the empire and Spain, alienated these two powers by his cruel conduct towards his wife. The princess had left him on the 15th of November, 1725, to retire into the convent of St. Cecilia, at Rome. War, nevertheless, seemed inevitable; but the emperor realized his feebleness, and cared but little for the interests of Spain. On the 31st of May, 1727, the preliminaries of peace were signed at Paris, between England, France and Holland, on the one part, and the empire on the other. English commerce was satisfied by the suspension of the privileges of the company of Ostend for seven years. Philip V. voluntarily raised the siege of Gibraltar. The prudent moderation of Walpole and of Cardinal Fleury, once again succeeded in maintaining the peace of Europe.
Walpole was threatened, nevertheless; he governed with sagacity the nation so long and so cruelly agitated, and became rich and prosperous; but he governed without glory. "Little jealous," says De Rémussat, "of honoring men, provided he rules them." He was reserved and haughty, carefully withdrawing from even the shadow of a rivalry. Bolingbroke had never pardoned his hostility; he attacked him anonymously in a journal directed by Pulteney, who was detached from the Whigs by an ancient enmity against Walpole. He undertook to lower him in the estimation of the king. The Duchess of Kendal, secretly hostile to the minister, placed in the king's hands a Memorial drawn up by Bolingbroke, in which the latter pointed out all the dangers to which the state was exposed in the hands of Walpole, and demanded an audience. George I. simply turned over the memorial to Walpole, who promptly divined from whom the blow came. "Join with me. Duchess, in praying the king to accord Lord Bolingbroke an audience;" boldly said Sir Robert. The king hesitated, as he did not speak English. "It is a great proof of the ability of Walpole that he governed the king in Latin," it was said. Bolingbroke understood French perfectly, and it was in that language that the interview was held. The Viscount claimed the restoration of his political privileges. "It is sufficient that your Majesty exacts it," said he. "Sir Robert is here, let him be called, and I will convince him before your Majesty that the thing can be done."—"No, no," replied the king, "do not call him." Then, as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Cornwall, Lechmere, who was at this time antagonistic to both Walpole and Bolingbroke, entered, the king could scarcely refrain from laughter. When his minister, somewhat disturbed, came to learn the result of the conversation with Bolingbroke, "Bagatelle, bagatelle!" repeated George I. Walpole never learned more.
[Transcriber's note:
Bagatelle: Something of little value or significance.]
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The Mysterious Letter.
The king prepared for another journey to Hanover. Some months before, on the 12th of November, 1726, his wife, Sophia Dorothea of Zell, died. She was beautiful and amiable, but arbitrarily condemned by her husband during thirty-six years. The Count of Konigsmark, the man who had, it was said, gained her favors, disappeared mysteriously at the time when the princess was imprisoned, by the order of her father-in-law as well as her husband. The place where the Count was struck down is still shown. Many years later his bones were found under the marble slab before the chimney of the castle. The prince obtained a divorce, but never relaxed his severity towards his wife, who, on her part, never ceased protesting her innocence.
It is said that at the time when King George I. entered Germany, in June, 1727, an unknown person threw into his carriage a letter from the princess, written during her last illness, solemnly adjuring her husband to repent of the terrible injury which he had inflicted upon her, and calling upon him to appear within a year before the tribunal of God.
It was to this summons from the tomb that was attributed that unexpected blow which so suddenly fell upon King George. On the 10th of June, 1727, he departed from Delden in good health, but within a few hours was struck by apoplexy. His servants desired to stop, but the king repeated, in a stifled voice, "Osnabruch! Osnabruch!" When they gained that palace of the prince Bishop, his brother, the King of England was dead.
It is the honor and the good fortune of free countries to be often served, and at times gloriously governed, without display and without the personal grandeur of the sovereign called to the throne by the law of heredity. Already slowly undermined by the misdeeds and misfortunes of King Louis XIV.'s last years, absolute power was enfeebled and dishonored in France, in the indolent and corrupt hands of Louis XV. In Europe, in Asia, in America, war was about to deal it a mortal blow, by despoiling our country of that military glory which had for long been our appanage, despite the crimes and errors of our home government. Honest and well disposed toward his counsellors and his people, without cunning and without breadth of view, constantly pre-occupied with the German interests of his Electorate, George II. was about to assure to England a long period of security and prosperity, sometimes brilliant, always fatal to his enemies at home and to his rivals abroad, to the house of Stuart as to France.
It was to the natural development and to the regular play of parliamentary government that England owed this repose, often laborious and difficult, solidly founded on the firmest bases during the long reign of the second Hanoverian monarch. Four notable ministries were to succeed each other round the throne of George II., the first and the last in the hands of men eminent in various ways, Robert Walpole and Lord Chatham: 1727-1741-1756-1760; directed from 1742 till 1744 by Lord Carteret, soon afterwards Lord Granville, and from 1744 till 1756 by the Duke of Newcastle and his brother Henry Pelham.
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George II.
All called to face serious difficulties, great internal and external shocks, the ministers of George II., eloquent or commonplace, remained faithful to the king whom they served, and never afforded that example of treason and deplorable weaknesses which had shamefully marked the life of so many Statesmen during the last three reigns. There was conspiracy yet, but the conspirators no longer hid themselves in the royal palaces, at the head of armies or of public affairs. It was on the field of battle that the Stuarts were to play and lose their last game. At the death of George I. the fate of the new dynasty and of the protestant succession might, to superficial observation, have appeared uncertain and precarious. At the death of George II. the work had been accomplished; thenceforth revolutions were to be for England only a remembrance at once glorious and sad, without possible recurrence and without bitter traces. National victories would efface the last remnant of intestine strifes.
By the side of George II., on the throne still occupied by a half-foreign monarch, who spoke the language of his people with a pronounced accent, who was of slender appearance, and more brave in person than royal in tastes and habits, was seated a clever, moderate, wise and learned princess, with a semblance of pedantry, who was skilful, and very soon dominant in the government, without ever giving evidence of any presumption. Princess Caroline d'Anspach had often had to lament the infidelities of her husband; he remained attached to her, nevertheless, and her influence was constantly first with him. Robert Walpole had known how to anticipate this influence. He never omitted, for the benefit of the prince's favorite, the deference that he had displayed to the Princess of Wales. The queen did not forget it.