Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion

by Anne Somerset

  Oxford carefully chose the men who would have titles, selecting three who were the eldest sons of peers and thus destined to enter the Lords anyway. When one man turned down the honour, considering it disreputable to obtain a peerage in such circumstances, Oxford suggested that Samuel Masham should be made a Lord, but Anne was not pleased. Oxford recorded, ‘She desired me not to put it into his head, for she was sure Mrs Masham did not desire it. She took me up very short last night but for mentioning it’. Anne later explained that ‘she never had any design to make a great lady’ of Abigail, fearing she ‘should lose a useful servant about her person’. Mindful of how often Abigail slept on a camp bed in her room when acting as her night nurse, the Queen was worried ‘it would give offence to have a peeress lie upon the floor and do several other inferior offices’. However, on the condition that Abigail ‘remained as a dresser, and did as she used to do’ the Queen finally consented to Masham’s ennoblement. Abigail was ‘very well pleased’, partly because she hoped a peerage would provide ‘some sort of protection to her upon any turn of affairs’.109

  Having been ignorant of what Oxford and the Queen had been planning, Lord Dartmouth was stupefied when Anne ‘drew a list of twelve Lords out of her pocket and ordered me to bring warrants for them’. He asked in amazement if she intended to create all at once, not questioning the legality of the proceeding, but greatly doubting its wisdom. The Queen ‘said she had made fewer lords than any of her predecessors’, and since ‘the Duke of Marlborough and the Whigs were resolved to distress her as much as they could … she must do what she could to help herself’. She added, ‘She liked it as little as [Dartmouth] did, but did not find that anybody could propose a better expedient’.110

  On 31 December the Queen announced in Cabinet that she had made twelve new peers. She also declared that the Duke of Marlborough was to be deprived of his offices pending the parliamentary enquiry into his financial dealings, so ‘that the matter might have an impartial examination’. Marlborough was informed of this by a letter ‘so very offensive that the Duke flung it in the fire’. Writing back to observe that Anne had deliberately dismissed him ‘in the manner that is most injurious to me’, he reiterated his view that ‘the friendship of France must needs be destructive to your Majesty’.111

  When the mass creation of peers was made public that same day, there was consternation at this ‘mighty stretch of the prerogative’. A courtier reported, ‘The Whigs roar and cry this is altering the constitution’ and another observer claimed, ‘People were as much stunned with this daring innovation as if Magna Carta had been ordered to be burnt’. Clearly feeling some qualms of conscience, Anne took informal legal advice from an unnamed person (probably Lord Cowper) who declared that while technically she had acted within her rights, what she had done was not only unprecedented but ‘a violation of the freedom of parliaments’.112

  At least the measure proved effective. After a brief Christmas recess, the House of Lords reconvened on 2 January 1712. The Whig leaders had hoped to repeat their earlier successes with further votes against the ministry. Instead, the House tamely voted to adjourn till later in the month, with some moderate Whig peers voting with the court alongside the new creations. Anne and Oxford, it seemed, had recovered control of the situation.

  14

  The Great Work of Peace

  Having embarked on a peace process to which Austria was avowedly hostile, Queen Anne and her ministers had been appalled to learn that Emperor Charles VI was planning to send Prince Eugene of Savoy, his most successful general, to visit England. The Emperor had recently announced that he intended to send an army to Spain, and it was obvious that Eugene would try to persuade the Queen to despatch more troops herself, just when she was hoping to scale back her commitments there. Every effort was made to discourage Eugene from coming, and it was even hinted that the Queen could not guarantee his personal security. Nevertheless, on 5 January 1712 the unwelcome guest landed at Greenwich. The following day he had a brief meeting with the Queen, whose manner he described as ‘somewhat embarrassed and aloof’. Evidently ‘primed beforehand’, she refused to discuss anything relating to peace, saying this could only be dealt with at Utrecht. After fifteen minutes she terminated the audience, telling him she ‘was sorry the state of her health would not permit her to speak with his Highness as often as she would like’.1

  On 17 January the Earl of Oxford wrote to reassure the Marquis de Torcy that Eugene’s visit would not affect the Queen’s outlook in any way. The ministers hoped the Prince’s exhausting round of social engagements would sap his energy, and he was indeed so enthusiastically feted that one observer feared he was ‘in some danger of being killed with good cheer’.2

  On Eugene’s arrival in England, a government emissary had advised him that ‘the less he saw the Duke of Marlborough the better’, but the Prince had ignored this warning. He attended the opera with the recently dismissed Captain-General, and was heartily cheered by the audience. He made no secret of his political sympathies, but instead ‘upon all occasions publicly owned the character and appellation of a Whig’. A Jacobite sympathiser reported indignantly he ‘cabals daily with the Whigs in a very indecent manner’, and at these conferences he encouraged them to maintain their opposition to peace.3

  When condoled by foreign admirers on his dismissal, the Duke of Marlborough maintained that it had merely made him more popular. He claimed he could not go out without crowds shouting supportive greetings, and that his levees were now better attended than ever. Much as he disliked the Duke, Jonathan Swift questioned the wisdom of ousting him from his post. ‘These are strong remedies; pray God the patient is able to bear them’, Swift fretted, fearing that the Queen and Oxford had dismissed Marlborough after coming to ‘mortally hate’ him, rather than acting dispassionately.4

  Oxford was counting on Marlborough’s standing going into decline once his financial dealings were exposed, but knew the matter needed skilful handling. The ministry had a disagreeable shock after the Whig former Secretary at War, Robert Walpole, was accused of misappropriating funds. He was found guilty and sent to the Tower for a few months, but the majority against him in the House of Commons was far from sizeable. Fearing that it would be difficult to muster sufficient votes against Marlborough, the ministers intimated that provided he acknowledged himself guilty of some impropriety he would be subjected to only mild censure. The Duke declined to cooperate, being hopeful that when his case came before Parliament, he would be completely exonerated. This being so, the ministers exerted themselves, and ‘better care’ was taken to ensure a more convincing result than in the Walpole case. According to the Duchess of Marlborough, the Queen took an active part. Sarah noted bitterly, ‘In the Duke of Marlborough’s business she solicited several herself to be against him, and her name was made use of to everyone that it could influence’.5

  On 24 January these measures bore fruit when Marlborough’s affairs were brought before the Commons. During a ‘warm debate’, his supporters passionately defended him, but a large majority found that the payments he had accepted from foreign rulers who supplied troops were ‘unwarrantable and illegal’ and that these sums, like the cash he had taken from the army bread contractors, constituted ‘public money, and ought to be accounted for’. As Oxford had hoped, the findings dented Marlborough’s popularity. Having reported that ‘the people are disgusted at him’ a possibly tainted Jacobite source even alleged that when Marlborough’s sedan chair was sighted in the park, a crowd raced after it shouting, ‘Stop, thief!’6

  Having secured Marlborough’s dismissal, the ministry would have liked both the Duke and Duchess of Somerset to be removed from office, but this proved more problematic. The Queen was absolutely determined to retain the Duchess as her Groom of the Stole and, while prepared to part with the Duke, she did not want him taking his wife from court ‘in spite’. She wrote to Somerset asking him to show forbearance, but instead of giving the desired assurances, the Duke merely exhibited the
letter to his friends. On 18 January the Queen was finally prevailed upon to dismiss the Duke, and for the next ten days the question of whether his wife would be permitted to stay at her post hung in the balance. At the Queen’s request Sir David Hamilton had a word with Lord Cowper, who saw Somerset and urged him to let the Duchess retain the gold key. Cowper argued that not only would it be beneficial to the Whigs to have such a highly placed friend at court, but that the Queen’s health would be ‘greatly impaired’ if she was deprived of the Duchess’s company. In the face of this appeal the Duke relented and agreed that his wife need not resign. After coming to court on 28 January Hamilton recorded, ‘I never saw the Queen look with a more pleasant and healthful countenance, saying that “Now it was done”’.7

  It was a source of regret to the ministry that the Duchess had not followed her husband into retirement. On 15 February a knowledgeable lady reported, ‘I hear Lord Treasurer is very uneasy about the Duchess of Somerset, for they say she is more public in espousing the Whig interest than ever’. Unlike her predecessor Sarah, however, the Duchess of Somerset’s advocacy on behalf of the Whigs was done subtly. When discussing the Duchess with the Queen one day, Hamilton remarked, ‘She seems to converse with a courteous calmness … suitable to your Majesty’s temper’. Anne readily concurred, confirming Sir David’s belief that she was grateful that the Duchess ‘never pressed the Queen hard; nothing makes the Queen more uneasy than that’.8

  Although the Duchess of Somerset retained her place at court, most Whigs boycotted the Queen’s birthday celebrations on 6 February 1712. This detracted from the occasion’s glamour, as it could not be denied that ‘beauty is all on the Whig side’. Some complained that ‘there was no women fit to look at’, despite ‘as much fine clothes as ever’ being in evidence. In the evening Prince Eugene attended the festivities. After he played a hand of basset with the Queen, she presented him with a magnificent sword with a diamond-studded hilt. Marlborough of course was not there to see him receive the gift, and his daughters too were absent, having resigned their places as Ladies of the Bedchamber in late January. As the guests streamed out of St James’s when the party ended, they were to be seen hanging out of the windows of Marlborough House, ‘all undressed to see the sight’.9

  The Queen and her ministry soon had more serious things to worry about. On 1/12 January 1712 the peace conference had convened at Utrecht. When Parliament reassembled on 17 January, Anne sent a message that she would communicate peace terms to them before concluding a treaty. She also promised to bear in mind their stipulation that peace would be unacceptable unless the allies had just satisfaction regarding Spain and the West Indies, adding that ‘all preparations were hastening for an early campaign’. Despite this, Oxford wrote to Torcy that very day, reassuring him that the Queen was still desirous for peace.10

  On 31 January/11 February the French plenipotentiaries at Utrecht caused consternation when they submitted a set of utterly unacceptable proposals. Among other things they envisaged that Holland would be left with a negligible barrier and that the Spanish Netherlands would be awarded to Louis XIV’s ally, Maximilian of Bavaria. ‘If the French had gained as many victories and conquests as the allies had won over them for ten years past, they could hardly have offered more unreasonable conditions or … made more extravagant demands’. Such imperious behaviour provoked understandable fury in both England and Holland. On 15 February Lord Halifax moved in the House of Lords that an address should be presented to the Queen protesting at these ‘trifling, arrogant and injurious’ offers. Since the ministry dared not argue against this, his proposal passed by acclaim.11

  To incline opinion towards peace, it was necessary to deflect anger against France and focus instead on allied shortcomings. The terms of the 1709 Barrier Treaty were revealed to Parliament for the first time and it was demonstrated that when negotiating this Lord Townshend had promised the Dutch more towns for their barrier than was compatible with British interests. When an MP tried to defend the treaty on the grounds that it bound Holland to guarantee the Protestant succession, St John, who had led the attack with ‘much vehemence’, said it was dishonourable for the kingdom to be reliant in this manner on the Dutch republic. A resolution was passed that the treaty was destructive to the national interest and dishonourable to the Queen, who was asked to amend it accordingly. Indignation against the allies was whipped up further after a Commons committee examined the manner in which the Dutch and Imperialists had fulfilled their treaty obligations, concluding that they had failed to take on a fair share of the burdens of war. As the ministry had hoped, these findings caused widespread disenchantment, and Daniel Defoe noted ‘Foreign knavery is the subject of everybody’s discourse’.12

  The ministry did not scruple to keep excitement at a height by dubious tactics. After some unpleasant nocturnal incidents were reported in the capital, exaggerated warnings were issued that gangs of young men, calling themselves the ‘Mohocks’, were on the rampage. They allegedly delighted in committing ‘inhumane outrages’, slitting noses being one of their supposed specialities. Swift was overcome by such terror that he abandoned his usual thrifty habits and had himself carried home from late outings by sedan chair. While annoyed that these ruffians had ‘put me to the charge of some shillings’, he believed this to be an unavoidable precaution. ‘It is not safe being in the streets at night for them … They are all Whigs’, he informed a pair of lady friends. With everyone in the grip of fear, people proved receptive to absurd rumours that Prince Eugene had suggested to the Whig leaders that it would be possible to kill Oxford and blame it on the Mohocks. The Queen appears to have accepted that Oxford was in some danger, and ‘in her great goodness … spake to her Treasurer to take more care of himself’. Gradually, however, the panic subsided. A Whig commentator recorded, ‘When people … came to enquire calmly and coolly into the matter it was found that no other disorders had happened of late but such as are usual … in populous cities … Some agents of men in power were shrewdly suspected of having raised and improved the report … in order to throw the odium … upon the Whigs’. Even Swift calmed down after a bit. ‘I begin almost to think there is no truth or very little in the whole story’, he admitted in mid March.13

  Very little progress was being made at the peace conference at Utrecht, but Oxford hoped to advance things by communicating secretly with Torcy. He was sure that the French would improve upon their earlier insulting offers, and did not believe that it was necessary to apply military pressure to achieve this. Indeed, Abbé Gaultier would note in early March that from the moment peace overtures had begun, those behind them in Britain had been guided by the ‘maxim that if possible, exposure to the eventualities of a campaign must be avoided’. He added that ‘the Queen continues of this mind’. However, this was carefully concealed from her allies. On 4 January the Duke of Ormonde had been named as commander of British troops in the Netherlands and before he sailed for Holland in the spring the Queen assured the States General, ‘Nothing will be neglected on our side to put us in a position to open the campaign early and to act vigorously against the enemy’.14

  Anxious that the Queen’s commitment to peace did not waver, in January 1712 Gaultier had told Torcy, ‘If your Excellency could now induce the King [Louis XIV] to write to her … it would engage her very far in our interests’. Louis duly despatched a letter to her within a fortnight, professing himself delighted that she was disposed towards ‘a perfect reconciliation’. According to Gaultier, when the Queen received this, she ‘was charmed and wept with joy’.15

  Within days, however, prospects of peace were overshadowed. Louis XIV’s only son had succumbed to smallpox the year before; then, on 7/18 February Louis’s eldest grandson, the Duc de Bourgogne, died, and was followed to the grave by his eldest son just over a fortnight later. ‘The death of the third dauphin within the year’ created an international crisis, for though he left behind a two-year-old brother who now became Louis XIV’s heir, in an age of terrifyi
ng infant mortality it was likely that he too would perish before very long.16 The next in line of succession was Philip, Duke of Anjou, whom Great Britain was poised to acknowledge as Philip V of Spain. If he succeeded to the French throne, France and Spain would be united under a single ruler, an eventuality that would have catastrophic implications for the European balance of power. Peace was out of the question unless a formula could be devised providing against a union of these two mighty nations.

  On 4/15 March Gaultier wrote to Torcy, ‘The Queen has been visibly moved by the misfortunes that have recently taken place in France’. He explained that because she feared that others would use this as an excuse to prolong the war, she considered it imperative that some way was found of preventing a union of crowns. In her view the most satisfactory means would be for Philip of Anjou to make a ‘formal renunciation’ of his right to the French throne.17

  Torcy informed St John on 12/23 March that the rules governing succession to the French throne were subject to modification by God alone, and hence ‘the renunciation desired would be null and invalid’. However, when a firm reply was sent, indicating that the expedient proposed was ‘the only one in the Queen’s opinion capable of affording the smallest hope’, the French relented. They agreed that, provided Philip divested himself of his rights by a ‘voluntary cession’, the succession could be altered.18

  The French suggested that there was no need for Philip to make his decision unless the young dauphin died, but this was rejected by the British. They insisted that two alternatives must be put to him immediately: to remain King of Spain, and give up all claim to the French throne; or retain his French inheritance rights, abdicate his current crown, and evacuate Spain promptly. On 15/26 April a messenger set out from France to present Philip with these two proposals.