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] that the exportation of English wool into Scotland should be prohibited. The commons let the bill of the lords embodying these resolutions lie on the table; but they passed a similar one of their own, including a prohibition of Scottish linen in England or Ireland; and the lords were so satisfied with it that they accepted and passed it. The screw was thus put sharply on the Scots in their maritime interests.



On the 17th of February, 1705, Anne informed the house that, in consequence of the great services of the duke of Marlborough, she proposed to bestow upon him the splendid crown estate of the manor and honours of Woodstock, with the hundred of Wootton, and requested the necessary grant for clearing off the incumbrances on that estate. These incumbrances consisted of a lease of the lieutenancy and rangership of the parks, with the rents and profits of the manors and hundreds, which were granted for two lives, and must be bought off before the favourites could enter on this fine old property of the crown of England. The two houses soon passed a bill enabling the queen to bestow these manors on the duke of Marlborough and his heirs for ever, and the queen was desired to advance the money for clearing off the incumbrances. This she not only complied with, but ordered the comptroller of the court to build a magnificent palace for the duke, and Vanbrugh, the architect of Castle Howard and Seton-Delaval—poet, also, and dramatist—was appointed to build this pile in honour of the hero of Blenheim.

Every admirer of England's historic remains must regret with the historian of our queens, "that thrice as much of the fattest lands in the island had not been granted, rather than