1716 THE SEPTENNIAL ACT. 269 XV. liament felt, in their turn, some scruples at defending the CHAP. measure, but were converted to its necessity by the zealous opposition of the Jacobites. The government carried the second reading by 284 to 162 votes on the 24th. Addresses, largely, no doubt, inspired by mercenary motives, now poured in against the bill.1 They served but to inspire the government to quicken its pace.2 Lechmere, who had been dismissed from the post of solicitor-general, probably 3 for his opposition to the impeachment of Oxford for treason, endeavoured to involve the house in a controversy with the peers by the insertion of a clause to disable from sitting in either house all persons having pensions during pleasure. Stanhope promptly undertook to embody such a proposal, so far as regarded the house of commons, in a separate act. The septennial act itself received the royal assent on May 7.5 The predictions which darkened the birth of this measure were never fulfilled. There was no enhancement of the prerogative, there was no "standing parliament". But one consequence resulted which none had foretold. It was said by Speaker Onslow that the passing of the septennial bill marked the emancipation of the house of commons from its former dependence on the crown and the house of lords. The anticipated advantage that it would strengthen the stability of an administration in the eyes of foreign powers was immediately realised. "The present parliament in England that is to last seven years," wrote the Jacobite General Dillon from Paris to Mar at Avignon, "scares them all here and makes them very apprehensive of doing or giving any advice that may disoblige them (the English govern 1" Addresses are coming up against it from all the boroughs of the kingdom," [Hugh Thomas] to Jean Johnson [L. Inese], April 26, 1716, Stuart Papers, ii., 140. Earl Stanhope says that "the people at large shewed no disapprobation of the intended change," citing in support the fact that the petitions against it entered in the journals of the house of commons numbered only ten. An explanation may be found in a letter of Apr 1 30 from Hugh Thomas to Jean Johnson (L. Inese): "It is said above two hundred addresses on that subject (the septennial. bill) have been burnt at the post office as coming too late, so that new addresses are coming up from all parts to his majesty against it". Ibid., p. 145. 2 Ibid. 3 Stanhope (i., 289) was unable to discover the reason, but see Portland MSS., v., 508, Lady Oxford's letter, ibid., p. 511, written in June, 1715 (where for "attorney" should probably be read "solicitor "), though Lechmere did not retire till December. 41 G. I., st. 2, c. 56. 1 G. I., st. 2, c. 38. XV. 1 CHAP. ment)." No sooner was the bill safe than Stair vigorously pressed the expulsion of the pretender from Avignon. From this time the correspondence in the Stuart Papers teems with lamentations over the subserviency of the regent, the adverse bias of Alberoni, and the general disposition of the Roman catholic princes of Europe to leave the pretender to shift for himself. The rise in the funds which greeted the enactment indicated prevision of these effects. Since the spring of 1715 the king had been hankering to revisit his native country. By a clause of the act of settlement the sovereign was restrained from leaving the realm without the consent of parliament. Both parties, however, concurred in supporting a bill for the repeal of this condition.3 The Jacobites, as the Stuart Papers shew, looked forward to the absence of the king as a favourable opportunity for a renewal of their designs.1 The Hanover tories, perhaps, hoped for a future reward for complaisance. The question of the regency during the king's absence excited to a high pitch the ill-feeling between father and son. The king found himself compelled to yield to the precedents for constituting the prince sole regent, but insisted on shearing his son's authority of some of its outward importance by styling him "guardian and lieutenant of the realm,” a title borne, indeed, by the Black Prince, but less significant of power than events in France had rendered the title of regent. Conformably to this title, the more important appointments in the army and civil service were reserved to the king. The resentment shewn by the prince at these restrictions was visited upon his adviser, Argyll, whom the king ordered to be dismissed, not only from the post of groom of the stole to the prince, but from all his commands and preferments in the army and elsewhere. His brother, the Earl of Ilay, shared his fall. This burst of ill-temper caused a public scandal. The probabilities of the duke's defection or that of Lord Ilay were 1 Stuart Papers, ii., 154, May 15, N.S., 1716. 5 2 Ibid., p. 155. Stuart Papers, ii., 353, 364. Argyll's biographer, Robert Campbell, while admitting ignorance of the cause of his dismissal, suggests that it may have been due to his remissness in the pursuit of the rebels or to his opposition to the removal of the Scotch prisoners to Carlisle for trial. But the Jacobite correspondence in the Stuart Papers attributes it to the cause assigned in the text. See especially John Walkinshaw to the Duke of Mar, July 29, 1716, ii., 315. 1716 DISMISSAL OF ARGYLL. 271 XV. eagerly discussed in the councils of the pretender.1 But Argyll CHAP. continued his attendance at court, cultivated his influence with the prince, and had the credit of inspiring him with acts of petty hostility to the cabinet.2 On the eve of the king's departure a partial redistribution of offices was effected. In reward for his services as the introducer of the septennial bill into the house of lords, the Duke of Devonshire was appointed to succeed Nottingham as president of the council, while Stanhope's friend, General Carpenter, followed Argyll as commander-in-chief in Scotland. As a compensation for the attainder of his son, and by way of recognition of his steady adherence to the whig party, Sir Henry St. John, the father of Lord Bolingbroke, received the title of Viscount St. John. In the place of Stanhope, who was selected to accompany the king abroad, Paul Methuen, a lord of the treasury and lately ambassador to Spain, became acting secretary of state. Stanhope was to be the intermediary between the king and the ministry in London. Before starting upon his journey on July 7, George endeavoured to mollify public opinion by demonstrations of reconciliation with his son. This was the first of a long series of visits to Hanover which in the reign of George II. proved a sensible irritation to the English. For six months the king remained abroad, viewing English affairs through Hanoverian spectacles, with the result that this country was involved in continental combinations embarrassing to the ministry and generally unpopular with the nation at large. 'Stuart Papers, ii., 288, 291, 316, 332. XVI. CHAPTER XVI. THE QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE, SPAIN AND SWEDEN. CHAP. IN October, 1714, Stanhope, rendered distrustful of the intentions of Louis XIV. by his failure to fulfil his obligations in the matter of Dunkirk and Mardyck, had visited the Hague and Vienna with the object of reconstituting the Grand Alliance for a renewal of the war. Although unable to secure a definite engagement from the emperor Charles VI., he paved the way to his adhesion by holding out the prospect of the annexation of Sicily with the aid of the English fleet. The first step to what afterwards became the Quadruple alliance of 1718 was the treaty between Great Britain and the States-general, signed on February 6, 1716, at Westminster, renewing former treaties, but adding a secret article that warlike preparations against either power should bind the other to intervene. The eagerness of England for an Austrian alliance was not entirely a homage to the tradition of whig foreign policy. In June, 1715, George I., as Elector of Hanover, had obtained by purchase from Frederick IV. of Denmark the cession of the captured Swedish possessions, the duchy of Bremen, and the secularised bishopric or duchy of Verden, acquisitions which commanded the course of the Weser from twenty miles above Bremen to the mouth of the river, and that of the Elbe to its mouth from the neighbourhood of Hamburg. In an interview of Volkra, the imperial ambassador, with Townshend, Bernstorff, and Bothmer, on February 24, 1716, the Hanoverian ministers particularly insisted that a guarantee of the duchies in favour of the Electors of Hanover should, as far as was competent to the emperor, be given in the name of the empire.1 As a matter of fact, owing to difficulties connected with 1 Dr. A. W. Ward in Great Britain and Hanover (p. 97) dates this demand as having been first made in November, 1718, apparently overlook 1716 TREATY OF WESTMINSTER. 273 XVI. the constitution of the empire, this guarantee was not given, but CHAP. a treaty, signed at Westminster on May 25, pledged the emperor and the king to assist each other in the maintenance of their existing possessions. So far as Hanoverian interests were concerned this was a valuable result, for Hanover was at this moment nervous as to the intentions of the Russian army which had recently occupied Mecklenburg. The accession to the crown of England of a sovereign traditionally bound to the imperial house was naturally viewed with distrust by Philip V. Under colour of the three clauses affecting to explain three of the articles of the treaty of commerce of November 28, 1713, which Bolingbroke was suspected of having corruptly accepted, vexations were multiplied upon English merchants. On May 20, 1715, Paul Methuen, then envoy at Madrid, wrote to Stanhope that he saw no redress but in war. The consequences of the death of Louis XIV. were a signal justification of Bolingbroke's prevision as to the effect of the renunciations. Philip V. was eager to assert his claim to the regency, but he found himself forestalled by the Duke of Orleans, and the existence of a "Spanish party" only served to shew that the duke had France as a whole behind him. In the autumn, however, under the inspiration of Alberoni, who was then rising into power at the Spanish court, Philip made a shew of changing his policy for one of friendliness to Great Britain as the holder of the balance between himself and Orleans. George Bubb, afterwards celebrated as Bubb Dodington, Methuen's successor at Madrid, negotiated a new commercial treaty on December 14, 1715, to the lively satisfaction of the English trading classes. By it duties on commerce between the two countries were reduced to the status quo of the reign of Charles II. (of Spain), and each contracting party conceded to the other the privileges of the most favoured nation, a clause highly injurious to the French woollen manufacture. Bubb also obtained a new Asiento treaty (May 26, 1716), which satisfied all the demands advanced by the South Sea Company. Yet, despite the new treaty, the ill-usage of English merchants continued. Upon the return of Charles XII. of Sweden from his refuge in Turkey in November, 1714, he found the Northern powers ing Volkra's report of February 24-March 6, 1716, cited by Michael, i., 667, VOL. IX. 1. 2. 18 |