FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131  
132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   >>   >|  
who had till now served as chiefs of the Whigs. Though the first Hanoverian Ministry was drawn wholly from the Whig party, its leaders and Marlborough found themselves alike set aside. But even had they regained their old power, time must soon have removed them; for Wharton and Halifax died in 1715, and 1716 saw the death of Somers and the imbecility of Marlborough. The man to whom the king entrusted the direction of affairs was the new Secretary of State, Lord Townshend. His merit with George the First lay in his having negotiated a Barrier Treaty with Holland in 1709 by which the Dutch were secured in the possession of a greater number of fortresses in the Netherlands than they had garrisoned before the war, on condition of their guaranteeing the succession of the House of Hanover. The king had always looked on this treaty as the great support of his cause, and on its negotiation as representing that union of Holland, Hanover, and the Whigs, to which he owed his throne. Townshend's fellow Secretary was General Stanhope, who had won fame both as a soldier and a politician, and who was now raised to the peerage. It was as Townshend's brother-in-law, rather than from a sense of his actual ability, that Walpole successively occupied the posts of Paymaster of the Forces, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and First Lord of the Treasury, in the new administration. [Sidenote: The rising of 1715.] The first work of the new Ministry was to meet a desperate attempt of the Pretender to gain the throne. There was no real hope of success, for the active Jacobites in England were few, and the Tories were broken and dispirited by the fall of their leaders. The policy of Bolingbroke, as Secretary of State to the Pretender, was to defer action till he had secured help from Charles the Twelfth of Sweden, and had induced Lewis the Fourteenth to lend a few thousand men to aid a Jacobite rising. But at the moment of action the death of Lewis ruined all hope of aid from France; the hope of Swedish aid proved as fruitless; and in spite of Bolingbroke's counsels James Stuart resolved to act alone. Without informing his new Minister, he ordered the Earl of Mar to give the signal for revolt in the North. In Scotland the triumph of the Whigs meant the continuance of the House of Argyle in power; and the rival Highland clans were as ready to fight the Campbells under Mar as they had been ready to fight them under Dundee or Montrose. But Mar was a
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131  
132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Secretary

 

Townshend

 

Holland

 

rising

 

Hanover

 

secured

 

Pretender

 

throne

 
Bolingbroke
 

action


leaders
 

Ministry

 

Marlborough

 
dispirited
 

policy

 
Hanoverian
 
Charles
 

thousand

 

Fourteenth

 

induced


broken

 

Twelfth

 
Sweden
 

England

 
desperate
 

attempt

 

Treasury

 

administration

 
Sidenote
 

Jacobites


Though

 

active

 

success

 

wholly

 

Tories

 

ruined

 

Scotland

 

triumph

 
continuance
 
signal

revolt

 

Argyle

 

Dundee

 

Montrose

 

Campbells

 

Highland

 

served

 

chiefs

 

Swedish

 

proved