Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/282

268 our laws, rebels. But the prince of Orange's cause has been pronounced by God and man just; and since he has been acknowledged in our public records to be the deliverer, guardian, and preserver of our nation, and his enterprise to be most glorious, and the establishment of our present government, how can there be any debate amongst your lordships about this matter?" And the old man declared that as he had taken an active part in promoting the revolution, he was still ready, if need were, to meet those who took an opposite view, not only in parliament upon it, but in the field. The duke of Argyll said that the clergy in all ages had delivered up the rights and privileges of the people, preaching up the king's power in order the more easily to govern him, and that, therefore, they ought not to be suffered to meddle with politics. But this, at least, was not true in this case, for some of the bishops warmly defended the revolution and the principle of it, particularly the bishop of Salisbury, who severely handled the doctor. In the end, however, Sacheverel was pronounced guilty by a majority of seventeen; but four-and-thirty peers entered a protest against the judgment, and his sentence bore no proportion to the usual ones in such cases. He was merely suspended from preaching for two years, and his sermons condemned to be burnt by the common hangman.

This gentle sentence was regarded by the people and the tories as a real triumph. It was proof of the ascendancy of the whig party, and of the fear of offending the public. The event was celebrated by Sacheverel's mob friends by bonfires, and by the inhabitants of London and Westminster by illuminations. There was plenty of beer supplied to the populace from some quarter, and every one passing along was compelled to drink the health of Dr. Sacheverel, the champion of the church. Sacheverel himself went from house to house in a state of triumph to thank the lords and gentlemen who had taken his side. From some of these, as the duke of Argyll, he met with a rebuff, but the great doctor, with a roaring mob at his heels, was generally flatteringly received, and he took care to boast that after his sentence it was clear that the whigs were down and the church was saved. The University of Oxford, which had received a snub from the lords by their ordering its famous decree, asserting the absolute authority and indefeasible right of princes, to be burnt with Sacheverel's sermons, was loud in professed triumph and sympathy for the doctor. The house of commons was indignant at the lenity of his treatment, and declared that his sentence was an actual benefit to him, by exempting him from the duties of his living, and enabling him to go about fomenting sedition.

The queen prorogued parliament on the 5th of April, expressing her concern for the occasion which had occupied so much of the session. She declared that no prince could have a more zealous desire for the welfare of the church than she had, and that it was mischievous in wicked and malicious libels to pretend that the church was in danger, and she trusted that men would now study to be quiet and mind their own business, instead of busying themselves to revive questions of a very high nature, and which could only be with an ill intention. But every one knew all the while that Anne was only pleased at the demonstrations which had been made through Sacheverel; that it had damaged the whigs essentially, and brought the day near when she could safely send him adrift, and liberate herself for ever from them and the Marlboroughs. Mrs. Masham now ruled triumphantly, and disposed of commissions and offices as royally as ever the duchess had done. It was openly said in the army that fighting was not the road to promotion, but carrying Mrs. Masham's lapdogs, or putting a heavy purse into the hand of Mrs. Abigail Earwig. The duchess of Marlborough did not abate her exertions to recover favour, but in vain; and the great Marlborough complained in a letter to the queen that all his victories for her majesty's honour could not shield him from the malice of a bedchamber woman.

Indeed, the display of the queen's bias now became rapid and open. The duke of Shrewsbury, who had now joined the tories, returned from his long residence at Rome, where he had married an Italian lady, and had taken the part of Sacheverel in the trial. The queen immediately dismissed the marquis of Kent, a stanchstaunch [sic] whig, from the office of lord chamberlain, and, much to the grief and consternation of the lord treasurer, Godolphin, bestowed it on Shrewsbury. There was great alarm in the cabinet, and Walpole recommended the instant and entire resignation of the whole whig cabinet as the only means to intimidate the queen and her secret advisers; but Harley is said to have persuaded the rest of the whig ministers that the only object was to get rid of Godolphin, Marlborough, and his son-in-law, Sunderland. The rumour of Sunderland's dismissal became general, and not without foundation. The queen had an extreme dislike to him, not only because of his belonging to Marlborough's clique, but on account of his blunt and outspoken manners. He was perfectly undisguised in his expressions of dislike for Mrs. Masham, and of his resolve, if possible, to get her out of the palace; and, with the queen's present devotion to that lady, he could have taken no surer way of getting himself out. Lady Marlborough, who could not now get to the presence of the queen, yet wrote to her, imploring her to defer any intention of removing lord Sunderland till the duke's return; but the queen forthwith gave Sunderland his dismissal, and appointed lord Dartmouth, an actual Jacobite, in his place. Anne endeavoured to qualify lord Sunderland's dismissal by offering him a retiring pension, but he rejected it with disdain; and such was the fear that the duke of Marlborough, on this act of disrespect to him, would throw up the command of the army, that all the leading ministers, including Cowper, Somers, Halifax, Devonshire, Godolphin, and Orford, wrote to him, imploring him to retain his command, as well for the security of the whig government as for his own glory and the good of the country. The allies on the continent were equally alarmed at this indication of the declining favour of Marlborough, and France equally elated at it. But nothing could now stay the fall of the whigs. Anne, indeed, ordered secretary Boyle to write to all the allied sovereigns and to the States-General to assure them that nothing was farther from her thoughts than the removal of the duke of Marlborough from his command, and that she still proposed to conduct her government by the same party. The hollowness of these