IV. CHAP. Escorted by a guard of horse-grenadiers, Guiscard, in the company of St. John, arrived at Portsmouth at the end of July. But when preparations were completed, a continuance of unfavourable winds prevented the sailing of the fleet. A council of war, held at Torbay under Shovell, on August 13, 1706, concluded that the delay had imperilled the prospects of the enterprise,1 and, after consultation with Godolphin, it was determined that the destination of the expedition should be Cadiz. It was not until October that the expedition set sail from Torbay, the destination of the fleet being kept secret Buffeted by tempestuous weather, in consequence of which no fewer than half the horses were dead or ruined, the ships were forced to rendezvous at Lisbon. Here Rivers received a dispatch from Secretary Hedges that the extremity to which the allies at Valencia were reduced necessitated his abandonment of the expedition against Cadiz in favour of a junction with the archduke. The correspondence which follows is a painful exhibition of petty pique on the part of Rivers and infirmity of purpose on that of the ministry. He was instructed to serve under Galway. He not only tendered his resignation on the ground that he had expected an independent command, he brought absurd charges against Galway of clandestine correspondence with the enemy in association with John Methuen, the English ambassador at Lisbon, who had recently died. Galway, foreseeing a second Peterborough, advised the ministry to instruct him to combine with the Portuguese in an invasion of Spain from the west. "The most pernicious advice ever given the queen," wrote Rivers to Halifax on December 31, O.S., “which in my Lord Galway could not be ignorance." In this spirit he determined to go to Valencia. 1 According to Tindal, a careful collector of facts, Guiscard was sent back to London by Rivers under the discredit of having furnished untrustworthy information as to the prospects of the descent in France. But this is confuted by the publication from the Bath MSS. of the correspondence between Godolphin and Rivers. On August 24, 1706, Godolphin wrote to Rivers: "As for Monsieur de Guiscard, since it is by no fault of his that his project is laid aside, it seems not unreasonable that he should be at liberty to serve upon this expedition, or not, as he shall incline to most (Bath MSS., i., 93). The letters of Lord Rivers show that he disliked Guiscard, and wished to have nothing to do with him (Rivers to Godolphin, August 21, 1706, ibid., p. 92). And Guiscard was employed again. 2 Earl Rivers to Sir C. Hedges, Lisbon, October 29, 1706, O.S., ibid., p. 116. CHAPTER V. THE UNION WITH SCOTLAND. V. DURING the hundred years that had passed since the accession CHAP. of James VI. of Scotiand to the English crown, the project of constitutional union between the two countries had fitfully occupied men's minds, and with a more constant pressure during the latter years of William III. Among Scottish parties the one best affected to a union was that of the episcopalians who were not Jacobites, and who frequently went by the name of the cavaliers. Their hope was to replace the presbyterian by an episcopal establishment. On this point, the whigs were opposed to them. Those who are familiar with the vituperative pages of the antiquary, Hearne, will remember that presbyterian and whig figure as synonymous terms. A third body of politicians existed, recruited from the left centre of the whigs. The introduction of Italian phrases into the politics of the day was a fashionable taste. It smacked of the grand tour. The squadrone volante of the Scots parliament were zealous for the protestant succession, but they saw in it not an opportunity for a consolidation of the two kingdoms but for the government of Scotland as an independent nation under its noble families, over which an exotic dynasty would be likely to exercise no more than a nominal control. This "flying squadron" naturally rallied the great landowners and held the balance of politics. A number of fractions composed the opposition, obstinately conservative of all the national institutions. On the one hand were the covenanters, whose ideal was a republic and whose horror was an episcopacy; on the other the Jacobites, who after Anne's accession gradually absorbed the episcopalians,1 ready "The Jacobite party (in Scotland) whether popish or episcopal it matters little." Daniel De Foe to the Earl of Oxford, Portland MSS., v., 82. CHAP. to acquiesce even in a Roman catholic prelacy if imposed by a native hereditary king.1 V. To the statesmen of both countries who were desirous of smoothing the constant friction arising from these relations, the accession of Anne, a sovereign of the ancient Stewart line, seemed an auspicious opportunity. On August 25, 1702, commissioners were appointed to treat on the part of England with commissioners from Scotland with a view to a union. The two commissions met on October 22. The future position of the presbyterian establishment, the admission of Scotland to the English colonial trade, the share of Scotland in the liabilities of the two nations, lastly, the extension to Scotland of the internal taxation of England, were all discussed. But the negotiations were wrecked, partly upon the collision of interests between the Scots company trading to Africa and the Indies, partly upon the reluctance shown by Scotland to the adoption of the English system of excise. In the new Scottish parliament summoned for May, 1703, the extreme opposition, the Jacobites and the republican covenanters, found themselves more numerous than before. At the head of the Jacobites was the restless Duke of Hamilton. Fletcher of Saltoun, a speculative republican, was spokesman of the other wing of the opposition. Of the Duke of Hamilton no man felt sure. He was suspected of a design to put himself forward as a Scottish pretender, founding himself on the profession of protestantism and his connexion with the Stewarts.2 He was believed to be intriguing with St. Germain's. to be making professions to the government.3 He was known At the head of the party for union stood the Duke of Queensberry, a recruit from the tories. Perceiving that the "flying squadron" had been reduced by the elections, he set himself to strengthen it by the customary means by which in the seventeenth century richer countries had acquired political interest with their poorer neighbours.1 In addition to the 1 Letter of Henrietta, Marchioness of Huntley, June 20, 1712, Portland MSS., V., 186. 2(G. Lamberty) to Lord Cutts, August 4-15, 1703, Astley MSS., p. 128, Hist. MSS. Comm., 1900. Cf. Bonet's Correspondence, July 24, 1703, Von Noorden, i., 517, 2. See also Col. Hooke and Torcy, 9 July, 1707. R.O. Paris Transcripts, vol. 54, . 3 Bagot MSS., p. 341, Hist. MSS. Comm., 1885. * Earl of Nottingham to James Graham, August 31, 1703, Whitehall: "I hear that great sums of money have lately been sent into that kingdom". Ibid., p. 337. 1703 SCOTS PARLIAMENT AND THE SUCCESSION. 95 V. peers who joined the squadron for substantial considerations CHAP. paid down, it had the more trustworthy support of the traditional whigs, of the Duke of Argyll, of the Lords Marchmont and Tweeddale, and of a group of officials who had held office under King William. Nevertheless, the opposition soon shewed that it controlled the majority. The queen's message on May 6 recommended a settlement of the Scottish crown. It was doubtful to no one that this implied a settlement on the precedent of the English Act of Succession. But the consciousness of this was as oil to the fire of the opposition. They were not merely satisfied with taking up the question as if on their own initiative, in jealous independence of the message from St. James's. The "Act for the Security of the Kingdom," currently known as the Act of Security, carried by the opposition through parliament, paid a tribute to national vanity in its provision that on the queen's death the estates should appoint a protestant successor to the crown descended from the old line of sovereigns. This in itself was a contemptuous disregard of the royal message. Yet the Act of Security went further. It excluded from succession to the crown of Scotland the successor to the crown of England unless "there be such conditions of government settled and enacted as may secure the honour and sovereignty of this crown and kingdom-the freedom, frequency, and power of parliaments, the religion, liberty, and trade of the nation, from the English or any foreign influence". The queen's commissioner, the Duke of Queensberry, refused to give the royal assent by the touch of the sceptre to this audacious defiance. One other act of the same tendency was passed intituled "an Act anent Peace and War". By this it was provided that after the death of Anne the sovereign should be debarred from proclaiming war without the consent of parliament. This measure received the royal assent on September 16, 1703. English parties and the English ministry accepted these messages of defiance with unconcerned indifference. Godolphin regarded the Scots as people of punctilio,' and was of opinion, justified by experience, that punctilio had 1"I wish there were no such thing upon earth as a punctilio of any kind." Godolphin to Harley on the Scots' demands as to the composition of the commissions for union, April 8, 1705, Bath MSS., i., 67. V. CHAP. its price. It was currently said in English political circles that the Scots Estates could be bought for £30,000,1 and Godolphin had the credit of declaring that he would prorogue them until the bargain and sale were concluded.? The circulation of stories of this sort from the parliament of Edinburgh to the country-side, and the unpopularity which attended the Duke of Queensberry's conduct in the matter of "the Scotch plot," excited popular resentment against England. A universal agitation began. During the winter of 1703-4 riotous mobs paraded the streets of Edinburgh. The pulpit thundered with declamations against prelacy; the Highlands seethed with disaffection, and the rumour ran round that a force from Dunkirk was ready to support a rising. 3 The Marquis of Tweeddale, a member of the "flying squadron," had replaced Queensberry as high commissioner. When the estates met on July 6, 1704, they again passed the Act of Security, and notwithstanding the previous refusal of the royal assent, without debate. As if to extort the submission of the English government, they further enacted the calling out of the militia and the general arming of the nation; a measure also supported by those who wished well to the union for the reason that it afforded some security against an invasion from the Highlands in the Jacobite interest. These bills they tacked to a money bill granting six months' supply for the payment of the army, then greatly in arrears. Ministers in Scotland found themselves in a serious difficulty. The army, 3,000 strong, was unpaid; there was no money in the Scots treasury, and there would be none until either the tack was taken off, for which there was no constitutional device, or the Act of Security was passed. The only remaining alternative-that the English treasury should advance the funds necessary for the army-would have gone near to provoking a civil war. To disband the army at a 1 Bonet's Correspondence, August 27-September 7, and September 10-21, 1703, Von Noorden, i., 518. 2 Id., September 24-October 5, 1703, ibid. "I have spoke with the person mentioned . . . who says that when he was in Scotland he saw the gentlemen of the country disciplining their men, and that the people were generally armed; that they drank the Prince of Wales's health, and seemed exasperated against England." Duke of Ormonde to Secretary Sir C. Hedges, Dublin, February 11, 1705, Ormonde MSS., p. 777. |