A snapper-up of

unconsidered trifles.

WINTER'S TALE,

Act iv., sc 2.

Notes.

PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY OF CHESHIRE.

V.

Our last paper closed with the somewhat tragic death of William III, just at the moment when he had declared war against the grasping ambition of France. It may not be out of place here to take a passing glance at the more striking features of our instory as he left it. As a monarch William conferred the most solid advantages on this country, but at the same time he entailed evils of the most gigantic magnitude. He was the first monarch for many centuries who was a genuine friend to constitutional freedom, for to him we owe our religious as well as our civil liberty, and we should have had a still greater religious freedom if he could have had his own way. But the great fault of William was his ambition to be the arbiter of the freedom of the continental nations, and, as we know to our cost, this could only be done at a fearful expense. The National Debt at the commencement of Dutch William's reign was £664,263, which was left as a legacy to the country by Charles II. To this William added £17,730,439, which involved an additional annual charge of £1,271,017. From that date (1685) to the end of the reign of George II., during the whole of which time a succession of continental wars had been carried on, it is calculated that no less than 1,920,000 Englishmen had been slain in battle, and these have cost us up to the present time in principal and interest more than £3,500,000,000.

When Anne succeeded to the throne in 1072, she was in her thirty-eighth year. She was the second daughter of James II., by Anne Hyde, daughter of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, and born in 1664, it is said, at Norbury, near Stockport, the old family residence of the Hydes of Hyde and Norbury. Be this as it may, at her accession, so complete had been the success of the Revolution that not the slightest voice was raised in favour of her half-brother, the Catholic Prince of Wales, and according to the terms of the Act of Settlement she succeeded to the throne without the least opposition.

In her first interview with the Privy Council, Anne assured them it was her firm intention to maintain the Protestant rel gion and to continue the policy of the late king, whose wisdom and moderation she intended to copy. The Commons, in reply, promised to support her with the necessary funds, and requested her to continue the preparations for the war with France, Marlborough being entrusted with the command of the allied forces. The Queen was crowned April 23, 1702, and on May 25 following she prorogued Parliament. Meanwhile a fierce battle was taking place in the Scottish Parliament on the subject of the union of the two nations. The Queen met her new Parlia ment October 25, which turned out to be so completely Tory as to carry all before it in that direction. From Cheshire the representatives returned were:

1 ANNE.

Met August 20, 1702. Dissolved April 5, 1705, CHESHIRE-Sir George Warburton, of Arley, bart. Sir Roger Mostyn, of Bees ton, bart.

We now come to one of the most striking and meritorious acts of the reign of Anne-the grant of the first-fruits and tenths of the Church livings to the poor clergy. In pre Reformation times these had formed part of the Papal dues, but since that time the monies had been collected by the bishops and paid over to the Crown, and now amounted to £16,000 a year. According to Burnet, at whose instance it was carried out, there were hundreds of cures that had not £20 a year, and some thousands that had not £30. This bill was brought in February 7, 1704, and has ever since been known as "Queen Anne's Bounty."

It was during this year that Marlborough began his series of campaigns on the continent against the aggressive Fre ch, and which terminated in the decisive victory at Blenheim. For this he was awarded the splendid Crown estate of the manor and estate of Woodstock, that magnificent home of the Plantagenets, which Chaucer has sung and described with such topographical fidelity. Here Vanbrugh, himself a famous Cestrian, the architect of old Eaton Hall, Castle Howard, and Seton-Delavel-poet, also, and dramatist-was appointed to build the kingly palace of Blenheim. 4 ANNE.

Met October 25, 1705. Dissolved April 11, 1708. CHESHIRE-Hon. Langham Booth.

John Crewe Offley, of Crewe, esq. CHESTER Sir Henry Bunbury, bart.

Peter Shakerley, esq.

The above were the Cheshire representatives in Queen An e's next Parliament, and in this, as in the preceding Parliament, party feeling ran high. It was in this session that arose the political distinction of Whig and Tory; the name Whig being given to those who were for liberty without abandoning monarchy and friends of the house of Hanover; and Tory was the title by which those were distinguished who were fer absolute monarchy, and friends of the Catholic house of Stuart. The Lords congratulated Her Majesty on the glorious victories of Marlborough, without at all noticing those of Sir George Kooke and Sir Cloudesley Shovel-who by the way is said to be a native of Levenshulme-who took Gibraltar from the Spanish, a conquest that was a far more substantial victory to England than that of Blenheim. In this Parliament was introduced the Act of Union, which enacted that from May 1, 1707, the two kingdoms of Erg and and Scotland should be for ever united under the name of Great Britain, and that the whole island should be represented by one Parliament, in which Scotland should be represented by sixteen peers and forty-five commoners. This Act passed as a matter of course, the Whigs having a decided majority in this Parlia

ment.

In the frst Parliament of Great Britain, which met October 23, 1707, it became a question whether it should be deemed a new Parliament or not. On the one hand it was contended that it was a new Parlia ment, because it had been let fall and had been revived by proclamation; on the other hand, it was main tained that it was not a new Parliament, because it had not been summoned by a new writ, and the the maj rity coincided in the latter view. It continued to sit until April 1, 1708, when it as prorogued and subsequently dissolved. Writs were issued for new election, and a proclamation commanding the peers of Scotland to assemble at Holyrood on June 17, for the election of sixteen peers to represent them in the British Parliament. The new Parliament assembled November 16, and proved to be much in favour of the Whigs. The Cheshire representatives were:

The Queen did not open this Parliament in person owing to the recent loss of her husband, Prince George of Denmark; but it was opened by a commis sion consisting of the Archbishop of Canterbury and others. One of the first parliamentary acts of 1709 was to pray the Queen to think of a second marriage. She had been the mother of thirteen children, all of whom had died young, and she had now reached the age of forty-five. She marked her surprise and displeasure at this request by replying that she had taken full precautions for the Protestant succession in the person of George of Hanover. The second session this Parliament, which met November 15, was almost i entirely engrossed with the trial of Dr Sacheverel, a high Tory divine who had preached a ranting sermen, in which he inveighed bitterly against the tolerant spirit of the Bishops towards the Dissenters; charac tising the Revolution of 1688 as an unrighteous change, and winding up with a furious invective against the Whig ministers. After a careful investi gation of this injudicious impeachment on the part of the Whigs, Sicheverel was found guilty of exceeding the licence of preaching and was suspended for three years. This gentle sentence was regarded by the Tory party as a triumph, and in fact it was; for its almost immediate effect was the overthrow of the Whig administration. None, perhaps, felt the blow more keenly than the Whig family of Marlborough, at whose instigation the impeachment was commenced, for to them it was a clear indication that their power at Court was on the wane, and as the Queen had dismissed several of her Whig officers of State, appointing Tories in their place, there was no alternative but to dissolve Parliament, which was done accordingly, and

writs issued for a new election. "Thus," says one writer, "fell the most glorious, the most able, and we may add perhaps the most virtuous and patriotic administration that England had possessed since the days of Elizabeth."

9 ANNE.

Met November 25, 1710. Dissolved August 8, 1713. CHESHIRE-Sir George Warburton, of Arley, bart.

CHESTER

Charles Cholmondeley, of Vale Royal, esq. - Sir Henry Bunbury, bart. Peter Shakerley, esq.

In the new Parliament which met on the above date there was a strong infusion of Tories sent up, but there was still also a strong party of Whigs. The Tories, however, were in power, and there was in consequence an entire revolution of opinion and of measures. Everything which had been applauded and encourged under the Whigs was now to be decried; everything which had been kept down was to be set on high. The wars of Marlborough, which had humbled Luis XIV. and defended the Protestant interests abroad, were now to be denounced and deprecated. He who had won so many victories over the proud and grasping French monarch was to be systematically maligned, from all of which it was clearly evident that the Tories were bent on obtaining peace at any sacrifice; and in this they were supported by the general voice of the nation, which had at length become weary of war. Thus were brought about the negotiations which ended in the signing of the Treaty of Peace at Utrecht,exactly eleven years after the commencement of the war. Because he refused to sign it Lord Cholmondeley was dismissed from his office of treasurer of the household.

In this session was introduced and passed an Act ostensibly for the purpose of increasing the power of the Tory landlords in the House of Commons, and for diminishing that of the Whig supporters in the boroughs, which made it necessary that every candidare for Parliament in the counties should possess £600 a year in real estate, and for a borough seat £300 a year, and this law bas lasted to our time, it only having recently been repealed.

Anne prorogued Parliament July 16 in 8 speech in which she congratulated herself on having concluded 8 long and bloody war, which she had inherited and not occasioned, and on August 8 dissolved Parliament by proclamation, its riennial term having expired. Burnet says it had acquired the name of the pacific Parliament, and winds up his own history with the remark that "no assembly but one composed as this was could have sate quiet under such a peace."

The elections for the new Parliament were now being carried on with all the fire and zeal of the two

parties. The Tories boasted of their successful efforts to stem the tide of expenditure for the war, to stanch the flow of blood, and restere all the blessings of peace. The Whigs, on the contrary, made the most of their opposition to the trea'y of commerce with France, which they represented as designed to sacrifice our trade to the insane regard now shown to that country, and declared their zeal for the Protestant succession. Nevertheless, the country sent up a powerful majority of men who were by no means secretly growing more and more favourable to the return of the Catholic Pretender, the Chevalier St. George. Never, indeed, had the chances of his restoration appeared so great. In this, Anne's last Parliament, the Cheshire representatives were:

12 ANNE.

Met November 11, 1713. Dissolved January 15, 1715.
CHESHIRE-Sir George Warburton, of Arley, bart.
Charles Cholmondeley, of Vale Royal, esq.
CHESTER Sir Henry Bunbury, bart.
Peter Shakerley, esq.

As the Queen's health was daily growing more precarious, the principal item of discussion in this Parliament was the subject of succession, and the supporters of the young Pretender and those of the house of Hanover increased their efforts to secure their ground. As a consequence there was a most active and incessant struggle going on round the throne to enable the head of either party to step into it the moment it became vacant. It was consi ered essential for the claimant to be on the spot, and therefore every means were used to induce the Queen to admit the Pretender as well as a member of the electoral house to court, but she would hear of neither So matters remained until August 1, 1714, when the Queen died, frustrating all the plans of the Pretender and his friends, and George I. was proclaimed King of Great Britain and Ireland almost without a single murmur, as if the crown had passed in the most regular descent.

Like her sister Mary, and u like her father, grandfather, and great grandfather, Queen Anne preferred the love of her subjects to the destruction of their pri. vileges; and it ought never to be forgotten that she secured the comfort of numbers of the families of poor clergymen to every future generation by her "bounty," and conferred on the nation at large one of the greatest political blessings which it ever acquired-perhaps the most solid cause of its now wondrous prosperity-the union with Scotland.

From the number of e'egant writers who were contemporaries with Queen Anne, her reign is called the Augustan age of literature. Amongst these, mention may be made of Pope, Swift, Congreve, Rowe, and Vanbrugh, poets; Steele and Addison, celebrated for