A History of the Four Georges, Volume II

by Justin McCarthy

The war has one point of peculiar and romantic interest for Englishmen. Charles Edward Stuart, the "bonnie Prince Charlie" of a later date, the hero and darling of so much devotion, poetry, and romance, received his baptism of fire in the Italian campaign under Don Carlos. Charles Edward was then a mere boy. He was born in the later days of 1720, and was now about the age to serve some picturesque princess as her page. He was sent as a volunteer to the siege of Gaeta, and was received with every mark of honor by Don Carlos. The English Court heard rumors that Don Carlos had gone out of his way to pay homage to the Stuart prince, and had even acted in a manner to give the impression that he identified himself with the cause of the exiled family. There were demands {30} for explanation made by the English minister at the Spanish Court, and explanations were given and excuses offered. It was all merely because of a request made by the Duke of Berwick's son, the Spanish prime-minister said. The Duke of Berwick's son asked permission to bring his cousin Charles Edward to serve as a volunteer, and the Court of Spain consented, not seeing the slightest objection to such a request; but there was not the faintest idea of receiving the boy as a king's son. King George and Queen Caroline were both very angry, but Walpole wisely told them that they must either resent the offence thoroughly, and by war, or accept the explanations and pretend to be satisfied with them. Walpole's advice prevailed, and the boy prince fleshed his maiden sword without giving occasion to George the Second to seek the ensanguined laurels for which he told Walpole he had long been thirsting. The Hanoverian kings were, to do them justice, generally rather magnanimous in their way of treating the pretensions of the exiled family. We may fairly assume that the conduct of the Spanish prince in this instance did somewhat exceed legitimate bounds. George was wise, however, in consenting to accept the explanations, and to make as little of the incident as the Court of Spain professed to do.

[Sidenote: 1735—Success of Walpole's policy]

Incidents such as this, and the interchange of explanations which had to follow them, naturally tended to stretch out the negotiations for peace which England was still carrying on. Again and again it seemed as if the attempts to bring about a settlement of the controversy must all be doomed to failure. At last, however, terms of arrangement were concluded. Augustus was acknowledged King of Poland. Stanislaus was allowed to retain the royal title, and was put in immediate possession of the Duchy of Lorraine, which after his death was to become a province of France. The Spanish prince obtained the throne of the Two Sicilies. France was thought to have done a great thing for herself by the annexation of Lorraine; in later times it seemed to have been an ill-omened acquisition. {31} The terms of peace were, on the whole, about as satisfactory as any one could have expected. Walpole certainly had got all he wanted. He wanted to keep England out of the war, and he wanted at the same time to maintain and to reassert her influence over the politics of the Continent. He accomplished both these objects. Bolingbroke said it was only Walpole's luck. History more truly says it was Walpole's patience and genius.

Did Walpole know all this time that there was a distinct and deliberate family compact, a secret treaty of alliance, a formal, circumstantial, binding agreement, consigned to written words, between France and Spain, for the promotion of their common desires and for the crippling of England's power? Mr. J. R. Green appears to be convinced that "neither England nor Walpole" knew of it. The English people certainly did not know of it; and it is commonly taken for granted by historians that while Walpole was pursuing his policy of peace he was not aware of the existence of this family compact. It has even been pleaded, in defence of him and his policy, that he did not know that the war, in which he believed England to have little or no interest, was only one outcome of a secret plot, having for its object, among other objects, the humiliation and the detriment of England. There are writers who seem to assume it as a matter of certainty that if Walpole had known of this family compact he would have adopted a very different course. But does it by any means follow that, even if he had been all the time in possession of a correct copy of the secret agreement, he would have acted otherwise than as he did act? Does it follow that if Walpole did know all about it, he was wrong in adhering to his policy of non-intervention? A very interesting and instructive essay by Professor Seely on the House of Bourbon, published in the first number of the English Historical Review, makes clear as light the place of this first family compact in the history of the wars that succeeded it. Professor Seely puts it beyond dispute that in every subsequent movement of France and Spain the {32} working of this compact was made apparent. He shows that it was fraught with the most formidable danger to England. Inferentially he seems to convey the idea that Walpole was wrong when he clung to his policy of masterly inactivity, and that he ought to have intervened in the interests of England. We admit all his premises and reject his conclusion.

Walpole might well have thought that the best way to mar the object of the conspirators against England was to keep England as much as possible out of continental wars. He might well have thought that so long as England was prosperous and strong she could afford to smile at the machinations of any foreign kings and statesmen. We may be sure that he would not have allowed himself to be drawn away from the path of policy he thought it expedient to follow by any mere feelings of anger at the enmity of the foreign kings and statesmen. He might have felt as a composed and strong-minded man would feel who, quite determined not to sit down to the gaming-table, is amused by the signals which he sees passing between the cheating confederates who are making preparations to win his money. Besides, even if he knew nothing of the family compact, he certainly was not ignorant of the general scope of the policy of France and of Spain. He was not a man likely at any time to put too much trust in princes or in any other persons, and we need not doubt that in making his calculations he took into full account the possibility of France and Spain packing cards for the injury of England. The existence of the family compact is a very interesting fact in history, and enables us now to understand with perfect clearness many things that must have perplexed and astonished the readers of an earlier day. But, so far as the policy of Walpole regarding the war of the Polish Succession was concerned, we do not believe that it would have been modified to any considerable extent, even if he had been in full possession of all the secret papers in the cabinet of the King of France and the Queen of Spain.

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[Sidenote: 1735—Professor Seely and the secret treaty]

But is it certain that Walpole did not know of the existence of this secret treaty? It is certain now that if he did not know of it he might have known. Other English statesmen of the day did know of it—at least, had heard that such a thing was in existence, and were or might have been forewarned against it. Professor Seely puts it beyond doubt that the family compact was talked of and written of by English diplomatists at the time, was believed in by some, treated sceptically by others. The Duke of Newcastle actually called it by the very name which history formally gives to the arrangement made many years after and denounced by Burke. He speaks of "the offensive and defensive alliance between France and Spain, called the pacte de famille." Is it likely, is it credible, that Walpole had never heard of the existence of a compact which was known to the Duke of Newcastle? Archdeacon Coxe, in his "Life of Walpole," contends that Newcastle was not by any means the merely absurd sort of person whom most historians and biographers delight to paint him. "He had a quick comprehension and was a ready debater," Coxe says, although without grace or style. "He wrote with uncommon facility and great variety of expression, and in his most confidential letters, written so quickly as to be almost illegible, there is scarcely a single alteration or erasure." But certainly Newcastle was not a man likely to keep to himself the knowledge of such a fact as the family compact, or even the knowledge that some people believed in the existence of such an arrangement. For ourselves, we are quite prepared to assume that Walpole had heard of the family compact, but that it did not disturb his calculations or disarrange his policy. From some of his own letters written at the time it is evident that he did not put any faith in the abiding nature of family compacts between sovereigns. More than once he takes occasion to point out that where political interests interfered family arrangements went to the wall. As to the general rule Walpole was quite right. We have seen the fact illustrated over and over again even in our {34} own days. But Walpole appears to have overlooked the important peculiarity of this family compact; it was an engagement in which the political interests and the domestic interests of the families were at last inextricably intertwined; it was a reciprocal agreement for the protection of common interests and the attainment of common objects. Such a compact might be trusted to hold good even among Bourbon princes. On the whole, we are inclined to come to the conclusion that if Walpole knew anything about the compact—and we think he did know something about it—he was quite right in not allowing it to disturb his policy of non-intervention, but that he was not quite sound in his judgment if he held his peaceful course only because he did not believe that such a family bond between members of such a family would hold good. "Tenez, prince," the Duc d'Aumale wrote to Prince Napoleon-Jérôme in a pamphlet which was once famous, "there is one promise of a Bonaparte which we can always believe—the promise that he will kill somebody." One pledge of a Bourbon with another Bourbon the world could always rely upon—the pledge to maintain a common interest and gratify a common ambition.

[Sidenote: 1735—Death of Berwick]

The war cost one illustrious life, that of the brave and noble Duke of Berwick, whom Montesquieu likened to the best of the heroes of Plutarch, or rather in whom Montesquieu declared that he saw the best of Plutarch's heroes in the life. When Bolingbroke was denouncing the set of men who surrounded James Stuart at St. Germains he specially exempted Berwick from reproach. He spoke of Berwick as one "who has a hundred times more capacity and credit than all the rest put together," but added significantly that he "is not to be reckoned of the Court, though he has lodgings in the house." Berwick was the natural son of James the Second and Arabella Churchill, sister to the Duke of Marlborough. When the day of James's destiny as King of England was over, Berwick gave his bright sword to the service of France. He became a naturalized Frenchman and rose to the command {35} of the French army. He won the splendid victory of Almanza over the combined forces of England and her various allies. "A Roman by a Roman valiantly o'ercome," defeated Englishmen might have exclaimed. He was killed by a cannon-ball on ground not far from that whereon the great Turenne had fallen—killed by the cannon-ball which, according to Madame de Sevigne, was charged from all eternity for the hero's death. Berwick was well deserving of a death in some nobler struggle than the trumpery quarrel got up by ignoble ambitions and selfish, grasping policies. He ought to have died in some really great cause; it was an age of gallant soldiers—an age, however, that brought out none more gallant than Berwick. Of him it might fairly be said that "his mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes." This unmeaning little war—unmeaning in the higher sense—was also the last campaign of the illustrious Prince Eugene. Eugene did all that a general could do to hold up against overwhelming odds, and but for him the victory of the French would have been complete. The short remainder of his life was passed in peace.