Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion (59 page)

To soothe the fears of those who objected that Union would imperil the state of religion in Scotland, an Act for the Security of the Church was passed on 12 November, protecting the Kirk’s discipline and government. As a result the Scottish clergy calmed down, but hostility towards the Union only slightly abated. The Queen’s ministers battled on in Parliament, trying not to be intimidated by the angry scenes they encountered whenever they ventured outside. The Earl of Mar informed a colleague in London, ‘I’m not very timorous and yet I tell you that every day here we are in hazard of our lives; we cannot go on the streets but we are insulted’. While disturbed by the possibility that Queensberry and his colleagues might fall victim to ‘some villainous design’ and ‘extremely concerned about the mob’, the Queen did not lose her nerve. She ‘asked whether there was anything to be done in it from hence’, and
arranged for English troops to be stationed near the Scottish border, so that they could intervene if necessary. In England a Whig peer reported that though opponents of the Union ‘show plainly they mean to terrify’, they had only succeeded in making the Queen more determined. In her desire to enhance her ministers’ authority she promised to do everything ‘fit or necessary to let the kingdom know the satisfaction she has with her servants’, and one of them commented that because he could rely on the Queen remaining ‘resolute in the measure of the Union … so I still reckon in its succeeding’. In late November the Earl of Stair noted ‘We have all the encouragement we can wish from her Majesty and her ministers there by their firmness to the measure’; a few days later the Earl of Mar likewise praised the Queen for having ‘indeed done all that could be desired for the support of her servants’.
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It has often been alleged that bribery played a part in securing ratification. Certainly £20,000 was sent to Scotland at this time. £12,000 of this went to Queensberry, though this was to pay arrears already owed him, and did not even cover the full amount outstanding. Others who received sums would have voted for Union without a cash incentive. There was an attempt to put financial pressure on the Duke of Atholl, who was told he would only be paid money due to him if he voted for Union. He retorted that the government must consider him a great fool if it thought he could be bribed at his own expense. In the end he voted against Union, but it seems he was paid some of his arrears regardless. Some other irregularities may have taken place. Certainly the deputy treasurer of Scotland was very alarmed when there was subsequently talk of an enquiry into payments made at the time of the ratification debates, warning that ‘the discovering of it would … bring discredit upon the management of that Parliament’.
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Every provision of the Union treaty was rigorously debated. On 10 December the Earl of Mar reported, ‘we have a struggling, fighting life of it here’, but a fortnight later things had advanced enough for him to declare ‘I think we are now in sight of land’. Sure enough, on 16 January 1707 the final articles of the Union treaty were passed. Nine days later Defoe congratulated himself for having ‘seen the finishing of this happy work’ when he was present at the last ever sitting of the Scottish Parliament. Union had been successfully ‘crammed down Scotland’s throat’, as one Scot resentfully put it; now it only remained to be seen whether the English Parliament would stomach it.
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The government in England had prevented attempts by Tory peers to raise concerns about the Union in Parliament prior to the treaty being
ratified in Scotland. Furthermore, to forestall objections that the Church of England would be imperilled by the Union, on 3 February the Archbishop of Canterbury introduced a bill guaranteeing that Episcopacy would be permanently preserved in England. Convocation, which normally sat simultaneously with Parliament, was suspended to ensure that clerical firebrands in the Lower House had less chance of inflaming opinion.

On 4 February Union was debated for the first time in the House of Commons. Its most energetic opponent was the fanatical Tory, Sir John Packington, who claimed that forcing Scotland into Union was ‘like the marrying a woman against her consent’. He alleged that the measure had been ‘carried on by corruption and bribery within doors and by force and violence without’, but although ‘these bold expressions’ caused offence, they did not inflict worse damage. Members who were against the Union were indignant that more time had not been allotted for debate, shouting ‘Post haste! Post haste!’ as the articles were put to the vote, but on every point supporters of the Union proved to be in the majority.
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The Lords held a five-hour debate on Union on 15 February, with the Queen in attendance the entire time. Opponents of the measure made an impassioned stand: Lord Haversham warned that a kingdom comprising ‘such jarring incongruous ingredients’ was bound to ‘break in pieces’, and the Bishop of Bath and Wells compared it to ‘mixing together strong liquors of a contrary nature’, resulting in ‘furious fermentation’. The Earl of Rochester was ‘apprehensive of the precedent’ of large numbers of Scottish hereditary peers losing their right to vote in Parliament, while Lord Nottingham fulminated against the merged kingdoms being called ‘Great Britain’. He alleged that the change of name would invalidate the laws of both countries, but the judiciary ruled that was not the case.
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To all such objections, the Whig leaders put forward a spirited defence, and won over their fellow peers. On 1 March the Bill of Union was passed, and five days later Anne gave it the royal assent in the House of Lords.

The date set for the Union to come into being was 1 May 1707, and on that day a magnificent thanksgiving service was held at St Paul’s in honour of this momentous event. ‘At least three or four hundred coaches’ were in the procession that bore the Queen to the cathedral, and Lord Godolphin noted that ‘the streets were fuller of people than I have seen them upon any occasion of that kind’. A visiting Scot ‘observed a real joy and satisfaction in the citizens of London, for they were terribly apprehensive of confusions from Scotland in case the Union had not taken
place’. Anne fully shared in her subjects’ delight: as the celebratory anthems rang out, it was noted that ‘nobody on this occasion appeared more sincerely devout and thankful than the Queen herself’.
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The Queen had earlier expressed the hope that Union between England and Scotland would result in ‘the whole island being joined in affection’, but a true bonding between the two nationalities lagged far behind the political merger. The Union remained very unpopular in Scotland for a considerable period of time, not least because its economic benefits did not really manifest themselves until much later in the century, with the advent of the industrial revolution. At the outset there was annoyance about the slow payment of the ‘Equivalent’, and outrage at the activities of newly appointed customs inspectors, charged with enforcing a uniform scale of duties. Accustomed to being regulated more laxly, Scots grumbled that the officers were ‘very scum’, who ‘executed the new laws with all the rigour imaginable’. For decades many Scotsmen felt they had made a ‘bad bargain’ when forging Union, and an upsurge of Jacobitism in Scotland was probably the most notable immediate consequence.
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Yet although the Scots did not appreciate the Union in Anne’s lifetime, most could agree that averting a war that might otherwise have broken out over a disputed succession was an incontrovertible blessing. Union has served England and Scotland well for much of the last three hundred years, even if there is now a possibility that it will not remain the ‘lasting and indissoluble’ one that Queen Anne wanted. She deserves credit for its achievement, having pursued it with quiet determination from the very outset of the reign. The Whigs have been praised for their role in negotiating the treaty, and steering it through Parliament, but their conversion to the cause of Union was belated and opportunistic, whereas the Queen never wavered in her desire for it. ‘We shall esteem it as the greatest glory of our reign … being fully persuaded it must prove the greatest happiness of our people’, she declared in 1706, and it was subsequently said that she ‘prized the Union of her kingdom above pearls and jewels’. She could take justified pride in the tribute paid her by the Earl of Mar, who told her immediately after Union had been concluded, ‘I doubt not but your subjects will always bless your Majesty for this amongst the other great things you have done, and that your memory will be famous and admired in all succeeding ages’.
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9

Guided by Other Hands

During November 1706 Lord Godolphin was still struggling to persuade the Queen to appoint the Earl of Sunderland as her Secretary. On the ninth of the month he groaned to the Duchess of Marlborough ‘There’s a new accident that will make me be wronged. The Bishop of Winchester is dead’.
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He said that he would try and prevent the Queen from choosing a replacement until he had discussed the matter with leading Whigs, but feared that finding a candidate acceptable to all concerned would prove troublesome.

Earlier in the reign Godolphin had been happy to leave matters relating to ecclesiastical preferment to Robert Harley, but now he no longer felt inclined to allow him such latitude. Godolphin’s change of attitude first became apparent in the spring of 1705. When the Bishop of Lincoln had died, the Lord Treasurer had been ‘exceedingly firm’ about telling the Queen that she should give the vacant place to the Whiggish Dean of Exeter, William Wake. After the Whigs had helped him resolve the Hanover invitation crisis, Godolphin decided that one way of rewarding them would be to fill the Episcopal bench with prelates sympathetic to their views. In early 1706 he and Marlborough promised the Whig leaders of the Junto that henceforth senior positions in the Church hierarchy would be awarded to candidates acceptable to them. According to the Duchess of Marlborough, the Queen was not only aware of this undertaking but approved of it.
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However, when the bishopric of Winchester became available that autumn, Godolphin was unable to gratify the Whigs by giving it to a Low Church divine, because he had already promised promotion to the current Bishop of Exeter. The Queen was delighted to move the Tory Bishop Trelawny of Exeter to Winchester, but the Junto peer, Lord Somers, was so displeased he bullied the gout-stricken Archbishop of Canterbury into going to court to remonstrate with Anne. The Queen gave him a frosty reception, telling him curtly, ‘The thing was already determined’.
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The Whigs hoped to receive some redress when a new Bishop of Exeter was named, and after the Bishop of Chester died in early 1707 they assumed that he too would be replaced with someone of whom they approved. Another important ecclesiastical position became vacant upon the death of the Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. The University wanted him to be replaced by his deputy, Dr Smallridge, and Anne herself was known to favour the latter’s candidacy. However, before leaving England to go on campaign in March 1707 the Duke of Marlborough urged her to give the post to Dr John Potter, who would be agreeable to the Whigs.

Although Godolphin had warned her that she could not afford to displease the Whigs, the Queen refused to be constrained by this. ‘Without ever acquainting her Prime Minister with her intention’, she summoned Dr Offspring Blackall and asked whether he would prefer to be made Bishop of Exeter or Chester. After he opted for Exeter, she offered the See of Chester to a protégé of the Archbishop of York named William Dawes. Knowing that this was bound to cause controversy, she told both men that their promotion would not be announced for some months, but she considered herself to have made an irrevocable commitment.
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The Duchess of Marlborough would later admit ‘there is no doubt but the Queen had a right to dispose of vacant bishoprics’, but she maintained that ‘nothing of this is ever done without the advice of the chief minister’. She alleged that Anne only decided to defy Godolphin on the matter because she was being guided by secret advisers who filled her head with ‘notions of the high prerogative … and … of being Queen indeed’. She had to concede, however, that others were shocked by the ministers’ attempts to limit Anne’s freedom of choice, and that this was ‘interpreted by the world and resented by [Anne] herself as hard usage, a denial of common civility, and even the making her no Queen’.
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Despite Sarah seeking to portray Anne’s choice of new bishops as appallingly provocative, Anne herself insisted that ‘all the clamour that is raised against them proceeds only from the malice of the Whigs’. Marlborough was offended that the Queen did not accept his recommendation, and complained that it showed he had lost his credit with her, but it is understandable that Anne did not welcome interference from one who admitted to having ‘little acquaintance among the clergy’.
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She also found it galling that Lords Wharton and Somers, both of whom were notorious for irregular private lives, should expect to be deferred to on this question.