A.D. 1714.] DEATH AND CHARACTER OF ANNE. 681 and when Marlborough carried our military fame to a height it had never reached. Some portion of these glories has been reflected on the queen; but we know from all her conduct how little she could appreciate the genius of her authors or the valour of her soldiers. Selfish enough to retain the throne during her own life, she was unpatriotic enough not to care for the nation's liberties after her decease. She compensated for her want of affection to her father by attachment to her husband; and was perhaps the only person who honoured or even noticed the demise of that insignificant gentleman. The last of the English Stuarts did not belie the character of the line. She was exacting of her small rights, and punctilious about trifles. Otherwise calm-tempered and obliging, she obtained the epithet of the Good Queen Anne; but her picture, instead of showing her between. the true supporters of a monarchy-its constitutional advisers -ought to present her-like that of Shakspeare between Tragedy and Comedy--between the majestic Sarah Jennings and the intriguing Abigail Hill. A.D. LANDMARKS OF CHRONOLOGY.. 1702. Accession of Queen Anne, the only surviving daughter of James II. War of the Spanish succession The States-General give the Sir George Rooke's attack on A.D. 1704. The battle of Blenheim. 1706. Battle of Ramillies. 1709. Battle of Malplaquet gained by The Earl of Marlborough 1712. Battle of Denain, between the EMPEROR OF GERMANY.-Charles VI. POPES.-Clement XI.; Innocent XIII.; Benedict XIII. PRUSSIA.-Frederick William I. RUSSIA.-Peter I. (the Great, who in 1721 assumed the imperial § 1. Accession of George I. of the House of Brunswick. His character. Allies himself with the Whigs. Impeachment of Bolingbroke and Lord Oxford.-2. State of parties and popular disturbances. § 3. Rebellion of the Earl of Mar in favour of the Pretender. The Scotch army defeated at Preston.-§ 4. Battle of Sheriff Moor. The Pretender arrives in Scotland. The rebellion subdued. The Pretender's flight.-S 5. Wholesale executions for treason, and numerous forfeitures.-§ 6. The Triennial Act annulled, and the sitting of Parliament extended to seven years.-§ 7. George enters into the intricacies of continental affairs as connected with his kingdom of Hanover. § 8. The Quadruple Alliance. War with Spain, and destruction of the Spanish fleet by Admiral Byng. Its important results. § 9. Domestic struggles and party strife. Opposition of A.D. D. 1714.] ACCESSION OF GEORGE I. 683 the Prince of Wales. -§ 10. Family hatred, and the king's depravity. -§ 11. Progress of literature and social refinement. § 12. The South Sea Bubble. Its ruinous effects. Sir Robert Walpole appointed Minister of Finance. -§ 13. Disgraceful venality of public men. Punishment of the Chancellor, Lord Macclesfield. Bishop Atterbury's plot in favour of the Pretender.-§ 14. Confederation against England. At war with the Emperor and Spain. Alliance with France and Prussia. Peace of Soissons. Death of the king. § 1. THE plots which had been going on during the last years of Anne were discomfited by the suddenness of her death. The Jacobites and Tories had not come to terms, and, unless they combined, the Whigs were the possessors of power. Harley, Earl of Oxford, and Bolingbroke, had compromised themselves in vain, and no opposition was made to the proclamation of King George, or his amicable reception when he arrived in his new dominions. His government of Hanover had been moderate and wise, but it was uncontrolled by parliaments, and formed a bad introduction to the political trials on which he was now to enter. But the habit of independence made him straightforward in his actions. He would not play one faction against another, and at once threw himself on the Whigs, to whom he owed his throne. It might have been wiser to temporise, for when the Tories saw that they were neglected, and the Jacobites knew that every day's possession would add to his power, they fused into each other. Bolingbroke escaped to the Continent, and became Secretary of State to the Pretender within a few weeks of holding the same office to Queen Anne. Oxford might have followed his example, if he had not been arrested and sent to the Tower; and George, accustomed to the solemn obedience of his German subjects, and utterly ignorant of our manners and language, could only say in his broken English, "Strange people! Strange people!" § 2. Whenever the mobs of the towns saw an approach to liberality, they had visions of Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans. Riots accordingly arose in various places where the Government seemed fixed in the hands of the supporters of the Revolution, and outcries were heard in the streets of "Down with the Roundheads!" But as the Church was still considered the bulwark of the country against Dissenters, Papists, Whigs, and all other dangerous characters, they conIcluded with shouts for Dr. Sacheverell. In London they forced the Life The opposition burned the picture of King William, and Guards to join in their High Church hurras. consisted, therefore, of the Cavaliers, the Tories, the Jacobites, and the lowest classes of all. The ministry was supported by the great families who had invited the Prince of Orange, the moneyed interest, the merchants, and the middle classes in the towns. If the old legitimists had been quiet they might have benefited their cause; but when they prepared the way for the Pretender's arrival by a rebellion in the north of England, the Tory squires and High Church clergy did not like to have their allegiance demanded at the point of the sword, and left the avowed Jacobites, with the aid of the Catholic gentry, to fight the battle for themselves. § 3. It was a very short battle. The Earl of Mar raised the standard of James III. in the Highlands, on the sixth of September. Many of the other chiefs brought their clans to his camp, and two vessels with military stores and money, furnished privately by Louis XIV., arrived from Havre at Dundee. Their numbers were so great, and their spirits so high, that they did not despair even when they heard of the death of their royal patron. They made a march to join the discontented in the Lowlands, with the object of uniting their forces, and strengthening the rebels on the other side of the Border. The march was effected, and the Scottish Highlanders, who knew nothing about the question, and even some of the blue bonnet Cameronians, who had been promised a repeal of the hated Union with England, drew sword by the side of the Tories and Papists, in favour of the son of James II., who had crushed their fathers' knee-bones in the boots. A D. 1715] BATTLE OF SHERIFF MOOR. 685 George was aware of what was going on, and took steps accordingly. He garrisoned Oxford, cashiered his doubtful officers, and asked the House's leave to arrest some suspected members. Before the uncongenial confederates had settled into order, and while they held the small town of Preston, uncertain of their future movements, the army was upon them. Resistance became hopeless, and the rash leaders of the expedition surrendered at discretion, and were lodged in different prisons. Some who had previously served the queen were shot as deserters, and party spirit was too fierce to allow a hope of anything but a short trial and bloody end to any of the others. § 4. The battle of 'Dunblane, or Sheriff Moor, where the Jacobite right wing defeated the left wing of the Hanoverians, whose right was successful at the same time, enabled both sides to claim the victory, but exposed both sides to insulting ballads commemorating their mutual defeat. Defeat, or even a half victory in a rebellion, is fatal, and a braver man than the Pretender might have been excused if, in this state of affairs, he had remained quietly in Lorraine. But he had gone too English cruisers in a far to recede, and having escaped the little boat from Dunkirk, he landed at Peterhead, and was proclaimed in due form at all the towns of which his adherents were in possession, till he reached the sacred village of Scone. Here he determined to be crowned, as all his predecessors had been, and while his followers were marched from gaol to gaol, and troops in great bodies were concentrating on Edinburgh, and the clansmen were quietly stealing off from camps and barrack yards, and getting back to their native valleys, his Majesty of Scone occupied his great faculties in arranging the ceremonial of his coronation, and publishing important royal orders, first, for a day of thanksgiving for his safe arrival; second, for the insertion of his name in all forms of prayer; third, for the currency of foreign coins; fourth, for a convention of all the estates of the realm; fifth, for the |