These hot-headed politicians had already formed their famous ‘October Club.’ They were about a hundred and fifty in number, and for a few months their proceedings made a great noise. The Treasurer found means to deal with them in a more effectual fashion than that in which they had endeavoured to deal with the administration. ‘By silent, quiet steps, in a little time,’ says a writer who watched the process and aided it, ‘he so effectually separated these gentlemen, that in less than six months the name of “October Club” was forgotten in the world.... |De Foe, Secret History of the White Staff.| With so much address was this attempt overthrown, that he lost not the men, though he put them by their design.’
Those brief sentences indicate, I think, the fatality of the position in which Oxford now placed himself. He had ardently desired to gain the control of affairs, at a period of exceptional difficulty. And, at the best, his capacity and energies would have been barely equal to the task in times of exceptional ease. Some of the very qualities, both of mind and heart, which made him beloved by those who lived with him, weakened him as a statesman. He was surrounded by adepts in political intrigue, some of whom combined with an experience not less than his own, far greater powers of mind, an unbending will, and an utter unscrupulousness as to the use of means. He vainly flattered himself that he could beat these men at their own weapons. His temporary success laid a foundation for his eventual ruin.
Oxford and the Court of the Stuarts.
To gain the aid of the Jacobite Tories in Parliament he held out hopes which it was never his intention to realise. He carried on an indirect correspondence with the Stuart Court in a way sufficiently adroit to induce that Court to instruct its adherents to support the negotiations for the Peace with France. He would commit himself to nothing until Peace was made. The conclusion of a Peace was the one measure on which he was firmly bent. He had contended that the true interests of Britain demanded the ending of an exhausting war many years before. And whatever the demerits and shortcomings of the Treaty of Utrecht, it had at least the merit of making the quiet succession of the House of Hanover possible.
In March, 1713, the French agent in England, the Abbé Gautier, wrote to the Marquis de Torcy an account of an interview he had obtained with the Lord Treasurer:—‘M. Vanderberg’ [i. e. Lord Oxford], he says, ‘sent for me, seven or eight days ago, to tell me something of importance. Indeed, he opened his mind to me, making me acquainted with his feelings towards Montgourlin [i. e. the Pretender], and the desire he had to do him service, as soon as the Peace shall be concluded.... It will not be difficult, because the Queen is of his opinion. But, in the mean time, it is essential that Montgourlin should make up his mind; that he should declare that it is not his intention to continue to reside where he now is. He must say, publicly, and especially before his family, that when the Peace is made he means to travel in Italy, in Switzerland, in Bavaria, even in Spain. |Gautier to De Torcy; 1713, March. [Printed in Edin. Review, from notes of Mackintosh.]| This is to be done, that it may be believed in England that his choice of a residence is not dictated by a mere desire to be near his relatives, and to be close at hand should measures have to be taken on an emergency.’
After the communication of this statement to the Pretender he made repeated attempts to enter into correspondence with Queen Anne. By Oxford these attempts were uniformly and effectually foiled.
To the insincerity of Oxford’s advances—such as they were—to the Jacobite emissaries, there can be no witness more competent, none more unexceptionable, than the Duke of Berwick. His testimony runs thus:—‘We wrote,’ he says, ‘to all the Jacobites to support the government; a step which had no small share in giving to the Court party so large a majority in the House of Commons that it carried everything its own way.... After the Peace, the Treasurer spoke with not a whit more of clearness or precision than before it.... |Mémoires du Maréchal Duc de Berwick (in Petitot’s Collection, tom. lxvi, pp. 219 seqq.)| He was merely keeping us in play; and it was very difficult to find a remedy. To have broken with him would have spoiled all; for he had the reins in his hand. He governed the Queen at his will.’ |Ib., pp. 224, 225.| In all his advances, adds the Duke, in another passage, ‘Oxford’s only motive had been to win over Jacobites to side with the Tories, and to get a sanction for the Peace.’
Whilst these intrigues were still in action, one, at least, of the Jacobite agents was clear-sighted enough to detect the secret of the Treasurer’s scheme. |Original in Nairne MSS., vol. 4. (Macpherson, Original Pagers, vol. ii, p. 269.)| A confidential agent of the Earl of Middleton, Secretary to the Pretender, wrote in February, 1712—‘[The Earl of Oxford] is entirely a friend to [the Elector of Hanover], notwithstanding the disobliging measures that spark has taken.... [Oxford’s] head is set on shewing that he is above resentment, and that he [the Elector] has been put into a wrong way.’
In matters of Church policy at home the Earl followed like indirect courses, and with the like result—a momentary success which prepared the way for final defeat.
Harley’s conduct on the Conformity Bill.