pleasure of the Crown; whilst all members accepting old places were to vacate their seats, and to appeal for re-election to a constituency if they thought fit to do so. Subsequent legislation went farther and disqualified persons holding many of the old places from sitting in parliament, with the general result that, whilst the holders of pensions and smaller places are now excluded from the House of Commons, the important ministers of the Crown are allowed to sit there, thereby keeping up that close connection between ministers and Parliament which is so efficacious in promoting a good understanding between them. 18. The Tory Foreign Policy. 1701. In foreign policy the Tories blamed William and the Whigs for concluding the Partition Treaties. France and Spain, they held, would still be mutually jealous of one another, even though Louis sat on the throne of France and his grandson on the throne of Spain, whereas the territory which, according to the second treaty, would have been actually annexed to France, would have given to Louis exorbitant influence in Europe. Accordingly they impeached the leading Whigs, Somers, Portland, Orford, and Montague, who had lately become Lord Halifax. The impeached peers were, however, supported by the House of Lords, and nothing could be done against them. If only Louis had behaved with ordinary prudence, the peace policy of the Tories would have carried the day. He seemed, however, resolved to show that he meant to dispose of the whole of the forces of both monarchies. There was a line of fortified towns, known as the barrier fortresses, raised on the southern frontier of the Spanish Netherlands, to defend them against France, at a time when France and Spain were hostile. As the Spanish Government had lately shown itself incapable of keeping fortresses in repair or of providing them with sufficient garrisons, it had been agreed that half of each garrison should be composed of Dutch soldiers. Early in 1701, Louis, with the assistance of the Spanish half of each garrison, got possession of every one of these fortresses in a single night, turned out the Dutch, and replaced them by French soldiers. For all military purposes the Spanish Netherlands might as well have been under the immediate government of Louis. 19. The Kentish Petition. 1701.-To the Dutch the possibility of a French army advancing without hindrance to their frontier was extremely alarming; while in England there had always been a strong feeling against the occupation by the French of the coast opposite the mouth of the Thames. Louis's interference in the Netherlands therefore did something to rouse a warlike spirit in 1701 PREPARATIONS FOR WAR 675 England. In April a petition to the House of Commons was drawn up by the gentlemen of Kent and presented by five of their number. This Kentish Petition asked the Commons to support the king and to turn their loyal addresses into Bills of supply.' The House sent the five who brought the petition to the Tower, on the plea that the constituencies had done their work when they had elected their members, and had.no right to influence the proceedings of the House when once the elections had been completed. As the Tories had defended the authority of the House against the ministers, so they now defended it against the electors. 20. The Grand Alliance. 1701.-William saw that the feeling of the country would soon be on the side of war. Having obtained the consent, even of the Tory House of Commons, to defensive measures, he raised new troops and sent 10,000 men to protect the Dutch against any attack which Louis might make upon them. At the head of this force he placed Marlborough, whom he had again taken into favour (see p. 658). In September he advanced a step farther. War had already broken out in Italy between France and Spain on the one side, and the Emperor Leopold, as ruler of the Austrian dominions, on the other. Both William and the Dutch would have been glad of a compromise with Louis, and would have left Spain to Philip V. if Leopold could have part, at least, of the Spanish dominions in Italy. Louis would hear of no compromise, and on September 7 William signed the Grand Alliance, as it was called, between England, Austria, and the Dutch Republic; of which the objects were to restore to the Dutch the control of the barrier fortresses, to secure to Leopold the Italian possessions of Spain, and to provide that the Crowns of France and Spain should never be united. 21. Death of James II. 1701.-The day before this treaty was signed James II. died in France. Louis at once acknowledged as king his son, the child who had been held in England to be supposititious, and who was afterwards known as the Pretender by his enemies, and as James III. by his friends. At once all England burst into a storm of indignation against Louis, for having dared to acknowledge as king of England a boy whose title had been rejected by the English Parliament and nation. William seized the opportunity and dissolved the Tory Parliament. A new Parliament was returned with a small Whig majority. It passed an Act ordering all persons holding office to take an oath of abjuration of the Pretender's title, and raised the army to 40,000 men, granting at the same time a considerable sum for the navy. He 22. Death of William. 1702. Early in 1702 William was looking forward to taking the command in the war which was beginning. On February 20 his horse stumbled over a mole-hill in Hampton Park. He fell, and broke his collar bone. lingered for some days, and, on March 8, he died. His work, if not accomplished, was at least in a fair way of being accomplished. His main object in life had been to prevent Louis from domineering in Europe, whilst the maintenance of the constitutional liberties of England had been with him only a secondary object. That he succeeded in what he undertook against Louis was owing, primarily, to the self-sufficiency and obstinacy, first of Louis himself and then of James II.; but all the blunders of his adversaries would have availed him little if he had not himself been possessed of invincible patience and of the tact which perceives the line which divides the practicable from the impracticable. That he was a Continental statesman with Continental aims stood in the way of his popularity in England. His merit was that, being aware how necessary English support was to him on the Continent, he recognised that his only hope of securing the help of England lay in persistent devotion to her domestic interests and her constitutional liberties; and that devotion, in spite of some blunders and some weaknesses, he uninterruptedly gave to her during the whole course of his reign. 1708 1709 1710 1713 1711 1713 1714 Battles of Almanza and Oudenarde Battle of Malplaquet. The Sacheverell Trial Battles of Brihuega and Villa Viciosa. Dismissal of Marlborough and Creation of Twelve Peers Death of Anne 1. Marlborough and the Tories. 1702.--Anne was a goodhearted woman of no great ability, warmly attached to the Church of England, and ready to support it in its claims against the 1702 MARLBOROUGH AND THE QUEEN 677 Dissenters. She therefore preferred the Tories to the Whigs, and filled all the ministerial offices with Tories. Marlborough, who, through his wife, had boundless influence over the Queen, found it expedient to declare himself a Tory, though he had little sympathy with the extravagances of the extreme members of that party, and wanted merely to have a firm Government which would support him in his military enterprises. His chief ally was Lord Godolphin, to whose son one of his daughters was married. Godolphin was Lord Treasurer, and, being an excellent financier, was likely to be able to find the money needed for a great war. He was also a fitting man to keep the ministers from quarrelling with one another. He had frequently been in office, and he liked official work better than party strife. "Little Sidney Godolphin," Charles II. had once said of him, "is never in the way, and never out of the way," and this character he retained to the end. 2. Louis XIV. and Marlborough. 1702.-As far as the war and foreign affairs were concerned, Marlborough was the true successor of William III. The difficulties with which he had to contend were, indeed, enormous. Louis XIV., at the opening of the war, had a fine military position. His flanks were guarded by the possession of the Spanish Netherlands on the left and of Spain itself on the right, whilst an alliance which he formed with the Elector of Bavaria gave him military command of a tract of land accessible without much difficulty from his own territory. This tract, on the one hand, enabled a French army to make an easy attack on the Austrian dominions beyond the Inn, whilst on the other hand it divided the forces of the allies into two parts, cutting off the Austrian army in Italy, under Prince Eugene, from the English and Dutch armies in the Netherlands, both of which were under the command of Marlborough. Louis was, moreover, the sole master of all his armies, and could easily secure obedience to his orders. Marlborough had the more difficult task of securing obedience, not only from the English and Dutch armies, but from the numerous contingents sent by the German princes, most of whom now joined the Grand Alliance. The most important of these princes was Frederick I., the Elector of Brandenburg, who had been made by the Emperor king of Prussia, in order to induce him to join the allies. To the difficult task of guiding this heterogencous following, Marlborough brought not only a consummate military genius far transcending that of William, but a temper as imperturbable as William's own. 3. Marlborough's First Campaign in the Netherlands. 17021703.-Marlborough's aim was to break Louis's power in South Germany, but he knew better than to attempt this at once. The French held the fortresses of the Spanish Netherlands and of the Rhine-country, covering the roads by which the Dutch territory could be assailed with advantage on its eastern and south-eastern sides; and, as long as this was the case, it was certain that the Dutch would not allow their army to go far from home. Marlborough therefore devoted the two campaigns of 1702 and 1703 to |