Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 1.djvu/333

 and began to take part in the War of the Spanish Succession. The Emperor Joseph’s younger son, Archduke Charles of Austria, was proclaimed King of Spain, and Britain’s great practical aim was to establish him at Madrid upon the Spanish throne. Some compilers of history say, that the Confederates, in setting up Charles, were attempting to dethrone a native king. But the Bourbon Philip V. (who was Duke of Anjou in France, and a grandson of Louis XIV.) was not a native sovereign. Like Philip’s, Charles’s relationship to the extinct royal family of Spain was constituted by that family’s intermarriages with foreigners. The latter, on the ground of compacts by which the Bourbon family could not reign over Spain, was the true heir, and was styled by the Allies, King Charles III. A British fleet conveyed him to Lisbon. The Duke of Schomberg was designated Captain-General of the troops in British pay, which were to act in concert with the Portuguese to put him in possession of his kingdom.

The English Government ordered the Duke to raise twenty companies of dragoons to form a regiment, its officers to be French Protestant refugees. He selected officers “whose valour and conduct he had been eye-witness of;” but a counter-order came out recalling the commissions. He complained of this disappointment, and was consoled by being elected a Knight of the Garter (11th August 1703). On the 2d of September he was installed at Windsor with the usual solemnities. He did not embark for Portugal until the following year.

The employment of the third Duke of Schomberg in the forefront of this war was the occasion of the translation and publication in England of D’Ablancourt’s Memoirs of the campaigns of the first Duke in Portugal.

“Nothing,” said the English publisher, “can so much justify the fitness of Her Majesty’s choice of his Grace the Duke of Schomberg to command Her Majesty’s Forces and those of her allies in that kingdom, as the knowledge of the glorious actions performed by his father in his presence, and by His Grace himself after so brave a pattern, which will inspire the officers and soldiers who shall have the honour to follow him to the war with such an entire confidence and assurance in their General that nothing will be difficult that he commands. His Grace will be received there as their second saviour and deliverer, with the loudest acclamations of the joyful multitude impatient to be led on by him to victory and glory. It is to be presumed that his sword will be as fatal to the Spaniards as the accents of his name are pleasant to the Portuguese, who hold it to this day in a degree of veneration very little inferior to idolatry.”

These glowing predictions were not fulfilled. On his arrival at Lisbon in the spring of 1704 he found that the old routine of giving the chief command of the army to the Portuguese governors of provinces was still rigidly followed. The king, although the same Pedro who owed his crown to the late Marshal, showed none of the expected gratitude, but rather humoured the reckless jealousy of the Portuguese officers. Marlborough had written on the 8th of August 1703, “I take for granted that the Dutch troops are to be commanded by the Duke of Schomberg;” but the Dutch General would submit to no such agreement. When Schomberg thought that he had obtained from the king the rank equivalent to Marshal, and implying supreme command, he found that the same rank had been given to Fagel, the Dutch General. He, however, lost no time in issuing the following manifesto:—

“Pursuant to Her Majesty’s warrant, dated 14th March 1703-4, authorising and empowering me to publish in the most effectual manner Her Majesty’s most gracious intention of pardoning all such of her subjects of the kingdom of Ireland and of other parts of Her Majesty’s dominions, who, being now in the service of her enemies, will quit the same to come over to Charles III. King of Spain, or any other of Her Majesty’s Allies, — I do hereby in Hsr Majesty’s name proclaim and declare, that all such Her Majesty’s subjects, both officers and soldiers, who are at present in the service of the French King or of the Duke of Anjou, and will return to their duty and come over to the King of Spain or any other of Her Majesty’s Allies, shall have Her Majesty’s most gracious pardon for all crimes and offences committed by them in adhering to or serving under her enemies, or for any crime and offence relating thereunto; and that such of them as are qualified to serve in Her Majesty’s Forces shall be received and entertained in the same quality that they enjoyed in the service they leave; and that such as by reason of their religion cannot serve in Her Majesty’s Forces shall be received and entertained in the service of the King of Spain or of such other of Her Majesty’s Allies where they shall best like, in the same quality and with the same pay as they enjoyed under Her Majesty’s enemies. And to the end, that Her Majesty’s most gracious intentions may be the more effectual, care is taken that the Governors of the frontier garrisons and that the Generals of the Forces will receive and subsist them immediately upon their coming in, and give them all further encouragement.

“Given at Lisbon, 25th April 1704, the third year of Her Majesty’s reign,

“ and .” 