Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/380

366 at Preston were set free from Chester Castle, and all those in the castles of Edinburgh and Stirling. Besides the earl of Oxford, lord Harcourt, Matthew Prior, and Thomas Harley were excepted. So much more liberal was the mercy of this act than those of former reigns, that an exulting pamphleteer declared blasphemously that "the clemency of king George was not only great, but even extended farther than that of God himself!" Yet it did not admit to its mercy a single individual of the clan Macgregor, nor did it reverse the past attainders, nor restore the forfeited estates, the annual value of which in Scotland was about thirty thousand pounds, and in England forty-eight thousand pounds.



At the close of the session, also, the king raised Stanhope to the peerage by the title of viscount Stanhope—a promotion which left the leadership of the commons in the hands of Addison, Craggs, and Aislabie, who had not sufficient experience to supply the necessary weight and authority of that position. Both the government of Anne and of George were guilty of this political error of too soon removing their practical men, as Oxford, Harley, and St. John, from the commons, leaving it without government members of sufficient parliamentary tact or of intellectual ability to maintain the government interest there.

It might have been supposed that Europe, or at least the southern portion of it, was likely to enjoy a considerable term of peace. France, under a minor and a regent, appeared to require rest and recruiting of its population and finances more than any part of the continent. The king of Spain