[Sidenote: 1716—Visit to Hanover]
Some of the earlier letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu are written from Hanover, and give a lively description of the crowded state of that capital in the autumn of 1716. Hanover was crowded in this unusual way because King George was there at the time, and his presence was the occasion for a great gathering of diplomatic functionaries and statesmen, and politicians of all orders. Some had political missions, open and avowed; some had missions of still greater political importance, which, however, were not formally avowed, and were for the most part conducted in secret. A turning-point had been reached in the affairs of Europe, and the King's visit to Hanover was an appropriate occasion for the preliminary steps to certain new arrangements that had become inevitable. Even before the King's visit to his dear Hanover the English Government had been paving the way for some of these new combinations and alliances. The very day after the royal coronation, Stanhope had gone on a mission to Vienna which had something to do with the arrangements subsequently made.
It would, however, be paying too high a compliment to the patriotic energy of the King to suppose that he had gone to Hanover for the sake of promoting arrangements calculated to be of advantage to England. Let us do justice to George's sincerity: he never pretended to any particular concern for English interests when they were not bound up with the interests of Hanover. But he had long been pining for a sight of Hanover. He had now been away from his beloved Herrenhausen for nearly two {153} years, and he was consumed by an unconquerable homesickness. That his absence might be inconvenient to his newly acquired country or to his ministers had no weight in his mind to counterbalance the desire of walking once more in the prim Herrenhausen avenues and looking over the level Hanoverian fields, or treading the corridors of the old Schloss, where the ancestral Guelphs had revelled, and where the ghost of Königsmark might well be supposed to wander. The Act for restraining the King from going out of the kingdom was repealed in May, 1716. The Prince of Wales was to be appointed temporary ruler in the King's absence. This appointment was the only obstacle that George admitted to his journey. In the Hanover family, father had hated son, and son father with traditional persistence. George was animated by the sourest jealousy of his son. One reason, if there had been no other, for this animosity was that the young man was well known to have some sympathy for the sufferings of his mother, the unhappy Sophia Dorothea, imprisoned in Ahlden, and he had at least once made an unsuccessful effort to see her. Since George came to England he persisted in regarding his eldest son as a rival for popular favor, and this feeling was naturally kept alive by the enemies of the House of Hanover. To this detested son George had now to intrust the care of his kingdom, or else abandon his visit to dear Herrenhausen. The struggle was severe, but patriotic affection triumphed over paternal hatred. The Prince was named not indeed Regent, but Guardian of the Realm and Lieutenant, with as many restrictions upon his authority as the King was able or was allowed to impose, and on July 9th George set out for Hanover, accompanied by Secretary Stanhope. He was not long absent from England, however. On November 14th he came back again. Loyalists issued prints of the monarch waited upon by angels, and accompanied by flattering verses addressed to the "Presedent of ye Loyall Mug Houses." But the devotion of the mug-houses could not make George personally popular, or diminish the {154} general dislike to his German ministers, his German mistresses, and the horde of hungry foreigners—the Hanoverian rats, as Squire Western would have called them—who came over with him to England, seeking for place and pension, or pension without place.
[Sidenote: 1716—Philip of Orleans]
The Thames was frozen over in the winter of this year, 1716, and London made very merry over the event. The ice was covered with booths for the sale of all sorts of wares, and with small coffee-houses and chop-houses. Wrestling-rings were formed in one part; in another, an ox was roasted whole. People played at push-pin, skated, or drove about on ice-boats brave with flags. Coaches moved slowly up and down the highway of barges and wherries, and hawkers cried their wares lustily in the new field that winter had offered them. All the banks of the river—and especially such places as the Temple Gardens—were crowded with curious throngs surveying the animated and unusual scene.
During George's absence from England he and his ministers had made some new and important arrangements in the policy of Europe. From this time forth—indeed, from the reign of Queen Anne—England was destined—doomed, perhaps—to have a regular part in the politics of the Continent. Before that time she had often been drawn into them, or had plunged enterprisingly or recklessly into them, but from the date of the accession of the House of Hanover England was as closely and constantly mixed up in the political affairs of the Continent as Austria or France. In the opening years of George's reign, France, the Empire—Austria, that is to say, for the Holy Roman Empire had come to be merely Austria—and Spain were the important Continental Powers. Russia was only coming up; the genius of Peter the Great was beginning to make her way for her. Italy was as yet only a geographical expression—a place divided among minor kings and princes, who in politics sometimes bowed to the Pope's authority, and sometimes evaded or disregarded it. The power of Turkey was {155} broken, never to be made strong again; the republic of Venice was already beginning to "sink like a sea-weed into whence she rose." The position of Spain was peculiar. Spain had for a long time been depressed and weak and disregarded. For many years it was thought that she was going down with Turkey and Venice—that the star of her fate had declined forever. Suddenly, however, she began to raise her head above the horizon again, and to threaten the peace of the Continent. The peace of the Continent could not now be threatened without menace to the peace of England, for George's Hanoverian dominions were sure to be imperilled by European disturbance, and George would take good care that Hanover did not suffer while England had armies to move and money to spend. The English Government found it necessary to look out for allies.
France was under the rule of a remarkable man. Philip, Duke of Orleans and Regent of the kingdom, ought to have been a statesman of the Byzantine Empire. He was steeped to the lips in profligacy; he had no moral sense whatever, unless that which was supplied by the so-called code of honor. His intrigues, his carouses, his debaucheries, his hordes of mistresses, gave scandal even in that time of prodigal license. But he had a cool head, a daring spirit, and an intellect capable of accepting new and original ideas. He must be called a statesman; and, despite the vulgarity of some of his vices, he has to be called a gentleman as well. He could be trusted; he would keep his word once given. Other statesmen could treat with him, and not fear that he would break a promise or betray a confidence. How rare such qualities were at that day among the politicians of any country the readers of the annals of Queen Anne do not need to be told. The Regent's principal adviser at this time was a man quite as immoral, and also quite as able, as himself—the Abbé Dubois, afterwards Cardinal and Prime-minister. Dubois had a profound knowledge of foreign affairs, and he thoroughly understood the ways of men. {156} He had fought his way from humble rank to a great position in Church and State. He had trained his every faculty—and all his faculties were well worth the training—to the business of statecraft and of diplomatic intrigue. It is somewhat curious to note that the three ablest politicians in Europe at that day were churchmen: Swift in England, Dubois in France, and Alberoni—of whom we shall presently have to speak—in Spain. The quick and unclouded intelligence of the Regent—unclouded despite his days and nights of debauchery—saw that the cause of the Stuarts was gone. While that cause had hope he was willing to give it a chance, and he would naturally have welcomed its success; but he had taken good care during its late and vain effort not to embroil himself in any quarrel, or even any misunderstanding, with England on its account; and now that that poor struggle was over for the time, he believed that it would be for his interest to come to an understanding with King George.
[Sidenote: 1716—Dubois]
The idea of such an understanding originated with the Regent himself. There has been some discussion among English historians as to the title of Townshend or of Stanhope to be considered its author. Whether Townshend or Stanhope first accepted the suggestion does not seem a matter of much consequence. It is clear that the overture was made by the Regent. While King George and his minister Stanhope were in Hanover, the Regent sent Dubois on various pretexts to places where he might have an opportunity of coming to an understanding with both. Dubois had lived in England, and had made the personal acquaintance of Stanhope there. What could be more natural than that the Regent, who was a lover of art, should ask Dubois to visit the Hague, for the purpose of buying some books and pictures, about the time that the English minister was known to be in the neighborhood? And how could old acquaintances like Stanhope and Dubois, thus brought into close proximity, fail to take advantage of the opportunity, and to {157} have many a quiet, informal meeting? What more natural than that Dubois should afterwards go to Hanover to visit his friend Stanhope there, and that he should live in Stanhope's house? The account which the lively Lady Mary Wortley Montagu gives of the manner in which Hanover was then crowded would of itself explain the necessity for Dubois availing himself of Stanhope's hospitality, and for Stanhope's offer of it. The Portuguese ambassador, Lady Mary says, thought himself very happy to be the temporary possessor of "two wretched parlors in an inn." Dubois and Stanhope had many talks, and the result was an arrangement which could be accepted by the King and the Regent.
The foreign policy of the Whigs had for its object the maintenance of peace on the European continent by a close observance of the conditions laid down in the Treaty of Utrecht. The settlement made under that treaty was, however, very unsatisfactory to Spain. The new Spanish king, Philip of Anjou, had formally renounced his own rights of succession to the throne of France, and had given up the Italian provinces which formerly belonged to the Spanish Crown. But, as in most such instances at that time, an ambitious European sovereign had no sooner accepted conditions which appeared to him in any wise unsatisfactory, than he went to work to endeavor to set them aside, or get out of them somehow. Philip's whole mind was turned to the object of getting back again all that he had given up. This would not have seemed an easy task, even to a man of the stamp of Charles the Fifth. It would almost appear that any attempt in such a direction must bring Europe in arms against Spain. The Regent Duke of Orleans stood next in succession to the French throne, in consequence of Philip's renunciation of his rights by virtue of the Treaty of Utrecht. The Italian provinces which had once been Spain's were now handed over to Austria, and Austria would of course be resolute in their defence. King Philip was not the man to confront the difficulties of a situation of this kind {158} by his own unaided powers of mind. He was very far indeed from being a Charles the Fifth. He was not even a Philip the Second. But he had for his minister a man as richly endowed with statesmanship and courage as he himself was wanting in those qualities. [Sidenote: 1716—Alberoni] Giulio Alberoni, an Italian born at Piacenza, in 1664, was at one time appointed agent of the Duke of Parma at the Court of Spain, and in this position acquired very soon the favor of Philip. Alberoni was of the most humble origin. His father was a gardener, and he himself a poor village priest. He rose, however, both in diplomacy and in the Church, having worked his way up to the favor of the Duke of Parma, to work still further on to the complete favor of Philip the Fifth. The first marked success in his upward career was made when he contrived to commend himself to the Duc de Vendôme, the greatest French commander of his day. The Duke of Parma had occasion to deal with Vendôme, and sent the Bishop of Parma to confer with him. The Duc de Vendôme was a man who affected roughness and brutality of manners, and made it his pride to set all rules of decency at defiance. Peter the Great, Potemkin, Suwarrow, would have seemed men of ultra-refinement when compared with him. His manner of receiving the bishop was such that the bishop quitted his presence abruptly and without saying a word, and returning to Parma, told his master that no consideration on earth should induce him ever to approach the brutal French soldier again. Alberoni was beginning to rise at this time. He offered to undertake the mission, feeling sure that not even Vendôme could disconcert him. He was intrusted with the task of renewing the negotiations, and he obtained admission to the presence of Vendôme. Every reader remembers the story in the "Arabian Nights" of that brother of the talkative barber who threw himself into the spirit of the rich Barmecide's humor, and by outdoing him in the practical joke secured forever his favor and his friendship. Alberoni acted on this principle at his first meeting with Vendôme. {159} He outbuffooned even Vendôme's buffoonery. The story will not bear minute explanation, but Alberoni soon satisfied Vendôme that he had to do with a man after his own heart, what Elizabethan writers would have called a "mad wag" indeed, and Vendôme gave him his confidence.