REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE
IMPORTANT QUESTIONS AND MOVEMENTS
1. THE SUCCESSION TO THE CROWN
This question, especially after the death of all Anne's children, became a most important one. The Whigs and the country in general were bent upon securing a Protestant succession, but there were some, especially amongst the Tories, who were secret supporters of the Pretender, James Stuart, son of James II. The Act of Settlement had provided for the accession of Sophia as the nearest Protestant descendant of James I, on the failure of Anne's issue. At one time the Scotch Parliament threatened to elect as king a different sovereign from that of England, unless Scotland should be given the same commercial privileges as England possessed. The Act of Security, passed in 1704, declared as much. Both Bolingbroke and Harley were in correspondence with the Pretender, and it was only through the death of the Queen earlier than had been expected that a revolution in favour of the exiled Stuarts was averted.
2. GOVERNMENT BY PARTY
Until the reign of Anne what we now call Party Government was unknown. We may see the beginnings of the division of politicians into Whig and Tory in the Roundhead and Cavalier factions in the reign of Charles I. Government by the one strong man of the time—a Burleigh, a Cromwell, a Marlborough—was the usual thing. Marlborough was the last who tried to govern without party. During the reign of Anne the Whigs and Tories were combined in varying proportions, till the final return of a Tory House of Commons and the formation of a purely Tory ministry, in 1711. From that time Party Government, as we now understand it, has generally prevailed.
3. POWER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND THE MINISTERS
Anne was good-natured, and not disposed to give herself too much trouble, which made it possible for her ministers to wield more power over the country and its destinies. Nevertheless, the Queen had a will of her own, and made her influence felt, especially in Church matters. On the whole, however, Parliament and the Ministers gained in importance and influence during the reign. Marlborough, Harley, St. John, Rochester, Nottingham, were some of the leading ministers, and towards the end of the reign Sir Robert Walpole is first heard of as a politician.
4. THE QUESTION OF THE SUCCESSION TO THE SPANISH THRONE
When Philip of Bourbon, the grandson of Louis XIV, was proclaimed as Philip V of Spain, England, Holland, and some other nations felt that the peace of Europe, or rather the freedom of the rest of it, were threatened by the union of two such mighty powers. Accordingly the Allies set up in opposition the Archduke Charles of Austria, and it was in support of the claims of Charles to the throne of Spain that all the wars of Anne's reign were waged. When at length Charles became Emperor, the Allies had no farther reason for fighting, as it would have been equally adverse to the interests of the rest of the Continent to combine Spain and the Empire. Philip thus remained King of Spain, though he had to renounce his claims to France.
5. THE UNION OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND
The project for the union of the two countries had been talked of for some time, but there were difficulties concerning religious matters, trade, and the refusal of Scotland to pay any of the English debt, in the way. By the Act of Security Sophia was declared to be ineligible for the Scottish throne, and England was in alarm. A commission was appointed to consider the question of the union, and the Act of Union was passed in 1707. Many Scotchmen were greatly opposed to the step, yet it cannot be denied that Scotland herself has been a great gainer by the Union.
6. THE NATIONAL DEBT
The borrowing of money to pay for wars did not originate in the reign of Anne, but the War of the Spanish Succession added no less a sum than twenty-two millions to the indebtedness of the country, and from that time the National Debt began to assume large proportions. Many people were greatly alarmed at the state of things in this respect, and there were many who prophesied the speedy bankruptcy of the nation.
7. PEACE AT HOME
This reign is remarkable for the entire absence of internal risings and disaffections. Only one person was executed for treason.
8. LITERATURE, AND ITS INFLUENCE ON POLITICS
This has been called the Augustan age of English Literature. Pope, Addison, Steele, Swift, Defoe, Sir Isaac Newton, Vanbrugh, Congreve, Farquhar, Prior, Parnell, Colley Cibber, Gilbert Burnet, and others flourished. The first daily newspaper, the Daily Courant, was published in 1709. Pamphleteers, chief among them Swift, Addison, and Defoe, by their writings played a great part in politics, there being no newspaper press to mould people's opinions. No other period in English history, except, perhaps, the times of Shakespeare, has produced so many notable writers.
9. THE PEOPLE
The population of England in this reign is supposed to have been about five millions. London itself contained half a million, but even the best of the provincial towns were small, as we reckon populations nowadays. Bristol, the second town in size, possessed not more than some thirty thousand souls, while York, Norwich, and Exeter, which came next, had considerably fewer people than that. The bulk of the people lived in the country, either in the villages, or in the petty market-towns which were not much superior. The country squire class was the most important in the community. Below this, but likewise occupying a very important position in the country, were the clergy and yeomen. Probably at no time was the yeoman class more numerous, more prosperous, and more influential. The squire was in point of education often inferior to the well-to-do farmer of our own day, but very proud of his family.
10. THE CLERGY
The clergymen of the period were, as a rule, especially in the remoter districts, men of inferior standing, often of low origin and of little learning. They were badly paid, generally speaking, and often had to eke out a slender income by taking to farming pursuits. It was not at all unusual for the clergyman to marry the lady's maid or other of the upper servants in the great family of his neighbourhood. Queen Anne, to relieve the poverty of the poorer livings, founded the fund known as Queen Anne's Bounty, giving up for the purpose the first-fruits and the tenths. It is worth noting that the terms Low and High Churchmen were political rather than religious terms, the former being applied to the Whigs, and the latter to the Tories.
11. DWELLINGS
The style of architecture known as that of Queen Anne prevailed at this time, and many a country mansion of this date, red-bricked and many-windowed, is still to be seen in England. But the houses of the poor were for the most part still wretched, of mud or plaster, and badly thatched. The windows were small and few in number; the furniture was scanty and mean; sanitary matters were scarcely attended to at all. But the growing prosperity of the country was beginning to show itself in the better equipment and furnishing of the household, particularly among the yeomen and the rising town tradesmen. Advantage was taken of the Great Fire to improve the streets and dwellings of the capital.
12. DRESS
Among the gentry the influence of the magnificent court of Louis XIV began to make itself felt in the matter of dress, and both gentlemen and ladies affected gay attire. The hoop-petticoat came into fashion, and the dress was looped up at intervals to show the richly-coloured skirt below. The gentlemen wore knee-breeches and silk stockings, the former ornamented with knots of ribbon; the scarf was very full and rich, and often fell in folds over the front of the waistcoat; the coat was usually gaily coloured. Swords were worn by the gallants, and the periwig was seen everywhere in high society. The dress of the lower ranks was of sober colour, and of stout but coarse texture. The women wore homespun, and sometimes home-woven linsey-woolsies. The use of linen and silk was coming in among those in better circumstances.
13. FOOD AND DRINK
Tea was only just beginning to be known, and was a luxury for the rich. In London the coffee-houses were everywhere, playing a great part in the life of the capital, at least among those whom we should now call clubmen. The common drink was still beer, and, among the farm hands, milk. Port, till the Methuen treaty, was almost unknown in England. Even the gentry, as a rule, did not drink wine at ordinary times. The poorer classes rarely tasted flesh meat, except bacon, which latter cottagers in the country were generally able to command, every cottage having its pig. The best white wheaten bread was used by the richer folk only, the poorer eating coarse and dark bread, of whole-meal, of rye, or even of barley. Pewter was the ware in common use, except among the labourer class, who had wooden trenchers, or a coarse unglazed delft.
14. INDUSTRIES
The main occupation of the country was still farming, with fishing, shipbuilding, and seafaring on the coast. The manufacture of silk, woollen, and linen goods, now occupying so many millions of folk in the North and the Midlands, was then carried on mainly in the small towns and villages, or even in the lonely wayside or moorland cottage. The great manufacturing towns, such as Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, and Sheffield are now, were nowhere to be found in the England of Queen Anne; but their day was coming. London was the great centre of the silk trade, and after it came Norwich, Coventry, Derby, and Nottingham. The cotton industry of Manchester and the surrounding towns in South Lancashire was making a start, while Leeds, Bradford, and Halifax, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, were just beginning to give their attention to the cloth trade on a larger scale. The trade with other countries was growing rapidly, Bristol being, next to London, the chief port. Hull, Liverpool, Southampton, and Newcastle were still small places. It is to be noted that the earliest notions of what we now call free trade are to be traced back to the days of the later Stuart sovereigns. Bolingbroke made certain proposals in that direction, but his plans were rejected by the Whigs. Stage-coaches began to run, the earliest being those between London and York, and between London and Exeter. A vast improvement in the high-roads soon came in consequence. The first General Post Office for the whole kingdom dates back to the reign of Queen Anne.