Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/203

.] by a body of land forces under the duke of Schomberg. The voyage at that season was, however, a most stormy one, and when the fleet had nearly reached Cape Finisterre, it was compelled to put back to Spithead, where it remained till the middle of February. His next attempt was more successful, and he landed in Lisbon amid much popular demonstration, though the court itself was sunk in sorrow by the death of the infanta, whom he went to marry.

Before the arrival of Charles in England, it had been visited by one of the most terrible storms on record. The tempest began on the 27th of November, attended by such thunder and lightning as had never been experienced by any one living. The Thames overflowed its banks, standing several feet deep in Westminster Hall. The houses in London seemed shaken from their foundations, and many actually fell, burying the inhabitants in their ruins. The loss in London alone was estimated at a million sterling, and the storm raged with equal fury in other places. Bristol was a great sufferer; but the greatest destruction fell on the fleet. Thirteen ships of war were lost, and fifteen hundred seamen, including rear-admiral Beaumont, who foundered in the Downs. Many of the oldest trees in the parks were torn up, and the lead on the churches was rolled up in scrolls. This unparalleled storm raged most fiercely along the southern and western counties, being scarcely felt in the northern ones. The bishop of Bath and Wells with his wife was killed in the episcopal palace by the fall of a stack of chimneys.

The queen opened parliament on the 9th of November. She spoke of the new treaties with the duke of Savoy and the king of Portugal as subjects of congratulation, though the latter implied a fact which might well have startled her subjects if contemplated in its full extent. She informed them that it was the intention of the allies "to recover the monarchy of Spain from the house of Bourbon and restore it to the house of Austria." This was an announcement which went far beyond the objects of king William—namely, to defend the liberties and protestant religion of Europe, which had been so violently attacked by the tory ministers and members of both houses. It equalled in unjustifiable interference William's so much-censured scheme of the partition, for it went to interfere in the affairs of other nations' setting up and pulling down kings, which concerned them alone. The Spaniards made no complaints to us, asked no aid from us to expel an unauthorised king; and so long as that was the case, an interference was utterly contrary to the rights of nations. By this impolitic engagement we were about to be involved in a war of which the end could not be seen, and which was none of our proper business.

Anne admitted that these engagements would cause an immediate and great expense, but she declared that she would be careful to keep down her own expenses—as if any savings in the civil list could in any manner balance these enormous costs of war. In conclusion, she entreated the two houses to avoid heats or divisions, because they gave encouragement to the enemies of the church and state.

These same lords and commons who had loaded the memory of king William with so much execration for his foreign wars, on this occasion showed the utmost readiness to rush into the same evils themselves. Neither lords nor commons raised an objection to this scheme of setting the archduke Charles of Austria on the throne of Spain. On the contrary, on the 12th of November the lords presented an address to the queen, expressing their satisfaction at her having entered into these treaties, and even displayed a zeal beyond them. The commons on their part voted fifty-eight thousand soldiers and forty thousand sailors as the standard of the army and navy, and they granted the requisite supplies with the utmost readiness.

No sooner was this warlike demonstration made, than the commons again introduced the occasional conformity bill, and carried it through by a large majority, on pretence that the church was in danger; but the lords attacked it with still greater animosity, and threw it out.

At this moment the nation became alarmed with the rumour of a conspiracy amongst the Jacobites in Scotland. When the queen, on the 17th of December, went to the lords to give her assent to the land tax bill, she informed them that she had made discoveries of a seditious nature in Scotland, which, as soon as she could with prudence, she assured them should be laid before them. The lords, in their loyalty, were not disposed to wait for these disclosures, but appointed a committee to inquire into the Scottish plot, and even went so far as to take some of the parties implicated out of the hands of the queen's messengers, to examine them themselves.

This over-zeal was immediately seized upon by the commons, who were sore with the rejection of their occasional conformity bill. They addressed the queen, expressing their surprise at the conduct of the lords in wresting persons accused of treasonable practices out of her majesty's hands, in order to examine them themselves, without her majesty's leave or knowledge. They prayed her to suffer no diminution of her prerogative, and promised to support her in the just exercise of her power to the utmost of their ability, Anne, who dreaded far more the revival of the fierce war betwixt the two houses than any real infringement of her prerogative, replied that the cause of complaint was now at an end. But the offence had been given, and the lords would not let it pass. They addressed her majesty to the effect that they had a right, by the known laws of parliament, to take examinations of persons charged with criminal matters, whether they be in custody or not, and to order that such persons be taken into custody of her majesty's sworn officer attending their house. They declared the address of the commons to be unparliamentary, groundless, without precedent, and highly injurious to the house of peers. The queen could only reply that she was very sorry for these misunderstandings, and thanked them, as she had done the commons, for their great concern for the rights and prerogatives of the crown.

The evil genius which had given occasion for all these bickerings was the notorious Simon Frazer, lord Lovat, a man of the most infamous character. Frazer had violated the sister of the marquis of Athol, and had been in consequence compelled to fly to France, where, notwithstanding his crime and the vile tenor of his whole life, he had free access to the court of St. Germains. He there offered to excite an insurrection in the Highlands of Scotland in favour of the pretended prince of Wales, and to raise twelve