Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/397

 selves with the usual offerings on new year's day. His example was not followed by the chiefs of the other courts, and he suffered a certain loss of popularity with them. He was placed on the commission for the treaty of union on 10 April 1706, and opened the negotiations at the Cockpit on the 16th. The Scotch commissioners sat apart from the English, the interchange of views being effected by writing, the lord keeper and the lord chancellor of Scotland acting as intermediaries. Hence Cowper figures more prominently in the history of the negotiations than any other English commissioner. As, however, the deliberations on either side were kept strictly secret, it is impossible to say how far his influence extended in the shaping of the treaty, which Burnet attributes mainly to Lord Somers. On 23 July Cowper delivered to the queen a draft of the treaty, which, with slight alterations, was subsequently ratified by both parliaments. His first wife had died before he received the seal. In September 1706 he married Mary, daughter of John Clavering of Chopwell, in the bishopric of Durham, the marriage, however, being kept secret until 25 Feb. 1706–7. On 9 Nov. 1706 he was raised to the peerage by the title of Baron Cowper of Wingham in Kent. His first reported utterance in the House of Lords is a brief but extremely graceful speech (entered in the Journal 5 Dec. 1706), in which he conveys to the Duke of Marlborough the thanks of the house for the victory of Ramillies. On 4 May 1707, the Act of Union having come into operation on the first of the month, he was declared by the queen in council lord high chancellor of Great Britain. The intrigues of the Duke of Marlborough in 1709 to obtain the appointment of commander-in-chief for life met with determined opposition from Cowper, who declared that he would never put the seal to the commission. In 1710 Cowper presided at the trial of Dr. Sacheverell in Westminster Hall. The proceedings began on 27 Feb. and occupied three weeks. The lord chief justice and chief baron and ten puisne judges were unanimous in holding that the omission to specify passages on which the charge was based invalidated the proceedings. Cowper abstained from any public expression either of assent or dissent, and on the strength of an old precedent in the reign of Charles I, it was held immaterial. Cowper voted for Sacheverell's condemnation. The excitement caused by the trial led to the defeat of the whigs in the autumn, and the expulsion of their leaders from the cabinet. Harley was anxious that Cowper should continue in office, and repeatedly pressed him to do so, and the queen would hardly accept his surrender of the seal. He resigned, however, on 23 Sept. Cowper now devoted himself with energy to the business of opposition. St. John having attacked the late ministry in a letter to the ‘Examiner,’ he replied by a long letter in the ‘Tatler,’ a somewhat ponderous, affair, in which he denounces ‘the black hypocrisy and prevarication, the servile prostitution of all English principles, and malevolent ambition’ characteristic of the other party. Both letters are printed in the ‘Somers Tracts’ (ed. Scott), xiii. 71–85. In the debate of 11 and 12 Jan. 1711 on the conduct of the war in Spain, in which the late ministry were accused of having left the Earl of Peterborough without adequate means to prosecute the war with vigour, Cowper took a leading part, though it is impossible to gather from the report how far his defence was effective. The vote of censure was carried by a substantial majority. In the debate on the address (7 Dec. 1711) he supported the Earl of Nottingham's amendment that a clause should be inserted to the effect ‘that no peace could be safe or honourable to Great Britain or Europe if Spain and the West Indies were allotted to any branch of the house of Bourbon.’ In the debate on the negotiations for peace in June 1712, the Earl of Strafford insinuating that the backwardness of the Dutch was due to the intrigues of the Duke of Marlborough, Cowper replied with much animation that ‘according to our laws it could never be suggested as a crime in the meanest subject, much less in a member of that august assembly, to hold correspondence with our allies.’ This deliverance appears to have been effective at the time, but it cannot be regarded as enunciating a sound principle of constitutional law. A motion was made (17 March 1714) ‘for an account of the instances which had been made for restoring to the Catalans their ancient privileges and the letters relating thereto.’ This, as also a further motion on the same subject on the 31st, received Cowper's support. He spoke in favour of the Earl of Wharton's motion that a reward should be proclaimed for the apprehension of the Pretender, dead or alive (8 April 1714), and led the opposition to the second reading of the bill for suppressing schools kept by dissenters (June), but was beaten, and attempted, without success, to amend it in committee. At this time he was much courted by Harley, now earl of Oxford. On the death of the queen Cowper was appointed by the elector of Hanover one of ‘the lords justices’ in whom, by the statute 6 Anne, c. 41, ss. 10, 11, and 12, the supreme power was vested during the interregnum.