Occasional conformity.
But the loss of France could not be measured by men or fortresses. A hundred victories since Rocroi had taught the world to regard the armies of Lewis as all but invincible, when Blenheim and the surrender of the flower of the French soldiery broke the spell. From that moment the terror of victory passed to the side of the allies, and "Malbrook" became a name of fear to every child in France. In England itself the victory of Blenheim aided to bring about a great change in the political aspect of affairs. The Tories were already pressing hard on the defeated Whigs. If they were willing to support the war abroad, they were resolved to use the accession of a Stuart to the throne to secure their own power at home. They resolved therefore to make a fresh attempt to create a permanent Tory majority in the Commons by excluding Nonconformists from the municipal corporations, which returned the bulk of the borough members, and whose political tendencies were for the most part Whig. The test of receiving the sacrament according to the ritual of the Church of England, effective as it was against Catholics, was useless against Protestant Dissenters. While adhering to their separate congregations, in which they were now protected by the Toleration Act, they "qualified for office," as it was called, by the "occasional conformity" of receiving the sacrament at church once in the year. It was against "occasional conformity" that the Tories introduced a test which by excluding the Nonconformists would have given them the command of the boroughs; and this test at first received Marlborough's support. But it was rejected by the Lords as often as it was sent up to them, and it was soon guessed that the resistance of the Lords was secretly backed by both Marlborough and Godolphin. Tory as he was, in fact, Marlborough had no mind for an unchecked Tory rule, or for a measure which would be fatal to the war by again reviving religious strife. But it was in vain that he strove to propitiate his party by inducing the Queen to set aside the tenths and first-fruits hitherto paid by the clergy to the Crown as a fund for the augmentation of small benefices, a fund which still bears the name of Queen Anne's Bounty. The Commons showed their resentment against Marlborough by refusing to add a grant of money to the grant of a dukedom after his first campaign; and the higher Tories, with Lord Nottingham at their head, began to throw every obstacle they could in the way of the continuance of the war.
The Coalition Ministry.
Nottingham and his followers at last quitted office in 1704, and Marlborough replaced them by Tories of a more moderate stamp who were still in favour of the war; by Robert Harley, who became Secretary of State, and by Henry St. John, a young man of splendid talents, who was named Secretary at War. Small as the change seemed, its significance was clear to both parties; and the Duke's march into Germany gave his enemies an opportunity of embittering the political strife. The original aim of the Tories had been to limit English efforts to what seemed purely English objects, the defence of the Netherlands and of English commerce; and the bulk of them shrank even now from any further entanglement in the struggle. But the Duke's march seemed at once to pledge England to a strife in the very heart of the Continent, and above all to a strife on behalf of the House of Austria, whose designs upon Spain were regarded with almost as much suspicion as those of Lewis. It was an act indeed of even greater political than military daring. The High Tories and Jacobites threatened if Marlborough failed to bring his head to the block; and only the victory of Blenheim saved him from political ruin. Slowly and against his will the Duke drifted from his own party to the party which really backed his policy. He availed himself of the national triumph over Blenheim to dissolve Parliament; and when the election of 1705, as he hoped, returned a majority in favour of the war, his efforts brought about a coalition between the moderate Tories who still clung to him and the Whig Junto, whose support was purchased by making a Whig, William Cowper, Lord Keeper, and by sending Lord Sunderland as envoy to Vienna.
Ramillies.
The bitter attacks of the peace party were entirely foiled by this union, and Marlborough at last felt secure at home. But he had to bear disappointment abroad. His plan of attack along the line of the Moselle was defeated by the refusal of the Imperial army to join him. When he transferred the war again to the Netherlands and entered the French lines across the Dyle, the Dutch generals withdrew their troops; and his proposal to attack the Duke of Villeroy in the field of Waterloo was rejected in full council of war by the deputies of the States with cries of "murder" and "massacre." Even Marlborough's composure broke into bitterness at this last blow. "Had I the same power I had last year," he wrote home, "I could have won a greater victory than that of Blenheim." On his complaint indeed the States recalled their commissaries, but the year was lost; nor had greater results been brought about in Italy or on the Rhine. The spirits of the allies were only sustained by the romantic exploits of Lord Peterborough in Spain. Profligate, unprincipled, flighty as he was, Peterborough had a genius for war, and his seizure of Barcelona with a handful of men, a step followed by his recognition of the old liberties of Aragon, roused that province to support the cause of the second son of the Emperor, who had been acknowledged as King of Spain by the allies under the title of Charles the Third. Catalonia and Valencia soon joined Aragon in declaring for Charles: while Marlborough spent the winter of 1705 in negotiations at Vienna, Berlin, Hanover, and the Hague, and in preparations for the coming campaign. Eager for freedom of action and sick of the Imperial generals as of the Dutch, he planned a march over the Alps and a campaign in Italy; and though these designs were defeated by the opposition of the allies, he found himself unfettered when he again appeared in Flanders in 1706. Marshal Villeroy, the new French general, was as eager as Marlborough for an engagement; and the two armies met on the 23rd of May at the village of Ramillies on an undulating plain which forms the highest ground in Brabant. The French were drawn up in a wide curve with morasses covering their front. After a feint on their left, Marlborough flung himself on their right wing at Ramillies, crushed it in a brilliant charge that he led in person, and swept along their whole line till it broke in a rout which only ended beneath the walls of Louvain. In an hour and a half the French had lost fifteen thousand men, their baggage, and their guns; and the line of the Scheldt, Brussels, Antwerp and Bruges became the prize of the victors. It only needed four successful sieges which followed the battle of Ramillies to complete the deliverance of Flanders.
The Union with Scotland.
The year which witnessed the victory of Ramillies remains yet more memorable as the year which witnessed the final Union of England with Scotland. As the undoing of the earlier union had been the first work of the Government of the Restoration, its revival was one of the first aims of the Government which followed the Revolution. But the project was long held in check by religious and commercial jealousies. Scotland refused to bear any part of the English debt. England would not yield any share in her monopoly of trade with the colonies. The English Churchmen longed for a restoration of Episcopacy north of the Border, while the Scotch Presbyterians would not hear even of the legal toleration of Episcopalians. In 1703 however an Act of Settlement which passed through the Scotch Parliament at last brought home to English statesmen the dangers of further delay. In dealing with this measure the Scotch Whigs, who cared only for the independence of their country, joined hand in hand with the Scotch Jacobites, who looked only to the interests of the Pretender. The Jacobites excluded from the Act the name of the Princess Sophia; the Whigs introduced a provision that no sovereign of England should be recognized as sovereign of Scotland save upon security given to the religion, freedom, and trade of the Scottish people. The danger arising from such a measure was undoubtedly great, for it pointed to a recognition of the Pretender in Scotland on the Queen's death, and such a recognition meant war between Scotland and England. The need of a union became at once apparent to every statesman, but it was only after three years' delay that the wisdom and resolution of Lord Somers brought the question to an issue. The Scotch proposals of a federative rather than a legislative union were set aside by his firmness; the commercial jealousies of the English traders were put by; and the Act of Union as it was completed in 1706, though not finally passed till the following year, provided that the two kingdoms should be united into one under the name of Great Britain, and that the succession to the crown of this United Kingdom should be ruled by the provisions of the English Act of Settlement. The Scotch Church and the Scotch law were left untouched: but all rights of trade were thrown open to both nations, a common system of taxation was established, and a uniform system of coinage adopted. A single Parliament was henceforth to represent the United Kingdom; and for this purpose forty-five Scotch members, a number taken to represent the proportion of Scotch property and population relatively to England, were added to the five hundred and thirteen English members of the House of Commons, and sixteen representative peers to the one hundred and eight who formed the English House of Lords.
Its results.
In Scotland the opposition to this measure was bitter and almost universal. The terror of the Presbyterians indeed was met by an Act of Security which became part of the Treaty of Union, and which required an oath to support the Presbyterian Church from every sovereign on his accession. But no securities could satisfy the enthusiastic patriots or the fanatical Cameronians. The Jacobites sought troops from France and plotted a Stuart restoration. The nationalists talked of seceding from the Houses which voted for the Union and of establishing a rival Parliament. In the end however good sense and the loyalty of the trading classes to the cause of the Protestant succession won their way. The measure was adopted by the Scotch Parliament, and the Treaty of Union became a legislative Act to which Anne in 1707 gave her assent in noble words. "I desire," said the Queen, "and expect from my subjects of both nations that from henceforth they act with all possible respect and kindness to one another, that so it may appear to all the world they have hearts disposed to become one people." Time has more than answered these hopes. The two nations whom the Union brought together have ever since remained one. England gained in the removal of a constant danger of treason and war. To Scotland the Union opened up new avenues of wealth which the energy of its people turned to wonderful account. The farms of Lothian have become models of agricultural skill. A fishing town on the Clyde has grown into the rich and populous Glasgow. Peace and culture have changed the wild clansmen of the Highlands into herdsmen and farmers. Nor was the change followed by any loss of national spirit. The world has hardly seen a mightier and more rapid developement of national energy than that of Scotland after the Union. All that passed away was the jealousy which had parted since the days of Edward the First two peoples whom a common blood and common speech proclaimed to be one. The Union between Scotland and England has been real and stable simply because it was the legislative acknowledgement and enforcement of a national fact.
