The Spider's Touch (54 page)

Marlborough was replaced in his command by James Butler, the second Duke of Ormonde, a less brilliant, but also less arrogant gentleman. Ormonde was a Tory under the leadership of Lord Bolingbroke.

There is no question that the majority of the English wanted peace. With few respites, England had been at war on the Continent since 1687; however, these peace negotiations were carried on in secret, without the knowledge of England’s partners in the Grand Alliance, who could not be persuaded to end the conflict. Under Bolingbroke’s direction, Ormonde held back from battle with the French when his official orders from the Queen were to engage the enemy at every opportunity. It is not clear how much Queen Anne knew about the negotiations, but many documents were found to have been issued without the appropriate signatures and seals.

The war was not the only object of intrigue. Since the overthrow of James II in 1689, his son and legitimate heir, James Edward Francis Stuart, had lived with his mother and his court on the charity of Louis XIV at St. Germain-en-Laye near Paris, hoping to regain the thrones of England and Scotland. More than once, Louis had financed troops and ships for the Stuarts to retake England, but every attempt had failed.

Both Bolingbroke and Harley, along with many Tories, corresponded with James. They led him to believe that either Queen Anne, his half-sister, would be persuaded to designate him as her successor or that they would manage to get Parliament to change the Act of Succession in his favor. If James could have been persuaded to forsake his Roman Catholic faith, this might have happened, but he staunchly refused. This put his English sympathizers in a bind, for they knew how strongly their countrymen opposed the notion of a Catholic king. To protect themselves and their political careers, they, therefore, carried on a simultaneous correspondence with George. By 1711, the issue of peace seems to have become more compelling for them than a second Stuart restoration.

Parliament had declared James an outlaw and had put a price of £100,000 on his head. So, during the secret peace negotiations, the terms of which eventually would have to be brought to light in order to be ratified, James was sold down the river. As part of the agreement, Louis agreed to recognize the Protestant succession in England and not to assist James in any way in his quest for the throne. The Whigs would have demanded that Louis surrender James to them for execution. Instead, Louis was made to exile him from France. The trouble was that James was such a hot potato that nobody wanted him. Finally, with the use of secret-service funds, the Tories paid the impoverished Duke of Lorraine to offer James a haven at Bar-le-Duc. Queen Anne, who, though a Protestant, sincerely regretted her brother’s plight, was party to this transaction at least.

Once the Tory ministers came to their secret peace with France, they approached their allies with a completed deal. Without England, the others knew that they would never succeed in unseating Philip from Spain and would have much less chance of gaining territory, so after two more years of negotiations, the long war was finally brought to an end.

The peace had no sooner been made and James sent to Bar, than Queen Anne died. George succeeded her to the throne when the Tories were in complete disarray. Caught in the midst of indecision, most Tories, including Bolingbroke, decided to throw in their lot with the elected king. During the years of the Tory ministry, however, the Whigs had been courting George. They convinced him that the Tories were all Jacobites—adherents of James—and as a result, when he arrived, he appointed only Whig ministers.

Infuriated by the secret peace negotiations, the Whigs immediately began an investigation of the Tory ministers, who were impeached for betraying the interest of their country.

Ironically, the Treaty of Utrecht, as it came to be known, was the most important treaty in English history. More than any other single event, it was responsible for the expansion of English mercantile power. Through it, England gained Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, the Hudson’s Bay Territory, Gibralter and Minorca, and a thirty-year monopoly on the American slave trade, which would make her the richest trading nation in the world.

But in 1715, when this story opens, the trading interests in England were so intent on punishing their rivals that they did not foresee the benefits of the Peace of Utrecht.

Copyright © 2006 by Patricia Wynn Ricks

Originally published by Pemberley Press

Electronically published in 2011 by Belgrave House

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This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.