Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion (54 page)

The Queen was gracious in defeat, telling Cowper when he came to see her at Kensington that ‘she was very well satisfied of my fitness for
the office … and was pleased to give it me’. Her only stipulation was that he cut off his flowing hair and wear a periwig, for otherwise people would say she had entrusted the Great Seal to a boy. She also made clear her view that the Whigs were now under an obligation to support the government, commenting that having done what she could ‘to please them in some particulars’ she hoped they would be helpful in Parliament. But while it remained to be seen whether the Whigs accepted that they owed the Queen some gratitude, what was not in doubt was that the Tories would be incensed at Cowper’s appointment. Despite her capitulation, the Queen still had grounds for ‘fearing … some disagreeable things’ lay in store for her.
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8

Entire and Perfect Union

England’s newly elected Parliament met on 25 October 1705, and two days later Anne addressed its members. Having expressed indignation about the ‘very malicious’ attacks made on her and her ministers during the past few months, she observed that since ‘not one of my subjects can really entertain a doubt of my affection to the Church’, those who insinuated it was not ‘my chief care … must be mine and the kingdom’s enemies’. If she had counted on subduing her Tory critics with these stern words, it soon became clear that she had failed. Cowper, the recently appointed Lord Keeper, was shocked when at a dinner party he heard the Tory Lord Mayor of London say ‘in a jeering manner’ that he was no longer worried about the condition of the Church, ‘for the Queen had promised to take care of it’.
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Tories in the Lords soon took steps calculated to cause the Queen maximum distress and embarrassment. It was now well known that the Queen was horrified at the prospect of Electress Sophia residing in England during Anne’s lifetime. The Duchess of Marlborough claimed this was because Anne disliked being reminded of her own mortality, so that even mentioning the possibility of a visit from one of her heirs was ‘interpreted as … presenting the Sovereign with a death’s head’. Yet the Queen could put forward many perfectly rational objections to Sophia’s presence in England. The Earl of Nottingham may have exaggerated when he allegedly told Anne, early in the reign, that ‘whoever proposed bringing over her successor in her lifetime did it with a design to depose her’, but the sovereign’s authority might well be undermined if those out of favour could look to the heir presumptive for approval. Anne’s fear that ‘she herself would be so eclipsed by it, that she would be much in the successor’s power, and reign only at her or his courtesy’ was thus far from fanciful. Sarah claimed that Anne felt so strongly that ‘she would have parted with the Crown sooner than have consented to it’.
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Anne had imagined that only the Whigs really wanted Sophia in England, yet it was the Tories who now raised the issue, motivated, in the
view of Archbishop Sharp, by nothing more than a desire to ‘pique her majesty’. Sophia welcomed this development for, despite her advanced age, she believed that a change of scene would prove stimulating. However, in Anne’s opinion, Sophia’s presence in her kingdom could only be disruptive. Not only would a rival court set up by the famously vivacious Sophia be likely to outshine hers, but it was also unlikely that Sophia would resist meddling in politics.
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Schutz, the envoy in England of Sophia’s son, the Elector George Ludwig, was uneasy at her attitude, knowing how much the Queen dreaded Sophia descending on her. But Sophia herself employed another diplomat named Pierre de Falaiseau as her unofficial representative in England and in July 1705 he wrote airily that displeasing the Queen was the ‘very last thing to be afraid of’. All that mattered, in his view, was for Sophia to be on good terms with Anne’s favourites. Once that was taken care of, he said, the Queen would not object to anything Sophia did.
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To make her feelings absolutely clear, the Queen sent a diplomat named Howe to Hanover. When he arrived in October 1705, Sophia assured Howe that she would not dream of ‘going to England unless the Queen really wants it’, to which the envoy replied that ‘this was the most agreeable thing he could possibly tell the Queen’. In fact, Sophia – still smarting at not being given a pension or the title of Hereditary Princess – had already decided that if Parliament passed a resolution asking her to come to England, she would not turn down the invitation. She told Schutz that such a move would be in the best interests of the dynasty, ‘and I have no desire to rebuff my own friends and those of my family’.
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Considered purely as party political manoeuvre, proposing an invitation to Sophia had much to commend it from the Tory point of view. It would free them from the taint of being unenthusiastic about the Protestant succession, and ensure that once Sophia ascended the throne, she would be well disposed towards them. If the Whigs supported the motion, the Queen would be infuriated; but if they opposed it out of regard for her, they would lose credit in Hanover. Above all, however, such a move would punish Anne for dispensing with the services of leading Tories, and refusing to conform to their political programme. The fact that, as a Lutheran, Sophia herself was hardly likely to support an Occasional Conformity Bill illustrates the cynicism of their thinking.

It was towards the end of October 1705 that the Queen gained an inkling of what the Tories had in mind. In great agitation she spoke to Archbishop Sharp, asking him to persuade his friends in Parliament ‘not
to come into that motion’. For a time, however, her ministers discounted the danger, having been taken in by Sophia’s assurances to Howe.
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It was only after Parliament had assembled that Godolphin realised that Tories in the Lords were genuinely intent on moving an address to the Queen, requesting that she invite Sophia to England.

Though taken by surprise, Godolphin at once devised an intelligent strategy with leading Whigs for dealing with the emergency, calculating that if further measures were brought in to safeguard the succession, it could plausibly be argued that Sophia’s presence in England was unnecessary. Although the Whig leaders hoped that no one could accuse them of being insufficiently protective of Hanoverian rights, they had to face the fact that Sophia would probably be displeased at being baulked, and they made it plain that if they were to help the Queen, they expected some recognition for having sacrificed their standing in Hanover. According to the Duchess of Marlborough, Anne acknowledged she was incurring a debt, and ‘authorised my Lord Godolphin to give the utmost assurances to the chief men of the Whigs that she would put herself and her affairs into such hands as they should approve’.
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Meanwhile the Queen herself took action to keep Sophia at a distance. On 13 November she wrote to Marlborough who, now that the campaigning season was over, was about to embark on a tour of Continental courts. Hanover was on his itinerary, and Anne begged that, while there, he would do everything possible to counteract this ‘disagreeable proposal … which I have been afraid of so long’. When Marlborough had visited Hanover for the first time in late 1704, Sophia had enthused she had never met anyone more ‘easy, civil and obliging’, so the Queen had reason to hope he could ‘set them right in notions of things here’.
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Two days after this letter was sent, the Queen was present in the House of Lords when the Tories made their move. Lord Haversham, an eccentric Tory peer who was very fond of the sound of his own voice, rose and made a characteristically verbose speech, criticising various aspects of government policy. Having reviewed the progress of the war, he declared that the situation at home made ‘it very necessary that we should have the presumptive heir residing here’. He claimed to be acting in the Queen’s best interests, as a successor would feel obligated to protect her from danger, and demanded portentously, ‘Is there any man … who doubts that if the Duke of Gloucester had been now alive her majesty had been more secure than she is?’ Until this point the Queen had been following the debate intently, but she was ‘so touched with the sound of that dear name’ that she had to withdraw hurriedly.
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Having recovered her composure she returned to hear a speech from the Earl of Nottingham who, in marked contrast to his former views, now argued that Sophia’s presence was essential. The Duke of Buckingham concurred, even having the temerity to suggest that Anne might develop senile dementia, and in that eventuality Sophia (who was, of course, years older) must be on hand to take over the reins of government. Rather surprisingly the Queen would ultimately forgive Buckingham for these insensitive remarks, but Nottingham, for whom she had no personal affection, would never redeem himself in her eyes. She viewed him ever after with implacable resentment, and saw to it that he was never again offered government employment. One peer commented that he should have borne in mind that ‘ladies are to be courted, not ravished’.
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It was necessary to convince the Upper House that Anne’s death would not be followed by a dangerous power vacuum, which could be exploited by the Pretender. Therefore, as prearranged with Godolphin, one of the Whigs countered the Tory proposals by offering to introduce legislation enacting that, if the Queen’s heir was out of the country when she died, the realm would be governed by a panel of regents until the new monarch arrived to exercise sovereignty in person. Reassured at the prospect of arrangements being put in place that would ensure an orderly transitional period, the Lords threw out Haversham’s invitation motion.

On 19 November Anne again came to the House of Lords to watch the details of the Regency Bill being debated. The Junto peer Lord Wharton made a sardonic speech, remarking that the Queen’s pleas for unity appeared to have had a ‘supernatural’ effect, for ‘now all were for the Protestant Succession; it had not always been so. He rejoiced in their conversion and confessed it was a miracle’. A series of measures were then set out, the most notable being that a list of regents should be drawn up, comprising seven great officers of State and other individuals to be nominated by the Queen’s successor in Hanover. It was also laid down that Sophia and her family would be naturalised, with immediate effect. Nottingham and his cronies dared not oppose the bill outright, but discredited themselves by seeking to ‘clog it’ with amendments, showing they did not really care about safeguarding the succession.
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Their tactics failed and, after the bill had passed successfully through both Houses of Parliament, Anne assented to the act naturalising Sophia on 3 December.

Comprehensively outwitted, the renegade Tories now ‘lay like beetles on their backs’, having infuriated the Queen without proving themselves
loyal to her Hanoverian heirs. All that they had achieved was to make the Queen feel a temporary surge of goodwill towards the Whigs who had rescued her from her predicament. She wrote warmly to Sarah that she was ‘now sensible of the services those people have done me that you have a good opinion of, and will countenance them, and am thoroughly convinced of the malice and insolence of them that you have been always speaking against’.
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Meanwhile in Hanover, Marlborough had been active on the Queen’s behalf. Although the Electress was not entirely receptive to his arguments, the Duke found her son George Ludwig more amenable. It helped that the Elector had become suspicious of Tory motives after it emerged that Lord Haversham had prefaced his speech on 15 November with an attack on the conduct of England’s partners in the war coalition. As a loyal member of the alliance, George Ludwig was naturally displeased. On 16 December a letter sent from Hanover (presumably by Marlborough) was read in Cabinet, reporting that the Elector was now ‘extremely well satisfied that they who meant to bring over the Princess Sophia meant no good to the succession’.
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The Queen, however, could not relax completely. To Anne’s fury, in February 1706 a letter that Sophia had earlier sent to the Archbishop of Canterbury, referring to her willingness to come to England if invited, was printed, with another highly provocative piece appended to it. This was purportedly a letter to a Whig peer from an Englishman living in Hanover, although in reality it had been written by one of Sophia’s most valued German advisers, the mathematician Leibniz. It was critical of Parliament, saying that to oppose the Electress’s coming to England was, in effect, ‘to act directly for the Jacobites’, and that it was ‘wicked and criminal’ to give out that the Queen did not want Sophia in her kingdom.
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