. . . . . . . . . . . . 63
VI. OXFORD'S HALL; BOLINGBKOKE'S FLIGHT . . . . . . . 91
VII. THE WHITE COCKADE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
VIII. AFTER THE REBELLION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
IX. "MALICE DOMESTIC.--FOREIGN LEVY" . . . . . . . . . 158
X. HOME AFFAIRS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
XI. "THE EARTH HATH BUBBLES" . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
XII. AFTER THE STORM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
XIII. THE BANISHMENT OF ATTERBURY . . . . . . . . . . . 211
XIV. WALPOLE IN POWER AS WELL AS OFFICE . . . . . . . . 224
XV. THE DRAPIER'S LETTERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
XVI. THE OPPOSITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
XVII. "OSNABRUCK! OSNABRUCK!" . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262
XVIII. GEORGE THE SECOND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
XIX. "THE PATRIOTS" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284
XX. A VICTORY FOR THE PATRIOTS . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

{1}

A HISTORY

OF

THE FOUR GEORGES.

CHAPTER I.

"MORE, ALAS! THAN THE QUEEN'S LIFE!"

"The Queen is pretty well," Swift wrote to Lord Peterborough on May 18,
1714, "at present, but the least disorder she has puts all in alarm."
Swift goes on to tell his correspondent that "when it is over we act as
if she were immortal; neither is it possible to persuade people to make
any preparations against an evil day." Yet on the condition of Queen
Anne's health depended to all appearance the continuance of peace in
England. While Anne was sinking down to death, rival claimants were
planning to seize the throne; rival statesmen and rival parties were
plotting, intriguing, sending emissaries, moving troops, organizing
armies, for a great struggle. Queen Anne had reigned for little more
than twelve years. She succeeded William the Third on March 8, 1702,
and at the time when Swift wrote the words we have quoted, her reign
was drawing rapidly to a close.

Anne was not a woman of great capacity or of elevated moral tone. She
was moral indeed in the narrow and more limited sense which the word
has lately come to have among us. She always observed decorum and
propriety herself; she always discouraged vice in others; but she had
no idea of political morality or of high {2} political purpose, and she
had allowed herself to be made the instrument of one faction or
another, acco