Reign Of Queen Anne Until The Peace Of Utrecht, 1701-1713 (1908)

THE REIG-N OF QUEEN ANNE . y - v LONDON. JOESr. 3IIREAT. Jtt, BEKJLHJlB . S PBEFACB. THIS VOLUME has been written, in accordance with the wish expressed to me by several persons, as a connect ing link between the close of Lord Macaulays History of England and the commencement of that from the Peace of Utrecht, which I published while still bearing the title of Mahon. It is to be observed, that Lord Macaulay did not live to complete, as was hoped, the reign of William the Third. It is sometimes supposed that he did so, since his final volume, as published by his family, contains an excellent account of the last illness and decease of the King. But this is only a detached passage which stands separate from the rest. Of the last part of that reign, a period of between one and two years, there is unhappily with one other ex ception no record from his pen. That deficiency has here to be supplied. In the reign of Anne the main figure in war and politics around which it may be said that all the others centre is undoubtedly Marlborough. I have to the best of my ability ejideavoured to weigh his cha racter in the scales of impartial justice believing as vi PREFACE. I do that these scales have not been held even in the hands of preceding writers. In some we may trace blind adulation in others most unsparing hostility. Although in several points of my narrative I differ from the conclusions which Archdeacon Coxe has formed, I have constantly derived the greatest ad vantage from the ample extracts of the Blenheim Papers which he has inserted in his Life of Marl borough. I allude especially to the confidential corre spondence of the Duke with the Duchess and Lord Grodolphin. There are some furtherextracts from these Papers which Archdeacon Coxe has made but did not publish, and which forming part of his large manuscript collection are now at the British Museum. Of these also I have been able to make use. But, on the other hand, I cannot acknowledge any obligation to the series of Marlboroughs letters, taken from Mr. Cardonnels copybooks, and published by Sir George Murray in 1845. Of these letters, filling five large volumes, by far the greater part as I conceive was neither written nor dictated by the Duke, but pre pared by his Secretaries, at his order and for his signa ture. They are merely formal, or relative to matters of minute detail, and scarce ever in my judgment afford any thing of historical interest. It will be seen by my notes, where and how far I have availed myself of other family papers hitherto unpublished. But I desire at this place to express my great obligation to the Government of His Majesty the Emperor Napoleon, which in the most liberal PREFACE. vii manner allowed me access to the Archives of the Foreign Office at Paris during the last years of Louis the Fourteenth. Thus I was enabled to obtain tran scripts of the secret letters addressed to M. de Torcy by Abbe Graultier, during his negotiations in England, letters of the highest value to the history of parties at that time. Considerable extracts from them had been already made by Sir James Mackintosh in 1814 but these have remained in manuscript, with the ex ception of some passages cited in the Edinburgh Keview, as I had occasion to explain in a note vol. i. p. 43 to my History of England. It should be borne in mind throughout this work that, as in my previous History, dates when not other wisespecified are given in England according to the Old Style which was then the legal one but in foreign countries, except Russia and Sweden, accord ing to the New. There is some inconvenience in this method, but, as it seems to me, there would be more in any other. GHOSVENOB PIACE, February 1870. CONTENTS OF THE FIBST VOLUME. CHAPTER I, 1700 Prospects of the Spanish Succession - - - 1 Death of Charles the Second of Spain - - - 8 His Will ib...