Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 1.djvu/398

  against these faithful and capable men, it was through Peterborough’s misrepresentations. But his Majesty specially winced under the contempt for himself which this mighty man of valour cared not to conceal. And he is known to have expressed himself in words to this effect:— “I shall be told next that I owe Madrid to Lord Peterborough; if I could not have health without owing it to him, I would rather be without it.”

Paul Methuen, son of the Irish ex-chancellor and ambassador at Lisbon, wrote to his father from Barcelona, 26th May 1706, telling him how Lord Peterborough was fretting under King Charles’ retaliatory discouragements of him, and adding — “What vexes my Lord Peterborough most of all is the great probability of my Lord Galway getting to Madrid before him.” He was beginning to be possessed with an overmastering jealousy of Lord Galway. Still he must endeavour to overcome the king’s beginnings of a course of systematic obstruction of English commanders. At last he succeeded in prevailing upon Charles to come to some arrangement for an expedition to Madrid. And both took their departure from Barcelona according to the programme that the troops should be conveyed by sea under Peterborough’s charge — that Charles should travel by land, via Tortosa — and that both should rendezvous at Valencia. The Earl kept his word and took up his quarters at Valencia. But his boyish Majesty had run off to Saragossa. In a letter to the Duchess of Marlborough, dated July 1706, Peterborough says:—

“Your grace has, before this can come to your hands, heard of my Lord Galway’s being in Madrid, but will wonder when I tell you that we cannot prevail on the King of Spain to go thither. And his wise ministers have thought fit to defer it from the time it was possible at least two months, if some accident do not prevent it for ever.”

The Duke of Marlborough believed that Peterborough had treated the young king " with levity and petulance." The Duke wrote to Godolphin:—

“I believe the anger and aversion he has for Lord Peterborough is the greatest cause of his taking the resolution to go to Saragossa, which I am afraid will prove fatal."

And again, on August 5:—

“I send you back Lord Galway’s letter. You will have seen by my former letter the fears that I have that the Duke of Anjou, being joined by Monsieur Legale, may be in a condition to oblige Lord Galway and the Portuguese to retire from Madrid, which will make it very difficult for King Charles or Lord Peterborough to join them. I do with all my heart wish Lord Galway with King Charles, for it is certain, since the relief of Barcelona, he has done everything as the French ought to have wished. For had he made use of the time and marched to Madrid, everything must have gone well in that country. The cabinet council are certainly right in advising the Queen to give the command to Lord Galway.”

Although Lord Peterborough deluged the press with documents as to the immediately previous and the subsequent stages of his career, he withheld all information concerning this period; he allowed his admirers to be content with guesses as to himself, and to invent and discharge random censures at the heads of Lord Galway and every other general. His only important utterance was untrue, namely, a declaration that Lord Galway never communicated to him the fact of his arrival at Madrid. The truly religious and honourable Lord Galway assured the House of Lords that he had sent letters to Peterborough both from Madrid and from Guadalaxara. The only foundation for Peterborough’s fiction was that Colonel Dubourgay was the bearer of Galway’s letter for the king, who was at Saragossa, but had no letter for Peterborough, who was at Valencia. But the colonel, in order to avoid the enemy’s troops, had to come round by Valencia, and thus Peterborough got the news verbally, sooner than by letter. It was no offence that the king, who was both king and commander-in-chief, should have been addressed first. The truth was, that through the colonel’s unintentional detour Peterborough had the intelligence before his master.

The plain and explanatory facts, which I am now to present to my readers, are here printed for the first time from Admiral Sir John Leake’s Papers in the British Museum. Lord Peterborough, whose present displeasure with the king was partly hypocritical, corresponded with him and endeavoured to take advantage of his lukewarmness as to the expedition to Madrid, by proposing to take his troops into Savoy for the relief of Turin, then besieged by a French army. Charles’ reply is preserved, in which he gave him orders accordingly.

But immediately thereafter Colonel Dubourgay arrived at Saragossa from Madrid with despatches from Lord Galway, having occupied four days in the ride. From