Cassell's History of England, Vol. 3 (of 8) / From the Great Rebellion to the Fall of Marlborough.

by Anonymous

Marlborough had not waited for these insignificant operations, but had proceeded to Berlin to engage the King of Prussia to suspend his claims on the Dutch, and to enter more zealously into the alliance for the perfect clearance of the French from Germany. He prevailed on the king to promise eight thousand troops for the assistance of the Duke of Savoy, and to be commanded by the Prince Eugene; and he exerted himself with the Emperor to effect a settlement with the insurgents in Hungary, but his own triumphs stood in the way of his success. The Emperor, since Marlborough's victories, was so elated that he would listen to no reasonable terms. From Berlin Marlborough proceeded to Hanover, and paid his court to the family which was to succeed to the Crown of England. Thence he went to the Hague, where he was received with high honours by the States-General on account of the victories which he would never have achieved could they have restrained him. He arrived in England in the middle of December, carrying with him Marshal Tallard and the rest of the distinguished officers, with the standards and other trophies of his victories. He was received with acclaim by all classes except a few ultra-Tories, who threatened to impeach him for his rash march to the Danube. As Parliament had assembled, Marlborough took his seat in the House of Peers the day after his arrival, where he was complimented on his magnificent success by the Lord Keeper. This was followed by a deputation with a vote of thanks from the Commons, and by similar honours from the City. But perhaps the most palpable triumph of Marlborough was the transferring of the military trophies which he had taken, from the Tower, where they were first deposited, to Westminster Hall. This was done by each soldier carrying a standard or other trophy, amid the thunders of artillery and the hurrahs of the people; such a spectacle never having been witnessed since the days of the Spanish Armada. The royal manor of Woodstock was granted him, and Blenheim Mansion erected at the cost of the nation.

Besides the victories of Marlborough, there had been successes at sea, and one of them of far more consequence than was at the time imagined—namely, the conquest of Gibraltar.

Sir George Rooke, having landed King Charles at Lisbon, sent Rear-Admiral Dilkes with a squadron to cruise off Cape Spartel, and himself, by order of the queen, sailed for the relief of Nice and Villafranca, which were supposed to be in danger from the French under the Duke of Vendôme. King Charles at the same time desired him to make a demonstration in his favour before Barcelona, for he was assured that a force had only to appear on that coast and the whole population would declare for him. Rooke, accordingly, taking on board the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, who had formerly been Viceroy of Catalonia, sailed for Barcelona, and invited the governor to declare for his rightful sovereign, King Charles. The governor replied that Philip V. was his lawful sovereign. The Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, however, assured the admiral that there were five to one in the city in favour of King Charles, and Rooke allowed the prince to land with two thousand men; but there was no sign of any movement in favour of Austria. The Dutch ketches then bombarded the place with little effect, and the troops were re-embarked, lest they should be fallen upon by superior numbers. On the 16th of June, Rooke being joined by Sir Cloudesley Shovel, they sailed to Nice, but found it in no danger; and they then went in quest of the French fleet, which Rooke in the preceding month had caught sight of on their way to Toulon. On the 17th of July a council of war was held in the road of Tetuan, and it was resolved to make an attempt on Gibraltar, which was represented to have only a slender garrison. On the 21st the fleet came to anchor before Gibraltar, and the marines, under the command of the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, landed on the narrow sandy isthmus which connects the celebrated rock with the mainland, and called on the governor to surrender. Though cut off from relief from the land, and with a formidable fleet in the bay, the governor stoutly replied that he would defend the place to the last extremity.

The next day Rooke gave orders for cannonading the town. On the 23rd, soon after daybreak, the cannonading commenced with terrible effect. Fifteen thousand shots were discharged in five or six hours; the South Mole Head was demolished, and the Spaniards driven in every quarter from their guns. Captain Whitaker was then ordered to arm all the boats, and assault that quarter. Captains Hicks and Jumper, who were nearest the Mole, immediately manned their pinnaces, and entered the fortifications sword in hand. They were soon, however, treading on a mine, which the Spaniards exploded, killing or wounding two lieutenants and about a hundred men. But Hicks and Jumper seized a platform, and kept their ground till they were supported by Captain Whitaker with the rest of the seamen, who took by storm a redoubt between the town and the Mole. Then the governor capitulated, and the Prince of Hesse entered the place with his marines, amazed at once at the strength of the place and the ease with which it had been taken. In fact, this key of the Mediterranean, which has since defied the united powers of Christendom, was taken in three days, one day of which was rendered almost useless by the fierceness of the wind.

Rooke left the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt and the marines to hold the fortress, and returned to Tetuan to take in wood and water, and again sailed up the Mediterranean. On the 9th of August he came in sight of the French fleet lying off Malaga, and ready to receive him. It consisted of fifty-two great ships and four-and-twenty galleys, under the Count de Toulouse, High Admiral of France, and all clean and in the best condition; Rooke's fleet of fifty-three ships of the line, exclusive of frigates, was inferior to the French in guns and men, as well as in weight of metal; and, what was worse, the ships were very foul in their bottoms, and many of them ill provided with ammunition. Nevertheless, Rooke determined to engage; and on Sunday, the 13th, at ten o'clock in the morning, the battle began, and raged till two in the afternoon, when the van of the French gave way. This result would have been much earlier arrived at, had not several of the English ships soon exhausted their powder, and been forced to draw out of the line. During the afternoon firing at longer distances was kept up, but at night Toulouse bore away to leeward. The next morning the wind favoured the French, but they did not avail themselves of it, but bore away for Toulon, pursued by Rooke as well as the foulness of his ships would let him. Not a ship was lost or taken by either side in the battle, but the loss in killed and wounded was great. On the part of the English the killed and wounded amounted to three thousand; on the French side it was supposed to reach four thousand, including two hundred officers killed. Sir Cloudesley Shovel, who led the van, said that he had never seen a sea-fight so furiously contested. The effect of the battle was to render the French shy of coming to any great engagement on the sea during the remainder of the war.

The Parliament of England met on the 29th of October, and the queen congratulated the two Houses on the remarkable success which had attended her arms, and trusted that it would enable her to secure the great object for which they fought—the liberty of Europe. She encouraged them to carry on their debates without contentions, and avowed her determination to be indulgent to all her subjects. But nothing could prevent the animosity which raged between the Whig and Tory factions from showing itself. The Lords congratulated her Majesty on the glorious victories of Marlborough, without noticing those of Sir George Rooke; and the Commons, to whose party Rooke, an old Tory, belonged, exalted his exploits to an equality with those of Marlborough. Notwithstanding the queen's promise of being kind and indulgent to all her subjects, a strenuous attempt was again made to carry the Occasional Conformity Bill. At the suggestion of Mr. William Bromley it was tacked to the Land Tax Bill, and was so sent up to the Peers. The queen went to the House of Lords to listen to the debate, where she heard Tenison, the Archbishop of Canterbury, honestly denounce the illiberal and persecuting spirit which had suggested such a Bill. This praiseworthy language was strongly echoed out of doors by De Foe, whose pen was never idle on such occasions, and the Court now seemed to be convinced that it had gone too far. Godolphin, who had on former occasions voted for it, now opposed it, and the Lords threw it out by a majority of one-and-twenty votes.

The two Houses of Parliament continued fighting out the remainder of the Session with the case of the Aylesbury election. Encouraged by the conduct of the Lords and the declaration of Lord Chief Justice Holt—that if any messengers of the Commons dared to enter Westminster Hall to seize any lawyer who had pleaded in favour of the Aylesbury electors, he would commit them to Newgate,—five fresh electors sued the constables, on the ground of their having been impeded in the exercise of their franchise. The Commons committed these five persons to Newgate, and they thereupon applied to the Court of Queen's Bench for a Habeas Corpus. The Court refused to interfere. Two of the prisoners then petitioned the queen to bring their case before her in Parliament. The Commons immediately prayed the queen not to interfere with their privileges by granting a Writ of Error in this case. She replied that she would not willingly do anything to give them just cause of offence, but that this matter relating to judicial proceedings was of such high importance to the subject that she thought herself bound to weigh and consider everything relating to it. The Commons, fearing from this answer that the queen might be induced to grant the prisoners a Writ of Error, sent and took them from Newgate, and kept them in the custody of their Serjeant-at-Arms, at the same time voting all the lawyers who had pleaded in favour of the prisoners guilty of a breach of privilege. The prisoners then appealed to the Lords, and the Lords, after seeking a conference with the Commons to arrive at some conclusion as to the right in this case, but with no result, appealed to the queen, declaring that the Commons were assailing the birthright of every subject, and violating Magna Charta by refusing these citizens the right of appealing to a court of justice; and they prayed her to give orders for the immediate issue of the Writs of Error. Her Majesty assured them that she would have complied with their request, but that it was now absolutely necessary to prorogue Parliament, and therefore further proceedings, they would see, must be useless. The Lords considered this as a triumph, the queen's words implying that they had right on their side, and thus equally implying a censure on the Commons. In fact, the queen was glad to get rid of the dilemma and of this troublesome Tory Parliament at the same time. The same day that the Lords waited on her she went to their House and prorogued Parliament till the 1st of May, 1705; but on the 5th of April she dissolved it by proclamation, and writs were issued for calling a new one.

Marlborough in 1705 went early to the Continent. On the 13th of March he embarked for the Hague. He had a splendid plan of operations for this campaign on the Moselle, but he found, notwithstanding his now grand reputation, the usual obstacles to daring action in the Dutch phlegm. Having conquered this, and obtained leave to convey the troops to the Moselle, he was met by a still more mortifying difficulty in the conduct of the Prince of Baden, who was at the head of the German contingents. This man had never been cordial since the first successes of Marlborough. He was consumed with a deadly jealousy of his fame, and thought it no use fighting in company with him, as Marlborough would be sure to get all the honours. He therefore hung back from co-operation in Marlborough's plan, pretending illness; which, had the illness been real, should, at such a crisis for his country, have induced him to delegate the command of the forces for its defence to some other general. To add to the difficulties of Marlborough, the inferior French generals, Villeroi and others, who had risen into prominence through the interest of Madame de Maintenon and her priests and Jesuits, were removed from this quarter, and Villars, the most able commander now of the French, sent instead. The intention was to besiege Saar-Louis, but the wretched Prince of Baden did not keep his engagement. He had advanced, not with a strong army but only a small body of Imperial troops, to Kreutznach, where he again feigned illness, went off to the baths at Schlangenbad, and left the troops in the command of the Count Friez. The defection was so barefaced that many began to suspect him of being corrupted by the French; but he was really sick—of Marlborough's renown.

The duke, thus deceived, was unable to carry out his enterprise, and fell back instead of attacking Villars. In his contempt of the Prince of Baden, before retreating he sent a trumpet to Villars, saying, "Do me the justice to believe that my retreat is entirely owing to the failure of the Prince of Baden; but my esteem for you is still greater than my resentment of his conduct." But though forced to this mortifying expedient, Marlborough saw that he could quickly vindicate his reputation by uniting with the army of the Netherlands, and carrying operations against the enemy there. General Overkirk had not been able to stand his ground. The French had invested and taken Huy, and Villars had commenced the siege of Liége. Marlborough marched to Treves, where he called a council of war, and it was resolved to drive Villars from the walls of Liége. On the 19th of June the army commenced its march, and proceeded with such expedition that it passed the Meuse on the 1st of July. Villars, on Marlborough's approach, abandoned Liége and retired to Tongres, and thence retreated behind his lines, which extended to Marche aux Dames on the Meuse, along the Mehaigne as far as Lenuève. No sooner did Marlborough come up with Overkirk than he determined to recover Huy, and sent General Scholten, who reduced it in a few days. To wipe out as quickly the impression of his retreat from the Moselle, he despatched General Hompesch to the States-General to demand permission to attack the French lines, which was granted him.