Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/257

A.D. 1708]  Sunderland, and their party now seized eagerly on this chance to expel Harley and his acute coadjutor, St. John, from the cabinet. Seven lords, including these, and all whigs, were deputed to examine Greg in prison, and are said to have laboured hard to induce Greg to accuse Harley; but they were disappointed. Greg remained firm, was tried, condemned, and hanged. Alexander Valiere, John Bara, and Claude Baude, the secretary of the ambassador to the duke of Savoy, with that minister's consent, were also imprisoned on the charge of carrying Greg's correspondence to the governor and commissioners of Calais and Boulogne. On the scaffold Greg was said to have delivered a paper to the ordinary, clearing Harley altogether; but this was not produced till Harley was once more in the ascendant. The lords deputed to examine Greg, and the smugglers Bara and Valiere, declared that Greg had informed them that Harley had employed these men to carry correspondence, and that all the papers in the office of Harley lay about so openly that any one might read them. Both these assertions, and the paper said to have been left by Greg, had much that is doubtful about them. The one statement proceeded from the whigs evidently to destroy Harley; the Greg paper, on the other hand, not being produced till Harley was out of danger, was quite as evidently the work of Harley to clear his character. The charges, however, were sufficient to drive Harley and St. John from office for the time. When the council next met, the duke of Somerset rose, and pointing to Harley, said rudely to the queen, that if she suffered that fellow to treat of affairs in the absence of Marlborough and Godolphin, he could not serve her. Marlborough and Godolphin continued to absent themselves from the council, and the queen was compelled to dismiss Harley. With him went out St. John, the secretary of war, and Mr. Robert Walpole, a young man, whose name was destined to fill a large space of history under the Georges, was put into his place. This supersedence St. John never forgave Walpole, and a fierce hatred raged betwixt them so long as St. John lived. Besides these leaders. Sir Simon Harcourt, the attorney-general, a strong partisan of Harley, went out, and was succeeded by Mr. Henry Boyle, chancellor of the exchequer, who was succeeded in that office by Mr. Smith, the speaker of the commons. Sir Thomas Monsell, comptroller of the household, was also displaced. The leading whigs even instigated the house of commons to petition the queen to dismiss Mrs. Masham; but the house had too much consciousness of its own dignity to condescend to so petty a malice as urging the dismissal of a mere toilette woman of the queen's. There can be little doubt that the duchess was at the bottom of this attempt, for at the same time lord Marlborough threatened to throw up his command of the army: as neither the queen nor the nation were yet prepared for this, it was felt by the duke and duchess to be a great blow in their favour; and the duchess immediately followed it up by going to the queen, and saying that she perceived that the duke of Marlborough and lord Godolphin would very soon be obliged to quit her majesty's service, and in that case it would be impossible for herself to remain in it, and therefore she hoped her majesty would allow her to resign her offices in favour of her daughters, lady Rialton, the danghter-in-law of Godolpliin, and lady Sunderland. This was a master stroke, for if the queen consented, she had secured these opulent offices in her family, and could, through her daughters, always penetrate into and meddle with everything in the royal household as much as if she was there herself. Anne, who perceived her cunning, replied that this could never be, because she had resolved never to part with the duchess herself. But the pertinacious duchess was not thrown out by this manœuvre; she replied that if the duke should be obliged to quit her service, she must be obliged to quit it too, and in that case she hoped her majesty would give her posts to her daughters. And whatever was Anne's answer to get rid of her importunity, the duchess declared that the queen did promise this, and afterwards demanded the fulfilment of the promise with most undaunted vociferation. The duchess was not deceived by Harley's dismissal. She felt that it was only temporary, and that through Mrs. Masham he could still influence the mind of the queen as he pleased; and the event ere long proved her sagacity.

Whilst things were on this footing, the nation was alarmed by an attempt at invasion. Louis XIV. had at length been persuaded that a diversion in Scotland would have a very advantageous effect, by preventing England sending so many troops and supplies against him to the continent. Early in February, therefore, an emissary was sent over to Scotland in the person of Charles Fleming, brother of the earl of Wigton. He was to see the leading Jacobites, and assure them that their king was coming immediately, and that as soon as the French fleet appeared in sight they were to proclaim the king everywhere, raise the country, seize arms, and open up again their previous communications with persons within the different forts and garrisons — thus proving that they had tampered with the troops and garrisons of Scotland, and that, as asserted by different historians, the regular troops in that country, about two thousand five hundred, were not to be trusted by the English. They were also to seize the equivalent money, which was still lying in the castle of Edinburgh.

On the earliest intimation of these designs the suspected Scottish nobles, including the duke of Hamilton and twenty-one others, lords or gentlemen, were secured. The habeas corpus act was suspended; the pretender and his abettors were declared traitors; and all popish recusants were ordered to remove ten miles from the cities of London and Westminster. The alarm was not an empty one. The pretender, who had now assumed the name of "the chevaher de St. George," was furnished with a fleet and army, which assembled at Dunkirk. The fleet was under the command of admiral Forbin, consisting of five ships of the line and twenty frigates. It was to carry over five thousand troops under the command of general de Gace, afterwards known as marshal de Matignon. The pretender was supplied by Louis with all the requisites of a king; services of gold and silver plate, magnificent tents, splendid liveries, and superb clothes for his life-guards; and, notwithstanding the poverty of the French court, the supplies of everything were abundant. Louis, on taking leave, presented the young adventurer with a sword richly studded with diamonds, and repeated what he had said to his father — that he wished as his best wish that he might never see