* In the course of this year, M. du Casse, governor of St. Domingo, made an unsuccessful attempt upon the Island of Jamaica; and M. St. Clair, with four men of war, formed a design against St. John’s, Newfoundland; but he was repulsed with loss by the valour of the inhabitants.
England had continued very quiet under the queen’s administration, if we except some little commotions occasioned by the practices, or pretended practices, of the Jacobites. Prosecutions were revived against certain gentlemen of Lancashire and Cheshire, for having been concerned in the conspiracy formed in favour of the late king’s projected invasion from Normandy. These steps were owing to the suggestions of infamous informers, whom the ministry countenanced. Colonel Parker and one Crosby were imprisoned, and bills of treason found against them; but Parker made his escape from the Tower, and was never retaken, though a reward of four hundred pounds was set upon his head. The king having settled the affairs of the confederacy at the Hague, embarked for England on the eighth of November, and next day landed at Margate. On the twelfth he opened the session of parliament with a speech, in which he observed that the posture of affairs was improved both by sea and land since they last parted; in particular, that a stop was put to the progress of the French arms. He desired they would continue the act of tonnage and poundage, which would expire at Christmas; he reminded them of the debt for the transport ships employed in the reduction of Ireland; and exhorted them to prepare some good bill for the encouragement of seamen. A majority in both houses was already secured; and in all probability he bargained for their condescension by agreeing to the bill for triennial parliaments. This Mr. Harley brought in by order of the lower house immediately after their first adjournment; and it kept pace with the consideration of the supplies. The commons having examined the estimates and accounts, voted four millions, seven hundred sixty-four thousand, seven hundred and twelve pounds, for the service of the army and navy. In order to raise this sum they continued the land tax; they renewed the subsidy of tonnage and poundage for five years, and imposed new duties on different commodities.* The triennial bill enacted, that a parliament should be held once within three years at least; that within three years at farthest after the dissolution of the parliament then subsisting, and so from time to time for ever after, legal writs under the great seal should be issued by the direction of the crown for calling, assembling, and holding another new parliament; that no parliament should continue longer than three years at farthest, to be accounted from the first day of the first session; and that the parliament then subsisting should cease and determine on the first day of November next following, unless their majesties should think fit to dissolve it sooner. The duke of Devonshire, the marquis of Halifax, the earls of Weymouth and Aylesbury, protested against this bill, because it tended to the continuance of the present parliament longer than, as they apprehended, was agreeable to the constitution of England.
* They imposed certain rates and duties upon marriages, births, and burials, bachelors, and widows. They passed an act for laying additional duties upon coffee, tea, and chocolate, towards paying the debt due for the transport ships: and another, imposing duties on glass ware, stone, and earthen bottles, coal, and culm.
DEATH OF ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON AND OF QUEEN MARY
While this bill was depending, Dr. John Tillotson, archbishop of Canterbury, was seized with a fit of the dead palsy in the chapel of Whitehall, and died on the twenty-second day of November, deeply regretted by the king and queen, who shed tears of sorrow at his decease; and sincerely lamented by the public, as a pattern of elegance, ingenuity, meekness, charity, and moderation. These qualities he must be allowed to have possessed, notwithstanding the invectives of his enemies, who accused him of puritanism, flattery, and ambition; and charged him with having conduced to a dangerous schism in the church, by accepting the archbishopric during the life of the deprived Sancroft. He was succeeded in the metropolitan See by Dr. Tennison, bishop of Lincoln, recommended by the whig-party which now predominated in the cabinet. The queen did not long survive her favourite prelate. In about a month after his decease she was taken ill of the smallpox, and the symptoms proving dangerous, she prepared herself for death with great composure. She spent some time in exercises of devotion and private conversation with the new archbishop; she received the sacrament with all the bishops who were in attendance; and expired on the twenty-eighth day of December, in the thirty-third year of her age, and in the sixth of her reign, to the inexpressible grief of the king, who for some weeks after her death could neither see company nor attend to the business of state. Mary was in her person tall and well-proportioned, with an oval visage, lively eyes, agreeable features, a mild aspect, and an air of dignity. Her apprehension was clear, her memory tenacious, and her judgment solid. She was a zealous protestant, scrupulously exact in all the duties of devotion, of an even temper, and of a calm and mild conversation. She was ruffled by no passion, and seems to have been a stranger to the emotions of natural affection; for she ascended without compunction the throne from which her father had been deposed, and treated her sister as an alien to her blood. In a word, Mary seems to have imbibed the cold disposition and apathy of her husband; and to have centered all her ambition in deserving the epithet of an humble and obedient wife. [056] [See note L, at the end of this Vol.]
RECONCILIATION BETWEEN THE KING AND THE PRINCESS OF DENMARK.
The princess Anne being informed of the queen’s dangerous indisposition, sent a lady of her bed-chamber to desire she might be admitted to her majesty; but this request was not granted. She was thanked for her expression of concern; and given to understand, that the physicians had directed that the queen should be kept as quiet as possible. Before her death, however, she sent a forgiving message to her sister; and after her decease, the earl of Sunderland effected a reconciliation between the king and the princess, who visited him at Kensington, where she was received with uncommon civility. He appointed the palace of St. James for her residence, and presented her with the greater part of the queen’s jewels. But a mutual jealousy and disgust subsisted under these exteriors of friendship and esteem. The two houses of parliament waited on the king at Kensington, with consolatory addresses on the death of his consort; their example was followed by the regency of Scotland, the city and clergy of London, the dissenting ministers, and almost all the great corporations in England.*
* The earls of Rochester and Nottingham are said to have started a doubt, whether the parliament was not dissolved by the queen’s death; but this dangerous motion met with no countenance.