Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 2.djvu/200

494 court, and having become a declaimer against the duke of Marlborough, was by the tories appointed generalissimo in Spain, where there were great complaints of mismanagement on the part of the former ministry, and where it was now proposed to carry on the war with more than ordinary vigour. Here, however, his grace was completely overreached, the ministry having no intention of carrying on the war any where. On his arrival in Spain, he found the army in a state of perfect disorganization, without pay and without necessaries, and though the parliament had voted a large sum for its subsistence, not one farthing was sunt to him. He was under the necessity of raising money upon his plate and personal credit for its immediate wants, and in a short time returned to England, having accomplished nothing. This treatment, with a report that a design had been laid to take him off by poison while he was on his ill-fated journey, and, above all, the superior influence of the earl of Mar, who, as well as himself, aspired to the sole administration of Scottish affairs, totally alienated him from his new friends, the tories. He became again a leading whig, and a violent declaimer for the protestant succession, in consequence of which he was deprived of all his employments. His grace had been a principal agent in accomplishing the union, by which his popularity was considerably injured among the lower orders of his countrymen; this he now dexterously retrieved, by joining with Mar and his Jacobite associates at court, for the dissolving of that treaty which he now pretended had completely disappointed his expectations. A motion for this end was accordingly made in the house of lords on the first of June, 1713, by the earl of Seafield, who also had been one of the most forward of the original supporters of the measure. The motion was seconded by the earl of Mar, and urged by Argyle with all the force of his eloquence. One of his principal arguments, however, being the security of the protestant succession, he was led to speak of the pretender, which he did with so much acrimony, that several of the high Jacobites fled the house without waiting for the vote. This was the means of disappointing the project, which otherwise had most certainly been carried, it having been lost after all by no more than four voices.

On the illness of the queen in the following year, the zeal of his grace for the protestant succession was most conspicuous, as well as most happy. Nobody at the time entertained any doubt that Bolingbroke and his party had an intention at least to attempt the pretender's restoration on the death of the queen; and to prevent any undue advantages being taken of circumstances, Argyle no sooner was apprized of her dangerous situation, than, along with the duke of Somerset, he repaired to the council-board, and prevailed to have all the privy counsellors in and about London, without any exceptions, summoned to attend, which, with the sudden death of the queen, so completely disconcerted the tories, that, for the time, there was not the smallest manifestation of one discordant feeling. The queen was no sooner dead, than the seven lords who had by a previous act of parliament been appointed to the regency, together with sixteen additional personages nominated by the heir apparent, in virtue of the same act of parliament, proclaimed the elector of Hanover king of Great Britain. They at the same time took every precaution for preserving tranquillity, and preparing for his majesty's being peacefully and honourably received on his arrival. The services of Argyle on this occasion were not overlooked: he was made groom of the stole to the prince, while his majesty had advanced no further than Greenwich, and two days after was appointed commander-in-chief of Ins majesty's forces for Scotland.

Though by this strange combination of circumstances, viz. the sudden demise of the queen, the disunion of the Jacobites, with the prompt decision of the