395. James Frederick Edward Stuart, 19 434. Fitzjames, Duke of Berwick,

LIVES OF EMINENT

AND

ILLUSTRIOUS ENGLISHMEN.

I-POLITICAL SERIES.

Queen Anne.

BORN A. D. 1665.-DIED A. D. 1714.

"THE act of Settlement," says Hallam, "was the seal of our constitutional laws,-the complement of the revolution itself, and the bill of rights, the last great statute which restrains the power of the crown, and manifests, in any conspicuous degree, a jealousy of parliament in behalf of its own and the subjects' privileges. The battle had been fought and gained; the statute-book, as it becomes more voluminous, is less interesting in the history of our constitution; the voice of petition, complaint, or remonstrance is seldom to be traced in the journals; the crown, in return, desists altogether, not merely from the threatening or objurgatory tone of the Stuarts, but from that disaffection sometimes apparent in the language of William; and the vessel seems riding in smooth water, moved by other impulses, and liable, perhaps, to other dangers, than those of the ocean-wave and the tempest.' The reigns accordingly of Anne, George I., and George II., present a greater approximation of parties to each other, with none of those bursts of extreme violence which so often shook nearly to upsetting the whole social fabric in preceding reigns. It will be necessary, however, to a clear understanding of the state and the movements of parties in these reigns, to distinguish accurately betwixt whig and tory principles, not so much indeed with relation to the crown itself, as to other parts of the national polity; for, as Mr Hallam observes, the peculiar circumstances of the four reigns immediately succeeding the Revolution, and the spirit of faction which prevailed, "threw both parties very often into a false position, and gave to each the language and sentiments of the other." The tory, then, was ardently loud as the supporter of the church, to which he was often ready to sacrifice even his loyalty itself, and always prepared to sacrifice the great principles of toleration. The whig, on the contrary, opposed the high pretensions of the church, and evinced a favourable leaning towards dissenters. "In the reigns of William and Anne, the whigs, speaking of them generally as a great party, preserved their original character unimpaired far more than their opponents. All that had passed in the former reign served to

humble the tories, and to enfeeble their principle." With these brief explanations of the distinctive features of the two great political parties, which we have given nearly in the words of Mr Hallam, the reader will be prepared for perusing the sketches which follow of the leading political characters of that period of English history on which we have now entered.

ANNE STUART, queen of Great Britain, the second daughter of James II. then duke of York, by his marriage with Anne, daughter to the earl of Clarendon, was born on the 6th day of February, 1665. A circumstance is connected with the early habits and feelings of this princess, which might have passed unnoticed with the other events of a retired childhood, had not the powerful influence it afterwards assumed over the state of Britain and the policy of Europe, made it a subject of political investigation, and of interest to historians. The early attachment entertained by the princess for Sarah Jennings, afterwards dutchess of Marlborough, was probably the effect of arbitrary circumstances. Friendship, so dependent as that exhibited by Anne, seldom exerts itself in making choice, but readily fixes itself on the nearest object; and later events in the life of this princess show that her affections could be fixed on less worthy objects. Educated apart from a court with which any connection was contamination, and committed by a Roman Catholic father, and an uncle not zealous for any religion whatever, to be taught a rigid adherence to the forms and doctrines of the church of England, she was, to a certain extent, set apart from the rest of the world, and being of a disposition which inclined her to depend on the sympathy and protection of a friend, Sarah Jennings, her playfellow from the earliest childhood, three years her elder, and a girl of insinuating address and high feelings, became her bosom-friend, the superintendent of all her actions, and, it may be said, the object of all her affections. Overpowered by her feelings of fondness, the princess appeared to look forward with dread to a momentary separation from her favourite; they appointed a method of supporting a continual correspondence. The princess, who felt that the incumbrances of rank interfered with the cordiality of friendship, choosing for the purpose two feigned names, for herself that of Mrs Morley, and for her friend that of Mrs Freeman; and according to the plan framed by the two girls in a fit of juvenile affection, the queen of Britain carried on an intercourse with the wife of the greatest general of the age.

The cautious vigilance with which the young princess was guarded from any circumstances which might admit a suspicion that she was not educated to a full reverence for the church of England, was one of the most prudent acts of Charles; and, in submitting to the measures for that end, James scarcely displayed his usual obstinacy. On the retirement of the latter to Brussels in 1679, he moderately intimated a wish that his daughter might accompany him,—a request to which the king at first consented, but which both the brothers saw the impropriety of urging, in opposition to opinions expressed in disapprobation of such a measure. In 1681, when the duke commenced his administration in Scotland, a similar proceeding was sanctioned by similar reasons; but party opinion in England rendering it dangerous that the Coxe's Marlborough, vol. i. p. 20.-Dutch. of Marlb. Account, p. 11, &c. Account, p. 14.