¹ Davies, G., ‘The Fall of Harley in 1708”, English Historical Review, LXVI (1951), 246–54;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWalcott, R. R., English Politics in the Early Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1956), cap. 8;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHolmes, G. S. and Speck, W. A., ‘The Fall of Harley in 1708 Reconsidered”, English Historical Review, LXXX (1965), 673–98;CrossRefGoogle ScholarSnyder, H. L., ‘Godolphin and Harley: A Study of their Partnership in Polities”, Huntington Library Quarterly, xxx (1966–1967), 263–71.Google Scholar

² A copy of Harley's oath of office dated 18 May may be found in B[ritish] M[Buseum] Portland Loan, 136 (i). I wish to express my thanks to the Duke of Portland for permitting me to see papers in his possession.

³ Most writers depict Harley as a moderate Tory in the opening phase of Queen Anne's reign. E.g. Trevelyan, G. M., England Under Queen Anne (London, 1930–1934), 1,Google Scholarpassim and Feiling, K. G., A History of the Tory Party 1640–1714 (Oxford, 1924), cap. 13,Google Scholarpassim. On the inaccuracy of this view see McInnes, A., ‘The Political Ideas of Robert Harley”, History, L (1965), 309–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴ The phrase is Professor Felling's. See Feiling, , op. cit. cap. 13.Google Scholar But even the iconoclastic Walcott thinks it an apt label. Walcott, , op. cit. pp. 96–9.Google Scholar One scholar who does not accept this traditional reading of events between 1702 and 1704 is Snyder, Henry L., loc. cit. pp. 241–71.Google Scholar Dr Snyder's important article, based on a detailed knowledge of manuscript material at Blenheim, Longleat and elsewhere, appeared after this essay had been submitted for publication. The two studies are, in a number of ways, complementary.

⁵ Boyer, A., The History of the Reign of Queen Anne Digested into Annals, (London, 1704) II, 2;Google Scholar Godolphin to Harley, 24 December 1702, 6 January 1703, and 21 January 1703, H[istorical] M[anuscripts] C[ommission] Report on the Manuscripts of the Duke of Portland, IV, 54–5, 56 and 57; Robert Harley to Abigail Harley, 2 March 1703, B.M. Portland Loan, 67. It is perhaps worth noting that, two years after his appointment as Auditor, Edward was able to build himself an impressive mansion at Eywood in Herefordshire. See Howse, W. H., ‘A Harley Cash Book”, Transactions of the Woolhope Club, xxxvi (1958), 48.Google Scholar

⁶ ‘You need not doubt but any advances you think proper to make him [Paget] will be made good.” Godolphin to Harley, 16 June 1703, H.M.C. Portland MSS. IV, 63. The advancement of Thomas Foley to the office of Protonotary of Common Pleas, the appointment of Harley's old schoolfellow Simon Harcourt as Solicitor-General, the confirmation of Robert Price in his judicial post, and the retention of Thomas Trevor as Lord Chief Justice, were among the other favours accorded Harley at this period.

⁷ See especially the superbly assured tone of Sir Simon Harcourt's letter of June 1702, H.M.C. Portland MSS. IV, 42.

⁸ Professor Namier has familiarized us with the existence from time to time in the eighteenth century of an ‘inner ring” or ‘directing group” which operated outside the Cabinet (Namier, L. B., Crossroads of Power, London, 1962, pp. 93–110).Google Scholar In the early part of Anne's reign such a group, comprising Marlborough, Godolphin and Harley, seems to have existed. An important box of letters among the Portland MSS. (B.M. Portland Loan, 64) reveals that the three men had regular policy-making meetings throughout the 1702–4 period. On the very first day of the reign the Treasurer had arranged one of these gatherings (H.M.C. Portland MSS. IV, 34). Before the month was out the mode of summons had become stereotyped: Godolphin to Harley, 29 [March] 1702 (B.M. Portland Loan, 64 (8)): ‘ If it will consist with your convenience my Lord Marlborough would be very glad to meet you this night about nine at my house.” A year later the formula was in all essentials unchanged: Godolphin to Harley, 10 March 1703 (ibid. 64 (9)): ‘ I design to call upon you at your own house before one if you have no engagement to hinder me from it.” It is interesting to note that many of these meetings took place just before or straight after sittings of the formal Cabinet.

⁹ H.M.C. Portland MSS. IV, 34 ff. passim; B.M. Portland Loan, 64, passim. Many papers in box 64 are undated but can from internal evidence be assigned to the 1702–4 period.

¹⁰ H.M.C. Portland MSS. IV, 34, 43–4, 48–9, 53–4; B.M. Additional MSS. 28,055, fos. 3–4; B.M. Portland Loan, 64. passim; Burnet, G., History of My Own Time (Oxford, 1823), v, 48;Google ScholarThe Norris Papers, ed. Heywood, T. (Manchester, 1846), pp. 106–7.Google Scholar

¹¹ For well over a year Harley contrived to blunt the political effectiveness of the Jacobite leader James Douglas, fourth Duke of Hamilton, by skilfully dangling government bait before him. Brenanaud's letters in B.M. Portland Loan, 127; The Correspondence of George Bailie of Jerviswood 1702–8, ed. the Earl of Minto (Edinburgh, 1842), pp. 35–7, 100–2;Google ScholarH.M.C. Portland MSS. IV, 338.

¹² In the autumn of 1704 the Tories, crazed by previous rebuffs, attempted to bludgeon the Occasional Conformity Bill through Parliament by tacking it to the Land Tax Bill. To meet the emergency Harley hastened to compile a list of the more amenable of those M.P.s reputedly for the tack. These men—92 in all—were to be approached either by Harley or by one of his deputies. Considerable success seems to have attended the Secretary's efforts. The tack was defeated by 251 votes to 134 (Journals of the House of Commons, XIV, 437), only 28 of the members listed by Harley voting for it. (The division lists are printed in A Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts…, ed Scott, W., London, 1809–1815, XII, 471–6,Google Scholar and Oldmixon, J., The History of England during the Reigns of King William and Queen Mary, Queen Anne, King George, London, 1735, pp. 346–7.Google ScholarWalcott, R. R., ‘Division-Lists of the House of Commons, 1689–1715”, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, XIV, 1936–1937, 28–9,Google Scholar discusses the relative merits of these lists.) Marlborough, elated, put down ‘the greatest share” of the tack's defeat to Harley's ‘prudent management” (Marlborough to Harley, 16 December 1704, Coxe, W., Memoirs of John Duke of Marlborough, London, 1820, II, 69).Google Scholar Harley's list, which may be found in B.M. Portland Loan, 138, has been printed and analysed by Ansell, P. M. in Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, XXXIV (1961), 92–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹³ Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, explained her husband's courtship of Harley in the following terms:” They [Marlborough and Godolphin] thought him [Harley] a very proper person to manage the House of Commons”, adding the significant rider ‘upon which so much depends” (Memoirs of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, ed. King, W., London, 1930, p. 121).Google Scholar Other contemporaries were equally conscious of Harley's position as leader of the Lower Chamber. Robert Monckton, for instance, in attempting to persuade the Speaker of the advantages that would accrue from an alliance with his master, the influential Whig nobleman John Holies, Duke of Newcastle, wrote in April 1703, ‘I wish my Lord Treasurer may be as much in debt to you for one House as he is for the other” (H.M.C. Portland MSS. IV, 59). Compare this with the action of James Vernon who, when he got wind of an impending attack on him in the Commons in the autumn of 1703, pressed Shrewsbury to move Harley on his behalf. (Vernon to Shrewsbury, Sept. 1703, Letters Illustrative of the Reign of William III from 1696 to 1708 by James Vernon, Secretary of State, ed. by James, G. P. R., London, 1841, III, 236–8;Google Scholar Shrewsbury to Harley, 17 June 1704, H.M.C. Bath MSS. I, 57–8.) Like Monckton, Vernon was in no doubt over who wielded ‘authority in the house”.

¹⁴ Harley's attitude in William's reign is documented in Professor Felling's admirable narrative. Feiling, , op. cit. pp. 275–359.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Memoirs of the Secret Service of John Macky (London, 1733), p. 24.Google Scholar Cf. Dartmouth's portrait in Burnet, op. cit. n, 240. Godolphin's letters, printed in Coxe, op. cit. passim, depict the Treasurer as a formal, testy, rather unimaginative creature, more at home on the racetrack than in the rough and tumble of political life. Billingsgate criticism always hurt him deeply, especially when it came from the pulpit. On one occasion he confessed to Harley that he thought a discreet clergyman ‘almost as rare as a black swan” (H.M.C. Bath MSS. I, 63). Cf. Swift's description of the Treasurer's ‘passionate pique” at being dubbed a ‘wily Volpone” in Sacheverell's 5 November sermon. (Swift, J., ‘Memoirs relating to that change which happened in the Queen's Ministry in the Year 1710”, The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, ed. Davis, H. and Ehrenpreis, I., Oxford, 1939 continuing, VIII, 115.)Google Scholar The proper way to deal with such clerical squibs was, of course, neither to succumb to self-pity nor fly into a rage but, as Harley well understood, to counter them with more effective propaganda. This, however, the essentially unpolitical mind of Godolphin could never grasp. Here the verdict of Arthur Maynwaring, as recorded by Oldmixon, upon the disgrace suffered by the Treasurer in 1710 is illuminating. ‘Mr. Maynwaring told me”, Oldmixon avers, ‘the Earl of Godolphin had the last contempt for pamphlets, and always despised the press. He added “I have often blamed it in him, and now he feels the effects of it, when his exalted reputation is levelled with infamy”.” (Oldmixon, , op. cit. p. 456.)Google Scholar

¹⁶ The legend of Marlborough the political colossus is ably demolished in a paper shortly to be published by Mr J. A. Garrard.

¹⁷ The standard works on Marlborough abound with descriptions of his ‘grand style”, a combination of pomp and aristocratic chivalry. Here, for instance, is Trevelyan's account of Marlborough at The Hague in 1701 during the Grand Alliance negotiations: ‘The statesmen of Europe were received at the top of the staircase by a glorious living portrait of a Milord, every inch a soldier and a courtier; said indeed to be fifty years of age but in the prime of manly beauty, with a complexion like a girl's; talking charmingly in bad French; seeming to understand all and sympathising with everyone” (Trevelyan, , op. cit. I, 144).Google Scholar Compare Francis Hare's description of the aftermath of Blenheim: ‘Afterwards the two commanders [Marlborough and Eugene] accompanied by Counts Wratislaw and Maffei, and several general officers visited Marshal Tallard, at the quarters of the Prince of Hesse. In their way, they ordered all the standards, colours, cannon, etc. taken from the enemy to be committed to the care of Colonel Blood. Reaching the Marshal's quarters, they found him very much dejected and wounded in one of his hands. His Grace humanely inquired how far it was in his power to make him easy under his misfortune, offering him the convenience of his quarters, and the use of his coach. The Marshal thankfully declined the offer, saying, he did not desire to move till he could have his own equipage. His Grace accordingly despatched one of his trumpets to the electoral army, with a passport for bringing it to the Marshal. During the interview the Marshal directed the conversation to the events of the preceding day, which Marlborough would fain have avoided from motives of delicacy.” Meanwhile ‘many of the French Generals crowded about his Grace, admiring his person, as well as his tender and generous behaviour. Each had something to say for himself, which his Grace and Prince Eugene heard with great modesty and compassion.” (Coxe, , op. cit. II, 2–3.)Google Scholar Obviously haughty grandeur of this sort cut precious little ice in the harsher climate of Westminster. I owe this concept of Marlborough's ‘style” to Mr Garrard's paper.

¹⁸ Garrard gives illuminating instances of the Duke's almost unbalanced fear of the press. Marlborough's attitude differed radically from the hard-bitten professionalism of Harley who, according to Swift, frequently read the libels published against him ‘ by way of amusement with a most unaffected indifference” (Swift, J., ‘An Enquiry into the Behaviour of the Queen's Last Ministry”, op. cit. VIII, 136).Google Scholar

¹⁹ The trouble arose when Godolphin advised the Queen to sign the Act of Security, a measure which had gone through the Edinburgh Parliament in 1704. The Act stipulated that on the death of Anne Scotland would not feel bound to choose the same sovereign as England chose. The prospect was thereby opened up of the establishment of a Jacobite fifth column in Scotland, and this caused widespread alarm south of the border. Godolphin was accordingly severely criticized in the Lords for placing the country in a ‘ dangerous” condition. For a time things looked black for the Ministry, but then the Junto lords took a hand. Somers suggested that in order to bring home to the Scots the folly of separation from England, ‘some laws might pass here for the cutting off of all their trade with England”. This proposal eventually crystallized into the Alien Act. At the same time as Somers was, in this way, attempting to bring the Scots ‘to an understanding of their true interests”, Wharton moved for the establishment of a new Union commission—thus offering them a way out of their folly. The combination of stick and carrot worked perfectly. Within a year or so the Union Treaty was an accomplished fact. See Tullie House, Carlisle, Bishop Nicolson's MS. Diary, 29 November 1704 ff.; Correspondence of George Baillie, pp. 13–16.

²⁰ Tullie House, Carlisle, Bishop Nicolson's MS. Diary, 15 November 1705 ff.; Burnet, , op. cit. v, 225–35.Google Scholar Note also the important marginal comments of Dartmouth, Onslow and Hardwick in Burnet's account. Wharton's ‘charming” speech is pure delight.

²¹ On Harley's ‘country” attitude see Mclnnes, loc. cit.

²² Harley's second wife was Sarah Middleton, daughter of the London merchant Simon Middleton. His first wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Foley of Witley Court in Worcestershire, died of smallpox on 30 November 1691 (H.M.C. Portland MSS. in, 484). Harley's letters to Elizabeth–B.M. Portland Loan, 164–show that his first marriage was a most romantic union. The Foleys were important iron magnates.

²³ B.M. Portland Loan, 125 (3), 129 (6), 147 (3), 153 (4), 156 (7), 163 (8) and 306; Bodleian Ballard MSS. 6, fo. 99; The Letters of Joseph Addison, ed. Graham, W. (Oxford, 1941), pp., 92 and 96;Google ScholarH.M.C. Bath MSS. 1. 57; State Papers and Letters Addressed to William Carstares, ed. McCormick, J. (Edinburgh, 1774), pp. 718–22, 727–9, 774–6;Google ScholarThe Letters of Daniel Defoe, ed. Healey, G. H. (Oxford, 1955), pp. 193, 255, 397;Google ScholarH.M.C. Portland MSS. iv, passim, v, 648 and VIII, 297; Beeching, H. C., Francis Atterbury (London, 1909), pp. 143–4.Google Scholar

²⁴ Burnet, , op. cit. IV, 191.Google Scholar Compare Edward Harley's description of his brother's ‘perfect knowledge of the orders of the House”, H.M.C. Portland MSS. v, 647.

²⁵ It was rumoured that half Harley's income went in this way. The Wentworth Papers 1705–39, ed. Cartwright, J. J. (London, 1883), p. 132.Google Scholar

²⁶ One of the few contemporaries who praised Harley for eloquence was John Macky. See Memoirs of the Secret Service of John Macky, p. 116. Significantly Swift wrote in the margin of his copy ‘a great lie’. Swift, J., Miscellaneous and Autobiographical Pieces, Fragments and Marginalia, ed. Davis, H. (Oxford, 1962), p. 262.Google Scholar

²⁷ ‘Mr. Blathwayt and others of the King's people were almost afraid to speak before him.” Wentworth Papers, p. 132.

²⁸ Harley's technique is nicely illustrated in his contribution to the debates on the Triennial and Place Bills in the autumn of 1693. In the former debate he tackled Charles Montagu, the most gifted of all the Court managers. Debates of the House of Commons, ed. Grey, A. (London, 1736), X, 329–33, 338–9.Google Scholar

²⁹ ‘No person since the time of Secretary Walsingham”, wrote Edward Harley, ‘ever had better intelligence” (Edward Harley's ‘Memoirs”, H.M.C. Portland MSS. v, 647). That this was not just brotherly eulogy is shown by the opinion of the Saxon observer Schulenburg: ‘ Harley is an intrepid man who knows England as thoroughly as he is ignorant of foreign affairs, and spends more in spies than Cromwell ever did.” (Schulenburg to Leibnitz, 31 March 1714, State Papers and Correspondence Illustrative of the Social and Political State of Europe, ed. Kemble, J. M., London, 1857, p. 491.)Google Scholar Harley's spy network is analysed in detail in Mclnnes, A., ‘Robert Harley, Secretary of State” (M.A. Thesis,University of Wales, 1961), pp. 77–105.Google Scholar

³⁰ These were the Dissenter's celebrated six Essays at Removing National Prejudices. It should be noted that beside his more formal writing Defoe did a great deal to forward Union by word of mouth. He supplied the Scottish managers with debating material, for instance, and also checked their attempts to carve up the Treaty (Letters of Daniel Defoe, pp. 154–5, 160–2, 176–8). In addition, in a variety of disguises he wheedled his way into every corner of Edinburgh society and there preached the necessity of Union. (See especially Defoe to Harley, 26 November 1706, ibid. pp. 158–9.) On occasion he even regaled a Jacobite audience with his blandishments. Early in January 1707, for example, he had by ‘an unexpected success… obtained a converse with some gentlemen belonging to the Duke of Gordon who are very frank” (ibid. pp. 189–90). Perhaps most interesting of all was his daily lobbying of Scottish divines by whom he was ‘entirely confided in” (ibid. p. 159).

³¹ Vernon to Shrewsbury, 22 August 1700, Letters by James Vernon, III, 132; Davenant to Harley, 19 September 1700. H.M.C. Portland MSS. IV, 5. The pamphlet appeared in March 1701.

³² Davenant to Harley, 26 December 1701, H.M.C. Portland MSS. iv, 30. The full title of the tract was Tom Double Returned out of the Country: or, the True Picture of a Modern Whig, set forth in a Second Dialogue between Mr. Whiglove and Mr. Double, at the Rummer Tavern in Queen Street. It came out in January 1702. Among other interesting Harleyite tracts which appeared at this time were Davenant's Discourse upon Grants and Resumptions (1699) and John Toland's The Art of Governing by Parties (1701).

³³ It is impossible in such a brief space to give even an approximate idea of Harley's skill and sense of timing in 1710. For those who wish to savour the subtlety of his manoeuvring there is an excellent narrative in Pugh, D. R. P., ‘The Political Career of Robert Harley 1708–1714” (M.A. Thesis, University of Wales, 1951).Google Scholar

³⁴ See the Guy-Harley correspondence in H.M.C. Portland MSS. III, 625 ff.

³⁵ Abigail's letters, printed in H.M.C. Portland MSS. IV, reveal quite plainly that Anne had a mind of her own. Frequently Abigail complains of her mistress's ‘reserved” nature and lack of ‘ready money” (determination). It was indeed not Abigail but events—the obvious unpopularity of t he Whig ministers in the country, for instance, and the great demonstration of support unleashed by Sacherevell—which eventually persuaded the Queen to throw in her lot with Harley. Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, never learned. She should have remembered that even she, who had been far closer to Anne than Abigail was ever to become, had had virtually no political influence whatever over her sovereign. Anne, indeed, regarded. her female favourites as a means of escape from politics. She wanted them to entertain her so that she could slam the door on t he world outside and forget for a while its harsh realities. See, for instance, Burnet's interesting censure of Anne's unregal craving for privacy. Burnet, , op. cit. VI, 218.Google Scholar

³⁶ Early in 1708 one of Secretary Harley's clerks, William Greg, was found to be in treasonable correspondence with the enemy. The Whig lords, sensing a chance to crush their deadly rival once and for all, tried desperately to implicate Harley. A blatantly partisan commission of inquiry was set up to look into the affair (H.M.C. House of Lords MSS. 1706–8, p. 548), and Greg's execution was put off from week to week in the hope that he would crack and accuse his master. Francis Atterbury was convinced that Harley's head was ‘upon the block” (H.M.C. Portland MSS. v, 648). However, on 28 April Greg went to the scaffold at last, courageous and unperjured. But even then the Whigs refused to let up. Their ‘inveteracy’ to Harley, William Bromley noted in November 1708, seemed ‘as great as ever”, and indeed as late as February 1709 the House of Commons was still probing the case (Bromley to Nottingham, 11 November 1708, Leicestershire Record Office Finch MSS. G.S., bundle 23; Journals of the House of Commons, XVI, 71, 105–6; H.M.C. Portland MSS. IV, 519–20). This ruthless harrying of a man who was down disgusted even some Whigs. (See, for example, Francis Hare's condemnation of Junto ‘violence’, Private Correspondence of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, London, 1838, II, 54.)Google Scholar

³⁷ Professor Kenyon suggests that William's acceptance of the Triennial Bill in December 1694 was the consequence of a straight bargain with Shrewsbury (Kenyon, J. P., Robert Spencer Earl of Sunderland 1641–1J02, London, 1958, pp. 261–2).Google Scholar Events in the Commons, however, indicate that Shrewsbury's persuasions were not the only factor the King had to take into account. When, in January 1694, the King vetoed the Place Bill, Foley, Clarges and Harley, seething with anger, asked for an assurance from William that in future he would refrain from blocking popular measures. They carried the Commons with them. When William sidestepped the question Foley issued a solemn warning that another indiscriminate veto would compel the Commons to ‘tack our grievances to our money bills” (Cobbett, W., Parliamentary History of England, London, 1806–1920, V, pp. 829–39)Google Scholar. That this was no idle threat was shown when Parliament reassembled in the autumn. Shelving the question of supply, the Harley–Foley–Clarges combination immediately introduced a Triennial Bill which rapidly passed through both Houses (ibid, pp. 860– 1). William was not the man to be easily coerced; but, on the other hand, he was a soldier who knew when strategic retreat was necessary.

³⁸ The intensely dramatic debates culminating in Foley's election are printed in Cobbett, , op. cit. v, 881–941.Google Scholar

³⁹ It was in 1700 that the informal meetings between Harley, Marlborough and Godolphin which, as we have seen, were to become such a feature of government in the early years of Anne's reign, began. The following note is representative of a number variously dated between 1700 and 1702: ‘In case I hear nothing from you to the contrary this night I should like very well that the meeting should be at your house tomorrow night at eight.” (Godolphin to Harley, 31 July 1701, B.M. Portland Loan, 64 (10).) Cf. Harley's reflections on his ‘seven years” friendship with the Duke and the Treasurer in July 1705 (H.M.C. Bath MSS. I, 73).

⁴⁰ Shaftesbury to Furley, 6 January 1702, Original Letters of Locke, Algernon Sidney and Anthony Lord Shaftesbury, ed. Forster, T. (London, 1830), p. 165.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Godolphin's stolid dependability is beautifully caught in Charles II's phrase ‘never in the way, nor out of the way” (Burnet, , op. cit. II, 240, Dartmouth's note).Google Scholar The Duchess of Marlborough was more longwinded in her assessment of the Treasurer's administrative virtues: ‘He was a man of few words, but of remarkable thoughtfulness and sedateness of temper; of great application to business, and of such despatch in it, as to give pleasure to those who attended him upon any affair; of wonderful frugality in the public concerns, but of no great carefulness about his own. He affected being useful without popularity; and the inconsiderable sum of money, above his own personal estate, which he left at his death, showed that he had been indeed the nation's treasurer, and not his own, and effectually confuted the vile calumnies of his enemies and successors.” (Private Correspondence of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, II, 125–6.) It was this administrative capacity which saved Godolphin from becoming quite the political cipher that Marlborough was. Even though the Treasurer was often unadventurous, jittery, and coldly unbending, his beaver-like qualities did at least make him a conscientious convener of meetings and drummer-up of votes. This aspect of Godolphin is well examined in Snyder, loc. cit.

⁴² Marlborough's letter to the Treasurer of 8 April 1704, written from the quay at Harwich just before his departure for the Continent, proves this. Though packed with the Secretary's iniquities it contains no whisper of a plan to dismiss him. It is simply another variation on the rather ineffectual theme of injured innocence that had characterized the Duke's references to Nottingham for over a year. The letter is printed in Coxe, op cit. 1, 310. Cf. Marlborough's letters of 6 April, 11 June, 14 June and 11 October 1703. Churchill, W. S., Marlborough, His Life and Times (London, 1947), I, 705–6.Google Scholar The dates Churchill gives here are new style. Coxe, op. cit. 1, 270–8 also prints the letters but does not date that of 6 April.

⁴³ Note, for instance, Anne's stunned reaction as described by James Brydges: ‘On Thursday night my Lord Nottingham brought the seals to the Queen, but she would not accept them: he pressed her Majesty thrice to receive them, and at last said (as I am told) he would not surprise her Majesty, but would keep them a day or two longer, till she had had time to think of some other to bestow them upon.” Brydges to Coke, 22 April 1704, H.M.C. Cowper MSS. III, 35.

⁴⁴ The Secretary's exit was a rather protracted affair. He seems to have tendered his resignation first on Thursday 20 April. Anne, alarmed, refused to accept it. (Charles Davenant to Henry Davenant, 21 April 1704, B.M. Lansdowne MSS. 773, fo. 29; Robert Harley to Edward Harley, 22 April 1704, B.M. Portland Loan 70 (5); Brydges to Coke, 22 April 1704, H.M.C. Cowper MSS. III, 35; Burnet, , op. cit. v, 139.)Google Scholar However, she quickly pulled herself together and prepared to face the inevitable. By 22 April all was cut and dried. (Robert Harley to Edward Harley, 22 April 1704, B.M. Portland Loan, 70 (5); Hedges to Ellis, 22 April 1704, B.M. Additional MSS. 28, 895, fo. 316; Luttrell, N., A Brief Historical Relation of State Affairs, Oxford, 1857, v, 418.)Google Scholar Harley kissed hands on 18 May (Harley's oath of office, B.M. Portland Loan, 136 (1)).

⁴⁵ Nottingham's withdrawal was preceded by an ultimatum. He told Anne that she could no longer trim. Either she must dismiss the remaining Whig office holders or the Tories would withdraw their support. When Anne refused to be blackmailed he tendered his resignation (Coxe, , op. cit. I, pp. 310–12).Google Scholar The Queen confirmed the impression of a clean break with the Tory hierarchy by simultaneously dismissing Jersey and Seymour.

⁴⁶ The more astute contemporaries understood the ministers” difficulties. On 12 May, for instance, Charles Davenant observed: ‘The intention seems to be hereafter to promote none who are or have been violent either way, and to pursue moderate councils.” C. Davenant to H. Davenant, 12 May 1704, B.M. Lansdowne MSS. 773, fo. 32.

⁴⁷ For evidence of the offer to Trumbull see C. Davenant to H. Davenant, 21 April 1704, B.M. Lansdowne MSS. 773, fo. 29; Robert Harley to Edward Harley, 22 April 1704, B.M. Portland Loan, 70 (5); Brydges to Coke, 22 April 1704, H.M.C. Cowper MSS. III, 35; Craggs to Coke, 2 May 1704, ibid. p. 36; Gibson to Charlett, 25 April 1704, Bodleian Ballard MSS. 6, fos. 93–4; Gibson to Nicolson, 16 May 1704, Bodleian Additional MSS. A. 269, p. 6; Shere to Trumbull, 20 May 1704, H.M.C. Downshire MSS. 1, 831; Trumbull to Shere, 22 May 1704, ibid. Trumbull seems to have rejected the offer on the grounds of age and infirmity.

⁴⁸ It seems that Marlborough and Godolphin may well have suspected all along that in the end the only solution would be to bring in Harley. But, aware of the Speaker's reluctance, they did their best to find an alternative. Trumbull's immovability, however, ended their hopes on this score. They were now adamant that their sole salvation lay in Harley. The evidence for the two kinsmen's early suspicions about Harley is contained in a letter from the Duke to the Treasurer dated 7 May (N.S.) urging Godolphin to press the Speaker to ‘immediately come in” once ‘Lord Nottingham has given up the seal” (Churchill, , op. cit. I, 738).Google Scholar Note also that on 27 April—the day Hedges was moved into the Southern Department (Public Record Office Lists and Indexes, XLIII, vi)—Harley was sworn of the Privy Council (H.M.C. Portland MSS. IV, 82). On the significance of this move see Marlborough to Godolphin, 2 June 1704 (N.S.), Coxe, p. cit. 1, 314.

⁴⁹ Trumbull evidently rejected the seals about the turn of the month. Craggs had heard of the refusal by 2 May (Craggs to Coke, 2 May 1704, H.M.C. Cowper MSS. III, 36), while on 4 May Luttrell could record: ‘ ’Tis expected at Council this evening that Mr. Harley the Speaker will be declared Secretary of State in the room of the Earl of Nottingham” (Luttrell, , op. cit. v, 421).Google Scholar

⁵⁰ ‘I am unfortunately pressed into the public service in a difficult and dangerous position” (Harley to Hill, 6 June 1704, The Diplomatic Correspondence of the Rt. Hon. Richard Hill, ed, Blackley, W., London, 1845, I, 112).Google Scholar For further evidence of the pressure brought on Harley see Harley to Trumbull, [May 1704], H.M.C. Downshire MSS. 1, 832; Edward Harley's ‘Memoirs”, H.M.C. Portland MSS. v, 647; fragment in Harley's hand B.M. Portland Loan, 36 (5); Coxe, op. cit. 1, 314. Why the Speaker was so reluctant to enter the Cabinet is not entirely clear. One reason may well have been that as political manager of the Ministry he felt that he already had quite enough on his plate without adding a new load of rather unpalatable duties. (Note his reference to ‘the weight of the work and my weakness” in his letter to Trumbull.) He may also have feared that if he became too closely identified with the government he would jeopardize his appeal to the back-bench gentry. (Harley's letter to Sir Robert Davers, dated 16 October 1705, in H.M.C. Portland MSS. iv, 261 suggests that since accepting his ” he has been raked by heavy fire from gentry sharp-shooters.)

⁵¹ Foley to Harley, 2 May 1704, B.M. Portland Loan, 136 (4).

⁵² Namier, L. B., The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (London, 1929), 2 vols.;Google ScholarEngland in the Age of the American Revolution (London, 1930);Google ScholarCrossroads of Power (London, 1962).Google Scholar

⁵³ Walcott, op. cit. See also R. R. Walcott, ‘English Party Politics (1688–1714)”, Essays in Modern History in Honour of Wilbur Cortes Abbot (Cambridge, Mass., 1941), pp. 81–131Google Scholar for an earlier version of this thesis.

⁵⁴ E.g. Plumb's, J. H. review in English Historical Review, LXXII (1957), 126–9;CrossRefGoogle ScholarKenyon, J. P., The Stuarts (London, 1958), p. 231;Google ScholarSperling, J. G., ‘The Division of 25 May 1711 on an Amendment to the South Sea Bill”, Historical Journal, IV (1961), 198–9.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Ellis, E. L.,” The Whig Junto in Relation to the Development of Party Politics and Party Organization from its Inception to 1714” (D.Phil. Thesis, Oxford University, 1962).Google Scholar Dr Ellis's findings have been confirmed by two more recent studies: Speck, W. A., “The House of Commons 1702–14: A Study in Political Organization” (D.Phil. Thesis, Oxford University, 1965);Google Scholar and Holmes, G. S., British Politics in the Age of Anne (London, 1967).Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Even contemporaries seemed to sense that they were witnessing events of quite exceptional magnitude. The Duke himself, for instance, believed ‘that within the memory of man there has been no victory so great” as Blenheim (Marlborough to the Duchess, 14 August 1704 (N.S.), Coxe, op. cit. II, 7). The Emperor agreed that the battle was historically unique (Ibid. p. 22), while Alexander Stanhope, the English representative at The Hague, was driven to fiction in search of an adequate parallel (Trevelyan, , op. cit. I, 393).Google Scholar A Dutch medal struck at the time raised the Duke to the level of a classical demi-god (Coxe, , op. cit. II, 5).Google Scholar Joseph Addison, customarily so prosaic, went even further, comparing the exploits of ‘our god-like leader” with the activities of the angelic host (“The Campaign”, The Works of Joseph Addison, ed. Hurd, R., London, 1893, I, 42–54).Google Scholar The reason for this undiluted joy was that Marlborough had ‘broken the pride of France” (The Emperor to Marlborough, 28 August 1704, Coxe, , op. cit. II, p. 22),Google Scholar and ‘given the balance of Europe into the Queen's hands” (Anon, to Coke, 19 August 1704, H.M.C. Cowper MSS. III, 41) thereby spreading ‘the sweets of English liberty” into remote corners of the continent (Works of Joseph Addison, I, 53).

⁵⁷ Frederick II, King of Prussia, Anti-Machiavel: or an Examination of Machiavel's Prince, with Notes Historical and Political (London, 1741), p. 168.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Although the Duke has in this way won an established place in the Whig hierarchy, he has never been an entirely satisfactory Whig hero. The trouble with him lies in his earlier career. In Anne's reign he saved the Whig cause on the battlefield, but under her predecessor his conduct was more dubious. Never an ardent waver of the Revolution banner, he had suspicious contacts with the Jacobite enemy and was frequently at loggerheads with William III, the Whig redeemer. This tension between the two halves of Marlborough's career has been most keenly felt by those commentators who have themselves been personally engaged in the Whig reform cause. The classic instance here, of course, is the love-hate attitude of Macaulay. (See Macaulay, T. B., The History of England from the Accession of James II, ed. Firth, C. H., London, 1913–1913, 6 vols., passim.)Google Scholar The most vigorous defenders of the Duke are what one might call the ‘Whig Imperialists’—those writers like Churchill who combine an admiration for liberty with a robust nationalism. To these men Marlborough's opposition to Dutch William has not seemed in any way unforgivable iniquity. Perhaps the most rounded Whig portraits, however, have come from the pens of those scholars who have not been deeply engaged personally in political activity. Because of their detachment they have felt no strong necessity either to attack or to defend their hero's lapses. Far and away the best representatives of this group are Coxe, a sheltered clergyman, and the gentleman scholar Trevelyan.

⁵⁹ It is instructive to note that, in their analyses of the politics of the period, both Dr Ellis and Mr Holmes stress Harley more and Marlborough less than do the more traditional studies. In resurrecting party, therefore, they cannot be accused of being neo-Whig historians. They are, indeed, perhaps the first true post-Whig historians of the period. Dr Snyder's article reveals a similar trend.