where so much dishonesty was rife, for one spy was under the eye of another. But what at other times would have been a mere political mischance, happening when it did, was sufficient to oblige Harley to retire from official life.

The dramatic events of those early February days have often been told: how Godolphin and Marlborough resigned their offices rather than continue in an Administration with Harley; how the Duchess with tears in her eyes placed her resignation also in the Queen's hands; and how at the Cabinet Council on the 8th of February, neither Godolphin nor Marlborough being present, the Duke of Somerset protested against the transaction of business, and the Queen thereupon hastily broke up the Council. Few scenes are sadder than some of the incidents in the repeated and dangerous crises which marked the reign of Anne. They demanded of the sovereign courage, sagacity, and resolution; they had to be encountered by a woman who was most unfitted to play a part among the ambitions and the intrigues of a singularly critical and unique historical period. For Anne, with the best intentions, was unfitted to her position. What a misfortune for a woman, born to enjoy a quiet domestic existence, to be called to cope with a destiny to which she was wholly unequal! Her simple character and homely tastes, her good intentions and her religious faith, would have made

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the Queen a happy and a useful English lady. Instead, in her high position she was beset by troubles and perplexities, and was helpless and lonely amidst difficulties which would have tried the clearest mind.

On the 9th it was resolved by the House of Lords to appoint a Committee1 to examine Greg, in the hope of obtaining from him information on which to base a charge of high treason against Harley. This was a distinct declaration of active hostility against him, and shows the lengths to which the enmity of party could be carried. On the 11th, bowing before the storm, he placed his resignation in the hands of an unwilling sovereign.2 It was a party triumph for the Whigs, and a personal victory for Godolphin and Marlborough, but a victory which presently hastened Godolphin's downfall, partly from the individual strength of the dismissed Minister, and partly because it consolidated against the Lord Treasurer adverse elements at a most inopportune moment, and gave to his opponents in Parliament, at Court, and in the country, a leader in the prime of life, more capable at the instant than any other statesman of conducting an active opposition to a successful end, and of taking advantage of the change

1 This Committee, which consisted of seven Whig peers, reported that there was no evidence to show that Harley had been guilty of any treasonable practices.

2 Burnett, ed. Dartmouth and Hardwicke, v. 354.

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in popular feeling which was now approaching. For Godolphin the loss of Harley was something more than a political misfortune, for it deprived him not only of a colleague who had relieved him from much official labour, with whom for the last four years he had been on terms of the closest intimacy, and who with Marlborough alone shared his confidence; but it left him, becoming weak in health and surrounded with ever-growing difficulties, to carry on his administration in painful isolation.

These events not only threw Harley into a close political association with the Tory party, but into intimate personal relations with all the members of it. From that moment he became one of the remarkable group of which the Court of Anne was the centre - intriguing women and able men of letters, statesmen, placemen, and divines, to whom, from opinion and from self-interest, the Whigs were detestable, and who, often jealous and suspicious of each other, were united by a common dislike of the Junto, Nonconformists, and monied men. Once included in it, Harley was thenceforward bound to the Tory party by ties which were as strong as political principles, and by daily associations which the longer they continued the more surely caused his permanent separation from men with whom he was often more in political sympathy than with those by whom he was

FINAL CONNECTION WITH TORIES 91 surrounded. That under these circumstances he should become more reticent, and more enigmatical in his words, is not surprising, since he could scarcely express a sincere opinion without offending a colleague or his sovereign.

CHAPTER V

IN OPPOSITION

1708-1710

GROWING ARROGANCE OF THE WHIGS-INCREASING STRENGTH OF THE TORIES AND CLERGY-HARLEY AND MRS. MASHAMREVOLT OF THE QUEEN AGAINST THE WHIGS-DISMISSAL OF GODOLPHIN-HARLEY APPOINTED CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER-HARLEY'S POLITICAL POSITION.

OF

F opposition by Harley to Godolphin's administration in the modern parliamentary sense of the word, there is no appearance during the next two years. Yet unquestionably during this period he was becoming more decidedly opposed to the war policy to which the Lord Treasurer was committed, and was patiently and quietly, but none the less effectively, preparing the way for a change of Government. His action was based, however, not on modern parliamentary lines, on open attacks on the Ministry in the House of Commons, and on appeals to the electors, but on the use of the personal predilections of the sovereign, a course of action which to a great degree was successful, because, for the moment, the wishes of the Queen harmonised with the feeling of her people.

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