Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion (77 page)

Accepting that the Duchess must keep her job a while longer, Anne instead set her sights on dismissing another uncongenial member of Sarah’s family, Lord Sunderland. Her dislike of her Secretary had only been intensified by his attempts to stir up Parliament against Abigail, and she believed that neither Marlborough nor his colleagues in the ministry would resign if she ejected him from being Secretary of State. The only thing that delayed her was the difficulty of finding a replacement. She knew Lord Anglesey would be objectionable to the Whigs, and Lord Paulet turned the post down, on the grounds that ‘a porter’s life is a better thing’. The Queen was nevertheless intent on following the matter through. When Godolphin warned her on 2 June that Marlborough would be shattered by the sacking of his son-in-law, she answered smoothly that her commander was ‘too reasonable to let a thing of this kind do so much prejudice to himself and to the whole world … and that nobody knew better … the repeated provocations’ she had received from Sunderland.
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The Queen promised she would write to Marlborough to ease matters, but before she heard back from him, Sarah sent her a long rambling letter of protest. She warned Anne she was giving the Duke ‘a blow of which … I dread the consequence … by putting out a man that has married his beloved daughter’. ‘Before you proceed further … for God’s sake and for your own sake, think very well’, she cautioned, adding that if Prince George was alive he would have counselled against a course likely to ‘set the nation in a flame’. Sarah continued ‘I have been told … that the reason of all these strange things is for fear Mrs Masham should be disturbed’, but the Queen need have no fear of that, because there were ‘few things I should be more ashamed of than to endeavour to put her by violence out of the court …’. ‘My mind is much above anything of that nature’, Sarah loftily proclaimed, though she could not resist adding that if Abigail was attacked in Parliament for ‘bringing the kingdom into misfortunes, everybody that loves their country will be glad of it’.
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Sarah’s letter also contained ominous hints that she was thinking of making an unspecified use of Anne’s past correspondence to her. She reminded the Queen that she possessed ‘a thousand letters’ from her, full of ardent protestations, and enclosed a couple of examples. On 12 June Anne returned what Sarah described as a ‘short, harsh and … very undeserved answer’. She wrote that having understood from both Marlborough and Sarah ‘you would never speak to me of politics nor mention Masham’s name again, I was very much surprised at receiving a long letter upon both … looking on it to be a continuation of the ill usage I have so often met with, which shows me very plainly what I am to expect for the future’. As for the letters Sarah had mentioned, ‘I must desire all my strange scrawls may be sent back to me, it being impossible they can now be agreeable to you’.
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Just before receiving this Sarah had written again, begging ‘your Majesty upon my knees’ not to dismiss Sunderland until Marlborough had returned from campaign. When Anne’s letter arrived, the Duchess was ashamed at having been ‘too submissive’, and resolved not to repeat this mistake. She took up her pen to express astonishment to find herself accused of ‘meddling with the politics in a way that is improper for me’. She menaced the Queen regarding her letters: ‘Though your Majesty takes care to make them less pleasing to me … I cannot yet find it in my heart to part with them … I have drawers full of the same in every place where I have lived’. Anne’s failure to send back the letters enclosed in Sarah’s of 7 June ‘obliges me to take a little better care of the rest’.
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By this time Marlborough was aware of Sunderland’s impending dismissal, which led him to write bitterly to Anne that he had assumed his service ‘would have deserved a better turn’ than to see his son-in-law ejected from his place. ‘Your Majesty must forgive me if I cannot but think that this is a stroke rather aimed at me than him’.
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He sent another letter to Godolphin, declaring that he was ‘sorry Lord Sunderland is not agreeable to the Queen, but his being … singled out has no other reason but that of being my son-in-law’. Marlborough added that unless the dismissal was deferred until the end of the campaign, it was obvious that his enemies intended to provoke him into retiring. He authorised the Lord Treasurer to show the letter not just to the Queen but to whomever he thought fit.
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Godolphin duly read this to the Queen, but it did not have the desired effect. Later that day she informed the Lord Treasurer she had already made arrangements to dismiss her Secretary, and she did not see why Marlborough’s letter should alter things. ‘It is true, indeed, that the turning a son-in-law out of his office may be a mortification to the Duke of Marlborough; but must the fate of Europe depend on that? And must he be gratified in all his desires and I not, in so reasonable a thing as parting with a man who I took into my service with all the uneasiness imaginable and whose behaviour to me has been so ever since, and who, I must add, is obnoxious to all people, except a few?’
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Although the Queen would not relent, she sacked Sunderland in as considerate a manner as she could, sending him medicine for a cold just before the blow fell. She asked Sunderland’s fellow Secretary of State, Henry Boyle, to collect the seals from him on the morning of 14 June, and when he expressed reluctance because Sunderland was a friend, she told him ‘those things were best done by a friend’. She also offered Sunderland a pension, knowing him to be financially overstretched, but he proudly turned it down, declaring ‘if he could not have the honour to serve his country he would not plunder it’.
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The moderate Tory, Lord Dartmouth, was chosen to replace Sunderland. The appointment came as a surprise as he was considered rather frivolous and ineffectual. However, the Queen had consulted Lord Somers beforehand, and he had indicated the Whigs would not object to the office being given to one who, ‘though … looked upon as a Tory … was known to be no zealous party man’.
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Within weeks Somers would regret this, but for the moment he believed he could work with the new Secretary.

In one letter, Sarah had warned the Queen, ‘It is vain to say that you mean only to remove Lord Sunderland. The rest cannot stay in long after
him’. She prophesied too that his dismissal would be the prelude to Anne’s dissolving Parliament, ‘a most rash and desperate step’. Godolphin would inevitably resign and, since the leading men in the City ‘would not lend a farthing’ once he was out of office, ‘your army must starve and you must be glad of any peace that the French would give you’. The Queen, however, believed that Sunderland’s departure need not cause such major upheavals. She wanted to retain Whig ministers she found congenial and desired Godolphin to remain at the Treasury. She even hoped that she could keep the Parliament in being until its three-year term had finished, but it was obvious that this would pose a challenge. The Whigs currently had a majority in the Commons, and if they could not be relied on to support the government, an election would be necessary. Realising this, the Queen authorised her physician Sir David Hamilton to tell his friends ‘she would make no other change, but not to disown the dissolution of the Parliament’.
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To the Queen’s relief, none of Sunderland’s colleagues decided to follow him out of office. Just before sending for the Secretary’s seals, Anne had assured Lord Somers that although ‘nothing could divert her’ from this step, ‘she was entirely for moderation’. He appeared content with this, and his fellow ministers likewise made no difficulties even when Godolphin showed them Marlborough’s letter warning that Sunderland’s dismissal was intended to provoke him into retiring. They expressed regret that the Queen had ignored his concerns but, far from offering their collective resignation, merely wrote a joint letter to the Duke, urging him not to give up his command. Once he grasped that the ministers intended ‘to remain tamely quiet’, Marlborough agreed to continue.
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To impress upon the Queen that further changes were indeed undesirable, the Bank of England sent a deputation to her. The country’s finances were currently in a parlous state. The war was now costing twice what it had cost in 1703, but taxes were producing lower yields than anticipated. At £4 million, the navy debt was becoming unmanageable, and a recent attempt to raise money through a lottery had been unsuccessful. On 15 June, four directors of the Bank of England obtained an audience with the Queen to warn her in ‘tragical expressions’ of the dire consequences of disbanding her current ministry. If she did this, they said, ‘all credit would be gone, stock fall, and the Bank be ruined’, resulting in the collapse of the economy. The Queen’s answer was ‘very differently reported’. It was ‘industriously given out’ by the Bank Directors that she had promised no more changes lay in store, and this later gave
rise to allegations that Anne had lied. In fact she had given a far more ‘equivocal assurance’, with her exact words being a matter of dispute. She may only have told them ‘that she had
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no intentions to make any more alterations’ and that ‘whenever she should, she would take care that the public credit might not be injured’. In all likelihood the Queen was somewhat unnerved by the bankers’ visit, but it served only to infuriate High Tories. On Sunderland’s dismissal the Duke of Beaufort had offered Anne his congratulations on the grounds that ‘Your Majesty is now Queen indeed’. To hear that she had been subjected to this ‘insolent admonition and reproof from four citizens’ left him spluttering with rage.
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Godolphin and Marlborough now sought to exert pressure on the Queen through other channels. They stirred up the Grand Pensionary of Holland, Heinsius, with the result that the Dutch envoy to England presented Anne with a memorial from the States General. It expressed concern that a change of ministry or Parliament could not only lead to Britain’s defecting from the Grand Alliance, but ‘might endanger’ the Hanoverian succession.
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On receiving it the Queen merely remarked, ‘This is a matter of such great importance that I must think about it before giving an answer’. However, in Cabinet on 2 July she dealt with it in a style ‘worthy of Queen Elizabeth’, dictating a reply ‘without consultation upon it, and in such a manner that there was not a word offered against it’. She ‘ordered (herself) an answer to be written by Mr Boyle … to acquaint the States she was very much surprised at so extraordinary a proceeding’. While emphasising that ‘nothing should lessen her affections to the States’ she made it clear that, ‘as it was the first of this kind, she hoped it would be the last, and ordered Mr Boyle should show her the letter before he sent it’. Yet despite the fact that the Queen had made it plain that she did not welcome interference from her allies in domestic affairs, this did not deter the Imperial envoy Count Gallas from handing her a letter from Emperor Joseph on 1 August. It, too, warned that dissolving Parliament would have ‘pernicious consequences’ for the Common Cause.
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The Queen was now free of Sunderland, but casting off the Duchess of Marlborough posed greater problems, particularly if Anne was to do it without honouring her promise to distribute Sarah’s posts among her daughters. To resolve the situation, the Queen started using her doctor Sir David Hamilton as a go-between. On 15 June he saw the Duchess and reproached her for writing aggressive letters to the Queen. Sarah
protested that since she only wanted ‘to keep her from hurting herself … it was hard to be denied that liberty’, but it soon occurred to her that adopting Hamilton as an intermediary might have its advantages. By this time her husband had instructed her to stop writing to the Queen, as her letters were only ‘making things worse’. If she started a correspondence with Hamilton, on the private understanding that he would read her letters to Anne, she ‘could write … what could not be said to the Queen’ without disobeying her husband outright.
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After seeing Hamilton again, Sarah gave him copies of the narrative she had sent Anne in October 1709, and talked of the many letters from the Queen in her possession. Making it clear for the first time that she had it in mind to publish them, she declared that these materials would form ‘part of the famous history that is to be’, which would contain ‘wonderful things’. On 8 July Hamilton warned the Queen that the Duchess was ‘extremely angry … her intercessions … in so humble a manner’ about Sunderland had been rejected, and said he feared that if Anne provoked her further, ‘That may force her to print’. Two days later he reported that the Duchess had said ‘She took more pleasure in justifying herself than your Majesty did in wearing your crown, and that she wondered when your Majesty was so much in her power you should treat her so’. The Queen was appalled at the prospect of seeing her letters in print, telling Hamilton, ‘When people are fond of one another they say many things, however indifferent, they would not desire the world to know’.
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It was clear that, in the face of this blackmail threat, she would have to consider carefully how to proceed.

Harley still had no official status but knowledgeable observers did not doubt he was now directing matters, and Sarah told the Queen in mid June, ‘He … talks as if he were your first minister’. He was abetted from within the government by the Dukes of Somerset and Shrewsbury, although the latter tried to shrug off responsibility for controversial developments. After Sunderland was dismissed, Shrewsbury tried to shift all the blame on Mrs Masham, claiming she ‘could make the Queen stand upon her head if she pleased’. As for Somerset, he envisaged a major role for himself in a reconstituted administration, being ‘so vain’ (as Godolphin harshly put it) ‘as not to be sensible he is uncapable of being anything more than what he is’.
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