Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion

by Anne Somerset

  While unaware of the precise nature of Harley’s dealings with Anne, by mid October Godolphin had become concerned that the Secretary was engaged in ‘destructive and pernicious’ intrigues. When he alerted Marlborough that Harley was sounding out moderates from both parties with a view to strengthening the ministry without recourse to the Junto, the Duke agreed that the Secretary ‘must not be suffered to go in the project’. On 16 November the general returned to England after his triumphant campaign, and together he and Godolphin set about tackling the Queen and Harley. Despite the fact that Marlborough had written repeatedly from abroad urging her to do the Lord Treasurer’s bidding, Anne appears to have hoped that when she spoke to him in person she would bring him round to her point of view, but it soon emerged there was no question of this. Harley too was forced to come to heel after an ill-tempered meeting between him and the duumvirs took place on 20 November.70

  With Harley no longer whispering encouragement, the Queen was forced to agree that Sunderland would become Secretary of State. Her only consolation was that she extracted an undertaking from Marlborough that Sunderland’s tenure would be conditional on good behaviour, and that ‘if he did anything I did not like’, the Duke ‘would bring him to make his leg and to take his leave’.71 Sunderland’s appointment was announced on 3 December, the very day that Parliament met. Godolphin could tell himself that all his trouble had been worthwhile when the Commons granted unprecedented sums of money for the war, with such promptness that all measures relating to supply went through before the Christmas recess.

  Marlborough also had reason to be pleased with the Parliament, for it took further steps to reward him for his services to the nation. The pension of £5,000 a year, which had caused such controversy in 1702, was now confirmed and granted to him and his family in perpetuity. Furthermore, since he had no male heirs, an act was passed permitting his title and estate to be passed to his daughters. Sarah, who had not reappeared at court after her autumn tussles with the Queen, wrote Anne a somewhat grudging formal letter of thanks, sulkily signing it ‘your poor forsaken Freeman’. In fact the Duchess regarded the act as another source of grievance, for its first draft had envisaged that Marlborough’s property would pass on his death directly to his eldest child, making no provision for his widow. The Duke had requested Parliament to insert a clause arranging for the bulk of his estate to go to Sarah as part of her jointure, but the Duchess was offended that the Queen had not corrected matters personally. Three years later, the Duchess remained resentful about what she saw as an oversight, telling Anne, ‘Mrs Morley, notwithstanding all her everlasting vows of friendship … never concerned herself in the settlement, nor enquired whether her dear Mrs Freeman was not to be the better’ for it.72

  By this time the Scots Parliament had been sitting for some weeks, after assembling on 3 October 1706. Having been so helpful the previous year, the Duke of Queensberry had been named the Queen’s commissioner, and therefore faced the daunting task of persuading Parliament to ratify the Union treaty. In her letter to the Parliament, Anne was positive of the enormous benefits inherent in ‘entire and perfect Union’, which would not only provide ‘the solid foundation of lasting peace’, but would ‘secure your religion, liberty and property, remove the animosities amongst ourselves and the jealousies and differences betwixt our two kingdoms’.73

  In Scotland it had been widely assumed that Union would take the form of a federation between the two nations. When the treaty articles were published on 12 October there was great dismay when it emerged that what was on offer was an incorporating Union, which would deprive the Scots of their own Parliament. Large numbers of Scots also objected on religious grounds, for although it was specifically stated the government of the Kirk would be unaffected by Union, Presbyterians were worried by the influence wielded by English bishops who sat in the House of Lords. Preachers ‘roared against the wicked Union from their pulpits’ and supporters of the Pretender, many of whom were themselves Catholic sympathisers, gleefully whipped up such fears. Simple, ingrained Anglophobia also played its part: one observer commented, ‘The multitude were above all against it not so much from any motive of reason, as from hatred’.74

  All this ensured that a majority of the populace were ‘obstinately averse’ to Union, at least in the form proposed. Addresses poured in denouncing an incorporating Union, and the articles of the treaty were burnt at Dumfries by protesters, who warned that if Parliament ratified these provisions ‘over the belly of the generality of the nation’, the people would not regard it as binding. In apocalyptic terms, opponents of the measure warned their compatriots that it ‘would reduce this nation to slavery, destroy the little trade they have and make them miserable beyond a possibility [of] remedy’.75

  In Edinburgh there were violent protests. The impoverished journalist Daniel Defoe, who had been employed by Robert Harley as a secret agent and sent north with instructions to use underhand methods to predispose Scots’ opinion in favour of Union, became fearful of being lynched after a threatening crowd surged up the High Street shouting ‘No Union! No English dogs!’ The city guard had to rescue the Provost of Edinburgh from a mob battering at his door, and when riots broke out in Glasgow the Provost of that town had to flee, otherwise ‘they had certainly tore him in pieces’. Whenever the Duke of Hamilton, a known opponent of Union, appeared in public he was cheered wildly, whereas Queensberry was ‘pursued with hissings and curses’. There were ‘great stones thrown at his coach’, and anonymous letters were sent, threatening him with ‘pistol, dagger and variety of assassination’. Further alarm was caused by an influx of highlanders to the capital, ‘formidable fellows’ who showed their hostility towards the Union by swaggering down the High Street armed with broadsword and knives, though the martial effect was somewhat undermined by the fact that some were driving a cow before them. Some opponents of the Union actually contemplated armed rebellion. The Jacobite, George Lockhart, claimed that at one point the Duke of Hamilton agreed to support a rising, but just before it was scheduled to take place he sent ‘expresses privately … through the whole country, strictly requiring them to put off their design’.76

  The strength of feeling against Union left Queensberry and his colleagues with ‘a very difficult course to steer’ when piloting the measure through Parliament. They were aided, however, by the fact that while few members were enthusiastic for it, ‘all thinking men’ accepted that if relations with England remained in their present state, Scotland would become ‘a scene of bloodshed and confusion’. The Earl of Mar commented grimly, ‘If the Union should fail I see not what possibly we can do to save our country from ruin’.77

  When the Scottish Parliament started voting on Union, article by article, on 1 November, the Queen followed matters closely from England, taking careful note of who its supporters and opponents were. The first and most fundamental article, encapsulating the principle of Union itself, secured a majority, despite a tragic speech from Lord Belhaven, prophesying that it would bring desolation in its wake. When the second article was debated, providing that the crown should pass on Anne’s death to the House of Hanover, the Duke of Hamilton stood up to demand a recess to enable the Queen to be informed of the ‘general aversion’ of the nation towards Union, warning there was a danger of civil war if public opinion was ignored. He suggested that in due course Parliament could reconvene and settle the succession, but the commissioner was under instructions not to listen to any such proposals. Hamilton’s offer came ‘too late … which might willingly have been received some time ago’, and though one timorous Scots minister did urge shortly afterwards that the Parliament should be suspended until the threat of public disorder had subsided, Mar and his colleagues ‘were all convinced it would never have met again so favourably disposed to the Union’.78

  To soothe the fears of those who objected that Union would imperil the state of religion in Scotland, an Act for the Security of the Church was passed on 12 November, protecting the Kirk’s di
scipline and government. As a result the Scottish clergy calmed down, but hostility towards the Union only slightly abated. The Queen’s ministers battled on in Parliament, trying not to be intimidated by the angry scenes they encountered whenever they ventured outside. The Earl of Mar informed a colleague in London, ‘I’m not very timorous and yet I tell you that every day here we are in hazard of our lives; we cannot go on the streets but we are insulted’. While disturbed by the possibility that Queensberry and his colleagues might fall victim to ‘some villainous design’ and ‘extremely concerned about the mob’, the Queen did not lose her nerve. She ‘asked whether there was anything to be done in it from hence’, and arranged for English troops to be stationed near the Scottish border, so that they could intervene if necessary. In England a Whig peer reported that though opponents of the Union ‘show plainly they mean to terrify’, they had only succeeded in making the Queen more determined. In her desire to enhance her ministers’ authority she promised to do everything ‘fit or necessary to let the kingdom know the satisfaction she has with her servants’, and one of them commented that because he could rely on the Queen remaining ‘resolute in the measure of the Union … so I still reckon in its succeeding’. In late November the Earl of Stair noted ‘We have all the encouragement we can wish from her Majesty and her ministers there by their firmness to the measure’; a few days later the Earl of Mar likewise praised the Queen for having ‘indeed done all that could be desired for the support of her servants’.79

  It has often been alleged that bribery played a part in securing ratification. Certainly £20,000 was sent to Scotland at this time. £12,000 of this went to Queensberry, though this was to pay arrears already owed him, and did not even cover the full amount outstanding. Others who received sums would have voted for Union without a cash incentive. There was an attempt to put financial pressure on the Duke of Atholl, who was told he would only be paid money due to him if he voted for Union. He retorted that the government must consider him a great fool if it thought he could be bribed at his own expense. In the end he voted against Union, but it seems he was paid some of his arrears regardless. Some other irregularities may have taken place. Certainly the deputy treasurer of Scotland was very alarmed when there was subsequently talk of an enquiry into payments made at the time of the ratification debates, warning that ‘the discovering of it would … bring discredit upon the management of that Parliament’.80

  Every provision of the Union treaty was rigorously debated. On 10 December the Earl of Mar reported, ‘we have a struggling, fighting life of it here’, but a fortnight later things had advanced enough for him to declare ‘I think we are now in sight of land’. Sure enough, on 16 January 1707 the final articles of the Union treaty were passed. Nine days later Defoe congratulated himself for having ‘seen the finishing of this happy work’ when he was present at the last ever sitting of the Scottish Parliament. Union had been successfully ‘crammed down Scotland’s throat’, as one Scot resentfully put it; now it only remained to be seen whether the English Parliament would stomach it.81

  The government in England had prevented attempts by Tory peers to raise concerns about the Union in Parliament prior to the treaty being ratified in Scotland. Furthermore, to forestall objections that the Church of England would be imperilled by the Union, on 3 February the Archbishop of Canterbury introduced a bill guaranteeing that Episcopacy would be permanently preserved in England. Convocation, which normally sat simultaneously with Parliament, was suspended to ensure that clerical firebrands in the Lower House had less chance of inflaming opinion.

  On 4 February Union was debated for the first time in the House of Commons. Its most energetic opponent was the fanatical Tory, Sir John Packington, who claimed that forcing Scotland into Union was ‘like the marrying a woman against her consent’. He alleged that the measure had been ‘carried on by corruption and bribery within doors and by force and violence without’, but although ‘these bold expressions’ caused offence, they did not inflict worse damage. Members who were against the Union were indignant that more time had not been allotted for debate, shouting ‘Post haste! Post haste!’ as the articles were put to the vote, but on every point supporters of the Union proved to be in the majority.82

  The Lords held a five-hour debate on Union on 15 February, with the Queen in attendance the entire time. Opponents of the measure made an impassioned stand: Lord Haversham warned that a kingdom comprising ‘such jarring incongruous ingredients’ was bound to ‘break in pieces’, and the Bishop of Bath and Wells compared it to ‘mixing together strong liquors of a contrary nature’, resulting in ‘furious fermentation’. The Earl of Rochester was ‘apprehensive of the precedent’ of large numbers of Scottish hereditary peers losing their right to vote in Parliament, while Lord Nottingham fulminated against the merged kingdoms being called ‘Great Britain’. He alleged that the change of name would invalidate the laws of both countries, but the judiciary ruled that was not the case.83 To all such objections, the Whig leaders put forward a spirited defence, and won over their fellow peers. On 1 March the Bill of Union was passed, and five days later Anne gave it the royal assent in the House of Lords.

  The date set for the Union to come into being was 1 May 1707, and on that day a magnificent thanksgiving service was held at St Paul’s in honour of this momentous event. ‘At least three or four hundred coaches’ were in the procession that bore the Queen to the cathedral, and Lord Godolphin noted that ‘the streets were fuller of people than I have seen them upon any occasion of that kind’. A visiting Scot ‘observed a real joy and satisfaction in the citizens of London, for they were terribly apprehensive of confusions from Scotland in case the Union had not taken place’. Anne fully shared in her subjects’ delight: as the celebratory anthems rang out, it was noted that ‘nobody on this occasion appeared more sincerely devout and thankful than the Queen herself’.84

  The Queen had earlier expressed the hope that Union between England and Scotland would result in ‘the whole island being joined in affection’, but a true bonding between the two nationalities lagged far behind the political merger. The Union remained very unpopular in Scotland for a considerable period of time, not least because its economic benefits did not really manifest themselves until much later in the century, with the advent of the industrial revolution. At the outset there was annoyance about the slow payment of the ‘Equivalent’, and outrage at the activities of newly appointed customs inspectors, charged with enforcing a uniform scale of duties. Accustomed to being regulated more laxly, Scots grumbled that the officers were ‘very scum’, who ‘executed the new laws with all the rigour imaginable’. For decades many Scotsmen felt they had made a ‘bad bargain’ when forging Union, and an upsurge of Jacobitism in Scotland was probably the most notable immediate consequence.85

  Yet although the Scots did not appreciate the Union in Anne’s lifetime, most could agree that averting a war that might otherwise have broken out over a disputed succession was an incontrovertible blessing. Union has served England and Scotland well for much of the last three hundred years, even if there is now a possibility that it will not remain the ‘lasting and indissoluble’ one that Queen Anne wanted. She deserves credit for its achievement, having pursued it with quiet determination from the very outset of the reign. The Whigs have been praised for their role in negotiating the treaty, and steering it through Parliament, but their conversion to the cause of Union was belated and opportunistic, whereas the Queen never wavered in her desire for it. ‘We shall esteem it as the greatest glory of our reign … being fully persuaded it must prove the greatest happiness of our people’, she declared in 1706, and it was subsequently said that she ‘prized the Union of her kingdom above pearls and jewels’. She could take justified pride in the tribute paid her by the Earl of Mar, who told her immediately after Union had been concluded, ‘I doubt not but your subjects will always bless your Majesty for this amongst the other great things you have done, and that your memory will be famous and admire
d in all succeeding ages’.86

  9

  Guided by Other Hands

  During November 1706 Lord Godolphin was still struggling to persuade the Queen to appoint the Earl of Sunderland as her Secretary. On the ninth of the month he groaned to the Duchess of Marlborough ‘There’s a new accident that will make me be wronged. The Bishop of Winchester is dead’.1 He said that he would try and prevent the Queen from choosing a replacement until he had discussed the matter with leading Whigs, but feared that finding a candidate acceptable to all concerned would prove troublesome.

  Earlier in the reign Godolphin had been happy to leave matters relating to ecclesiastical preferment to Robert Harley, but now he no longer felt inclined to allow him such latitude. Godolphin’s change of attitude first became apparent in the spring of 1705. When the Bishop of Lincoln had died, the Lord Treasurer had been ‘exceedingly firm’ about telling the Queen that she should give the vacant place to the Whiggish Dean of Exeter, William Wake. After the Whigs had helped him resolve the Hanover invitation crisis, Godolphin decided that one way of rewarding them would be to fill the Episcopal bench with prelates sympathetic to their views. In early 1706 he and Marlborough promised the Whig leaders of the Junto that henceforth senior positions in the Church hierarchy would be awarded to candidates acceptable to them. According to the Duchess of Marlborough, the Queen was not only aware of this undertaking but approved of it.2

  However, when the bishopric of Winchester became available that autumn, Godolphin was unable to gratify the Whigs by giving it to a Low Church divine, because he had already promised promotion to the current Bishop of Exeter. The Queen was delighted to move the Tory Bishop Trelawny of Exeter to Winchester, but the Junto peer, Lord Somers, was so displeased he bullied the gout-stricken Archbishop of Canterbury into going to court to remonstrate with Anne. The Queen gave him a frosty reception, telling him curtly, ‘The thing was already determined’.3