Before Jersey’s death further steps had been taken to advance peace. In early July 1711 the poet and diplomatist Matthew Prior had accompanied Abbé Gaultier to France for secret meetings with Torcy. He took with him a memorial drawn up by Oxford, itemising the demands Britain expected to be met. To prepare him for his talks with Prior, Torcy first saw Gaultier, who relayed an encouraging message from Lord Jersey. According to him, France would be called upon to recognise Anne and ‘her heirs’, a vague form of wording that would have left open the possibility that James Francis Edward would succeed her. Jersey maintained that this was not ‘inserted by chance and that it was intended to work in the King of England’s interests’.65
In fact, when Torcy examined Oxford’s memorial, he found the position to be very different, for France was required to acknowledge the succession ‘as it is now settled in Great Britain’. In addition the demolition was demanded of Dunkirk, a ‘nest of pirates’, which facilitated French attacks on British shipping. Newfoundland (currently held by the British) and ‘all things in America should continue in possession of those they should be found to be in at the conclusion of the peace’. Spain must cede Gibraltar and Port Mahon to Britain, and grant Britain the Asiento contract, conferring the sole right to supply slaves to Spain’s dominions in South America. ‘Positive assurance’ must be given that the crowns of France and Spain would never be united and Britain’s allies had to be satisfied regarding both their trade and frontier barriers.66
After Prior had met with Torcy three times it was agreed that the French would send the trade expert Nicholas Mesnager to England to take matters further. Prior was granted a farewell audience by Louis XIV and then travelled home in early August with Mesnager and Gaultier. Unfortunately on arriving at Deal they were briefly detained by a customs officer whose suspicions were aroused by their passports in false names. Although he was soon obliged to free them, he informed Sunderland of the incident, alerting the Whigs that the peace process was under way.
Several weeks of intensive negotiations now took place in London. During that time, the Queen was in residence at Windsor, but she followed matters with keen interest. On Prior’s return she immediately summoned him for a personal account of his dealings in France, asking him to tell Mesnager she was delighted by his arrival and ‘was only sorry to be obliged to conceal an event that was so very agreeable to her’. On 11 August her discussions with Oxford went on till midnight, and three days later she informed the Cabinet that negotiations with France were about to take place. At this point her health took a turn for the worse. For the past three weeks she had been uncharacteristically fit and had been hunting with great gusto. Unfortunately what was described as ‘a light fit of the gout’ on 15 August became so painful that within six days she could barely write. On 2 September she was so ill that she received her monthly sacrament in bed, though three days later she was able to walk with a stick. She was well enough to see company in her bedchamber on 9 September, but in a fortnight’s time had to be carried to church in a chair.67
Throughout it all the Queen’s mood remained ‘very cheerful and hearty’, as she continued to push for peace. Once talks with Mesnager began on 15 August, she was kept fully informed of their progress. On 26 August she decreed to the Cabinet that ‘transactions in relation to a peace should be drawn and laid before the Lords at the committee on Tuesday next in order to be laid before her Majesty’. When new instructions for Mesnager were sent from France, copies were promptly sent to her, and her ill health did not stop her attending Cabinet until late into the night while peace was debated. The assertion by the Whig writer John Oldmixon that she was kept in the dark about what was going on, ‘knowing nothing more of the matter than what Mrs Abigail Masham and [Oxford] were pleased to tell her in generals’ could not have been farther from the truth.68
Initially negotiations took place at Jersey’s house, with Oxford, Shrewsbury, the two Secretaries and Jersey himself acting for Britain. Mesnager attempted to persuade them that Britain should make a separate peace with France, but this was ‘rejected with great firmness’. Several days of ‘stormy’ discussions ensued, at which progress was slow, but at length it was agreed that Mesnager would apply back to France for fuller instructions that would allow him to give Britain the concessions she desired.69
The talks left the Duke of Shrewsbury uneasy, for it was apparent that his colleagues were focusing on securing good terms for England, while leaving unspecified what the allies could expect. On 27 August the Duke wrote to Oxford, expressing concern at the apparent willingness to leave the allies ‘to shift for themselves’. Having been alerted that Shrewsbury might prove reluctant to participate further in the peace process, the Queen did what she could to calm the timorous Duke. On 19 September she told the Lord Treasurer that she and Shrewsbury had recently ‘talked a good deal … about the peace and I hope he will act very heartily in it, though he seems a little fearful’.70
Once new instructions arrived for Mesnager, talks resumed at Matthew Prior’s house on 20 September. Louis XIV had now authorised Mesnager to recognise Anne and the Protestant succession, and to offer Britain on Spain’s behalf Gibraltar, Port Mahon, and various commercial benefits. However a new difficulty now arose. While waiting in an anteroom Mesnager overheard the ministers engage in heated discussion. On being admitted, he was startled when St John referred to an address passed by Parliament in March 1709, prohibiting entering into an agreement with France unless the Pretender was first removed from French soil. Mesnager had no doubt that it was Shrewsbury who had raised the issue, and was very taken aback. Nevertheless he answered smoothly that there was no need to do anything on the matter until formal treaty negotiations began, at which point Britain’s plenipotentiaries could be instructed accordingly. All present seemed to find this an acceptable expedient and when the matter was referred back to her, the Queen herself proved anxious not to press the point. She wrote to Oxford, ‘I have this business of the peace so much at heart’ that if Mesnager appeared ‘very averse to the new proposition’, St John was ‘not to insist upon it’. Shrewsbury still had some misgivings: he reminded Oxford that the Barrier Treaty of 1709 also stipulated that England and Holland would enter into no negotiation with a country that harboured the Pretender, saying he hoped ‘effectual care’ would be taken of this in due course, ‘though it has been judged improper to insist upon it just now’.71 However, for the moment the problem was overcome.
On 23 September the Queen chaired a Cabinet meeting at Windsor that went on late into the night. When updated on developments, some members of the Cabinet, notably the Duke of Buckingham, urged that more concessions should be demanded of the French. The Queen left them in no doubt of ‘her sincere desire for peace’, making this ‘known to her council in terms so clear and positive that they … ceased to make any remonstrances … against it’. The following day Anne had further discussions with St John on issues that remained problematical. That evening the Secretary told Mesnager she had been so ‘carried away by her love of peace’ that she had agreed to overlook some ambiguous passages in Mesnager’s instructions and to grant the French limited fishing rights off Newfoundland. Just when things seemed on the brink of being settled, a hitch occurred on 26 September that almost led to negotiations being severed. Fortunately this was resolved and next day St John and Dartmouth signed on the Queen’s behalf a compact with France outlining the form a subsequent treaty would take. With characteristic hyperbole St John informed his mistress, ‘This agreement contains more advantages for your Majesty’s kingdoms than were ever, perhaps, stipulated for any nation at one time’.72
The outcome left the Queen ‘in mighty good humour’. Oxford had already suggested that once the articles had been signed, Mesnager should be brought to see her, and Anne had declared herself ‘very willing to receive the compliment you mention if you can contrive a very private way to do it’. Louis XIV had in fact been reluctant to sanction an encounter with a monarch whose legitimacy he s
till privately questioned, but ultimately agreed that Mesnager should go to Windsor ‘if he … could not with decency decline it’. Accordingly at 8 p.m. on 28 September, ‘St John conducted him privately to the Queen’s apartment’ in the Castle. ‘They ascended by a backstairs without meeting anybody but two sentinels and, in the antechamber, one of the Queen’s favourite attendants’ – presumably, Mrs Masham. Mesnager said something flattering about how the Queen would earn immortal renown by ‘procuring repose for Europe’, to which Anne answered graciously in perfect French that she would do everything possible to forward a general treaty. ‘I do not like war’ she pronounced, adding that it would give her great pleasure ‘to live upon good terms with the King to whom I am so nearly allied in blood’.73
All this time the Duke of Marlborough had been on campaign without any idea that peace was in prospect. He had not even been informed of the proposals made by France in April and subsequently passed on to Holland. Absorbed in the struggle with the enemy, he accepted that he should avoid political battles at home, telling Sarah, ‘Whilst I serve, I must endeavour not to displease’. When he shared a coach in March 1711 with the Elector of Hanover’s adviser, Robethon, he was relatively restrained in his comments. He now said that Harley and Mrs Masham were not Jacobites, although he cautioned that pressure from the October Club might weaken Harley’s support for the Protestant Succession. As for Anne, he said that while he did not believe she was for the Prince of Wales, ‘The Queen is a woman, and it is possible to deceive her’.74
The Examiner and other government-sponsored papers continued to publish unpleasant pieces on Marlborough but, though he confessed their ‘villainous way of printing … stabs me to the heart’, he resisted retaliating. He warned Sarah that their correspondence was probably opened, instructing her to ‘be careful in your discourse as well as your letters’. When in response she roundly abused Oxford and St John, he reproached her for having ‘already forgot the earnest request’ he had made so recently. Yet, irrepressible as ever, Sarah continued to encourage Arthur Maynwaring to attack the ministry in the Whig organ, The Medley. Aware of the damage this did him, Marlborough groaned in July, ‘I wish the devil had The Medley and The Examiner together!’75
In May 1711 the Queen asked Sarah to vacate her lodgings at St James’s. Though her husband ordered her to comply, the Duchess did not go quietly. Because her new house was not quite ready, Sarah wanted to store her possessions in rooms currently occupied by a Mrs Cooper. The Queen said irritably that rather than inconvenience this poor woman, Sarah could ‘take a place for ten shillings a week’, which the Duchess deemed outrageous. Not only did she go on trying to evict the wretched Mrs Cooper, but when she moved out she stripped the brass locks from every door in her apartment. The Queen heard she had done more extensive damage, ‘and taken away even the slabs out of the chimneys’. In fury she suspended payments for Blenheim, ‘saying she would not build a house for one who had pulled down and gutted hers’.76
Meanwhile, in what turned out to be his final campaign, Marlborough achieved more extraordinary feats. The French had secured themselves behind defences known as the Ne Plus Ultra Lines. By pretending he was planning to attack near Arras, Marlborough tricked them into concentrating their forces in that area. He then moved his forces eastwards under cover of darkness, and broke through where the lines were weakly defended. As a reward for this dazzling manoeuvre, the ministry allocated a further £20,000 for Blenheim. Rather than hazard a battle, Marlborough next laid siege to Bouchain. When it fell on 1/12 September, the Duke regarded this as the greatest achievement of his career.
Already looking forward to next season’s campaign, Marlborough wanted to set up magazines on the French frontier, so he could take the field early in the year. He sent Lord Stair to ask the ministry to sanction the necessary expenditure, and Oxford appeared willing. The Lord Treasurer declared the plan had the Queen’s full approbation, and only the refusal of the Dutch to bear their share of the cost made it impossible to proceed. In fact, both he and Anne were relieved when the idea was abandoned. In September she confided to Oxford, ‘I think the Duke of Marlborough shows plainer than ever by this new project his unwillingness for a peace, but I hope our negotiations will succeed, and then it will not be in his power to prevent it’.77
As Marlborough gained some inkling of the ministry’s peacemaking activities, the signs were indeed that he would not acquiesce in a settlement with France. On 20 September a pamphlet entitled Bouchain was published by Maynwaring, complaining of the ministry’s shameful treatment of their general. Warning that Marlborough must not see ‘the fruits of his victories thrown all away … by a shameful and scandalous peace’, it stated that Parliament would inevitably ‘crush the bold man who shall propose it’. Feeling sure that Marlborough had sanctioned this work, St John described it as ‘an invective … against the Queen and all who serve her’. Government hacks such as the redoubtable Mrs Manley were at once set to work against Marlborough’s supporters, with instructions to ‘write them to death’.78
Marlborough’s reluctance to abandon the struggle when he believed himself poised for a final breakthrough was understandable enough. Whether he was correct in thinking himself on the brink of complete victory is more difficult to assess. The Elector of Hanover was one of those who believed that once the allies had taken another fortress they could sweep into the heart of France and ‘have what peace conditions we wanted’. However, it was first necessary to capture Cambrai, a massive stronghold. St John would later deride Marlborough’s ‘visionary schemes’ of marching on Paris, demanding, ‘Was this so easy or so sure a game?’ He pointed out that even if his capital fell, Louis XIV could retreat to Lyons and carry on the struggle from there. This would merely have ‘protracted the war till we had conquered France first, in order to conquer Spain afterwards’.79
St John also wondered, ‘Did we hope for revolutions in France?’ and in fact it does seem that Marlborough would have liked to bring about nothing less than a reform of the French constitution. In 1709 he had mused to Godolphin that if the Kings of France were made dependent on the will of their representative assembly, the Estates General, it would be impossible for them to disturb the future peace of Christendom. Yet although the Treaty of Grand Alliance had identified the need to reduce the exorbitant power of France, such extensive regime change had never been contemplated. As the Earl of Strafford remarked, while at times Marlborough appeared set on dethroning both Louis XIV and his grandson Philip of Spain, ‘This was carrying things much farther than the balance of Europe demanded’.80
The ministry’s mood of celebration at the preliminary articles’ signing was dampened when news arrived on 6 October of the utter failure of the Quebec expedition. The venture had proved ‘ill projected and worse executed in every step’.81 The need to preserve secrecy meant that the expedition had been under-equipped so as not to give away the destination, but when the fleet put in at Boston further supplies were unobtainable. Admiral Walker failed to procure experienced pilots to navigate the St Lawrence River, with the result that several transports foundered in fog, and 800 men drowned. When Jack Hill held a council of war, his junior officers unanimously recommended returning home. He was later criticised for abiding by their decision, but if they had pressed on and taken Quebec, they were so short of provisions they would probably have starved.
Abigail attended a concert on the evening the news arrived to show she was ‘not downcast’ but there was no disguising her brother had covered himself in ignominy. For St John, who had ‘counted much’ on the expedition making England ‘masters … of all North America’, it was a bitter blow, not softened by Oxford’s cheery demeanour at the failure of a venture he had prophesied would miscarry.82 All hope that Britain would emerge from the war with territorial gains in Canada had to be abandoned.
The Queen now had to persuade her allies that it was in their interests to embark on peace negotiations with France. The task was complicated by the f
act that it had been decided not to reveal to them the particular advantages Great Britain had secured for herself, but only the more general provisions promising satisfaction to the allies in shadowy terms. Lord Rivers was sent to Hanover to inform the Elector and his mother, bearing letters from Oxford, which made much of the fact that France had agreed to acknowledge the Protestant Succession. The new Emperor Charles’s representative in London, Count Gallas, was also shown an abridged version of the articles, which he received in a most disrespectful manner. On 13 October this confidential information was printed in the Whig newspaper, The Daily Courant. The government had no doubt Gallas had leaked it and, despite the Queen’s trepidation at bringing about ‘a kind of rupture’ with Emperor Charles, she was prevailed upon to tell Gallas he was no longer welcome at court. Soon afterwards he left England in disgrace, but the damage he had caused was not easily rectified. Since the public remained ignorant of the more appealing aspects of the agreement reached with France, their disappointment was acute. The Hanoverian Resident, Kreienberg, reported, ‘almost nobody, whether Whig or Tory, is pleased’.83
The Dutch too were given an incomplete picture of what had been negotiated. The Earl of Strafford, the Queen’s ambassador at The Hague, was ordered to explain to the States General that ‘though the several articles do not contain such particular concessions as France must, and to be sure will make, yet they are, in our opinion, a sufficient foundation whereupon to open the conferences’. If the Dutch appeared suspicious that the Queen had ‘settled the interests of these our kingdoms … by any private agreement’, Strafford was to brush this aside and to warn that his mistress would have ‘just reason … to be offended … if they should pretend to have any further uneasiness upon this head’. Should Holland refuse to explore the opportunity for peace, Great Britain would remain in the war, but would ‘no longer bear that disproportionate burden’ she had shouldered in the past.84
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