some politicians of this age. Harley had early distinguished himself as a Tory; along with Henry St John he was admitted to the councils of Marlborough as a Whig, but both turned themselves secretly round to the ways of Tory ism. Improper conduct, which had taken place in the deportment of Harley, probably accidental as far as respected himself, interrupted the smoothness of their progress. The duke of Marlborough had still influence sufficient to clear the council of those who became more openly his opponents, but from the period when the queen was compelled to accede to such a measure, the displeasure of her stubborn mind was unchangeably turned against Marlborough. For two years the country was governed by a purely Whig ministry, but Marlborough fell into disgrace from opposing a scandalous promotion of a relation of Mrs Masham. The dutchess strove to revive the spirit of their ancient friendship, but the queen was obdurate, the Whigs were dismissed, and a new administration was headed by Rochester, St John, and Harley. The queen then called for a resignation of the offices of the dutchess. The duke interceded for delay in a measure carrying with it so deep a reflection; but, with the obstinacy which little minds mistake for firmness, Anne refused this small favour to her ancient friend, though the warrior had condescended to beg it on his knees.42 The treaty of peace, so advantageous to France, which was ratified by the Tory ministry of Anne, has been well canvassed, and is not a subject for discussion in so brief a memoir; it must, however, be admitted, on an impartial review, that the terms obtained by Britain were not such as would have justified the bloodshed by which they were purchased; and that however certainly peace is always accompanied by blessings, it is a degrading thought, that all which the ambition of one woman had drained the best blood of the land to obtain, was relinquished by the intrigues of an other. 43 Queen Anne survived for a considerable period the death of her husband, which took place in the year 1708. During the latter days of her reign the kingdom was in a state of excitement from the dangers of a disputed succession, and few subjects have been more hotly agitated than the question, whether or not what is called the protestant succession was then in danger. Although those who knew well the councils of the times have left behind them solemn declarations of the integrity of the intentions of the government, and its designs have been defended by writers who cannot be called partial," now, when time has softened the bitterness of party feeling on the subject, and perhaps diminished our ideas of the guilt of such an attempt, few will deny that the Tories of the latter days of Queen Anne held a correspondence with the court of St Germains, nor can Godolphin and some of his party be entirely acquitted of a similar charge.' That the queen countenanced such proceedings we have no evidence but the remarks and speculations of some sanguine Jacobites, and it is probable that her sentiments on this 42 Coxe, vol. iii. p. 354. 46 45 Bolingbroke's State of Parties at the accession of Geo, I., Works, vol. iii. p. 140.— Swift's Free Thoughts upon the present state of affairs, Works, vol. v. p. 405. "Somerville, p. 573, &c. 45 Macpherson's Papers; and some obscure hints in Lockhart's Commentaries.-Memoirs of the duke of Berwick.-Carte.-And compare Laing, vol. iv. p. 383. 46 Perhaps the clearest (yet still extremely dubious) passage on this point may be found in the Lockhart Papers, vol. i. p. 317. It is remarkable, but too long for extraction. Hallam refers to it, and seems to give it rather more than its due weight. point may remain as dubious as she seems to have wished them to be. The last days of the queen were imbittered by dissensions in her cabinet, which she in vain tried to assuage. On the 29th of July, 1714, she contracted a lethargic disorder, which made such rapid progress, that next day her life was despaired of. She continued in a state of lethargy and unconsciousness, with few intervals, until the 1st day of August, when she expired, in the 50th year of her age and in the 13th of her reign. It was her misfortune that her best qualities were those which least became a queen. Her warmth of friendship might have ornamented private life, but it sullied her conduct as a queen. Her benevolence acquired for her the honourable term of The good Queen Anne,' and was such as with opulence might have blessed a neighbourhood, but in a kingdom she had not the genius to make it useful. George L. BORN A. D. 1660.—died a. d. 1727. THE ancestors of the house of Brunswick were connected, at an early period, with the royal family of England, by the marriage of Henry, surnamed the Lion, to Matilda, daughter of Henry II., from whom George I. was lineally descended. Ernest Augustus, the first duke of Hanover, was married in 1658 to Sophia, daughter of Frederick, king of Bohemia, by Elizabeth, the daughter of James I. of England. The Princess Sophia was a woman of great beauty and vigorous intellect. She was the friend and protector of Leibnitz and other learned men of her day. She spoke five languages, including English, so well, that by her accent it was doubtful which of them was her native tongue. The succession of her family to the throne of England had long been her darling object, and her death has been attributed to the chagrin she felt at her son's intended visit to England being strongly deprecated by Queen Anne. Her son, George Lewis, was born at Hanover on the 28th of May, 1660. Judging from the accomplishments of his mother, it might have been expected that his education would have been careful and complete; but the contrary was the fact. His father, Ernest, though a man of some talent, had little admiration for scholastic acquirements, and probably connived at his inattention to study, which must have been gross indeed, as he never acquired even the language of the people over whom, by the provisions of the act for securing a protestant succession, he expected to reign! His morals, too, were most culpably neglected, and his habits and ideas at length became exceedingly depraved. In the twenty-second year of his age he was united, against his inclinations, to the Princess Sophia Dorothea, then about sixteen. The unfortunate princess was neglected, if not hated, by her husband, almost from the day of their marriage; and, for a period of ten years, during which she gave birth to two children, afterwards George II., king of England, and Sophia Dorothea, queen of Prussia, she is said to have endured a series of indignities which were as irritating as they were unmerited. On the death of his father in 1698, George succeeded to the elec torate, and rather a favourable change took place in his character; so that he acquired a degree of respectability, which, from his previous follies, could scarcely have been anticipated. He was placed at the head of the imperial army, after the battle of Blenheim; but the jealousies of his confederates induced him to give up his command, after having retained it during three campaigns. It was late in the evening of the 5th of August, 1714, that Lord Clarendon, the English ambassador at the court of Hanover, having received an express announcing the demise of Queen Anne, repaired, with all possible haste, to the palace of Herenhausen; at two hours after midnight he entered the chamber of the elector, and, kneeling, saluted him king of Great Britain; but the ambassador's homage, it appears, was received with mortifying serenity. The sovereign appeared to be exceedingly secure of his new subjects, for when some one in his presence spoke of the dangerous principles of the presbyterians, and alluded to the death of Charles I., he replied, with a pleasant indifference, "I have nothing to fear, for the king-killers are all on my side." He seemed in no haste to leave Herenhausen, nor did he commence his journey till the 31st of August. On the eve of his departure, he ordered the excise on provisions to be abolished, and the insolvent debtors throughout the electorate to be discharged. He reached the Hague on the 5th of September, but did not embark until the 16th, and arrived at Greenwich on the 18th of the same month. He made his public entry into London on the 20th; and his coronation took place, with the usual solemnities, on the 20th of October. At the first court which he held he treated some of the late queen's ministers with marked contempt, and others with coldness. Lord Oxford was permitted to kiss the king's hand, but received no further notice. Chancellor Harcourt, who had prepared and brought with him a patent for creating the king's eldest son prince of Wales, was forthwith turned out of his office. The duke of Ormond, who was captain-general, and had come with great splendour to pay his court, was informed that the king had no occasion for his services, and was not allowed even to come into the royal presence. Pursuant to an order despatched by the king previously to his departure from Hanover, Bolingbroke had been already dismissed; and his majesty appeared bent on depressing, as much as possible, all the open and secret enemies of his house. In the early part of his reign, or at least on his arrival in this country, George I. was far from being unpopular; but his decidedly foreign appearance and manners, when they became known, lowered him materially in public estimation. His two German mistresses, who were created dutchess of Kendal and countess of Darlington, shortly after his accession, became seriously offensive to the people. Nor does the king appear to have been infinitely delighted with his new subjects; he sighed for his beloved electorate, and spoke and acted like a man ill at ease in a strange house, and longing to be at home again. "This is a very odd country!" said he. "The first morning after my arrival at St James's, I looked out of the window and saw a park with walls, and a canal, which they told me were mine. The next day Lord Chetwynd, the ranger of my park, sent me a brace of fine carp out of my canal; and I was told I must give five guineas to Lord Chetwynd's man for bringing me my own carp out of my own canal in my own park !" One of the most important circumstances in the early part of this king's reign was the impeachment of some of the tory leaders for the share they had taken in the treaty of Utrecht; and their conduct was visited, in the opinion of a still large and powerful party, with unnecessary rigour. Inflammatory papers were circulated to a great extent against the new monarch; various parts of the country were agitated by tumults; and, at length, about the middle of September, in 1715, the earl of Mar proclaimed the pretender as James III. at Castletown in Scotland. He soon collected an army of ten thousand men, and an insurrection followed in Northumberland, under the earl of Derwentwater; but that nobleman was compelled, in the early part of November, to surrender, with many of his partisans. On the same day a bloody, but indecisive battle was fought at Sheriffmoor, between Mar and the duke of Argyle. On the 25th of December, the pretender landed at Peterhead; but he displayed so little judgment, his plans were so ill arranged, and the insurrection in his favour met with such faint support from the English Jacobites, that, in the February following, he found it prudent to re-embark for France. A terrible scene of blood and vengeance ensued; the meaner throng of prisoners suffered without exciting much sympathy; but on the condemnation of the Lords Derwentwater, Nairne, and Nithsdale, with many other noblemen, a universal sentiment of compassion prevailed. To his eternal honour, Duncan Forbes, then advocate-depute, though he and his family had distinguished themselves by their exertions to put down the pretender, refused to go into England to act as public prosecutor of the Scots rebels, taken in arms in that country. Nor did he content himself with barely declining a task which most other men would have eagerly undertaken as the high road to advancement: he even composed and transmitted, to Sir Robert Walpole, an energetic memorial against the injustice and impolicy of treating the rebels as the ministry were about to do. In consequence of divers petitions presented to the house of peers, a motion was made and carried by a majority of five voices, that the house should address the throne to reprieve such of the condemned lords as really deserved mercy. But the king haughtily answered, that on this and all other occasions he would do what he thought most consistent with the dignity of the crown and the safety of the people. In 1716, the disaffection to the house of Brunswick induced its staunch adherents, the whigs, who were in office, to propose the famous septennial act, by which a power was assumed, not merely of increasing the duration of future parliaments, but even of prolonging the existence of that assembly by which it was enacted: so that, although only elected by the nation for three years, it conferred on itself the power of sitting for seven. This iniquitous and totally indefensible bill, after a long and violent struggle, was passed, and of course received the royal assent. In 1717, the king and his ministers were exceedingly unpopular. Oaken-boughs worn on the 29th of May, and white roses on the 10th of June, the birth-day of the pretender, were the badges of the disaffected. Oxford, and especially the university, was the focus of disloyalty; and it was deemed expedient to send a military force there, in order to prevent any seditious or treasonable attempts. Cambridge being more complaisant, received a royal present of books; and Dr Trapp wrote the following epigram on the occasion :- Our royal master saw, with heedful eyes, Troops he to Oxford sent, as knowing why But books to Cambridge gave, as well discerning Sir William Browne thus retorted, as it was said, impromptu The king to Oxford sent a troop of horse, For tories know no argument but force; For whigs allow no force but argument. In this year, the king being desirous of visiting Hanover, appointed a committee of the privy council to consider in what manner it might be most adviseable to settle the regency in the event of his determining to spend some part of the year in Hanover. The ministers gave their opinion with great freedom against the journey, but declared that, in the event of his majesty persisting in his intentions, no other person could be proposed for the regency than the prince of Wales. The appointment was accordingly made; and the prince acquired so much popularity by his administration as regent, as to excite the jealousy of his father towards him on his return. He is even said to have meditated a scheme for the exclusion of his heir-apparent from the suc cession. In 1718, a plan was formed to assassinate the king by a political fanatic, named James Shepherd, a youth under nineteen years of age. He had imbibed from childhood the highest principles of monarchical right; and, regarding George the First as an usurper, he had coolly resolved to put him to death. On the 24th of January he wrote to one Leake, a nonjuring clergyman, that he was certain, if the reigning prince were removed, the true king—meaning the pretender-might be restored without bloodshed. He offered to invite his majesty home; and on his arrival, promised to smite the usurper in his palace. He owned the chance of his suffering a cruel death, and that he might the better support it, desired to receive the holy sacrament daily until he made the attempt. Leake, much alarmed, carried the letter to a magistrate, and Shepherd was apprehended. He gloried in his design, and said it had been three years in his contemplation. On his trial he disdained to make any defence, but owned the truth of the charge, and declared he died a willing martyr to his principles. At the place of execution he was publicly absolved by Arne, a nonjuring priest, and died with great firmness. His political fanaticism seems to have amounted so clearly to positive insanity, that a cell in a madhouse would have been much more proper for him than a halter at Tyburn. Few circumstances in the reign of George the First were more remarkable than the formation and bursting of the South Sea bubble. On the 7th of April, 1720, an act was passed, investing the South Sea company with power to take in, by purchase and subscription, both the redeemable and unredeemable debts of the nation to the amount of thirtythree millions, at such rates as should be settled between the company |