Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/308

294 advancing, and the armies in the field continued to look at each other without fighting.

Marshal Villars, like the French plenipotentiaries, had made a great display of forces, pretty certain, from his private information, that there was little fear of being seriously attacked. The allies had a fine army of one hundred and twenty thousand men opposed to him; but so far as the English were concerned, their commander had his hands tied. The duke of Ormonde was sent to take the place of the duke of Marlborough—a certain indication that he was meant only for a mere show-general. He was a firm Jacobite, but no general of the talents or experience proper to succeed to a man like Marlborough. On arriving at the Hague he assured the States-General that his instructions were to act zealously with the allies, and especially the Dutch, and from



his letters it would appear that such were his orders. But before his arrival, Mr. Thomas Harley, a relative of Oxford's, and the Abbé Gualtier, had reached the Hague, and had assured the plenipotentiaries that the government had determined on peace, and would not allow the army to fight. They also brought over with them the scheme of the treaty, which was not yet to be made known to the Dutch. But the States-General were too well aware of the hollow proceedings of the English court, and, disgusted at the withdrawal of Marlborough and the substitution of Ormonde, they would not intrust their troops to him, but appointed Eugene as their own general. Thus, instead of one generalissimo of consummate genius, the army was divided under two heads, and the best head, the prince Eugene, having the utmost contempt for the martial talents of his colleague. All on the part of England, both in the conference and in the army, was hollow, treacherous, and disgraceful. Yet, though there was to be no fighting, the pretence of it was kept up. The earl of Albemarle marched with a detachment of the army to Arras, where he burnt and destroyed some magazines of the French. Ormonde, too, joined prince Eugene on the 26th of May, and the united army passed the Scheldt, and encamped betwixt Haspre and Solennes. Eugene proposed to attack Villars in his lines, and Ormonde consented to it, but he immediately received a peremptory order from Mr. Secretary St. John against engaging in any siege or battle, and he was directed to keep this order profoundly secret from the allies. Ormonde was also instructed, that if Villars should intimate that he was aware of these secret proceedings, he was to take no notice of it; nor was Villers long in letting him know that they might now consider each other as friends. The situation of Ormonde thus became one of extreme embarrassment. On the one hand, Eugene urged him to prepare for an engagement; on the other, the Dutch were impatient to see some stroke which should humble the French and make negotiation more easy; but Ormonde was as unable to move, notwithstanding previous assurances, as if he had been a mere image of wood. He wrote to St. John, expressing in strong terms the embarrassing nature of his situation, assuring him that the Dutch were exclaiming that they were betrayed; but St. John encouraged him to hold out as well as he could, and Ormonde condescended to play this false and degrading part, equally disgraceful to him as a general and a man of any pretences to honour. The prince urged forward the necessity of laying siege to Quesnoy, and Ormonde was allowed, for the sake of keeping up