Bolingbroke chief minister.
In consequence Harley was dismissed from office, the Schism Act was passed, and Bolingbroke became the queen's chief minister. He set to work to prepare for a Jacobite restoration, filling all posts in the state with partisans of the exiled prince. So able and determined was he, that the Whigs took alarm, and began to make preparation to defend the Protestant succession. They put themselves into communication with George of Hanover, whose aged mother the electress was just dead, and swore to secure him the throne, even at the cost of civil war.
Illness of the queen.
But the new ministry had only been in power a few days, when Queen Anne was stricken with a mortal sickness. Bolingbroke had not reckoned on this chance, and was caught but half prepared. He saw that unless he acted, and acted promptly, the law of the land must take its course, and the Elector George become King of England. But action was difficult; the army was Whig at heart, and even the majority of the Tories were not prepared to draw the sword to place a Romanist on the throne. While Bolingbroke hesitated, his enemies struck their blow.
Action of the Hanoverian dukes.—Death of Anne.
As the English Constitution then stood, the Cabinet system was but half developed. The modern idea that the queen's advisers should be a small homogeneous body of men of the same party, meeting together under the presidency of the prime minister, was only just coming into being. It was still a moot point whether, during the sovereign's illness or at his or her death, the executive power lay in the hands of the whole Privy Council or of the members of it alone who were actually ministers and members of the Cabinet. The supporters of the Protestant succession took advantage of this doubt. While the queen lay speechless and dying, three dukes, Shrewsbury, a "Hanoverian Tory," and Argyle and Somerset, two Whigs, presented themselves at the meeting of the Cabinet and claimed a seat in the assembly as privy councillors. Bolingbroke did not dare to exclude them, and thereby lost his chance of carrying out a coup d'état. For the dukes called in all the other privy councillors, a majority of whom were Whigs or moderate Tories, and took the conduct of affairs out of the prime minister's hands. The queen died that night (August 1, 1714), and the Privy Council at once proclaimed the elector under the name of George I. Bolingbroke retired in wrath, muttering that if he had been granted six weeks for preparation, he would have given England a different king.
THE STUARTS.
(Chart 1)
| James IV. of Scotland, 1488-1513 | = | Margaret of England. | = | Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus. |