Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/240

226 tumults. He therefore asserted that the whole Scottish nation was averse to this incorporating process.

As queen Anne was said to be present with the duchess of Marlborough, Haversham did not neglect to give both the queen and favourite a rub about the monstrous influence which the duchess and her husband exerted over the queen. "The articles of this treaty," he said, "came to their lordships with the greatest countenance of authority; but this authority was pretty much like that made use of by the Romish church, where there were ten Ave-Marias for one Paternoster, which he thought just as reasonable as if ten times the application and address should be made to a she-favourite as to the person of a sovereign, which was a kind of state idolatry."



The lords Grey, North, Stowell, Rochester, Howard, Leigh, and Guildford, protested against the low rate of the land-tax charged in Scotland, complaining, with great reason, that it was fixed at only forty-eight thousand pounds, which was never to be increased, however the value of property might rise in that country; and lord Nottingham said that it was highly unreasonable that the Scots, who were by the treaty let into all the branches of the English trade, and paid so lttle towards the expense of the government, should, moreover, have such a round sum by way of equivalent. The lords North, Grey, Guernsey, Granville, Abingdon, and others supported that view.

But the discussions on the various articles were cut short by a clever stratagem adopted by government in the house of commons. There, as the same arguments were being urged, and Sir John Packington was declaring that this forced incorporation, carried against the Scottish people by corruption and bribery within doors, by force and violence without, was like marrying a woman against her consent, Sir Scriven Harcourt, the solicitor-general, introduced a bill of ratification, in which he enumerated the various articles in the preamble, together with the acts made in both parliaments for the security of the two churches, and, in conclusion, wound up with a single clause, by which the whole was ratified and enacted into a law. The opposition was thus taken by surprise. They had not objected to the recital of the articles, which was a bare matter of fact; and when they found themselves called upon