Serious thoughts of quitting her employments, and of resigning her offices in favour of her daughters, having received from the Queen a sort of vague promise that her employments should be made over to them, now occupied her mind. For some time, the advice of friends, and more especially of her confidential correspondent, Mr. Mainwaring, delayed the performance of her intention. Yet, before finally giving up the game, she was anxious to make one more effort against the adverse party.
Before affairs came to a crisis, the discovery of a treasonable correspondence between a man named Gregg, and the Queen’s enemies abroad, arrested the downfal of the Marlborough family, and delayed the elevation of Harley. Gregg was a clerk in the office of the Secretary of State, and much in his confidence; and there were many who hesitated not to consider the secretary as implicated in the delinquencies of his clerk. Yet it was by Harley that the affair was first brought to light.[[130]] More especially, Lord Sunderland charged Harley with being privy to the crime of Gregg; nor could the asseverations of the culprit, who was drawn in a sledge to the place of execution, and hanged, wholly silence the bitter accusations and unworthy suspicions of Sunderland.
The Queen, when urged to investigate the conduct of Harley, showed considerable reluctance to act in the matter. She was “moved,” to use an old-fashioned expression, when Marlborough and Godolphin spoke to her on the subject.[[131]] When, irritated by her determined though meek opposition, they told her plainly that it was impossible for them to do her Majesty any service whilst Mr. Harley remained in the council, she was still firm; and to the expressed resolution of Godolphin to leave her, she seemed insensible. But when Marlborough proffered his resignation, her royal heart was touched, and she studied by arguments and compliments to change his determination; but both her Treasurer and her General quitted her presence in disgust.
Anne repaired on the same day to the council, where Harley opened some matters relating to foreign affairs. The whole board seemed to be infected with sullenness; and, upon the Duke of Somerset remarking that it was impossible to transact any business whilst the General and the Treasurer were away, a deeper gloom overspread the faces of those who were present. The Queen then perceived that she must yield—a conviction which she received with feminine wrath and perverseness. She sent the next day for Marlborough, and told him that Mr. Harley should in two days be dismissed; but she gave her concurrence to this desired measure with a deep resentment, which her tenacity of impressions rendered indelible.
It might now be expected that the Duchess’s restoration to favour would ensue; but those who looked for such a termination of the political broil knew nothing of human nature. Anne never forgave being compelled to part with Harley. Her ministers perceived that they had lost her confidence; and Harley, through the favour of Mrs. Masham, still enjoyed opportunities of “practising upon the passions and credulity of the Queen,” as Lady Marlborough expresses it.
Among those members of the ministry who went out of office in consequence of Harley’s dismissal, was the celebrated Henry St. John, who immortalised the name of Bolingbroke.[[132]] He at that time held the office of Secretary at War; but his rise to political influence had begun in the earliest years of the Queen’s reign.
Of a most powerful natural capacity, to which were added splendid attainments, the result of a careful education acting upon an ardent and grasping mind,—of great but misdirected ambition,—Lord Bolingbroke was one of those men by whom Fate dealt unkindly, in subjecting them to the temptations of a political career. There is, indeed, no reason to conclude that Bolingbroke, untempted by that ambition to which he sacrificed so much, would have adorned private life by purity and temperance,—which were not the fashionable virtues of the day. When even the high-minded and reflecting Somers could tarnish his great qualities by licentious habits, there can be little cause to wonder that one who, like Bolingbroke, lived in a whirlwind, could be profane without a blush, and grossly immoral without contrition. Born not only with strong passions, but more especially with the most perilous of all, the passion for notoriety, Bolingbroke had not the protecting influence of a religious faith to temper his extravagances, nor to chasten his erring spirit when the dark hour had passed away, and had left his mind free to admire and worship the beauty of virtue; and to draw the comparison between his own conduct, and that rule which should have been his guide. The cable by which he was connected with that anchor which alone can keep the frail bark firm, was cut away. The infidelity of Bolingbroke, and his endeavours to impress his opinions upon others, are too well known to require further comment.
It may be well, from his intimate connexion with the political affairs of the day, as well as from the regard which the Duke of Marlborough once entertained for him, to trace the progress of that extraordinary mind, and of that inconsistent yet lofty character, of which Bolingbroke, both in his works and in the history of his life, has left us ample records.
It may seem unfair to say, that his early scepticism and his youthful thirst for distinction may be attributed, in some measure, to his education among individuals of the Presbyterian persuasion. Not that we mean, by such an assertion, to cast the slightest reflection upon the pious and generally conscientious body of non-conformists. But Bolingbroke, like many other young persons whose friends are opposed on matters of controversy, was the object of persuasion—the innocent cause of polemical discussion—the victim of well-meant efforts which drew in contrary ways.
This gifted descendant of a long line of eminent and ennobled warriors and statesmen was born at Battersea, in Surrey, in the year 1672, at the house of his paternal grandfather, Sir Walter St. John. The civil commotions, in which his grandfather had taken a prominent part, were then, in those later days of Charles the Second, hushed, not quelled; and the effects of political and polemical differences not only still existed, but were cherished as sacred recollections by the elder branches of the St. John family, of whom Lady St. John, the grandmother of Bolingbroke, was an influential member. This excellent and zealous lady, although a charitable benefactress to the orthodox institutions of her village, was a steady adherent to the Puritans, and an earnest promoter of their principles in the mind of her youthful grandson. Unluckily she adopted that course of instruction which has been found to be peculiarly unsuccessful in training the minds of youth to certain religious impressions. It is universally remarked how little we respect what we have been forced to commit to memory,—however valuable may be the subject, however attractive the form of what we are thus compelled to receive into our rebellious imaginations. The spiritual adviser of Lady St. John, and the instructor of Bolingbroke, was Daniel Burgess, one of those singular compounds of fanaticism, shrewdness, humour, and obstinacy, who often obtain so remarkable an influence over the strongest intellects, as well as the most devout hearts. This zealous man acted with the usual blindness to the inclinations of youth, and with the ignorance of human nature which such persons display. “I was obliged,” says Lord Bolingbroke, writing almost with loathing of his earlier days, “while yet a boy, to read over the Commentaries of Dr. Manton, whose pride it was to have made an hundred and nineteen sermons on the hundred and nineteenth Psalm.”