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VII.

CHAPTER VII.

GODOLPHIN AND HARLEY.

CHAP. GODOLPHIN in the autumn of 1706, occupied a position of dazzling success. He was the head of an administration which had weathered violent parliamentary storms at home, which enjoyed reflected glory from the victories of Marlborough abroad, which demonstrated that English credit was sound enough to support the armies on the continent as well as the vast expense of its own expeditions, and which was about to add political stability to the constitution by the union with Scotland. Nevertheless, Godolphin was conscious that his ministry existed on sufferance. That the ministry was dependent upon the whigs had long been apparent. There were rumours of bargains by which support had been rendered in exchange for promises during the previous session. And now the whigs were pressing for fulfilment. They had not been satisfied by the preponderance accorded them in the commission for the union, nor with a few minor appointments, nor with the nomination of Cowper as lord keeper. In place of toleration they sought control. The junta must be represented in the inner circle of the queen's advisers. Of their number Halifax was a financial rival to Godolphin, Orford a naval expert, Wharton a party whip of coarse wit and notorious profligacy, and Somers was disliked by the queen as an adviser of William III. There remained Sunderland, and Sunderland was the son-in-law of Marlborough. His personality and his diplomatic experience had made an impression upon the public and upon his political associates. Born in 1674, he had imbibed the republican atmosphere of the university of Utrecht. His knowledge of foreign affairs and his acquaintance with foreign languages marked him out as

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a fitting co-adjutor for Marlborough. The whigs determined CHAP. to insist on his admission into the cabinet in place of Sir Charles Hedges, a tory, as secretary of state for the southern department.

The native obstinacy inherited by Anne from her father was always evoked by two irritants, latitudinarianism and uncourtly independence. In the person of Sunderland both were united. He was a freethinker. He had led the opposition in the matter of the grant to Prince George. He was vehement in the expression of his opinions, and was little likely to consider either the prerogative or dignity of the queen. The queen met the proposal with passionate resistance. The Duchess of Marlborough, with characteristic impetuosity, plunged into the fray. With invocations fashionable at the period, she begged, in a letter to Anne of August, 1706, that "Mr. and Mrs. Morley (the queen and Prince George) may see their errors as to this notion before it is too late ". By "notion" she meant the idea of an administration " with a part of the tories and the whigs disobliged ". The queen, however, read "nation"; her dignity was outraged and her obstinacy increased. Nor though Godolphin's explanations effected a temporary reconciliation, and the customary expressions of affection were renewed, did the influence of the duchess survive in full the estrangement provoked by this dispute. Throughout August and September matters were at a deadlock. Godolphin resolved to bring the influence of Marlborough himself to bear upon the queen. A letter from the duke to the queen from Cambron of October 24, N.S., skilfully played upon Anne's idiosyncrasies. Her scheme of government independent of parties "might be practicable if both parties sought your favour, as in reason and duty they ought. But, Madam, the truth is that the heads of one party have declared against you and your government, as far as it is possible without going into open rebellion."

Behind the obstinacy of the queen were the promptings of Harley. It is surprising that, though Cowper suspected his straightforwardness in August,1 yet as late as November 9, 1706, N.S., Marlborough, writing from the Hague, believed him to be unacquainted with the struggle that was going

1See two letters from William Cowper, keeper of the great seal, to the Duke [of Newcastle], August 13, 1706, Portland MSS., ii., 195.

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CHAP. on, and recommended Godolphin to take him into confidence. The duchess had already warned Godolphin that he and St. John "were underhand endeavouring" to wreck the government. An access of whig influence threatened Harley's position, and it was natural that he should have no sympathy with the overbearing temper of Sunderland. Anne's resistance continued until the arrival of Marlborough in London on November 18, O.S. The persuasiveness of his appeals, the brilliancy of his services, and the popularity of his name at last succeeded in vanquishing her resolution. On December 3, the day of the opening of parliament, the changes were announced which thenceforth, in the public mind, united the ministry with the whigs. Sunderland became secretary of state in the place of Hedges; Cowper had already been created a peer; Wharton received the reward of his party management, and Godolphin of his success in achieving the union with Scotland in promotions to earldoms. A defiance was flung at the tory party by the removal from the privy council of the Duke of Buckingham, the Earls of Nottingham, Rochester, and Jersey, and Sir George Rooke. Matthew Prior, the poet, and others of less note were displaced from commissionerships of trade. The only tories of eminence left in office were Harley and St. John. Upon the opening of parliament the satisfaction of the whig party was made apparent by the compliance of both houses. Within little more than a fortnight all the money bills were passed, and an unauthorised expenditure of £800,000 on the campaigns in Savoy and Spain approved by an overwhelming majority of 255 to 105 votes in the commons. With the thanks of the houses the Duke of Marlborough received a perpetual pension of £5,000 a year upon himself, the duchess, and their posterity, together with a settlement of his honours and estates upon his daughters and their issue successively. If the inclusion of Sunderland in the ministry had strengthened the position of Godolphin and Marlborough in parliament it had weakened their influence at court. “Æterna est mulieris ira," and Anne had an exceptional faculty for concealing resentment till the time came that she could gratify it. Nor did the acquisition of a secretaryship of state satisfy the appetite for power of the leaders of the junta. Their ideal was a purely whig administration. They were, therefore, bound to

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Godolphin and Marlborough only so long as their assistance CHAP. was rewarded by substantial recognitions.

The department of government in which Anne had always asserted her opinions was that of the Church, and it was in this quarter that the first storm arose. At the close of 1706, without consulting Godolphin, she promised Sir William Dawes and Dr. Blackall the two vacant sees of Chester and Exeter, a step involving political consequences, since the addition of two tory bishops imperilled the ministerial control of the house of lords. The whigs at once suspected that the nominations indicated a desire on the part of Godolphin to emancipate himself from their tutelage. Godolphin and Marlborough attributed Anne's headstrong act to the intrusion of a new influence. General suspicion pointed to Harley as the queen's secret adviser. Harley, writing to Marlborough, denied the imputation in categorical language. His denial was confirmed by the queen : "He [Harley] knew nothing of it till it was the talk of the town: I do assure you [Marlborough] these men were my own choice". This avowal served but to intensify the personal element in the discords now frequent between the queen and her two chief counsellors.

The confidence which Godolphin and Marlborough, notwithstanding their consciousness of his growing influence with the queen, continued to repose in Harley irritated the suspicions of the whigs. There were personal resentments harboured by members of the junta. Marlborough had refused Halifax a diplomatic appointment; Orford was vexed at his exclusion from the administration of the admiralty, which was practically controlled by the duke's brother, Admiral Churchill, the foremost member of Prince George's council. Among the commercial classes complaints were rife of the ineffectiveness of the navy in protecting commerce. A successful attack on the admiral, whom the duke himself described as "a very indiscreet tory," would at once render a public service, vacate another office for the promotion of a meritorious member of the junta, indicate to the queen that Prince George's continuance as lord high admiral might be rendered impossible, and prove to Marlborough and Godolphin that whig patience was at an end, that they must either identify the ministry with the whig party or be prepared for eviction from power. Fore

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CHAP. seeing the coming storm, Godolphin and Marlborough were in correspondence during the summer of 1707 as to the means of averting it. They had begun to recognise that Harley's influence with the queen was sufficiently strong to render the experiment of demanding his dismissal of doubtful wisdom, and the duke, at any rate, was deceived by his protestations of personal allegiance to them. "I have no attachment," Harley wrote to Godolphin, "to any other person in the world but your lordship and the Duke of Marlborough." In July, Marlborough wrote to his duchess suggesting with confidence that the mere intimation to the queen that the instalment of Harley in Godolphin's place was the inevitable consequence of preferring Harley's counsel would suffice. "Then everything might go quietly." In October he contemplated the resignation both of Godolphin and himself, though he still doubted the queen's acceptance of it.

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These stages in the appreciation of the crisis through which the two ministers were passing were associated with the gradual revelation that there was some one behind Harley. "Somebody or other," wrote the duke to the duchess on July 21, N.S., 1707, "I know not who has got so much credit with the queen that they will be able to persuade her to do more hurt to herself than we can do good." A week later, July 17, O.S., the duchess wrote a scolding letter to "Mrs. Morley," complaining of the influence upon her of a woman of the bedchamber, Abigail Hill. The queen replied, with covert sarcasm on the duchess, that Hill was never meddling with anything". Abigail Hill, who, in the summer of 1707, became Mrs. Masham, was the daughter of a distressed Turkey merchant by a daughter of the duchess's grandfather, Sir John Jennings or Jenyns. Before Anne's accession she had been appointed a woman of the princess's bedchamber through the kind offices of the duchess. Modest in her demeanour and assiduous in her duties, she had conducted herself for a long while to the satisfaction of her patroness without exciting particular attention. On her father's side she was also the same relation to Harley as she was to the duchess, but Harley professed not to have been aware of the relationship till about the

1 September 10, 1707, Bath MSS., i., 180. For Godolphin's answer, see ibid., p. 183, September 18.

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