Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/283

A.D. 1710.] assurances was immediately shown by her also dismissing Godolphin from the treasury, and appointing Harley chancellor of the exchequer. Harley thereupon proposed to lord chancellor Cowper and Walpole to make a coalition; but they rejected the overture; and, as a tory cabinet could not expect to carry on with a whig house of commons, a dissolution was determined upon, and parliament was dissolved accordingly, and writs issued for a new election.

The nomination of the tory cabinet immediately followed. Lord Rochester, the queen's high church and deep-drinking uncle, was made president of the council in place of Somers; the duke of Buckingham succeeded the duke of Devonshire as lord steward; St. John succeeded Mr. Secretary Boyle; Sir Simon Harcourt, as lord chancellor, superseded lord Cowper; the duke of Ormonde took the lord lieutenancy of Ireland from lord Wharton; the duke of Somerset had anticipated these changes by throwing up his post of master of the horse, and the earl of Orford was removed from the admiralty, and that office was put in commission. In the room of Walpole, George Granville was made secretary-at-war. Here was a clean sweep of all the whigs, except some subordinate officials, who clung to office as long as it was permitted. Dr. Sacheverel had done a mighty work for the tories, and, having the living of Salatin, in Shropshire, conferred on him, he made quite a triumphant progress thither in May, during all the heat and violence of the elections, still labouring in his vocation of self-glorification, and of damaging the whig cause all in his power, in which he was energetically supported by his patrons.

Through his whole journey he was accompanied from town to town by a numerous body of gentlemen and other people on horseback, and travelled with all the airs of a prince or the saviour of his country. He was received and entertained in the country houses as he went along with all luxury and festivity. The towns were in a tumult, and the great champion of the church was feasted and hurrahed to his heart's content. At Oxford he was received with the highest honours, and entertained at a great feast, at which many a nobleman attended, paying the most profound deference to him, and yet, it is said, secretly laughing at their assumed idol. At Bridgenorth he was met by a Mr. Cresswell at the head of four thousand persons on horseback, and as many on foot, wearing white knots edged with gold, and three leaves of gilt laurel in their hats. The hedges for two miles before reaching the town were garlanded with flowers and lined with people. The steeples were covered with colours, flags, and streamers, and he was deafened with cries of "The church and Dr. Sacheverel!" Such were the honours paid to this swelling puppet of the time, who received all the incense as due to his own merit, when it was only the farce of toryism using him to demolish whiggism. According to the lively malice of the duchess of Marlborough, "putting the air of a saint on a lewd, drunken, pampered man, dispensing his blessings to all his worshippers, and his kisses to some; taking their good money as fast as it could be brought in, drinking their best wines, eating their best provisions, without reserve and without temperance; and, what completed the farce, complaining in the midst of this scene of luxury and triumph—as the old, fat monk did over a hot venison pasty in his barbarous Latin, Heu quanta patimus pro ecclesiu!—Oh, what dreadful things do we undergo for the sake of the church!'"

The truth was that the doctor did receive many and great presents, and the drinking wherever he went was terrible. At the same time the drinking was universal, for the election was going on, and the two factions were straining every nerve, and bribing and treating the populace to beer in the most extravagant manner.

On the continent war and negotiation were going on at the same time whilst the Sacheverel fever had been raging at home. Early in the spring Louis XIV., sensible of the miserable condition of his kingdom and of his finances, had again made overtures for peace through the medium of Petikum, the agent of the duke of Holstein. Pensionary Heiusius, in consequence, sent Petikum to Versailles to assure Louis that the allies were ready to treat on condition that he signed the preliminaries agreed upon before, leading the separate articles to which he objected to be discussed in the course of the treaty; that as to these articles, the States would grant passports to his plenipotentiaries to endeavour to settle them or some equivalent for them. To this Louis agreed, without, however, signing the preliminaries, and proposed that the conference should take place at the Hague. The Dutch objected to the Hague, well aware that Louis's emissaries, once admitted there, would omit no endeavours to penetrate into the councils of the allies, and to influence the Lövenstein faction so as to operate in his favour. They, therefore, appointed the little town of Gertruydenberg as the place of conference. On the part of the French the marshal d'Uxelles and the Abbé de Polignae were appointed plenipotentiaries, and on that of the Dutch, the deputies Buys and Vanderdussen.

These ministers of the two parties met at first at Maardyk, on the water in a yacht, but the French preferred the wretched little town of Gertruydenberg for their sojourn, where they complained of the miserable accommodations they obtained. The Dutch States-General had sent a pressing request that Marlborough might be allowed to go to Holland in time to give his advice in these negotiations, and the two houses of parliament seconded this request. The queen readily consented, though it was suspected the whole was done at the suggestion of Marlborough himself, to show how essential his services were deemed by the allies. Though Marlborough hastened to the Hague in consequence, he did not in any way appear openly in the matter, but appeared busy with prince Eugene in setting early on foot the campaign. The French ambassadors represented themselves as being not only most meanly entertained, but as meanly and narrowly watched—their letters being opened, and their propositions met by haughty discourtesy. Certainly, if we were to regard the concessions made by Louis XIV. on this occasion as honestly offered, the allies had never a fairer opportunity of closing the war triumphantly, and were most blamable in refusing them. Louis offered to give up all Spain, and the Indies, East and West; to acknowledge Charles king of undivided Spain; to give no support to Philip, but to claim for him only Sicily and Naples. When it was objected that Naples was already in the possession of Austria, and could not be given up, the ambassadors waived the claim of Naples, and contented themselves with Sicily