Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

a name in which a little faint fun combines with the domestic spitefulness which prevails in almost every coterie. "Poor unfortunate Morley" is not so clever as any of those fine people; but the roundabout, plump, motherly Majesty, who suggests the duchess's housekeeper rather than her sovereign, was by no means without color or character. Mrs. Freeman cares no more for the Church than for anything else that stands in her path; but the queen makes an unwavering stand for it, and takes her own way, with a mild determination which shows that there is nothing abject in her dependence on her friend. Dr. Burton's apol ogy for Anne, and explanation of her position, is well worthy of the reader's attention, and treats the subject with a justice rarely awarded to her.

"is the occasion when his monotonous | only son died, she entreated to be allowed stupidity prompted the solitary jest that to go to them, protesting that only those twinkles through the gloomy career and who knew the same grief could comfort character of King James; and it came at each other. In this, as in the heart of the gloomiest moment of his days, when many a humble sufferer, lay the tragedy his family and kindred were one by one of her life. Otherwise there is nothing deserting him." We are indebted, how-disagreeable in the little affectation of ever, to another writer for the comical- homely names which she adopted after rueful picture of poor "Est-il-possible," the fashion of her time. She called the in which, out of the "monotonous stupid- splendid pair who hold in history a posiity" so well characterized, there breaks a tion so much more brilliant than her own, dull reflection of the same kind of piteous Mr. and Mrs. Freeman; and Dutch Wilhumor. When the agitation against Occa- liam, her brother-in-law, was Mr. Caliban sional Conformity was at its height, Prince George, we are told, was sent to the House of Lords to vote for the bill abolishing it, which was strongly promoted by the High Church party. The dutiful husband did as he was told; but being himself only an Occasional Conformmist, and keeping up his little Lutheran chapel for his own spiritual consolation, did it against the grain, and whispered to the leader of the opposition, " My heart is vid you," as he went into the orthodox lobby. Poor royal Dane! happy for him that he was not born to set right those times which were out of joint. "It is difficult to understand," Dr. Burton says, "how one not incapacitated by mental disease could have kept so entirely out of the notice of the world." Nothing can be more likely than that it was the entire want of support and backing-up from her husband which made Anne herself so dependent on her friends; and whatever we may think of the sentimentalities of their correspondence, there is something very touching in the forlorn queen's constant appeal to the sympathy and sustaining force of her high-spirited favorite that imperious duchess, whom even Dr. Burton, like everybody else, treats with jocular familiarity as Sarah. Here is a specimen of the curious qualities inherent in names. If my Lady Marlborough's name had been Mary, would any of her numerous historians have ventured on such a familiar use of it? We think not. The queen is fat, and not very dignified; but she is always simple and kind, at least until the jar comes. When the poor little Duke of Gloucester died, and Anne became childless, there is something in her adoption of the title "unfortunate" in her simple letters which goes to the reader's heart. A mother of many children, but childless, the wife of a harmless drone, separated from all her natural kindred, what was the simple soul to do but to surround herself with that little band of friends? When Marlborough's

The growth of her friendships is touching in itself, as an effort to find something in the world dearer than greatness and power, and to be reached from the steps of the throne enjoy a little of that simple life- -so hard to where friends can confide their thoughts and aspirations to each other without their being trumpet-tongued by the unscrupulous favorites that haunt the steps of royalty. And if it was a weakness, it was grandly exercised-it gained for the recasting of Furope that one whose name is yet the greatest among warriors, if we count in our estimate only those whose

[ocr errors]

science and achievements we know with suffithe greatest financial minister that ever ruled Britain.

cient distinctness for comparison. It secured

And when the quarrel ensued which has pointed a foolish moral ever since about female squabbles and friendships. and Mrs. Masham (once more a woman unfortunate in her name-for who can refrain from making a jest about Abigail ? succeeded the duchess, the statesmen that waiting-woman brought in her trair were respectable specimens of persons introduced by the back stairs. Had Queer Anne been surrounded by all the wises sages in her empire, it is to be doubted

whether she could have done much better | war attained. The power of Louis was than Marlborough and Godolphin, Harley shaken to pieces. Only here and there a and St. John; who, indeed, were anything sagacious and far-seeing observer had yet but immaculate-but yet as unlike the divined that the power and splendor of pretty gentlemen of a chambermaid's fa- France rested on a foundation of volcanic vor as it is possible to conceive. So misery which, sooner or later, must come much should be said in favor of Queen to a terrible explosion. And at the moAnne and her women. One or two things ment when Louis XIV.-moved, one in her life show a fine liberality. Almost cannot tell by what charitable temptation, her first royal act was to give up a portion what softening of the heart towards his of her revenue - the "tenths and first- unfortunate kinsman on his deathbedfruits," originally intended as a papal appeared like a god by the bedside of the tribute, but transferred to the crown at exiled and dying King James, and solthe Reformation -as a benefaction to emnly promised to recognize his son as the poor clergy, from whose livings it had king of Great Britain after him, nothing been originally subtracted. Bishop Bur- could be more magnificent than the posi net claims the merit of this act, but it tion of France in Europe. Louis was le was one to which all his rhetoric_could Grand Monarque, and his country la not move King William. Dr. Burton grande nation, beyond all rivalship or seems doubtful whether this gift has comparison. Successful in war, full of really benefited the Church; but we be- conquests, covered with glory, there lieve there are many recipients of "Queen seemed nothing that this triumphant counAnne's bounty" who could satisfy him to try could not accomplish; and when Spain the contrary; In any case, whether became the inheritance of a Bourbon, and spoiled by maladministration or not, this the rich cities and strongholds of the Low royal giving up to the poor parish priest Countries were occupied by French solof the contribution originally intended diers, no wonder that the wealthy Dutchfor his own ecclesiastical superior, then men, whose riches had tempted so many swept into the revenues of the crown, conquerors, should take fright. No less was a seemly and gracious act. At a later fright took England when the fine draperiod, when the country was drained by matic tableau of the godlike monarch the expenses of the great war, the queen appeared in that darkened room at St. gave a very large contribution from her Germains, carrying transport to the bocivil list for the public necessities. soms of the poor little mock court and all the busy conspirators. The great Louis was never concerned in a more fatal pageant. He had the first armies, the most scientific generals, in the world—and the science of arms had just taken a great leap, and so equipped itself with rules and systems, that its results could almost be determined beforehand, so clearly settled and ascertained was the order of its operations. But Marlborough was one of those for whom rules are not made. He used science when it suited him, and laughed at it in those cases where the inspiration of genius knew better. When he ought to have been working his way from step to step along the beaten path, he made a sudden blow at the heart, such as discomfited all the array against him, and shook the opposite forces for the moment into pieces.

This great war, which Marlborough's genius turned into one succession of victories, filled the greater part of the reign of Anne with the excitement and high tension of a conflict in which the national prestige was to all, and the national safety, in the opinion of many, deeply involved. Its nominal object, which was to prevent the elevation to the throne of Spain of Philip of Anjou, the second son of Louis XIV., putting in his place the archduke Charles, son of the emperor, was frustrated with that strangest and most solemn irony of fate which so often turns man's greatest efforts into confusion. According to the arbitration of war, all pronounced itself on the side of Charles, until, in a moment, death cleared the way for him to the imperial throne, making his accession to that of Spain as impossible as had been, at first, the candidature of the French prince whom Europe feared to see unite the crowns of France and Spain upon one head. Philip of Anjou, accordingly, at the end of all the prodigious efforts made to prevent it, ascended peaceably the Spanish throne; but not the less was the real object of the

Dr. Burton is very interesting and lucid in his description of the critical and momentous battle of Blenheim. It was far away from the border towns which the allied armies had been taking one by one, and with which the French had hoped they would continue to amuse themselves until France had swept across the unpre

[ocr errors]

pared continent, and won a kind of empire of the world by mastering Vienna. But Marlborough could march more rapidly, and keep his own counsel better than the best of the generals against him. The reader will not look for those details here which Dr. Burton supplies so ably, but we may indicate the manner in which he treats them by the following account of the last act in that fierce and brief drama of battle. When the victory was gained, there was found to be a detachment of twelve thousand men shut up in the village of Blenheim, so crowded together, that action was almost impossible to them, their commander lost, and the entire forces of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, flushed with victory, in front of

them.

They showed vigor and courage, but to no possible end. They attempted to make sorties, after the manner of invested garrisons; but there were essential differences that baffled such attempts at the outset. The fortress has outworks, within the protection of which sallying-parties can form so as to fall on the besiegers in battle array; and when it is neces sary, they can again come within the shelter of the outworks. But the unfortunates in Blenheim could only run out in the vain hope of forming themselves in rank outside, and with the certainty of being immediately slain. It was a period of awful suspense to the assailants as well as the assailed, for the solemn question arose, Was the victor, according to the hard law of a soldier's duty, to do the worst he could against the enemy if that enemy continued obstinate? The whole of Marlborough's army surrounded the village, with not only the cannon originally in its possession, but those taken from the enemy. The troops in the village were so closely packed, that we hear of the small area of the churchyard affording relief to the pressure. Must the victor then pound the village in a cannonade, and crush the twelve thousand under its shat

tered houses?

true soldier, in the choice of his profession, has thrown his life as a stake that may be taken up at any time. He cannot accept the alternative of saving it by anything that has the faintest tinge of grudging it. Yet there may be occasions where one who has responsimay seek and find the more honorable alternability for many other lives as well as his own, tive in the act that must preserve all; and such surely was the condition of those who consented to the surrender of the village of Blenheim. There is little doubt that the surrender was a mighty relief to Marlborough, looking to the horrible work that had to be done if the imprisoned mob continued defiant.

We are not quite sure that it is generous on the part of the historian to characterize this outburst of the wild gaiety of despair as a proof of the "mocking spirit" of the French intellect. Other men besides Frenchmen have given vent to that laugh of desperation in the face of death: indeed, supreme excitement as often takes that form of expression as But the incident in any case any other. is very striking. We need not dwell, however, on the record of victories which moved England to impassioned interest, and intoxicated her with national pride. There is nothing finer in the book than the manner in which Dr. Burton sets the great soldier before us in the very spirit of Addison's fine lines, which he quotes more than once-like the great Angel of the Storm, "who drives the furious blast," while himself, and calm as the summer skies, And pleased the Almighty's orders to perfonn, Rides on the whirlwind and directs the storm.

66 serene

While these thunders of war were bellowing abroad, changes of still more vital importance were taking place at home. We need not pause upon the Sacheverell commotions, to which Dr. Burton gives two instructive chapters, testifying to elaborate research-though there is a great deal of the paradoxical interest which is characteristic of the time in the prosecution of the popular preacher for his enunciation of those doctrines of divine right which were as obnoxious to the whole large scope of English statesmanship as Louis XIV. himself and his predominance in Europe, though sympathized in both by the queen and the mob, the two extremes of society, grim merriment in which the two were re-ton's great central interest, the history -but will proceed at once to Dr. Burceived. The British officer was Lord Orkney, accompanied by one of the French prisoners, of the Union, upon which he has put to represent to his fellow-soldiers the hopeless- forth his full strength. It would be diffiness of their position, and to beseech them to cult to say too much of the thorough and surrender. It was a bitter alternative. The exhaustive record which our historian

This gloomy juncture is enlivened by an incident exemplifying the indomitable elasticity of the spirit of the Frenchman, and his instinct for the enjoyment of the mocking spirit of his intellect under the most tragic conditions. Two figures were seen to approach the doomed crowd. One was a French officer, the other in his uniform proclaimed himself an officer of rank in the British army. Was this latter a prisoner brought to them by one of themselves? Were they then able, at the conclusion of that disastrous day, to say they had made prisoner a British officer? Such was the tenor of the

[graphic]

has given us of all the principles involved. It is no mere chronicle of the squabbles of commissioners on one hand or the other, abortive meetings, lukewarmness on the English side, and angry petulance on the side of the Scots, as it might easily have been; but a clear and lucid account of all the hidden forces involved, such as requires the eye of a philosopher as well as a historian. When Queen Anne came to the throne, though her authority extended over a really unanimous people on both sides of the Tweed, wishing nothing better than such a legitimate compromise as was found in her natural rights, between the law of hereditary succession and the new institution of elective sovereignty, the two halves of the kingdom were yet two, separated by some real and important discordancies of feeling, and by many bickerings and mutual offences, such as are too common among neighbors, and not unknown even in the closest circle of family life. A quarrel full of mutual aggravations and recriminations, nay, of absolute hostilities now and then, had been going on between them for years; and it had not yet become quite apparent, even to the wisest statesmen on either side, that whatever might be the cost- these two must be made one or else break adrift altogether, an alternative forbidden at once by nature and by every true principle of policy. Throughout this quarrel Scotland had, we think (if it be not national partiality that affects our judgment), a stronger position and more reason in her resistance than England in her exactions. The cruel satisfaction with which-after refusing to the Scots any share in her commercial ventures, at a moment when the world was crazy on that subject the richer and more powerful nation had looked on, nay, worse than looked on, at the ruin of Darien, had roused a furious sense of wrong in the Scottish bosom. Dr. Burton treats this burning question, still capable of rousing the wrath even of spectators so distant as ourselves, with great impartiality and calm; but he points at very clearly the determination of the Englishman to let nobody interfere with his trade - an impassioned yet sullen determination to which he clung in the face of every law and national motive more elevated than his profit and prejuce Foreign intervention had been checked by the first Navigation Act, passed under the Protectorate, and aiming at the diminution of the Dutch trade,

which threatened to deprive England of the mastery of the seas, in which she took so much pride. And Scotland had been included within the protected circle upon the same terms as the rest of Great Britain, and only foreign powers were shut out. But though the union of the two crowns was a sort of general union of the two realms, there was really no feeling even of friendship between Scotch and English. The Scots, in spite of their subjection to the same sovereign, were practically looked upon as foreigners, and the second Navigation Act placed them upon the same footing in law as the subjects of other powers. From the passing of this act we have a continuous struggle, the Scots trying every means to induce, or even force, the English to yield them the much-coveted freedom of trade; while on the other side we find a stubborn resistance kept up until the two kingdoms seemed actually on the verge of war.

Monopoly was the great idea of the time in commercial matters; in fact few if any other considerations seem to have commended themselves to even the most sagacious of the statesmen of the day. Throughout the varied phases of the relations between England, Scotland, and Ireland, the ruling theory in the English mind is always the same, that the best, if not the only, way to make one State rich, is to make and keep its neighbors poor. The relations of England with the two other kingdoms which now form with her the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, were no doubt very different. The difference is declared clearly enough from the English point of view in the answer returned by the English commissioners in 1678 to the Scotch demand to be included in the privileges allowed to Ireland and Wales. This answer declares that Ireland is not only under one king with England, as Scotland, but belongs to, and is an appendix of, the crown of England: that laws made by the English Parliament are binding in Ireland, while those of the Irish Parliament require confirmation by the English Privy Council: finally, that the high officers of the crown have authority and jurisdiction in Ireland, "all which," it adds, "is quite otherwise in relation to Scotland." This difference is clearly shown subsequently, in the manner in which the theory of monopoly affected the measures taken by England towards Scotland and Ireland respectively.

The branch of trade which was in

Anne's reign exciting most attention in was chosen. Arbitrary though the alt

England was the woollen manufactory. Here the three kingdoms came into contact: the plains of England were not the only places in the island upon which sheep could be reared; large flocks might be, and were, kept on the rougher and more broken country in Scotland and Ireland, and wool was one of the most important productions of both these kingdoms. This, of course, in pursuance of the prevailing theory, had to be put down at once; but the method of proceeding adopted was not the same in the two cases. Scotland, as has been already pointed out, was in all but name an independent State. Its legislation could, indeed, to a certain extent, be stopped by the refusal of the royal assent to the measures passed by the Estates; but even this was anything but a reliable power, and had to be used with the greatest caution: while in no way could the Houses of the English Parliament legislate for the internal affairs of Scotland as they could for Ireland. The difference be tween the relations was, in short, practically the same as that between relations with a foreign power and those with a colony. They could and did prohibit the importation into England of Scotch wool, thus considerably injuring and discouraging the chief industry of the rival kingdom, and breaking off entirely nego tiations for a union of Scotland and England, which at the time presented fair hopes of ultimate success; but with regard to the Irish competition they could do better still, and their proceedings in this direction were a most brilliant and instructive application of the ruling idea. Not only could the Irish trade to a great extent be crushed, but it might be made to help the English woollen manufactory. To this end all exportation to any foreign country.e., to anywhere but England -of Irish wool in any shape whatever, was forbidden under heavy penalties; while, for its safe conveyance to English ports, a large staff of officers was established on either side of the Channel, who actually watched the wool from its being shorn to its delivery in a stated port. Indeed it would be almost laughable, had it not been the cause of so much distress, to trace the extent to which the great theory of monopoly was followed out in dealing with the unhappy Irish. In compensation to a certain extent for the suppression of the wool trade, the government determined to plant another industry in Ireland, and the linen trade

native was, the newly introduced man
facture grew and flourished to a remar
able extent. The way in which its gre
success was welcomed in England
however, a curiosity in history. Findi
that it had got into the hands of a Scot
colony in the north, and was therefore n
reaching the classes specially intended,
was proposed to remove the manufacto
further towards the south of Ireland,
as to spread the industry over the who
country; but in discussing the questi
of a new grant for this, the commerc
magnates are prevented from action
the fear that "if Ireland should fall in
the making of fine linen, it would aff
the trade of England."
Such was t
fear expressed by the Commissioners
the Board of Trade, and the mass of E
glish merchants were of opinion that
further encouragement ought to be giv
to the Irish linen trade. It is difficult
imagine the real existence of so mu
ignorance and blindness as are here d
played. England had deprived Irela
of one trade in obedience to the mistak
principles of the age; she had implan
another to remedy the distress which s
had caused, and at the moment when t
substituted industry appeared to be
the point of accomplishing the object
which it was professedly instituted,
help and encouragement necessary to
were withheld. And the reason of t
great stroke of policy was, that the n
trade was tending to make Ireland r
and prosperous, to enable it to be a use
and self-supporting part of the kingdo
instead of a State ever oppressed w
poverty and distress, and in need of
sistance and relief from England!

co

Commercial tyranny of this kind w however, safer as well as easier in case of Ireland than in that of Scotla The Irish might indeed be driven by tress to acts of lawlessness and violen but the kingdom was in the power of English crown absolutely, and originate no really formidable repris But the refusal of the Scotch dem was a matter of much greater importar The Scots Estates were greatly ex perated by the determined refusal of th claims, and as union seemed impossi the next best thing appeared to them be a more thorough and complete sep tion. This feeling culminated in famous Act of Security, by which it enacted, that in case of the queen's dy without issue, the Parliament of Scotĺ should choose from the royal Protes

« VorigeDoorgaan »