Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion (94 page)

Schutz derived his information from the Whigs, who consistently misrepresented Anne’s views, and he also mistook the Queen’s aversion to the presence of one of her Hanoverian cousins as signifying hostility to the Protestant succession itself. Anne herself was at a loss to understand how her intentions could be so misconstrued. When the Duke of Argyll told her he feared the Pretender represented a genuine threat, ‘and
that he suspected even some persons about her Majesty’ of encouraging him, she replied in bewilderment, ‘How can anyone entertain such thoughts?’
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In September 1713 Abbé Gaultier was heartened when Oxford assured him ‘that as long as he lived he would never consent that England was governed by a German’. Oxford knew, however, that if the Jacobite court were not to lose all faith in him, he would have to do more than this. In December James finally bowed to pressure from England and dismissed Middleton, making it more difficult still for Oxford to continue to prevaricate. Soon afterwards Louis XIV’s foreign minister, Torcy, warned Gaultier that the Pretender’s situation demanded ‘precise answers’, for some of his advisers were urging him to come to England without Oxford’s consent. On 18 January/1 February 1714, James himself told Gaultier that unless he heard something definite from Oxford within two months, he would ask his supporters to take action on his behalf.
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On 26 January Oxford arranged for Gaultier to forward to James a ‘Declaration’ the Lord Treasurer had penned on the Pretender’s behalf. The Pretender was supposed to sign and return this, although Oxford did not explain what use he would then make of the document. The paper announced that James was renouncing his religion, supposedly without any regard for worldly ambition. It also declared he would never press his right to the throne unless his people called him to it.

It cannot be ruled out that Oxford genuinely hoped that James would embrace this opportunity, enabling him to secure the young man’s succession to the throne. Almost certainly, however, Oxford calculated that the Pretender would be most unlikely to convert, although he probably hoped James would temporise rather than return an outright refusal. If so, Oxford could continue spinning out his dealings with the Jacobites without doing anything effectual. It must be stressed that if the Pretender did sign the Declaration, it committed Oxford to nothing. Even Gaultier, who, despite being a priest, begged James to give up his faith, or at least to pretend to do so, admitted it would be ‘a step which perhaps would avail him nothing and would certainly render him ridiculous in the eyes of the world’. On 18 February Oxford did ask Gaultier to relay to James that if he became a Protestant, steps would be taken ‘next year’ in Parliament to repeal the Act of Settlement, but the proposed delay before implementing such measures hardly suggests much commitment on Oxford’s part.
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At exactly the same time that Oxford made his approach to the Pretender, Bolingbroke took a similar step. He communicated with
James through Iberville, a French envoy-extraordinary who had arrived in England in late 1713. Bolingbroke was as emphatic as Oxford that the Pretender had no hope of mounting the throne unless he became a member of the Church of England, arguing that James could remain ‘Catholic in his soul but Protestant on the outside’. Yet though Bolingbroke demanded this sacrifice of James, he offered in return even less than Oxford, for he suggested that the Pretender should not be concerned if on Anne’s death the Elector of Hanover ascended the throne. He predicted that George Ludwig’s reign would last less than a year, as it would be impossible for a man ‘brought up in German ways’ to handle the English political scene. He and the Whigs would soon fall out, whereupon both parties would unite to overturn him.
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Provided that James was a Protestant, he could then reclaim his crown. These wild projections of Bolingbroke’s hardly provided the Pretender with much of an incentive to imperil his immortal soul.

In Lorraine, James was appalled by what was being asked of him. He told Torcy that he regarded Bolingbroke’s messages as naive. As for Oxford’s ‘puerile’ Declaration, he confessed himself bemused by it. James ridiculed the idea that he should pretend he was renouncing his religion ‘without any worldly view’, which everyone would recognise as a ‘glaring falsehood’. It seemed to him that Oxford’s proposals were merely a trap, for if he rejected them he gave the Lord Treasurer ‘a pretext to break with me, but in accepting them I make myself unworthy to live, and still more of reigning’. While declaring his intention to keep pressing his claim to the throne, he insisted defiantly, ‘I will keep my religion until my dying breath’.
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The Duke of Berwick advised his half brother to ignore the whole question of religion when replying to Oxford and Bolingbroke, but James was worried this would give rise to false hopes. Accordingly his answers left little room to think that there was any likelihood of his conversion. On 20 February/3 March 1714 he wrote to Oxford that he was willing for his sister ‘to remain in quiet possession during her life provided she secure to me the succession after her death’. He guaranteed his subjects’ religion, liberty and property, but cautioned that ‘I heartily abhor all double dealings and dissimulation … All that can be expected from a man of principle and true honour I am ready to comply with, and you have, I know, too much of both to require more of me’. A similar letter was sent to Bolingbroke.
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James also wrote to his sister, for, as he remarked to one supporter, his greatest hope now lay in her friendship, ‘in which he could hardly doubt’.
Making no mention of his Catholicism, he informed her she could not expect her kingdom to be stable ‘as long as the true heir is excluded and a foreigner named successor’. ‘Your own good nature, the memory of the King our dearest father … your own honour and the preservation of our family … do I know sufficiently induce you to do what all good men expect from you … I know your sentiments towards me are such as I could wish’.
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When James’s letters arrived in England, both Oxford and Bolingbroke made plain their displeasure. Iberville reported that Bolingbroke’s attitude towards James was now that of ‘a scorned lover towards an unkind mistress’, and the Secretary told him that if the Pretender remained a Catholic, the Grand Turk would have more chance of becoming King. Oxford likewise informed Gaultier that James was making it impossible for him to help him. He agreed to try and find the right moment to hand James’s letter to the Queen, though he said she would not receive it favourably as it did not contain a promise to convert.
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In the event he did not give it to her, having probably never had any intention of doing so.

The Pretender himself began to think that all along Oxford’s only intention had been ‘to amuse me’, and the Duke of Berwick advocated sounding out the Duke of Ormonde to see if he would be more helpful. When approached by Jacobite agents, Ormonde did prove friendly but, as Berwick lamented, ‘he enters not into any particulars how he will render … service’. The fact was that the Jacobite court had relied far too much on Oxford, and were now at a loss as to how to proceed. As one former adviser of James remarked bitterly in June 1714, they had ‘flattered themselves that this Treasurer … had designs to serve the King, that his sister loved him … and the King my master neglected all other methods … And here we are, lost without resource!’
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Although Bolingbroke was aware that it was unrealistic to think in terms of making James the Queen’s heir, he was determined to obtain the support of the Jacobite wing of the Tory party, and therefore posed to them as the Pretender’s champion. ‘In his private cabals’ with them he ‘gave hints and innuendoes that the King’s restoration was much at his heart … frequently diverting himself and others with jests and comical stories concerning the Elector of Hanover and his family’. When Jacobite sympathisers in the Commons warned him they could not go on supporting the administration unless there was ‘something to purpose … quickly done’, Bolingbroke replied that ‘the whole blame lay upon my Lord Oxford’.
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Bolingbroke also sought to weaken Whig dominance of the army, and to this end he secured Cabinet agreement on 14 March that the Duke of Argyll and Lord Stair should be forced to sell their regiments. Since it was thought a more intensive purge was planned, there was alarm not just in Whig circles but among Hanoverian Tories that the intention was to fill the army with Jacobites, paving the way for the Pretender’s return. Probably, however, all Bolingbroke aimed for was to place the Tories in such a strong position that it would be impossible for George Ludwig to govern without their support when he came to the throne. As the Secretary explained to Oxford, he wanted ‘effectual measures taken to put those of our friends who may outlive the Queen beyond the reach of Whig resentment’, ensuring that the party became ‘too considerable not to make our terms in all events which might happen’.
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The Queen agreed to Argyll and Stair’s dismissal, possibly because she had been angered to hear of Whig army officers’ unconcealed delight when she had fallen ill at Christmas. Oxford, however, was far from happy about the developments. Having lamented to Swift that ‘he found his credit wholly at an end’, Oxford once again contemplated ‘quitting the stage’, so as to ‘make the residue of his life easier to himself’.
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The Queen rejected Oxford’s offer of resignation and instead patched up a reconciliation ‘on certain conditions’ between the Secretary and Treasurer on 24 March. According to Bolingbroke it was agreed that the Queen ‘would now take steps through himself, Harcourt, and Ormonde to purge the government and armed forces of the Whigs’. When Oxford and Bolingbroke together attended a Tory meeting in early April, they put on a united front, with those present being assured that ‘the Queen was determined to proceed in the interests of the Church’. Bolingbroke nevertheless remained watchful for signs of backsliding on Oxford’s part. A week later some Tories complained to the Secretary that too many of their political opponents still held places, whereupon ‘Lord Bolingbroke swore it was not his fault and that … if there was one Whig in employment at the rising of this session he would give anyone leave to spit in his face’.
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Bolingbroke had hoped to outflank his rival by capturing Tory support, but Oxford believed he had the advantage of the Secretary in one important respect. He was confident the Queen had faith in his ability to keep relations with Hanover on an even keel, and that she would not lightly entrust the management of such matters to anyone else. Determined to demonstrate his mastery of the question, in the spring of 1714 he sent his cousin Thomas Harley on a new mission to Hanover.
Harley was empowered to offer the Electress Sophia a pension, albeit one which came out of the Queen’s Civil List, rather than being sanctioned by a parliamentary grant. Besides this Anne volunteered to do anything ‘consistent with her honour, her safety and the laws’ to safeguard the succession.
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By this time Parliament had reassembled. In her speech at the opening of the session on 2 March, the Queen complained about the excesses of the press, singling out as ‘the height of malice’ printed attacks that insinuated ‘that the Protestant succession in the House of Hanover is in danger under my government’. This was a reference to a work by the Whig MP Richard Steele, entitled
The Crisis
, dwelling at length on the threat posed by the Pretender. Steele had earlier annoyed the government by writing another vitriolic piece in which he addressed the Queen, according to Mrs Delarivier Manley, in the manner ‘an imperious planter at Barbados speaks to a Negro slave’.
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Now the ministry took steps to disable this vociferous critic, and on 18 March Steele was expelled from the House of Commons. Yet it proved something of an own-goal for the ministry, as during the debate the Whig Robert Walpole defended Steele on the grounds that his concerns had been well founded, instilling further doubts in the mind of some Hanoverian Tories as to whether their leaders could be trusted.

In other respects Parliament proved mutinous and hard to control. The problem of managing it was made worse because Oxford and Bolingbroke were distracted by their personal vendetta. Swift compared the pair to ‘a ship’s crew quarrelling in a storm’, oblivious to their true danger.
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The ministry’s difficulties began with demands in both Houses on 17 May that the Queen should apply pressure on the Duke of Lorraine, forcing the Pretender to leave his dominions. The Whigs next called for a debate on the plight of the Catalans. The Queen’s treatment of her former allies had indeed been shameful, for Bolingbroke had persuaded her that the Catalans had been unreasonable in rejecting the amnesty offered them by Philip V. Instead of exerting herself to secure them their ancient privileges, she had resolved ‘to punish them for their insolence’ in committing acts of piracy in the Mediterranean.
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The navy had been sent to blockade Barcelona, currently under siege on its landward side from French and Spanish forces.

Oxford secured the ministry a breathing space by obtaining a ten-day adjournment over Easter, ‘to be set apart for works of piety’, but it was
no more than a temporary reprieve. Instead of spending the recess planning how to repel the impending Whig onslaught, Oxford was largely preoccupied by his attempts to resign. The Whigs used the time more productively, striking a deal with some prominent Hanoverian Tories, who agreed to join them in attacking the ministry.
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