Early Modern England 1485-1714: A Narrative History (74 page)

The Spanish and English Successions, 1700–2

In fact, the Tory triumph was short-lived, for so was the peace signed at Ryswick. It was shattered by a series of royal deaths between 1700 and 1702. First, at the end of October 1700, Carlos II, the sickly and mentally defective Habsburg ruler of Spain, finally died, heirless. It will be recalled that Louis XIV and William III had worked out a Partition Treaty to divide the Spanish empire among several competitors, thus preventing its annexation to France. Unfortunately, no one had consulted Carlos. That autumn, he may have been near death and barely competent, but he was in no doubt that he alone had the right to dispose of his empire, which he had no wish to see divided. His will therefore decreed that the whole entity was to be offered, first, to a grandson of Louis XIV, Philippe, duke of Anjou (1683–1746), who had to agree to renounce the throne of France. Should Anjou refuse, then the Spanish crown was to go to the second son of the Holy Roman emperor, Charles, archduke of Austria (1685–1740), who was to make the same promise about his father’s imperial throne.

Imagine Louis’s dilemma. Here, on a silver platter, was the prize for which he had so long been striving – to unite French military power with Spanish imperial wealth. The stipulation that his grandson should never be king of France was, in Louis’s eyes, a mere formality; something could undoubtedly be worked out. But if Louis accepted, he would break his Partition Treaty with William and, possibly, provoke a second war with the one enemy he had never beaten, the British. Imagine the scene at Versailles on November 6 when, after deliberating with his ministers and marshals, Louis emerged from the council chamber with Anjou at his side, proclaiming “Gentlemen, you see here the King of Spain.… Such was the will of Heaven; I have fulfilled it with joy.” Louis had decided to gamble. At the proclamation of “His Most Catholic Majesty, Felipe V, King of Spain and its Empire,” the Spanish ambassador to Versailles is said to have fallen to his knees, remarking about the mountain border that separated France and Spain: “The Pyrenees have been leveled!”
⁷

Louis’s gamble seemed to pay off at first. While William wanted to renew the war, his Tory Parliament did not. After all, most of their constituents viewed this development as having no obvious significance for the British Isles, especially if Anjou abided by the terms of the will and renounced the French throne. But Anjoudid not renounce his ancestors’ throne. Instead, early in 1701, Louis persuaded the French courts to rule that Carlos’s will could not affect the French succession. Worse, he also marched into some key fortress towns in the Spanish Netherlands, on the Dutch border. Finally, in a deliberately – and stupidly – provocative move, he announced an embargo against English trade with
both
France and Spain. Louis XIV was acting as if he already ruled both countries and those actions were already detrimental to British commerce. This offended even the Tories, who understood well the significance of trade. In June, the Tory Parliament agreed to vote large sums for war and support any alliances that William might make to secure the “liberties of Europe.”

War became inevitable in the wake of the next royal death. In September 1701 poor old James II, now living with a small retinue at the château of St. Germain near Paris, died. On his deathbed, he asked Louis, as a last favor, to recognize his son, Prince James, as the rightful king of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Once again, the French monarch faced a dilemma. On the one hand, recognition of Prince James would surely mean war with Britain, as it would repudiate the recognition of William made at Ryswick. On the other hand, how could he refuse the dying request of his old friend? Once again, Louis consulted with his ministers and marshals. Once again, he announced his decision to the court, this time assembled in James’s sickroom at St. Germain: “I come to tell Your Majesty that … I will be to your son what I have been to you, and will acknowledge him as King of England, Scotland, and Ireland.”
⁸
Once again, Louis took the gamble, proclaiming the adolescent prince as James III (of England and Ireland) and VIII (of Scotland). Once again, the assembled courtiers, this time Jacobite exiles, fell to their knees. But no one made any sanguine predictions about draining the English Channel.

As Louis anticipated, this decision did, indeed, mean war – but not with William of Orange. Almost immediately, William ordered British diplomatic representatives to reassemble the Grand Alliance and Crown ministers to begin to plan for war. Then, after an autumn and winter of feverish activity, he sought some rest and relaxation. In February 1702, while hunting in Richmond Park, the king’s horse stumbled over a molehill and fell, throwing him. For years afterwards, Jacobites would secretly toast “the little gentleman in black velvet” – the mole that built the molehill that tripped the horse that threw the royal rider. William suffered a cracked collar-bone, which soon became infected. William III died on March 8, 1702. But the Grand Alliance he fashioned would live on.

Anne and the Rage of Party

The woman who succeeded William III was acclaimed with rapturous cheering, bells, and bonfires at her accession – but she has not always received a good press since. Queen Anne (1702–14), the youngest surviving Protestant daughter of James II and the last Stuart to sit on the British thrones, was 37 years old at the beginning of her reign. But a series of 17 pregnancies, none of which had resulted in a surviving child, as well as poor eating habits and the vagaries of contemporary medical care had left her prematurely aged (see
plate 23
). She had always been a bit plain and she was, by 1702, seriously overweight, nearly lame from gout, and in poor health generally. She was also quiet, shy, and of average intelligence. In short, Queen Anne had none of the star quality of Elizabeth I or even Mary II. But, in its place, Anne had many positive attributes missing from her Stuart predecessors, including a strong fund of common sense, a dedication to the job of being queen, a respect for the post-revolutionary English constitution, an unshakeable attachment to the Church of England, and an instinctive love for and sense of responsibility to her people, which they reciprocated. Happily married to Prince George, she could not be a “Virgin Queen” to them; instead she embraced the image of their “nursing Mother.” During her reign, the promise of the commercial and financial revolutions, the Grand Alliance, and William’s military buildup would pay off in a series of crushing victories over the French, and ultimate triumph in the War of the Spanish Succession. At her death, Britain was poised to become the wealthiest and most powerful state in Europe.

Plate 23
Queen Anne,
by Edmund Lilly. By kind permission of His Grace, the Duke of Marlborough.

For years, most historians believed that these victories were won in spite of Anne’s dull personality, or because she was dominated by more intelligent friends and favorites. It is true that during her long apprenticeship as a young princess she had relied heavily, almost slavishly, on her friend and confidante Sarah Churchill, countess (later duchess) of Marlborough (1660–1744). As queen, Anne made Sarah her groom of the stole, keeper of the Privy Purse, and mistress of the Robes, three of the most lucrative and powerful court posts. These offices brought the countess into close daily contact with the queen, while giving her the power to regulate such contact with other courtiers and politicians. Given Anne’s shyness and supposed lack of intelligence, contemporaries assumed that the countess advised her, among other things, to employ Sarah’s husband, the earl (later duke) of Marlborough, as captain-general during the war, and the Churchills’ friend Sidney, Lord (later earl of) Godolphin (1645–1712), as lord treasurer of England. Many years after Anne’s death, Sarah wrote her
Account of the Conduct of the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough
(1742) in which she portrayed the queen as weak and easily manipulated and herself as the real power behind Anne’s throne. But it is now recognized that Anne chose her advisers as much for their ability as her friendship with them: Marlborough proved to be the reigning military and diplomatic genius of his day and Godolphin one of its greatest administrative and financial minds. To this team, Anne later added Robert Harley, its most able politician, to supervise her business in the House of Commons. In other words, Queen Anne may not have been a skillful administrator herself, but she knew how to delegate power wisely. That skill, combined with the other attributes already mentioned, would render her not only the most popular and successful of the Stuarts but, arguably, the most successful ruler portrayed in this book.

Queen Anne needed every one of these qualities because, empowered by the post-revolutionary constitution, each political party was determined to force her to employ its members, and only its members, in office. As this implies, by 1702 the Whig and Tory parties had matured into effective and cohesive organizations. Virtually every parliamentary politician aligned sooner or later with one or the other and there is plenty of evidence from division lists (of how members of parliament voted on particular issues) that crossing party lines to vote with the other side rarely occurred. Indeed, the “rage of party” permeated polite society even beyond the walls of the two houses. There were Whig newspapers and periodicals
(The Flying Post
and
The
Observator)
and Tory newspapers and periodicals
(The Post Boy
and
The Examiner);
Whig clubs and coffee-houses (the Kit-Cat and White’s) and Tory clubs and coffee-houses (The Society of Brothers and Ozinda’s); Whig toasts (“to the Immortal Memory of King William”) and Tory, even Jacobite, toasts (“To the King [across the water],” said over one’s water glass to indicate King James across the Channel); even different sides of the face upon which to wear paper patches (artificial beauty marks) for ladies of Whig or Tory sympathies! In the countryside Whig and Tory aristocrats competed against each other for seats on the lieutenancy and magistracy, while in the boroughs Whig and Tory oligarchs fought for control of the corporation, of local religious life, and of poor relief. In short, party conflict colored almost every aspect of public, professional, and even recreational life in post-revolutionary England.

The winners in that conflict would depend on which party could capture royal government. This depended, in turn, on which party could forge a parliamentary majority. Such a majority by one party or the other would force the queen to employ its members in the “big-ticket” offices (lord treasurer, lord chancellor, the two secretaries of state, chancellor of the Exchequer, etc.) or face a parliament unwilling to support royal policy or, in particular, to vote money to fight the war. That is why after 1688, and especially during time of war, the sovereign had to choose ministers who could put together majorities in Parliament. Increasingly, that implied choosing ministers
exclusively
from the majority party. Anne, like William before her, was averse to this. As we shall see, she fought to maintain “mixed ministries” containing the best minds of both parties who would come together to push
her
agenda. The party leaders had a different idea. Their goal was to force the queen to name their party’s members to every post in court and government. Then it could force her to pursue
its
policies.

All of this depended, at bottom, on which party could garner the most seats in a general (parliamentary) election. After the Revolution, in part because the Triennial Act (1694) required a new parliament every three years, such elections became more common. There were 11 major party contests between 1689 and 1715, more general elections than in any other similar time period before or since. And there were more contested seats than in any period of British history before the twentieth century. This served to increase party tensions, focus party positions, and introduce more and more people to political participation – and into conflict. Though the franchise was still restricted to male property holders worth 40 shillings in the countryside and a hodge-podge of different groups (sometimes the corporation, sometimes particular residents, sometimes the whole town) in towns, this still left more people with a vote than anywhere else in Europe. Moreover, thanks to inflation and each party’s attempts to increase its voter base through the courts, the number of potential electors was on the rise: from around 200,000 in 1689 to 330,000 or 5.8 percent of the population by 1722. This latter figure represented anywhere from a fifth to a quarter of the adult male population of England.