Page:Protestant Exiles from France Agnew vol 1.djvu/400

 a part of a king’s escort, and yet no king is visible to receive the allegiance of his subjects. No message is forthcoming to give assurance of a royal anxiety to be in his capital and among his people. The Spaniards can hardly believe in the existence of a prince styled His Catholic Majesty, heralded by a Calvinistic commander-in-chief. Some humourists design and strike and circulate a medal describing Charles III. as “king by favour of the heretics.” While some people jest as if the invisible Pretender must be non-existent, others seriously give up all expectation of his coming. Two priests go about declaring he is dead. One of them is arrested by order of Lord Galway, who cannot punish him, because he cannot infallibly contradict the report. The report is believed. Day after day French troops arrive from Italy. At length our allied army is hopelessly outnumbered; at least it cannot prevent the enemy from entering and occupying Madrid on the 4th of August (25th July, old style).

On the 6th of August (27th July, ), King Charles and Lord Peterborough appear — the former with a kingly retinue — but too late. If the very late lord had brought his troops with him, a battle might still have been fought. But he had played a trick well known to jealous confederate generals, and had dispersed the bulk of his army in garrisons. He brought only two regiments of Spanish dragoons and a part of a regiment of English dragoons, and left behind him thirteen battalions of English foot and two regiment of dragoons. What, then, could be done, but to retreat?

In extenuation of Charles’ delay, it must be said that he could not have foreseen that Peterborough would have disobeyed his positive orders. During three-fourths of the time, if his better judgment reproached him for his neglect of duty, he may have consoled himself by thinking that all the forces had long ago combined at Madrid and beat the enemy, as they could then have done. In that case the people would have felt it consistent with prudence and safety to have done immediate homage to a victorious monarch. The circumstance, that he ultimately came to the rendezvous at Valencia, only showed that he yielded to Lord Peterborough’s obstinacy.

All these transactions were shrouded in mystery and unknown to the world. The Duke of Berwick wondered at (what he called) the forty days’ halt, and condemned it as a fatal mistake. In aftertimes, Lord Peterborough being put upon his defence, led people to believe that it was Galway who was thus fatally criticized. The fact is that Berwick meant to criticize Peterborough, Stanhope, Das Minas, and all the generals, and not Galway only.

Trusting to the ignorance of people at home, Peterborough insinuated a theory, which seemed to say that Lord Galway knew reinforcements could not come up for forty days, and that he ought therefore to have entrenched his army and enrolled regiments of Spanish volunteers. As to the latter suggestion, no Spaniard could serve the allies until they had fought a decisive battle with Philip and the French. Regular troops under Peterborough’s command ought to have hurried to the scene. Lord Galway expected the king in eight days (or ten days at the most). Colonel Dubourgay’s roundabout journey to Saragossa had occupied four days only. Immediately the king had ordered Peterborough to march to Madrid, in a letter which apparently copied Lord Galway’s statement of the urgent object of such a rapid march. After the lapse of eight days, Galway was in hourly expectation of the arrival of Peterborough’s vanguard. Every military precaution was taken to keep the roads open for the English hero and his royal master. Convoys of provisions were sent to meet them — provisions which mouldered during Lord Peterborough’s delay — a delay prompted by the most unheroic jealousy and by senseless displeasure at the thought that in the presence of his more venerable comrade he would be a junior officer. The imputation to Lord Galway of the blame of a forty days’ halt at Madrid proves only that Galway had the honour (or misfortune) of arriving at Madrid forty days before another general, whose vaingloriousness overpowered his sense of duty, and who himself wasted and lost those forty days, to the injury of his country and of her confederates.



Lord Galway got no more glory in Spain. It will be easy to show that his conduct was as meritorious as ever, and that he was the victim of mismanagement by other persons over whom he had no control.

On first arriving at Madrid, Lord Galway felt that his project had been realized only in appearance, and therefore sent home, along with his despatches, a request that he might retire from the service. The question which must arise on Spanish