A history of England

by Charles Oman

The minor allies of England also obtained advantages by the treaty of Utrecht. Holland was given a favourable commercial treaty and a line of strong towns in the Spanish Netherlands known as the "Barrier fortresses," because they lay along the frontier of France. They included Namur, Tournay, Ypres, and six or seven other places. The Duke of Savoy received Sicily and the title of king; the Elector of Brandenburg took Spanish Guelders—a district on the Meuse—and was recognized as King of Prussia. But Austria, our most powerful ally, does not appear in the agreement. The Emperor wished to continue the war, and refused to come into the general pacification.

Austria deserted by the allies.

The treaty of Utrecht was on the whole profitable to England, though it is certain that better terms could have been extorted from Lewis XIV. and Philip V., both of whom were in the last stage of exhaustion and despair. But in signing it England committed a grave breach of faith with Austria, who wished to continue the war. The English army, under Ormonde, was actually withdrawn in the middle of the campaign of 1712, so that the Austrian troops were left unsupported in France, and severely handled by the enemy. Harley's reason for refusing to stand by his allies was that Joseph I. had lately died, and had been succeeded by his brother, the Archduke Charles, who had so long claimed the Spanish throne. It seemed to the Tory ministry just as unwise to allow the house of Hapsburg to appropriate the bulk of the Spanish dominions as to allow them to fall into the hands of Lewis XIV. Accordingly, they refused to listen to the Emperor's plans for bringing further pressure on the enemy and for demanding harder terms. Left to himself, Charles VI. fared ill in the war, and was forced to sign the treaty of Rastadt in 1714. This agreement—a kind of supplement to the treaty of Utrecht—gave to the Austrians Naples, Sardinia, the Milanese, and most of the Spanish Netherlands; but a small part of the last-named country fell to Holland and Prussia, who, as we have already mentioned, acquired respectively the "Barrier fortresses" and the duchy of Guelders.

The question of the succession.

The peace of Utrecht had been signed early in 1713, and the Tory party could now settle down to administer England after their own ideas, undisturbed by alarms of war from without; but all other subjects of political importance were now thrown into the background by the question of the succession to the crown. The queen's health was manifestly beginning to fail, and it was evident that ere many years the Act of Settlement, passed in 1701, would come into operation, and Sophia of Hanover be called to the English throne. But there were many persons within the Tory party who viewed the approaching accession of this aged German lady with dislike, and wished, if it were but possible, to put the son of James II. on the throne. The exiled prince was now a young man of twenty-five, slow, apathetic, and deeply religious in his own narrow way. He was not the stuff of which successful pretenders are made, and played his cards very ill.

Position of the Pretender.

Nevertheless, there was for a time a considerable possibility that James III. might sit on the throne of England. It was generally felt that to exclude Anne's brother from the succession, in favour of her distant cousin, was hard. The large section of the Tory party who still clung to the old belief in the divine right of kings, were not comfortable in their consciences when they thought of the exclusion of the rightful heir. Another section, who had no principles, but a strong regard for their own interests, looked with dismay on the prospect of a Hanoverian succession, because they knew that the Electress Sophia and her son, the Elector George Lewis, were closely allied with the Whigs, and would certainly put them in office when the queen died.

If James Stuart had been willing to change his religion, or even to make a pretence of doing so, the Tory party would have accepted him as king, and his sister would have presented him to the people as her legitimate heir; but the Pretender was rigidly pious with the narrowest Romanist orthodoxy. He would not make the least concession on the religious point to his secret friends on this side of the water, when they besought him to hold out some prospect of his conversion. This honesty cost him his chance of recovering England.

The Tory split.—Schemes of Bolingbroke.—The Schism Act.

When the Tories ascertained that James would never become a member of the Church of England, the party became divided. Harley, the prime minister, and the bulk of his followers would not lend themselves to a scheme for delivering England over to a Romanist. They continued to correspond with the Pretender, but refused to take any active steps in his cause, and let matters stand still. But there was another section of the party which was not so scrupulous, and was prepared to plunge into any treasonable plot, if only it could make sure of keeping the Whigs out of office. These men were led by Henry St. John Viscount Bolingbroke, one of the two Secretaries of State. St. John was a clever, plausible man, a ready writer and a brilliant speaker, but utterly unscrupulous, and filled with a devouring ambition. Though in secret a free-thinker, he pretended to be the most extreme of High Churchmen, and led the more bigoted and violent wing of the Tory party. St. John was set on becoming the ruler of England, and saw his way to the post if he could place James III. on the throne. His cautious colleague Harley stood in his way, so he set himself to expel him from office, by playing on the foibles of the queen and the High Churchmen. With this end he brought in the "Schism Act," a persecuting measure recalling the old legislation of Charles II. It proposed to prohibit Dissenters from keeping or teaching in schools, so as to force all Nonconformists under the instruction of the Church. Harley would not give this bigoted measure his support, and so lost the confidence of half his own party, and, moreover, the favour of the queen, who was persuaded by St. John to give her patronage to the bill.