Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/70

56 army and navy. When Anne was proclaimed, and she once queen, Marlborough became the great pillar of her throne, commander of her army, dispenser of her patronage; in short, a future more brilliant than ever broke upon any subject since the days of Cardinal Wolsey, dawned dazzlingly upon him.

That this was no mere surmise is clear enough now. It was, indeed, one of the various rumours of the time. Evelyn says that it was one of these that Marlborough "was endeavouring to breed division in the army, and to make himself the more necessary by making an ill correspondence betwixt the princess and the court." But James himself as plainly asserts the fact of this charge against Marlborough. "It was the plan," he says, "of my friends to recall me through the parliament. My lord Churchill was to propose in parliament to drive away all the foreigners from the councils and the army of the kingdom. If the prince of Orange consented to this, he would have been in their hands. If he refused, parliament would have declared against him, and lord Churchill was at the same time to cause the army to declare for the parliament, the fleet the same, and then to recall me. Already this plan was in agitation, and a large party was already gained over, when some faithful but indiscreet subjects, thinking to serve me, and imagining that Lord Churchill was not acting for me, but really for the princess of Denmark, discovered all to Bentinck, and thus destroyed the whole scheme."

The proof that William was satisfied that Marlborough's grand plan was real, was that he at once dismissed him from all his employments. That Marlborough had long intrigued with James, William was quite aware, but on that account he never troubled him; this, however, was by far a more dangerous treachery, and he resented it accordingly. The Marlboroughs, notwithstanding, continued at Whitehall with Anne, and might probably never have been molested, had not the imperious lady Marlborough in her anger determined to set the king and queen at defiance. She, therefore, had the assurance to accompany the princess to the drawing-room at Kensington Palace a few evenings after, and the next day brought an expostulatory letter from the queen to her sister, informing her that after such an outrage lady Marlborough must quit Whitehall. Anne sent to entreat Mary to pass the matter over, declaring that there was no misery that she would not suffer rather than be deprived of lady Marlborough. The only answer was an order from the lord chamberlain, commanding her ladyship to quit the palace. Anne, determined not to lose the society of her favourite, quitted Whitehall with the Marlboroughs, and betook herself to Sion House, which was lent to her by the duke of Somerset, and soon after she removed to Berkeley House, standing on the present site of Devonshire House, in Piccadilly, which became her permanent residence. There all the Marlborough faction assembled, and there Anne vented her indignation without restraint or delicacy against William, calling him a Dutch abortion, a monster, a Caliban. A fresh stimulus was given to the malice of that clique; every means was used to excite hatred to the government of William, and to increase the partisans of James. With such a termagant spirit as lady Marlborough, and such a plotting spirit as that of her husband, a strong feeling was excited against the queen, who was represented as totally without heart, as having usurped the throne of her father, and sought to strip her sister of her most valued friendships. Amidst such an atmosphere of malice and detraction William was compelled to leave the queen.

He embarked for Holland on the 5th of March. He left the country amid the rumours of false plots and real schemes of invasion. One Fuller, under the tuition of the notorious Titus Oates, had been accusing no less than fifty lords and gentlemen, including Halifax and some of the king's own ministers, of having pledged themselves to bring in James. However true it might be that many of these were at heart really ready for such a change, it was clearly shown that Fuller's story was got up merely to make money by it, and it was treated with contempt. The rumour of an invasion was, as we shall find, more real. Disbelieving it, or pressed by the necessity of giving a blow to Louis in Flanders, William made a speedy journey to the Hague. There the difficulties which he had to overcome were such as would have sunk the courage of any less firm-hearted man. His allies, the German princes, were only held to the alliance by continual bribes to their cupidity, their poverty, or their preposterous pride. They looked to England and Holland to furnish not only all the requisite funds for the war, but to heap upon them honours and money for defending their own interest. The emperor of Germany, king of Austria—whose territories in Italy, as well as on the Danube, were menaced by France—was always feeling that as a catholic he was fighting against a catholic monarch, Louis, and promoting the interests of protestantism. He looked to the English and Dutch to defend his territories in both Germany and the north of Italy, and to furnish him with the means of beating off the Turks from his Danubian frontiers. The lesser tribes of landgraves, and electors, and margraves were voracious of subsidies from the allies, and of honours. The landgraves and margraves, whose estates would not equal that of a good English squire, would be made electors; the electors, kings; and if they were not gratified, threatened to join the kings of Denmark and Sweden, who were jealous of the maritime ascendancy of the Dutch and English, and were doing all they could to form a northern party in order to weaken the allied cause. Others vowed they would make peace with France if their eternal demands for money were not gratified. Spain was in the lowest state of national degeneracy and weakness, and Gastanaga, the viceroy of the Netherlands, was incapable and inert beyond all power of appeal. To make all worse, the pope, Innocent XI., died, and was succeeded by Cardinal Pignatelli, a weak old man, who was inclined to be reconciled to France.

There was nothing for it but to soothe, pay, daub over with the finery of stars and garters, and allure with the hopes of augmented titles, the debased, pauper, and pretentious petty rulers of Germany, and to hold them together as well as he could; but William must have felt, and he had soon occasion to experience it, that he could depend on nothing but his own energies and his English and Dutch forces. With a world of trouble he succeeded in getting Gastanaga removed, and the elector of Bavaria appointed regent of Flanders. His agents exerted themselves amongst the influential cardinals, whom he found as much as ever averse