Somehow Harley managed to convince Anne that dismissing Godolphin would not result in economic ruin, although the financial situation was undeniably dire. At the end of July the banker in charge of remitting money to troops abroad had ordered his agents in Amsterdam to accept no further bills from the Paymaster General, because payment had not been made on £152,000 previously furnished. Soldiers had started to desert for lack of pay, and the Bank of England had recently turned down an appeal from Godolphin for a new loan. On 7 August he told the Queen that no more money would be forthcoming from them until she guaranteed that there would be no more ministerial changes or a dissolution of Parliament, but Anne was beyond being intimidated by such threats. When her doctor expressed concern that the Bank would stop lending, she answered scornfully, ‘They only frighted people to put a stop to what was doing’.72
But though the Queen had made up her mind, she lacked the courage to be honest with Godolphin. On 7 August the Lord Treasurer had a meeting with her that lasted more than two hours. After ‘representing … all those dangers into which he then foresaw her running’, he asked her if she wished him to go on serving her, ‘to which she answered very readily, “Yes”’. He emerged from the audience ‘with an air of cheerfulness and content that had not been seen for some time in his countenance’, delightedly telling a Dutch diplomat that ‘he had gained his point’.73 Next morning the Queen sent him a letter of dismissal.
In Sunderland’s case, Anne had taken care that his sacking was handled tactfully, but with Godolphin she showed no regard for niceties. Her letter was delivered by a groom and was brutally worded, making plain her personal displeasure. Severely she told him,
The uneasiness which you have showed for some time has given me very much trouble, though I have borne it; and had your behaviour continued the same it was for a few years after my coming to the crown, I could have no dispute with myself what to do. But the many unkind returns I have received since, especially what you said to me personally before the Lords, makes it impossible for me to continue you any longer in my service.
Instead of granting him a final interview she asked him to break his staff of office, ‘which I believe will be easier to us both’. Godolphin obeyed and ‘flung the pieces in the chimney’, but he did not allow her strictures to pass without comment. He wrote protesting that he was ‘not conscious of the least undutiful act or of one undutiful word to your Majesty in my whole life’, and that he believed those who had witnessed the incident in Cabinet would support him on this.74
Most discreditably of all, the Queen offered him a pension of £4,000 a year, and then never paid it. Within months Godolphin was in such financial straits that it appeared the Marlboroughs would have to support him, and the situation would have been still worse if his elder brother had not died and left him his estate. Rather curiously, despite her shabby treatment of him, the Queen did not sever all contact. There were a couple of occasions when she communicated with him, such as in December 1710, when she asked his advice on the war in Spain. Godolphin responded dutifully, as became one who, according to Sarah, never in his life spoke disrespectfully of the Queen, ‘any more than he would of God Almighty’. When Godolphin died in September 1712, Anne was visibly upset, telling Lord Dartmouth, ‘She could not help being so, for she had a long acquaintance with him’. Upon Dartmouth informing her that Godolphin was reputed to have died poor, ‘the Queen said she was sorry he had suffered so much in her service’.75 Since she was partly to blame for his penury, this was disingenuous.
Harley was named as Chancellor of the Exchequer on 9 August. The Treasury was put in commission, with Earl Paulet nominally at its head, but from the start Harley was ‘supposed to preside behind the curtain’. Having just arrived in London from Ireland, Jonathan Swift learned that ‘Mr Harley is looked upon as first minister, and not my Lord Shrewsbury, and his Grace helps on the opinion … upon all occasion professing to stay until he speaks with Mr Harley’. Much of Harley’s first month in office was spent trying to provide a short-term solution to the financial crisis. Whereas Godolphin had relied almost exclusively on the Bank of England for loans, Harley cast his net wider, and found a consortium of financiers who were willing to advance £350,000. The Bank of England also did not fulfil its threat to cut off credit entirely. The directors came up with a loan of £50,000 which, though less than asked for, kept things afloat.76
It was becoming obvious to Harley that the difficulties he would face if he had to deal with the current Parliament were insurmountable. At the end of June Marlborough had remarked to his wife that, provided Parliament was not dissolved, ‘We will make some of their hearts ache’, and Harley could not expose himself to such risk. However, knowing that their party faced annihilation at the polls, few Whigs were prepared to join the ministry without a guarantee that an election would be postponed. When the Queen had offered Richard Hampden a place on the Treasury commission, he said he could not accept if she contemplated dismissing Parliament. Irritably she replied that ‘though she offered him an employment, yet she did not ask his advice’.77
The Duke of Somerset ‘had the vanity to think he could manage that House of Commons as he pleased’, but Harley doubted his ability to impose his will on Whig backbenchers. Realising he had miscalculated in thinking that Harley would defer to his wishes, Somerset regretted forming an alliance with a man likely to bring the Whig party to its knees. When he objected to the Queen, he found his access to her curtailed. Arthur Maynwaring reported, ‘’tis certain [he] does not now see [her] so many minutes in a day as he used to do hours’.78
Lord Somers was equally disillusioned with Harley. He had been duped into thinking he would succeed Godolphin, but on 5 August Harley saw the Queen, and put an end to ‘the chimerical matter’. As it dawned on Somers that he was not to be chief minister, and that Parliament was unlikely to last long, he grew ‘extremely angry and uneasy’. The Duke of Devonshire was also in a fury, treating the Queen in a ‘peevish and … very distasteful manner’.79
Once it was apparent that few of the current ministers would endorse his policies, Harley had to think of alternatives. He was wary of turning to the Tories, being fearful they would try to control the ministry, but he lamented that the Whigs left him little choice, and ‘strive to drive us into a party’. He now contemplated bringing the Earl of Rochester into government, despite the latter’s reputation as the most diehard of Tories. In July Rochester had started appearing at court, and his niece appeared to have forgiven his past offences. Although Rochester was said to have given out he ‘never was nor ever would be concerned with Harley’, Harley was right in thinking he was not as implacable as this suggested. On 1 September, Rochester was named as Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall in place of Godolphin. Eleven days later the Dutch Resident in England, l’Hermitage, heard that Rochester had been offered the Presidency of the Council, but was still haggling over conditions.80 There were other Tories, however, with whom Harley was reluctant to become involved. The Queen’s hatred for the Earl of Nottingham made it out of the question for him to be offered a position. Rather more surprisingly, Harley did not want to give an important post to Henry St John, even though the latter had followed him into the wilderness in 1708. Worried that St John was too ambitious to be a loyal subordinate, Harley intended merely to restore him to his former job of Secretary at War, rather than offering him something more substantial. St John made it plain that this was insufficient, and never forgave the insult.
On 14 September Harley told an associate that the Queen was ‘resolved in her own breast’ on a dissolution, having accepted that the present Parliament could not meet ‘without intolerable heats’. Nevertheless, both Harley and the Queen still hoped that a few of the current ministers would remain in office. For some time Harley had been courting Lord Cowper, and on 18 September he met with him and ‘used all arguments possible’ to persuade him to stay on. Although Harley lamented that ‘he must … throw himself into the Thames’ if Cowper resisted his
entreaties, the Lord Chancellor answered ‘that to keep in, when all my friends were out would be infamous’.81
The Queen took action on 20 September, depriving Devonshire of his place as Lord Steward, and replacing him with the Duke of Buckingham. She also dismissed Lord Somers, but she sent word ‘she had not lessened her esteem for him’ and asked him to give her advice in private from time to time. Promising to do so, Somers ‘expressed a great deal of duty and gratitude’. He was succeeded as Lord President by the Earl of Rochester. Only days before, Rochester had lectured the Queen on the impossibility of forming a government independent of parties, saying he could not serve with men who did not share his principles. Now he proved surprisingly willing to compromise, and in the few months left to him would do his best to hold Harley’s administration together.82 To the disappointment of both Harley and the Queen, Secretary Boyle resigned and Harley reluctantly conferred his office on Henry St John.
At the Cabinet meeting on 21 September, the clerk read out a proclamation stating that Parliament was to be dissolved. Cowper started to protest, but ‘the Queen rose up and would admit of no debate, and ordered the writs for a new Parliament to be prepared’. She then left the room, which ‘spoiled a great many intended speeches’. The next day Lords Orford, Wharton, and Cowper went to court to resign their places. The Queen was downcast at this, but was particularly upset at the prospect of losing Cowper. When he tried to surrender the Great Seal, she responded with ‘repeated importunities’ that lasted for three quarters of an hour, ‘begging him not to do so with tears’. Five times, Cowper handed over the seal, only for the Queen to give it back to him, saying humbly, ‘I beg it as a favour of you if I may use that expression’. Eventually Cowper took it on condition she would accept it from his hands the following day. The next morning Cowper duly returned, and this time, to Anne’s profound regret, managed to resign. Soon afterwards she sent him a message, asking him to pay her occasional visits and proffer advice.83
The Tory Simon Harcourt was made Lord Keeper, and the Admiralty was put into commission. Although Anne had yearned for a mixed ministry, it was undeniably ‘upon an entire Tory bottom that the administration is now founded’. Admittedly the Duke of Somerset remained in office, but he was no friend to the new ministry. ‘The day the Parliament was dissolved he came out of council in such a passion that he cursed and swore at all his servants’. The next day he tried to resign, and though ‘the Queen overpersuaded him’, during the elections he used all his influence to secure the return of Whig candidates. He complained he had been ‘deceived by Mr Harley, for all he intended to do was to free the Queen from the power of the two great men, and was promised that things should be carried no further’. After ‘a long audience and a very rough one on his part’ with the Queen in late October, he ceased to attend Cabinet meetings.84
It was true that a few minor Whigs remained in lesser offices, but even this would be difficult to sustain should the Tories gain a sweeping victory at the polls. Fearing that if the Tories became ‘too numerous … they should be insolent and kick against him’, Harley took ‘measures to cool the affection of the country’. He arranged for a propaganda tract entitled Faults on Both Sides to be written, criticising extreme Tory views on non-resistance, as well as attacking the Whigs. There were no ‘endeavours from the court to secure elections’ for Tory candidates, but the voters were in such a determined mood this made little difference. Public opinion had been so inflamed by the Sacheverell trial that ‘there never was so apparent a fury as the people of England show against the Whigs’. While the Whig party ‘bellowed far and near that Popery and the Pretender were coming in, the other cried aloud that the Church and the monarchy were rescued from the very brink of perdition’, and in the current climate those claims had much the greater resonance. The Tories also benefited from war weariness, for they stressed that ‘the great motive of these changes was the absolute necessity of a peace, which they thought the Whigs were for perpetually delaying’.85
The result was a Tory landslide, with 270 Whigs losing their seats, and Tories outnumbering their opponents in the Commons by more than two to one. It was clear that such an assembly would prove hard for Harley to manage, and one observer reported, ‘Those who got the last Parliament dissolved are as much astonished, and they say troubled, for the glut of Tories that will be in the next as the Whigs themselves’. Ominously, a significant minority of newly returned MPs had Jacobite sympathies, and would have been happy to overturn the Hanoverian succession and install the Pretender on the throne after Anne. Several of the Scots representative peers were believed to have similar leanings, so it was perhaps not surprising that it was reported that ‘the people at Saint-Germain’s are very uppish at this time’.86
The Queen had not wanted such a resounding Tory victory. In November 1710 she told the Whig lawyer Sir Peter King, ‘Though I have changed my ministers I have not altered my measures’, insisting that her political outlook remained non-partisan. However, the events of recent months had created doubts about her views that would never be dispelled, and which would darken the last years of her reign. Immediately after Godolphin’s dismissal Anne had been dismayed when she had asked Sir David Hamilton what people were saying in the country, and he had told her bluntly, ‘They talked of her Majesty’s inclinations to the Pretender’. Bishop Burnet felt it necessary to lecture her on the subject after being ‘encouraged by the Queen to speak more freely’. Having warned that ‘reports were secretly spread of her through the nation as if she favoured the design of bringing the Pretender to succeed to the crown’, he said she must do everything possible ‘to extinguish those jealousies’. Anne could honestly have dismissed these rumours as unfounded, but Burnet recalled, ‘She heard me patiently; she was for the most part silent’.87
The Duke of Marlborough did what he could to fan such fears. Ironically, he had kept up his own duplicitous connection with Saint-Germain. As recently as July 1710 he had sought to compromise Abigail Masham by artfully suggesting to the deposed Queen Mary Beatrice that she should establish contact with ‘the new [female] favourite’. While pronouncing this ‘very obliging’, Mary Beatrice had declined to take the bait. She pointed out to Marlborough, ‘What can we hope from a stranger who has no obligation to us? Whereas we have all the reasons in the world to depend upon you’.88
Marlborough had decided against resigning when Godolphin was dismissed. He told the former Lord Treasurer that he would concentrate on bringing that year’s campaign to a successful finish, while ‘troubling my head as little as is possible with politics’. When Sarah expressed anger, he pointed out the Elector of Hanover had asked him to stay on, and explained that, while ‘I detest [Harley]’, he would not let himself be governed by faction. Yet although Marlborough seemed to have come to terms with events, inwardly he was seething with bitterness and hatred. ‘The folly and ingratitude of [the Queen] makes [me] sick and weary of everything’ he told Godolphin in late September. He was determined to do what he could to make things difficult for Harley, and so systematically set about destroying his reputation with allied powers. After Marlborough had warned that the new ministers ‘intend absolutely to bring about peace’, the Emperor instructed his envoy in England to take directions from Marlborough rather than the government. Marlborough also sullied Harley’s name in Hanover. The Electress Sophia professed unconcern at Anne’s change of government, remarking, ‘It was but reasonable she should make choice of such ministers as were most agreeable to her’, but Elector George Ludwig was persuaded that Harley’s intentions towards him were malign. One of his leading advisers informed Marlborough that the Elector was taking ‘English affairs far more to heart than he had ever done’, and George not only expressed indignation at Marlborough’s ‘barbarous usage’, but assured the Duke he would ‘not be governed’ by Harley.89
In September Harley sent Earl Rivers on an embassy to Hanover in a bid to convince the Elector he and his ministry were not hostile to him. Harley may e
ven have hoped that the Elector would act on hints from Rivers and volunteer to take overall command of allied forces in place of Marlborough, but George Ludwig showed no interest in doing so. Instead, he received Rivers coldly and then wrote to the Queen urging her to do everything possible to ensure Marlborough remained at the head of the army. His suspicious reaction was understandable in view of the fact that on 30 August Marlborough had written to warn him Harley was a Jacobite. The Duke declared that, besides having ruined the country’s credit and tarnished Anne’s reputation abroad by engineering Godolphin’s dismissal, Harley and his followers had other ‘pernicious designs’. It was, he wrote, no longer possible to ‘doubt that their views tend [only] to bring back the pretended Prince of Wales … and to form cabals and projects which will infallibly overturn the Protestant succession’.90
13
I Do Not Like War
In July 1710 the Abbé Gaultier, a fat, worldly French priest who had ‘skulked in England’ since coming over with the French ambassador late in William III’s reign, received a message from Louis XIV’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Marquis de Torcy. Soon after settling in London, Gaultier had become an unofficial French agent, occasionally sending gossipy letters home. In June 1710, he had intrigued Torcy by reporting that ‘the Duke of Shrewsbury and Mistress Masham govern the Queen absolutely’. Although at that point the peace negotiations at Geertrudenberg had not been broken off, Torcy clearly had little hope that they would be successful. Thinking to bypass Godolphin (still in office at that point) and obtain less severe peace terms, Torcy asked Gaultier to approach Shrewsbury and Mrs Masham.1
Gaultier had replied that he did not know either of them and, anyway, dealing with Mrs Masham would be pointless, as she ‘could not render any service in an affair of this consequence’. He was, however, acquainted with the Earl of Jersey, who was close to both the Duke of Shrewsbury and Robert Harley. The priest duly contacted Jersey and indicated that he could provide the ministers with an informal means of communicating with France. Jersey passed this on to Harley, who welcomed the opportunity to let Jersey act for him, despite the fact that the Earl was suspected of Jacobite sympathies. Communicating with the enemy in time of war was treasonable, so doing it at one remove through a shadowy figure like Jersey had its attractions.2 Harley was not worried by the prospect that Jersey would raise France’s hopes of a Jacobite restoration. Hinting at the possibility would widen his own options, but verbal offers made by Jersey could always be disavowed.
Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion Page 59