Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/208

194 of its position; but the ministers of Anne were alarmed. The people were parading the streets of Edinburgh, threatening to sacrifice all who should dare to prove traitors to their country and succumb to England's designs against their ancient independence; and Godolphin advised Anne to pass the supply bill with this extraordinary tack, which she did. Thus Scotland was, in fact, severed from England, and was authorised to set up a new monarch on the death of the queen in opposition to one chosen by England. So disgraceful a concession to the menaces of a faction had not been seen in England for generations. Godolphin would have certainly fallen a just victim of his baseness at this moment but for the wonderful news of the successes of Marlborough coming thick and fast, and filling the public mind. As it was, the English tories printed and circulated the Scottish Security Bill to show that the two countries were really separated in the most absolute manner. At the same time this disgraceful concession only encouraged the Jacobite faction, which returned again to the demand to have all the papers regarding the Frazer plot, and denounced the interference of the English house of lords in the matter as an encroachment on the independence of their nation. The only mode of putting a stop to the fierce demands of the faction was to prorogue the parliament, which was done.

Marlborough had left London for the Hague this year, on the 15th of January, whilst the English parliament was sitting. He was promised fifty thousand British troops under his own immediate command, and he was planning a campaign which gave the first evidence of a real military genius being at the head of the allied forces since these Dutch wars began. He saw that the elector of Bavaria, by his alliance with the French, was striking at the very heart of the empire, and that, if permitted to continue his plans, he would soon, with his French allies, be in possession of Vienna. Nothing could be more deplorable than the condition of Austria. Besides the successes of the elector of Bavaria, the insurgents of Hungary were triumphant, and between the two the empire was on the verge of ruin. The elector of Bavaria had possessed himself of all the places on the Danube as far as Passau, and should he come to act in concert with the Hungarians, Vienna would be lost. Prince Eugene put himself in communication with Marlborough, and those two great generals determined on striking a blow which should at once free Austria from its dangers. This was no other than a bold march of a powerful army to the Danube, and the destruction of the elector of Bavaria.

This was a design so far one of the mediocre range of Dutch campaigns that it was determined not to let its real character become known till it could be instantly put in execution, certain that the States-General, terrified at so daring a scheme, would prohibit it at once. To go securely to work, therefore, by the advice of Eugene, the emperor applied to the queen of England to send an army to his rescue. Marlborough supported the application with all his energy, and, having procured the queen's consent, he left England on the 14th of January, was in the Hague on the 19th, and put himself into secret communication with the grand pensionary Heinsius. He fully approved of the scheme, and promised to give it his most strenuous support. It was thought, however, imprudent to confide the real extent of the plan to any other persons, not only because it was sure to alarm the Slates-General, but because it had been all along observed that every proposal, once known to the government or heads of the army, was immediately, by concealed traitors, made known to the French. The proposal made to the States-General, therefore, was merely that the next campaign should be made on the Moselle, as if the design was along that river to penetrate into France.

The States-General, as was expected, appeared thunderstruck by even the proposal of carrying the war to the Moselle, and it was only by the zeal of Heinsius that they were brought to consent to it. That accomplished, they were induced to grant a subsidy to the prince of Baden, and another to the circle of Suabia, and to take into pay four thousand Würtembergers instead of the same number of Dutch and English dispatched to Portugal. There was a promise of money given to the prince of Savoy, with an assurance of so vigorous a campaign on this side the Alps, that the French should not be able to send many troops against him. Similar assurances of co-operation were given to the elector palatine and to the new king of Prussia. These matters being arranged, Marlborough hastened back to England, and persuaded the queen to remit a hundred thousand crowns to Suabia, and to make a large remittance to the prince of Baden out of the privy purse. He then put himself on a good understanding with the now partly whig ministry, himself as well as his indefatigable duchess coming out in whig colours. He then returned to the Netherlands in the beginning of April. He found in his absence that the terms of his design, little of it as was known, had been actively operating in the cautious Dutch mind, and the states of Zealand and Friesland in particular were vehemently opposed to so bold a measure as carrying the war to the Moselle. Marlborough, who had brought with him to support him in command his brother, general Churchill, lieutenant-general Lumley, the earl of Orkney, and other officers of distinction, told the States plainly that he had the authority of his queen for taking such measures as he thought best for the common cause, and that he was determined to march with his forty thousand men to the Moselle. This struck with silence the opposers of the measure: the States consented with a good grace to the proposition, and gave him such powers as they never would have done had they any idea to what an extent he meant to use them. Prince Eugene alone, who was commanding the allied army on the Upper Danube, was in the secret. Leaving Auverquerque with a strong force to guard the frontiers of Holland, he commenced at once his march to Utrecht, where he spent a few days with Albemarle, thence to Ruremonde, and so to Maestricht, and on the 8th of May advanced to Bedburg, in the duchy of Juliers, which had been appointed as the place of rendezvous. There he found general Churchill with fifty-one battalions, and ninety-two squadrons of horse. He was there waited on by the prince of Saxe-Zeist, the envoy-extraordinary, M. Brianzoni, the bishop of Raab, and other dignitaries of the church from Cologne, and he sent by them to the elector of Treves, informing his highness that he should require to pass the Rhine at Coblentz, and requested him to see that a bridge of boats was laid across the river, so that his army might