f July.

Bolingbroke was now supreme, and everything appeared tending inevitably
to a Jacobite restoration. The Jacobite Sir William Windham had been
made chancellor of the exchequer, important military posts were placed
in the hands of the faction, and a new ministry of Jacobites was
projected. But now the queen's sudden death on the 1st of August, and
the appointment of Shrewsbury to the lord treasurership, instantly
changed the whole scene and ruined Bolingbroke. "The earl of Oxford was
removed on Tuesday," he wrote to Swift on the 3rd of August, "the queen
died on Sunday! What a world is this and how does fortune banter us!"
According to Herville, the French envoy, Bolingbroke declared to him
that in six weeks he could have secured everything. Nevertheless the
exact nature of his projects remains obscure. It is probable that his
statement in his letter to Windham that "none of us had any very settled
resolution" is true, though his declaration in the _Patriot King_ that
"there were no designs on foot ... to place the crown on the head of the
Pretender" is a palpable falsehood. His great object was doubtless to
gain supreme power and to keep it by any means, and by any betrayal that
the circumstances demanded; and it is not without significance perhaps
that on the very day of Oxford's dismissal he gave a dinner to the Whig
leaders, and on the day preceding the queen's death ordered overtures to
be made to the elector.[6]

On the accession of George I. the illuminations and bonfire at Lord
Bolingbroke's house in Golden Square were "particularly fine and
remarkable,"[7] but he was immediately dismissed from office. He retired
to Bucklebury and is said to have now written the answer to the _Secret
History of the White Staff_ accusing him of Jacobitism. In March 1715 he
in vain attempted to defend the late ministry in the new parliament; and
on the announcement of Walpole's intended attack upon the authors of the
treaty of Utrecht he fled in disguise (March 28, 1715) to Paris, where
he was well received, after having addressed a letter to Lord Lansdowne
from Dover protesting his innocence and challenging "the most
inveterate of his enemies to produce any instance of his criminal
correspondence." Bolingbroke in July entirely identified himself with
the interests of the Pretender, whose secretary he became, and on the
10th of September he was attainted. But his counsel was neglected for
that of ignorant refugees and Irish