Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion

by Anne Somerset

  Though taken by surprise, Godolphin at once devised an intelligent strategy with leading Whigs for dealing with the emergency, calculating that if further measures were brought in to safeguard the succession, it could plausibly be argued that Sophia’s presence in England was unnecessary. Although the Whig leaders hoped that no one could accuse them of being insufficiently protective of Hanoverian rights, they had to face the fact that Sophia would probably be displeased at being baulked, and they made it plain that if they were to help the Queen, they expected some recognition for having sacrificed their standing in Hanover. According to the Duchess of Marlborough, Anne acknowledged she was incurring a debt, and ‘authorised my Lord Godolphin to give the utmost assurances to the chief men of the Whigs that she would put herself and her affairs into such hands as they should approve’.7

  Meanwhile the Queen herself took action to keep Sophia at a distance. On 13 November she wrote to Marlborough who, now that the campaigning season was over, was about to embark on a tour of Continental courts. Hanover was on his itinerary, and Anne begged that, while there, he would do everything possible to counteract this ‘disagreeable proposal … which I have been afraid of so long’. When Marlborough had visited Hanover for the first time in late 1704, Sophia had enthused she had never met anyone more ‘easy, civil and obliging’, so the Queen had reason to hope he could ‘set them right in notions of things here’.8

  Two days after this letter was sent, the Queen was present in the House of Lords when the Tories made their move. Lord Haversham, an eccentric Tory peer who was very fond of the sound of his own voice, rose and made a characteristically verbose speech, criticising various aspects of government policy. Having reviewed the progress of the war, he declared that the situation at home made ‘it very necessary that we should have the presumptive heir residing here’. He claimed to be acting in the Queen’s best interests, as a successor would feel obligated to protect her from danger, and demanded portentously, ‘Is there any man … who doubts that if the Duke of Gloucester had been now alive her majesty had been more secure than she is?’ Until this point the Queen had been following the debate intently, but she was ‘so touched with the sound of that dear name’ that she had to withdraw hurriedly.9

  Having recovered her composure she returned to hear a speech from the Earl of Nottingham who, in marked contrast to his former views, now argued that Sophia’s presence was essential. The Duke of Buckingham concurred, even having the temerity to suggest that Anne might develop senile dementia, and in that eventuality Sophia (who was, of course, years older) must be on hand to take over the reins of government. Rather surprisingly the Queen would ultimately forgive Buckingham for these insensitive remarks, but Nottingham, for whom she had no personal affection, would never redeem himself in her eyes. She viewed him ever after with implacable resentment, and saw to it that he was never again offered government employment. One peer commented that he should have borne in mind that ‘ladies are to be courted, not ravished’.10

  It was necessary to convince the Upper House that Anne’s death would not be followed by a dangerous power vacuum, which could be exploited by the Pretender. Therefore, as prearranged with Godolphin, one of the Whigs countered the Tory proposals by offering to introduce legislation enacting that, if the Queen’s heir was out of the country when she died, the realm would be governed by a panel of regents until the new monarch arrived to exercise sovereignty in person. Reassured at the prospect of arrangements being put in place that would ensure an orderly transitional period, the Lords threw out Haversham’s invitation motion.

  On 19 November Anne again came to the House of Lords to watch the details of the Regency Bill being debated. The Junto peer Lord Wharton made a sardonic speech, remarking that the Queen’s pleas for unity appeared to have had a ‘supernatural’ effect, for ‘now all were for the Protestant Succession; it had not always been so. He rejoiced in their conversion and confessed it was a miracle’. A series of measures were then set out, the most notable being that a list of regents should be drawn up, comprising seven great officers of State and other individuals to be nominated by the Queen’s successor in Hanover. It was also laid down that Sophia and her family would be naturalised, with immediate effect. Nottingham and his cronies dared not oppose the bill outright, but discredited themselves by seeking to ‘clog it’ with amendments, showing they did not really care about safeguarding the succession.11 Their tactics failed and, after the bill had passed successfully through both Houses of Parliament, Anne assented to the act naturalising Sophia on 3 December.

  Comprehensively outwitted, the renegade Tories now ‘lay like beetles on their backs’, having infuriated the Queen without proving themselves loyal to her Hanoverian heirs. All that they had achieved was to make the Queen feel a temporary surge of goodwill towards the Whigs who had rescued her from her predicament. She wrote warmly to Sarah that she was ‘now sensible of the services those people have done me that you have a good opinion of, and will countenance them, and am thoroughly convinced of the malice and insolence of them that you have been always speaking against’.12

  Meanwhile in Hanover, Marlborough had been active on the Queen’s behalf. Although the Electress was not entirely receptive to his arguments, the Duke found her son George Ludwig more amenable. It helped that the Elector had become suspicious of Tory motives after it emerged that Lord Haversham had prefaced his speech on 15 November with an attack on the conduct of England’s partners in the war coalition. As a loyal member of the alliance, George Ludwig was naturally displeased. On 16 December a letter sent from Hanover (presumably by Marlborough) was read in Cabinet, reporting that the Elector was now ‘extremely well satisfied that they who meant to bring over the Princess Sophia meant no good to the succession’.13

  The Queen, however, could not relax completely. To Anne’s fury, in February 1706 a letter that Sophia had earlier sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury, referring to her willingness to come to England if invited, was printed, with another highly provocative piece appended to it. This was purportedly a letter to a Whig peer from an Englishman living in Hanover, although in reality it had been written by one of Sophia’s most valued German advisers, the mathematician Leibniz. It was critical of Parliament, saying that to oppose the Electress’s coming to England was, in effect, ‘to act directly for the Jacobites’, and that it was ‘wicked and criminal’ to give out that the Queen did not want Sophia in her kingdom.14

  To Sophia’s surprise, Parliament was angered at its actions being stigmatised in print, and ‘hurled thunderbolts’ at the letter. After the letter was declared libellous by both Houses, Sophia thought it prudent to disavow it. Nevertheless, she paid little heed when her agent in England, Pierre de Falaiseau, urged her henceforth to abandon all thought of ‘frightening the Queen’ by acting ‘with a high hand’. Falaiseau had by this time revised his opinion of Anne’s character: whereas he had formerly regarded her as a puppet dominated by favourites, he now described her as ‘very tenacious and fierce’. Unfortunately Sophia preferred to listen to Leibniz, who continued to advocate irresponsible projects. He even suggested that one of her younger sons should replace Prince George of Denmark as Lord High Admiral, deluding himself that the appointment would be popular in England.15

  The Duke of Marlborough heard that Sophia spoke disparagingly of such honours as being naturalised by the terms of the Regency Bill, or the Order of the Garter being bestowed on her grandson. This so concerned him that he wrote in protest to the Elector, which led to George Ludwig having a firm talk with his mother. Afterwards he pretended to Marlborough that she much appreciated Anne’s kind gestures, and on her son’s orders Sophia herself wrote in similar vein, adding unctuously, ‘I believe that it would be for the good of England and all Europe that the Queen should live for a hundred years’.16

  In April 1706 the Junto peer Lord Halifax was sent on an official visit to Hanover to present the Electoral Prince with the Garter. While there he not only worked hard to lessen Sop
hia’s displeasure with the Whigs, but he also convinced George Ludwig that he would be inconvenienced if Sophia visited her prospective kingdom. Halifax pointed out that once the precedent had been established that the successor’s presence in the country was necessary, the Elector himself would have to reside there – which he had no wish to do – if Sophia predeceased Anne.17

  Leibniz had advised Sophia to take advantage of Halifax’s visit by asking that her grandson should not only be awarded an English title, but also an establishment to go with it. It is not clear whether the Electress dared to voice both of these demands; certainly Halifax only passed on her request for the title, and Anne was ‘not very easy’ about granting that, being fearful that the Electoral Prince would come to England and take up his seat in the House of Lords. Only once Godolphin persuaded Anne she need not worry, as the Electoral Prince was busy fighting the war, did the Queen reluctantly agree to make the young man Duke of Cambridge. Once again, however, Sophia was not particularly grateful. She grumbled that it would have been infinitely better if her grandson had been given a pension, ‘but they prefer to flatter us with meaningless things’.18 With Sophia as indomitable – or, some would say, incorrigible – as ever, Anne remained fearful that she would succeed in imposing her presence on her in the not too distant future.

  The Tories had tried to be cunning, and had ended up being completely outfoxed. Hoping to increase the Queen’s disenchantment with their rivals, the Whigs goaded them into a further blunder. A Whig peer now suggested that, in view of the ‘tragical stories’ that had been put about regarding the fragile state of the Church, a debate should be held on its condition. The Tories relished the opportunity, even though the Queen had made it clear that she was insulted by the very suggestion that she had not done enough to safeguard the Church. When the debate was held on 6 December 1705, with Anne in attendance, Tory peers such as Rochester tied themselves in knots in their attempts to convey that their complaints were not directed against the Queen, whose ‘example … [was] a great barrier’, but at atheists and dissenters. The only time the Tories scored against their opponents was when Lord Wharton asked the Tories to reveal who ‘these rogues’ were whom they held responsible for the Church’s decline? Alluding to a shameful incident perpetrated by Wharton in his youth, the Tory Duke of Leeds fired back, ‘if there were anyone that had pissed against a communion table or done his other occasions in a pulpit he should not think the Church safe in such hands’. Wharton, it was noted, remained ‘very silent for the rest of that day’. Finally, however, the Tories had to endure fresh humiliation when a majority of the Lords voted not only that the Church was ‘in a most safe and flourishing condition … under her Majesty’s administration’, but that anyone who argued to the contrary was ‘an enemy to the Queen, the Church and her kingdom’.19 The following day a similar resolution was passed by the House of Commons.

  If the Queen could draw comfort from the outcome of this debate, in other respects she was by no means free of tribulations, for her physical state was deplorable for much of 1706. She was in serious pain as well as being frequently immobilised, so that, although she did not neglect her duties, carrying them out was a struggle. On 6 January 1706 Anne was too infirm to come to Cabinet, and instead all its members and attendant clerks were ‘admitted into her bedchamber … where she lay on a couch’. She missed a second meeting altogether the next day, and the following week the Cabinet had to be held again in her closet. Despite her wretched condition, her birthday was celebrated in customary style the next month: a play called The Anatomist was staged at St James’s, and there was also a performance by a noted singer, displays of dancing, and a ball.20

  On 9 February Prince George fell ill in his turn. Six weeks later he was still spitting blood, and the court’s proposed visit to Newmarket was cancelled. From now on he ceased to accompany his wife to long thanksgiving services at St Paul’s, ‘being unable to endure the fatigue’. Anne continued to grace these occasions, although it cost her a great effort. She now found it disagreeable to wear heavy formal clothes, but remained conscious of the need to put on a good show for the public. That summer, when a thanksgiving was held to mark another of Marlborough’s victories, she told Sarah that, notwithstanding the discomfort, ‘I have a mind to be fine, so I intend to have two diamond buttons and loops upon each sleeve’.21

  A young Scot, Sir John Clerk – who visited the Queen at Kensington with the Duke of Queensberry in the spring of 1706 – was appalled ‘to observe the calamities which attend human nature even in the greatest dignities of life’. Not only was ‘her Majesty … labouring under a fit of the gout and in extreme pain and agony’, but Clerk was shocked by the scene of ‘disorder’ which greeted him. He noted with a shudder that ‘her face, which was red and spotted, was rendered something frightful by her negligent dress, and the foot affected was tied up with a poultice and some nasty bandages’. Accompanying Queensberry to Kensington for a second time that summer, Clerk was distressed to find the Queen no better, and when he returned the following year he was once again revolted by what struck him as a positively squalid sight. To him Anne appeared ‘the most despicable mortal I had ever seen, ill dressed, blotted in her countenance and surrounded with plasters … and dirty like rags’.22

  It is possible that Clerk was an unduly fastidious young man who made rather too much of what he saw. On the other hand, it is probable he did not even catch the Queen at her worst, for when most severely afflicted she hid herself from outsiders. Only the most trusted servants were allowed near her at such times, as it caused her great ‘uneasiness … to have a stranger about me when I have the gout and am forced to be helped to do everything’.23

  Clerk’s description of Anne’s blotchy complexion provides backing for the hypothesis that her ailments were not caused by gout, but by Hughes syndrome, coupled with lupus. People with Hughes syndrome are relatively more likely to develop lupus, and a characteristic symptom of both conditions is a facial rash known as Livedo Reticularis or, more colloquially, ‘corned beef skin’. The diagnosis of Hughes syndrome would accord with other symptoms experienced by Anne, such as the ‘starting … in my limbs’ she complained of in 1693 – and which she feared would lead people to assume she suffered from fits – sore eyes, and the stomach pain she periodically experienced, attributed at the time to gout in the bowels, or colic. Furthermore, lupus would account for the pain in her limbs, caused by arthritis inflaming the soft tissues surrounding the joints.24

  In November 1705 the English Parliament had agreed to repeal the Alien Act, paving the way for formal negotiations for a treaty of Union. By February 1706 the Queen had chosen her Scots commissioners, almost all of whom were men known to favour Union. The English Union commissioners, named two months later, included all the Junto peers and other leading Whigs, who had now decided that an amalgamation of the two kingdoms would benefit their party. Previously they had been less than keen on the idea, but they had a change of heart after calculating that by pushing forward proceedings, they would acquire an influence over the Scottish political scene. An astute political observer commented, ‘I suppose our pilots, by the hand they have in the present negotiations, hope afterwards to steer those northern vessels’.25 The Whigs on the Commission would not only take an active role in thrashing out acceptable terms, but would also prove eloquent in defending the treaty when it came to be debated in Parliament.

  Proceedings opened on 16 April 1706, when the commissioners assembled in Anne’s former Whitehall lodgings, the Cockpit. Having agreed that any questions relating to religion would be excluded from discussion, it was also laid down that negotiations would not take place directly between the national representatives. Instead a dialogue would be conducted in the form of written submissions, to be considered by each set of commissioners sequestered in separate rooms. The representatives of both nations only came together when Anne signified her personal commitment by appearing before them on 21 May and asking to be updated on their progres
s.

  The English commissioners had quickly made it clear that they would settle for nothing less than an incorporating Union, with only one Parliament representing the two countries, rather than a federal Union, which provided for separate legislatures. Their Scots counterparts were aware that retaining two Parliaments would make it easier to dissolve the Union in future, and they accepted that such an impermanent arrangement would be ‘ridiculous and impracticable’. Knowing that a federation of the two countries was ‘most favoured by the people of Scotland’, they did make a half-hearted proposal along these lines, but when the English refused to consider it they promptly capitulated.

  According to the Scot George Lockhart (whose presence on the Commission was an anomaly, because, as a Jacobite sympathiser, he genuinely wanted negotiations to fail), his compatriots gave in to English pressure at every turn, saying ‘We must not be too stiff’ whenever difficulties arose.26 Yet from a financial point of view, the terms ultimately agreed were far from ungenerous to Scotland, and were a great deal better than those offered earlier in Anne’s reign. The most contentious question proved to be the level of representation that the Scots would enjoy at the Westminster Parliament. In the end it was fixed that sixteen Scots Lords, elected by a ballot of their peers, would sit in the Upper House, while there would be forty-five Scots members of the House of Commons. It was a compromise figure, disproportionately high if one considered the Scots’ share of the taxation burden, but erring on the low side when population statistics were taken into account.