II. CHAP. protected him from violence. He remained in prison from July, 1703, to August, 1704, when he was released by the intervention of Harley, whose confidential agent he became,1 In face of High Church zeal and of the pressure exerted by the queen, the whig majority in the lords lacked courage to throw out the bill directly. Supported by many of the Low Church bishops, at the head of whom was Bishop Burnet, they endeavoured to maim it by amendments. They inserted clauses protecting the members of the French and Walloon protestant congregations; they cut the heart out of it by excluding from its provisions the officials of corporations, and leaving it applicable only to officers of state, among whom dissent was unknown. But conscious that this vital amendment would not be accepted, they resorted to the artifice of provoking a constitutional struggle upon an incidental point. They amended the fines imposed by the bill. By this amendment the houses were brought to a direct issue on a constitutional question, for the commons "had of late set it up for a maxim that the lords could not alter the fines that they should fix in a bill, this being a meddling with money". To justify their action, therefore, the lords caused a search for precedents to be made in the Rolls of Parliament and conclusively established their right. The commons thereupon contented themselves with simply affirming their disagreement with the lords' amendments. As neither side would give way upon the constitutional issue, a free conference of both houses met on January 16, 1703. The queen renewed her pressure in favour of the bill in its utmost severity. Her compliant husband, Prince George, had, on his appointment as lord high admiral on May 21, 1702, qualified himself by receiving the sacrament, yet he maintained a Lutheran chapel and was, therefore, himself an occasional conformist. As Duke of Cumberland he came down to the house to vote for the bill, but was reported to have whispered to Wharton, "My heart is vid you". The primate, Tenison, supported Burnet's eloquence in favour of tolerance, but the 1 Portland MSS., iv., 61, 68, 75. In Nov., 1703, Harley hinted to De Foe that there was some one of consequence interested in him. This appears to have been the queen herself, who made him a present in money at a time when Harley proposed to employ him as a secret agent at Hanover. De Foe to Harley, May (?), 1704, ibid., pp. 87-89. Cf. Blenheim MSS., p. 43, Hist. MSS. Comm., 8th Rep., App. 1702 DEFEAT OF THE BILL IN THE LORDS. 33 II. issue of the division which took place in the lords after their CHAP. retirement from the free conference was doubtful to the last. "On three questions put on different heads, the adhering (to their amendments) was carried by but one voice in every one of them, and it was a different person that gave it in all three divisions." The bill was therefore lost. It had excited interest in all the courts of Europe. The lords violated precedent by publishing the proceedings, which triumphantly established their vindication as the representatives of toleration and the champions of public liberty. They followed up their success by amending a tory bill for the relief of non-jurors who had not abjured the pretender within the time limited by the statute of 13 W. III. c. 6, and by inserting a clause extending in favour of the Electress Sophia and her heirs the penalty of high treason against any who should "endeavour to deprive or hinder" their succession.1 In the course of the last session of the expiring parliament of 1702 a bill had been passed for the appointment of commissioners for the examination of public accounts. That considerable confusion and public indebtedness had arisen during the last stormy reign was of common knowledge. In this matter the whigs were not forward to act, the administration of the finances having been largely in the hands of their political partisans, and six previous commissions having proved ineffective. Seven commissioners were nominated, all tories, of whom the most eminent was St. John. Their first inquiry was addressed to the accounts of the Earl of Ranelagh, who having been paymaster-general of the army during the reign of James II. had been continued in that office by William III. Ranelagh, an Irish peer of the whig party, a wit and a man of pleasure, had provoked jealousy and suspicion by the sumptuousness of his establishment and the extent of his gardens. Irregularities were proved, but there was no clusive evidence of peculation. The commons, therefore, unable to order a criminal prosecution, passed a series of resolutions condemnatory of some of his transactions. But the practice of the retention of interest upon public moneys in the bank which had enriched Ranelagh, as it was not condemned by the house, was not discontinued. CHAP. II. The tory commissioners next flew at higher game. Charles Montagu, Lord Halifax, the restorer of the currency, had exchanged the place of first commissioner of the treasury and a seat in the house of commons for the lucrative office of auditor of the exchequer in 1698 and a peerage in 1700. At the treasury he had been driven to the irregular expedients by which, when revenues were failing and credit was low, resources were found for an exhausting war. The disorder thus introduced into the finances was aggravated by practices like those admitted by Ranelagh. Numerous though the irregularities of his subordinates were proved to be, the commissioners failed to bring home corruption to Halifax himself. Nevertheless, they ordered a prosecution by the attorney-general. The conviction of Halifax, one of their most prominent leaders, would have been disastrous to the whigs. In anticipation of any judicial process, the house of lords had already summoned the commissioners of accounts before them on February 1. The commissioners having taken no notice of the summons, Halifax was heard on the following day. On February 5 the Duke of Somerset presented a report, which was agreed to by the lords, acquitting Halifax of the neglect and breach of trust imputed to him. These proceedings they ordered to be published. Feeling between the two houses was now at fever heat A war of retaliation was promised. The lords threatened the appointment of a committee to examine the accounts of tory officials. Among the most unpopular of these was Sir Edward Seymour. It was rumoured that he had never rendered an account of the office of treasurer of the navy, held by him from 1673 to 1681. If this counter-campaign were pressed, no resource would remain to the tories but to influence the queen to dissolve parliament, and the whigs anticipated that the successes of Marlborough would be credited to their own account. Anne was therefore advised to close the session on February 28, 1703. The tories now felt assured of the court. But their ascendency over the queen was of little effect so long as they were exposed to constant defeats in the house of lords, though, as has been seen, on some critical 1 Bonet, March 23-April 3, 1703, Von Noorden, i., 320. 1703 GODOLPHIN AND POLITICAL PARTIES. 35 II. issues the majorities against them were extremely narrow. In CHAP. order, therefore, to secure the upper house, the queen was persuaded to create four new tory peers. Yet the influence of the Duchess of Marlborough was sufficiently powerful, despite much opposition, to obtain a fifth peerage for a nominee of her own. John Hervey, a whig, father of the author of the Memoirs of the Court of George II., was created Lord Hervey of Ickworth. The reinforcement of the tories in the lords amounted, therefore, to no more than three votes. The High Church party was gratified, the whigs rebuffed, and the queen's temper exhibited by the preferment to the deanery of Lichfield of the notorious Dr. William Binckes, whose sermon the house of lords had in the previous parliament ordered to be burnt. The indecisive campaign in the Netherlands and the want of success in the rest of the vast theatre of war which marked the campaign of 1703 sharpened the hostility of the extreme tory party to Marlborough.1 His foreign enterprises, they exclaimed, brought neither honour nor profit. In the house of lords Rochester, in the cabinet Nottingham, outside parliament the pamphleteers, were the spokesmen of this opinion. A sense of common interest was thus drawing together the fraction of the cabinet represented by Godolphin and Marlborough and the whig party. Godolphin had been strong enough in January, 1703, to check a tory crusade against whig officials by refusing his consent to the dismissal of those of the treasury. The conversation in whig circles began to turn upon the prospect of success in an attempt by Marlborough and Godolphin, with whig aid, to oust the extreme tories from the cabinet and to form a new ministerial body, if not whig, at least sympathetic with whig policy in foreign affairs. Nottingham, Rochester's alter ego in the cabinet, thought, on the other hand, the time propitious for the renewal of Rochester's policy of "Thorough". In March, 1703, during the absence on the continent of Marlborough, who had defeated Rochester's proposal in the previous year, Nottingham induced the queen to dismiss a number of lords-lieutenant, sheriffs, and justices of the peace. These were not officials whom Godolphin was able to screen by an appeal to the exigencies 'Portland to Heinsius, December 23, 1703, Heinsius' Archives, Von Noorden, i., 353. II. CHAP. of public business. But this reversal of the policy of William III. to exempt local administration from the vicissitudes of party politics provoked a reaction in public opinion and assisted the very object which Godolphin and Marlborough had in view. There was a general feeling expressed by the speaker, Harley, and by Halifax, who of all the whig leaders approached nearest in disposition to Halifax, the "Trimmer," that it was not for a patriotic Englishman to stir up domestic animosities while war was raging. The same sentiment inspired Davenant's Essays on Peace at Home and War Abroad, which, though published in the following year, were composed at this time. The Marlboroughs and Godolphin threatened resignation, and elicited from Anne one of those imploring remonstrances which are among the curiosities of literary correspondence. Nevertheless, in July, she refused to accede to the duchess's instances and to remove Nottingham. In foreign, as well as in domestic policy, his views and those of Godolphin were irreconcilable. Godolphin's correspondence shews the sympathy with which he followed the insurrection of the Camisards, as the Huguenot insurgents in the Cevennes were called, and his desire to aid it with an expedition. Despite Nottingham's opposition, he insisted, in July, 1703, on the dispatch of Richard Hill, a "Hanover tory," as the moderates of that party were now styled, to promote with that object the adhesion of the Duke of Savoy to the Grand Alliance. The high churchmen boasted that the opening of the autumn session of parliament would bring their revenge, and that Nottingham would, before many weeks were over, grasp the lord treasurer's staff. On November 9, 1703, the queen opened parliament. The creation of new peers had emboldened the tories to a fresh bill against occasional conformity. But a change in the attitude of the court threatened them with another disappointment, The queen's speech had expressed an “earnest desire of seeing all my subjects in perfect peace and union among themselves". It was a hint of which the significance was unmistakeable when it became known that upon this occasion Prince George intended to let his heart so far control his head as to withdraw the support he had formerly given. Anne was torn between affection and bigotry. She shared the current anticipation that the indecision of the court would encourage the opposition to |