Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/337

A.D. 1714.] Craggs was sent express to Hanover, to desire the elector to hasten to Holland, where the fleet would be ready to receive him. They also sent a dispatch to the States-General, to remind them of the fact—which for a long time and to this moment the English government appeared itself to have forgotten—that there was such a thing as a treaty, and that by it they were bound to guarantee the protestant succession. Lord Berkeley was appointed to the command of the fleet, and a reinforcement was ordered for Portsmouth. A general officer was hastened to Scotland, where much apprehension of a movement in favour of the pretender existed; and, in short, every conceivable arrangement was made for the safe ascension of the protestant king.

Still, during all this time, though the tory ministers in the council appeared paralysed, the Jacobite lords assembled in secret junto in the very palace where the council was sitting and the queen dying. Lady Masham's apartments were the scene of the last convulsive agitation of Jacobitism. From her the distracted leaders of that faction received the accounts of the progress of the queen's illness. Amongst these were Buckingham, Ormonde, Atterbury, and, when he was not at the queen's bedside, Robinson, of London. That prelate, when he attended to administer the sacrament to the dying woman, received an earnest message from her, which he was bound by the duchess of Ormonde to promise to deliver, though it cost him his head. Probably it was some last remembrance to her brother, the pretender; though it was supposed by some to be an order to the duke of Ormonde, the commander-in-chief, to hold the army for the Stuart, Nothing, however, of the nature of this message ever transpired; but the duke of Buckingham, on the separation of the council, which had just obtained the affixing of the great seal to a patent providing for the government of the country by four-and-twenty regents till the arrival of the successor, clapped his hand on Ormonde's shoulder, saying, "My lord, you have four-and-twenty hours to do our business in, and make yourself master of the country." It was a forlorn hope. That evening lady Masham entered her apartments in great agitation, saying, "Oh, my lords, we are all undone — entirely ruined! The queen is a dead woman; all the world cannot save her! "Upon which one of the lords asked if the queen had her senses, and if lady Masham thought she could speak to them. She replied, "Impossible; her pain deprives her of all sense, and in the interval she dozes and speaks to nobody." "That is hard indeed," said another of the lords. "If she could but speak to us, and give us orders, and sign them, we might do the business for all that." "Alas!" replied another lord, "who would act on such orders? We are all undone!" "Then we cannot be worse," said another, plainly meant for Ormonde. "I assure you that if her majesty would give orders to proclaim her successor in her lifetime, I would do it at the head of the army. I'll answer for the soldiers." "Do it, then!" swore the bishop Atterbury, for he did not stick at an oath. "Let us go out and proclaim the chevalier at Charing Cross. Do you not see that we have no time to lose?" Lady Masham told them they might waive debate: there was nothing to be done; her majesty was no longer capable of directing anything. On which the duke of Ormonde exclaimed, "Lord, what an unhappy thing this is! What a cause is here lost at one blow!" Such is the relation of Peter Rae, in his "History of the Rebellion."

And thus terminated this miserable scene of insane despair. Bolingbroke, with all his showy abilities, was evidently destitute of diplomatic depth, or he would have long perceived that the heart of the nation was firmly set against any return of the bigoted Stuarts.

The queen expired at seven o'clock on Sunday morning, the 1st of August, not having recovered sufficient consciousness to receive the sacrament, or to sign her will. During her intervals of sense she is reported to have repeatedly exclaimed, "Oh, my brother, my dear brother, what will become of you!" There can be no doubt but that remorse for her part in casting a slur on his birth preyed on her mind during her latter years, and increased with her increasing debility; and that nothing but his persistence in his rooted attachment to popery prevented her acknowledging him her successor. She was still only in her fiftieth year, and the thirteenth of her reign. Bolingbroke wrote to Swift—"The earl of 0xford was removed on Tuesday, and the queen died on Sunday. What a world is this, and how does fortune banter us!"

Bolingbroke had assured Iberville, the French agent, that, had the queen only lived six weeks longer, his measures were so well taken that he should have brought in the pretender in spite of everything. Well might he moralise on fortune, and well may England congratulate itself on a Providence. On the very day of the queen's death Marlborough landed at Dover, so exactly had he timed his return. He found George I. proclaimed in London, in York, and in other large towns, not only without disorder, but with an acclamation of joy from the populace which plainly showed where the heart lay. Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who was at York, describes the enthusiasm there as unbounded:—"I went to-day to see the king proclaimed, which was done, the archbishop walking next the lord mayor, and all the country people following, with greater crowds of people than I believed in York. Vast acclamations and the appearance of a general satisfaction, the pretender afterwards dragged about the streets and burnt, ringing of bells, bonfires, and illuminations, the mob crying 'Liberty and prosperity!' and 'Long live king George!' All the protestants here seem unanimous for the Hanover succession."

Queen Anne was not remarkable for any talent, but she was good-hearted, and extremely regardful of the comfort and liberties of her people, excepting when, towards the end of her reign, she was swayed by a minister who had no religion himself, under pretence for the safety of the church, to attack the religious freedom of her people. Like most of her family, she had strong affections, which led her to what in monarchs is styled favoritism, but what in private life is called friendship. In the indulgence of this she heaped the most superb favours on the most domineering and vindictive of women, lady Marlborough, and neglected the interests of the second and more steadfast friend, lady Haslam, whom, not having signed her will, she left comparatively poor. Anne was indolent and self-indulgent, and thus grew excessively corpulent and diseased, and by this means greatly shortened her term of existence. But, if an enemy to herself, she was a friend to her country. She lamented sincerely the