Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/68

54 We have seen that Marlborough all along, whilst courting the favour of William, was endeavouring to recover that of James. He had been one of the very first to abandon that monarch when trusted by him, but he had written letters expressing the bitterest repentance and remorse for that treason, whilst he was thus prepared, if necessary, to perpetrate a new cue. But Marlborough, as be had a genius capable of the very highest achievements, had one also capable of the most complicated treacheries in politics. It was not enough for him to be serving William and vowing secretly to James that he was only watching his opportunity to serve him, but he had a third and more alluring treason. He and his wife had the ductile and yet obstinate princess Anne completely in their hands. They lived with her at Whitehall, they drew largely from her income, they selected her friends, they moulded her likings and her antipathies; she was a complete puppet in their keeping. From his lucrative station as keeper of Anne's purse, person, and conscience, through his clever and unprincipled wife, Marlborough watched intently the temper of the nation. He saw that there was an intense jealousy of the Dutch, not only amongst the people on account of trade and national rivalry, but in the parliament and aristocracy, on account of William's preference for his Dutch friends. Bentinck, Giuckell, Auverquerque, and Zideystein, were the only men in whom he reposed entire confidence. On them he heaped wealth, estates, and honours. Ginckell was just now elevated to an earldom, and a large grant of lands was contemplated for him in Ireland. On Portland rich grants had been profusely bestowed, and more anticipated. William's continual absences on the continent, his cold reserve whilst here, the large expenditure of men and money for the prosecution of the continental war, though really for the liberties of Europe, were represented by the discontented as a wholesale draft upon the country for the aggrandisement of Holland.

View near Bantry.

These were the things Marlborough saw which gave power and life to the intrigues of the Jacobites; and the only causes which prevented the revulsion becoming general in favour of James, were his incurable despotism, his imbecellity as a monarch, and the certain return of popery in his train. But there was another person to whom none of these objections applied—the princess Anne—the person already in his guidance or power. Anne was at once English and a protestant. The former fact gave her a mighty advantage over William—the latter over James. Would it not, therefore, be possible to substitute Anne for her father? To do this it was only necessary to inflame the prejudice against the Dutch influence in the parliament and the people, to inoculate the army with the same feeling, already well-disposed to it by jealousy of the Dutch troops, and dexterously to obviate the objections of those who repelled the idea of bringing back James by turning their attention on one so much nearer home. The absence of William on the continent, and disaffection of most of the admirals, would afford the opportunity to resist his return hither by both