THE 
 
 A.F. MORRISON 
 MEMORIAL LIBRARY 
 

ROBERT HARLEY 
 EARL OF OXFORD 
 
ROBERT HARLEY, EAKL OF OXFORD AND EARL MORTIMER, K.G. 
 
 rrotn a pk litre after Sir Giuifrey k'uelUr in tht National Portrait Gallery 
 
ROBERT HARLEY 
 EARL OF OXFORD 
 
 r 
 PRIME MINISTER 
 1710-1714 
 
 A 
 
 STUDY OF POLITICS AND LETTERS 
 
 IN THE AGE OF ANNE 
 
 BY 
 
 E. S. I^OSCOE 
 
 WITH THIRTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 New York: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 London: METHUEN & CO. 
 
 1902 
 

 TO 
 
 HELEN CLERGUE 
 
 TO WHOM I AM INDEBTED FOR 
 VALUABLE AND ENCOURAGING ASSISTANCE 
 DURING THE PREPARATION OF THIS BOOK 
 
 6565S2 
 
 tj^'f*^^ 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 IT was the intention of Swift to write the life of 
 Harley, and he asked the second Earl of 
 Oxford to search among his father's papers for 
 materials for this work. But the project remained 
 unfulfilled, and from that day to this no biography 
 of Robert Harley has been published ; whatever 
 opinion one may form of him either as a politician 
 or a man, the absence of a separate story of his 
 life is an inconvenience to the student of the age 
 of Anne, on which, from the point of view of its 
 relation to the evolution of English politics and 
 literature, a good deal yet remains to be said. 
 Fortunately, the materials for such a work have 
 recently become more accessible, and it has been my 
 endeavour to give from original sources, and in a 
 short space, an unbiassed description of Harley 's 
 life, and at the same time to indicate the political 
 influences which affected his career, and to sketch 
 his relations with contemporary statesmen, and 
 with the men of letters — more especially De Foe 
 and Swift — by whom he was surrounded during his 
 period of power. 
 
 The most important sources of information on 
 
viii PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 Harley's life are the manuscripts of the Duke of 
 Portland, which are preserved at Welbeck Abbey, 
 a large mass of which have lately been published 
 by the Historical Manuscripts Commission. They 
 are cited in this work as the Harley Papers, this 
 being the sub-title which is given by the Com- 
 mission to the volumes of the Portland Papers 
 which contain this collection. In the following 
 pages there are some passages from two articles 
 in the Edinburgh Review of 1898 and 1901 on 
 these papers, which, with other authorities, are more 
 particularly described in Appendix III. 
 
 I have to thank Mr. Robert W. D. Harley of 
 Brampton Bryan for the kind manner in which he 
 placed his interesting collection of MSS. at my 
 disposal ; and the Duke of Portland and the Duke 
 of Buccleuch for access to their MSS., which are 
 not yet published. I am also under obligation 
 to Mr. J. J. Cartwright of the Public Record 
 Office, Secretary of the Historical Manuscripts 
 Commission, for allowing me to see the proofs of 
 the MSS. of the Marquis of Bath at Longleat, 
 which will shortly form another volume of the 
 publications of the Historical Manuscripts Com- 
 mission. To Miss E. Bagnall I am indebted for 
 the labour and time given to the preparation of the 
 Index, and for assistance in the revision of the proofs. 
 
 E. S. R. 
 
 July 1902. 
 
TABLE OF DATES 
 
 {The dates in this volume are in all cases given in the New Style.) 
 
 1661, 5th Dec. . . Robert Harley, born in Bow Street, London. 
 
 1682, i8th Mar. . Admitted a student of the Inner Temple (but 
 was never called to the Bar). 
 
 1685 Married to Elizabeth Foley. 
 
 1689 M.P. for Tregony. 
 
 1690 M.P. for New Radnor. 
 
 1690 Commissioner of Public Accounts. 
 
 1 69 1 Death of his first wife. 
 
 1 701 Act of Settlement. 
 
 1 701, loth Feb. . Speaker of House of Commons. 
 
 1 701, 7th Sept. . Triple Alliance between England, Holland, and 
 
 the Emperor, against France. 
 
 1702, 8th Mar. . Death of William ill. and Accession of Anne. 
 
 1703, Nov. . . . De Foe released from prison by good offices of 
 
 Harley, and connection between Harley 
 and De Foe commenced. 
 
 1704, 1 6th May . Appointed Secretary of State (retaining office 
 
 of Speaker). 
 1704, Oct. . . . Harley married Sarah Middleton 
 
 1704, 13th Aug. . Battle of Blenheim 
 
 1705, 5th April . Ceased to be Speaker on dissolution of Parlia- 
 
 ment. 
 
 1706, 22nd July . Articles of Union between England and Scotland 
 
 signed in London. 
 
 1707, 6th Mar. . Act of Union received the Royal assent. 
 
 1708, nth Feb. . Harley resigned Secretaryship of State, 
 
 1 7 10, 8th Aug.. . Godolphin dismissed from office of Lord High 
 Treasurer, 
 ix 
 
X TABLE OF DATES 
 
 1 710, 9th Aug. . Harley appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 
 1 7 10, 4th Oct. . . Swift introduced to Harley. 
 
 1711,23rd May . Harley created Earl of Oxford and Earl 
 
 Mortimer. 
 1711,29th May . Appointed Lord High Treasurer. 
 
 171 1, 31st Dec. . Dismissal of Marlborough from his official places. 
 
 1713, 31st Mar. . Peace of Utrecht. 
 
 1714, 6th June . . Schism Bill received Royal assent. 
 
 17 14, 27th July . Harley is dismissed from office of Lord High 
 Treasurer. 
 
 1714, 1st Aug. . Death of Anne and Accession of George I. 
 
 1715, loth June . Motion for impeachment of Harley for high 
 
 treason. 
 
 1 71 5, 1 2th July . Harley committed to the Tower. 
 
 1717,3rd July . Released from the Tower on failure of prosecu- 
 tion. 
 
 1 7 19, 28th Feb. . Proceedings begun for introduction of Peerage 
 Bill. 
 
 1724, 2 1st May . Death of Harley in London. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 EARLY LIFE 
 1661-1700 
 
 Harley's Character in History — The Harleys of Brampton Bryan 
 — Sir Robert Harley — Brilliana Lady Harley — Sir Edward 
 Harley — Robert Harley's Early Life — First Marriage — 
 Member for Tregony — Member for New Radnor — Work 
 in Parliament — Bill for Triennial Parliaments — Opposes a 
 large Standing Army — National Commercial Expansion — 
 Act to establish a National Land Bank — Harley's Political 
 Position — His Character in Early Manhood — Friendship 
 with Charles Montague ..... 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 SPEAKER AND SECRETARY OF STATE 
 170I-1705 
 
 Harley elected Speaker of the House of Commons — State of 
 Political Parties — England and France — Harley again 
 elected Speaker in Last Parliament of William in. — 
 Accession of Anne — Declaration of War with France — 
 Harley Speaker in Parliament of 1702 — Effect of the War 
 on Domestic Politics — Secretary of State — Occasional 
 Conformity Bill — Harley's Management of the House of 
 Commons — His Political Position — Harley and Godolphin 28 
 
xii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 HARLEY AND DE FOE 
 
 I 703-1 7 14 
 
 PAGE 
 
 De Foe in Newgate — Released by Harley's Intercession — The 
 Relations between De Foe and Harley — De Foe's Work — 
 His Mission to Scotland — His Hope of Official Employ- 
 ment — His Opinion on Harley's Fall in 1708 — Continues 
 in Godolphin's Service after Harley's Dismissal — His 
 Return to Harley in 1710 — Prosecuted for Libel in 1713* 
 — Intercession of Harley — The Review — Harley and 
 Journalism ....... 47 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 SECRETARY OF STATE 
 I 705- I 708 
 
 Difference of Godolphin's and Harley's Views — Godolphin's 
 Alliance with the Whigs — Result on Harley's Position — 
 The Drawback Bill — Increasing Coolness between Harley 
 and Godolphin — The Queen and Church Patronage — 
 Accentuation of Differences between Harley and Godolphin 
 — Harley's Resignation of Office — His Definite Alliance 
 with the Tories . , . . . '75 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 IN OPPOSITION 
 
 1708-1710 
 
 Growing Arrogance of the Whigs — Increasing Strength of the 
 Tories and Clergy — Harley and Mrs. Masham — Revolt of 
 the Queen against the Whigs — Dismissal of Godolphin — 
 Harley appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer — Harley's 
 Political Position . . . . . 9* 
 
CONTENTS xiii 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PRIME MINISTER 
 I7IO-1714 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Harley's Negotiations with the Whig Junto — The Position of 
 Halifax — Harley forms a Tory Cabinet — Contrast between 
 Harley and Bolingbroke — Introduction of Swift to Harley 
 — Erasmus Lewis — Swift andl Harley — The Relations of 
 Marlborough and Harley — The Conclusion of Peace the 
 Object of Harley's Policy — Guiscard's Attempt on Harley's 
 Life — Harley created Earl of Oxford and appointed Lord 
 Treasurer — Negotiations with France — Marlborough op- 
 poses Harley's Policy — The Government defeated in the 
 Lords on the Address — Temporary Alliance of High Church 
 Tories and Whigs — Bill against Occasional Conformity 
 carried — De Foe's Suggestion to defeat it — The Political 
 Crisis — Harley's Confidence — The Creation of Peers — 
 1711 and 1832 — Dismissal of Marlborough — Triumph of 
 Harley — The Restraining Orders — Conclusion of Peace . loi 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 LAST YEARS OF POWER 
 171I-1714 
 
 Harley's Financial Policy — The South Sea Scheme — De Foe's 
 Influence on it — Estrangement of Harley and Bolingbroke 
 on Conclusion of Peace — Defeat of the Government on 
 the Commercial Treaty with France — Differences in the 
 Political Views of Harley and Bolingbroke — Advisers of 
 the Elector doubt Harley's Good Faith — The Schism Bill 
 — The Struggle between Harley and Bolingbroke — Fall of 
 Harley — Causes of his Fall — Death of the Queen . . 145 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IMPEACHMENT— IMPRISONMENT— RETIREMENT 
 1714-1724 
 
 Harley's Position on Death of Queen Anne — His Hopes on 
 Accession of George I. — Proceedings against the Tory 
 
xiv CONTENTS 
 
 Leaders — Impeachment of Harley — Imprisonment in the 
 Tower — Difference between the Two Houses — Acquittal 
 — Harley and the Jacobites — Opposition to the Peerage 
 Bill — Indifference to Financial Distress resulting from 
 South Sea Scheme — Harley and his Friends — Prior and 
 Swift — Death — Summary of his Character and Life . 171 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE BOOK-COLLECTOR. THE FRIEND OF MEN OF LETTERS 
 
 Harley's Taste for collecting Books and Manuscripts — A 
 Fashion of the Age — Harley as a Scholar — Humphrey 
 Wanley — Addition of the D'Ewes Collection to the Library 
 — Enlarged by Edward, Earl of Oxford — Its Dispersal — 
 The Manuscripts purchased for the Nation — Harley's 
 Friendship with Men of Letters : Swift, Prior, Arbuthnot, 
 Gay— The Brothers' Club— The Scriblerus Club— Politics 
 and Letters in the Age of Anne .... 208 
 
 APPENDICES— 
 
 I. Swift's Character of the Earl of Oxford . 233 
 
 II. Money lent to the Queen by the Earl of 
 
 Oxford ...... 236 
 
 III. Note on the Manuscripts and Letters of 
 
 AND relating TO ROBERT HARLEY, EARL OF 
 
 Oxford ...... 238 
 
 INDEX 241 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 I. Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford and 
 
 Earl Mortimer, K.G. . . Frontispiece 
 
 From a picture after Sir Godfrey Kneller in the 
 National Portrait Gallery. The Earl of Ox- 
 ford is depicted in the robes and with the 
 insignia of a Knight of the Garter, and holds 
 the Lord Treasurer's White Staff. 
 
 II. Ruins of Brampton Castle, Hereford- 
 shire ..... To face page 6 
 
 III. Brilliana Lady Harley. . . „ „ 8 
 
 From a portrait in the possession of R. W. D. 
 Harley at Brampton Bryan, Herefordshire. 
 
 IV. Sir Robert Harley . . . „ „ 26 
 
 From a mezzotint at Brampton Bryan. 
 
 V. Sidney, Earl of Godolphin . • „ » 44 
 
 From a portrait in the possession of the Duke 
 of Leeds at Hornby Castle, Yorkshire. 
 (Probably by Sir Godfrey Kneller.) 
 
 VI. Queen Anne with her Son, the Duke 
 
 of Gloucester . . • „ » 96 
 
 From a portrait by Michael Dahl in the 
 National Portrait Gallery. This portrait was 
 painted about 1695. 
 
 VII. Charles Montague, Earl of Halifax „ „ 102 
 
 From a portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller in the 
 National Portrait Gallery. 
 
 VIII. Jonathan Swift . . . • » ,, 108 
 
 From a portrait by Charles Jervas in the 
 National Portrait Gallery. 
 
 IX. John Churchill, Duke of Marl- 
 borough . . . . „ „ 124 
 
 From a portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller in the 
 National Portrait Gallery, 
 
 X. Henry St. John, Viscount BoLiNGBROKE „ „ 152 
 
 From a portrait by Hyacinth Rigaud in the 
 National Portrait Gallery. 
 
 XI. Matthew Prior . . . • » » 196 
 
 From a picture by Thomas Hudson from a 
 portrait by Jonathan Richardson in the 
 National Portrait Gallery. 
 
 XII. Humphrey Wanley, F.R.S., F.S.A. . „ „ 212 
 
 From a mezzotint from a portrait by Thomas Hill. 
 
 XIII. John Gay . . . . . „ „ 218 
 
 From an unfinished sketch by Sir Godfrey 
 Kneller in the National Portrait Gallery. 
 
 XV 
 
"Ce sihde a engendre le notre. Toutes nos origines 
 et tous nos caracteres sont en lui : I'age moderne est 
 sorti de lui et date de lui." 
 
 E. AND J. DE GONCOURT. 
 
ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 EARL OF OXFORD 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 EARLY LIFE 
 
 1661-1700 
 
 Harley's Character in History — The Harleys of 
 Brampton Bryan — Sir Robert Harley — Brilliana Lady 
 Harley — Sir Edward Harley — Robert Harley's Early 
 Life— First Marriage— Member for Tregony— Member for 
 New Radnor — Work in Parliament— Bill for Triennial 
 Parliaments— Opposes a large Standing Army— National 
 Commercial Expansion— Act to establish a National Land 
 Bank— Harley's Political Position — His Character in 
 Early Manhood— Friendship with Charles Montague. 
 
 **We fight with the poison of the tongue, with 
 words that speak like the piercing of a sword, 
 with the gall of envie, the venom of slander, the 
 foam of malice." Such were the words in which 
 De Foe, the acutest observer of the men and 
 manners of his age, described the characteristics 
 of the political life in which Robert Harley, for a 
 quarter of a century, took so conspicuous a part. 
 It need not therefore surprise us that it has been 
 difficult to form a sure opinion of his political 
 actions, though at the same time his career has not 
 
2 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 always been considered either with sufficient care 
 or without prejudice^, Who does not remember 
 Macaulay's brilliant and misleading description of 
 himi^'^Kbt.''feV'eri' idamning with faint praise, the 
 historian describes him as one whose intellect 
 "was small and slow," and who was eventually 
 found by his contemporaries to be ** really a dull 
 and puzzle-headed man."^ Bolingbroke, twelve 
 years after Harley had been in his grave, assailed 
 his memory with virulence, forgetful that in former 
 years he had spoken of him with respect and 
 admiration, and sometimes even with affection.^ 
 The truth is that Harley 's character has too fre- 
 quently been drawn from the fragmentary allusions 
 of contemporary writers, often time-servers, or 
 political enemies who varied their praise or blame 
 according to the exigencies of the moment. Such 
 sources of information in such an age as that of 
 Anne require even more careful investigation than 
 at any period of our history. " If an Englishman," 
 wrote Addison with remarkable detachment of 
 mind, ** considers the great ferment into which 
 our political world is thrown at present, and how 
 intensely it is heated in all its parts, he cannot 
 
 ^ A more judicial view of Harley is taken in a valuable paper, 
 " The Development of Political Parties during the Reign of Queen 
 Anne," by Walter Frewen Lord, Transactions of the Royal Historical 
 Society^ vol. xiv., new series. 
 
 ^ " Adieu, dear master ; no man loves you more entirely than 
 Harry."— St. John to Harley, iSth May 1705, Harley Papers^ ii. i8a 
 
POLITICAL STATE OF ENGLAND 3 
 
 suppose it will cool again in less than three 
 hundred years. In such a tract of time it is pos- 
 sible that the heats of the present age may be 
 extinguished, and our several classes of great men 
 represented under their proper characters." Addi- 
 son perceived that the condition of England at 
 the beginning of the eighteenth century was 
 remarkable and exceptional : the nation was still 
 acutely sensitive after repeated and extraordinary 
 constitutional crises, after the bitter conflicts of the 
 preceding half-century between Churchmen and 
 Nonconformists. New conditions — political, com- 
 mercial, and social — were coming into existence, 
 of which the men who were taking part in the 
 national evolution were wholly inappreciative. By 
 a study of Harley's career, the centre as it was of 
 the political life of his age, by discarding many 
 personal and encumbering details, we are better 
 able to estimate the real forces which were at 
 work beneath a mass of intrigue and invective, of 
 suspicion and fear. 
 
 If Harley's capacity has been unduly depreci- 
 ated by some historians, it would, on the other 
 hand, be wrong to rank him as a statesman either 
 of large intellect or of conspicuous strength of 
 character. He was not a Chatham, a Pitt, or a 
 Fox ; he was not even a Walpole : but there is 
 this solid fact, which is worth more than praise or 
 depreciation, that when many able and brilliant 
 
4 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 persons were engaged in public life, he succeeded 
 by his individual capacity in attaining to the 
 highest place, whilst for years before he became 
 Prime Minister he was regarded with respect and 
 often with admiration by those who were the best 
 able to appreciate political merit. A tiresome 
 manner, an almost wearisome knowledge of parlia- 
 mentary forms and history, involved speech, all 
 tending, it has been said, to hide the deficiencies 
 of his mind and to impose upon his hearers, will 
 not permit a politician without remarkable capacity 
 to reach the place which Harley attained. 
 
 Harley's life as a whole, especially his birth, his 
 family, and his character, have not been sufficently 
 considered ; isolated facts have been dwelt on so as 
 to give them undue importance, and his career has 
 been generally surveyed from the point of view of 
 other times, detached from its political atmosphere. 
 His actions have been tested by a different standard 
 from that which prevailed in his own time, when 
 duplicity was regarded as statesmanship, and when 
 De Foe could assert as necessary what he calls 
 "that old maxim of Politicks" that "men might 
 be made use of when they can serve us, without 
 any real design to serve them " ; in other words, 
 that deception was admirable. Statements cannot 
 be too carefully received if made when truth is at 
 a discount, and when exaggerated eulogy is con- 
 sidered as little more than common courtesy. We 
 
A PARLIAMENTARY STATESMAN 5 
 
 sometimes forget that the fine lines which have 
 impressed succeeding generations with Pope's high 
 estimate of Harley, were prefixed to an edition of 
 the works of Parnell, and were a dedication by 
 which Pope hoped to please a nobleman whose 
 recommendation, though his political influence had 
 departed, was still invaluable to an author. 
 
 But the time has come when some attempt may 
 be made to describe without prejudice the most 
 noticeable features in the career of a statesman 
 who played a great part in his day, and who is an 
 interesting study ; for he is the most modern of the 
 politicians of the age of Anne, an age which in 
 politics, letters, and commerce was the beginning 
 of our own. Though he had neither the ability 
 of some of his contemporaries, nor the resolute 
 will of others, not one of them had anything like 
 the same capacity as a parliamentary leader, or the 
 same sensitive perception of public opinion. Harley 
 is the typical parliamentary statesman born an age 
 too soon, living in years which formed part of 
 a period of transition, both social and political, 
 and which was also marked by features of the 
 most remarkable and serious character — a great 
 European war, and some uncertainty as to the 
 succession to the throne of England. 
 
 To his ancestors and his family, Robert Harley 
 owed some of his success, and their influence was 
 lifelong. Then, as now, important family connec- 
 
6 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 tions made the first steps of a political career more 
 easy for a beginner, — they could open the way to 
 fortune though they could not assure it, — and in 
 Harley's case, the effects of early training and 
 association were clearly apparent at a late stage of 
 public life. 
 
 Robert Harley came of an old Herefordshire 
 family. Originally the Harleys lived in Shrop- 
 shire, but in the reign of Henry iii. they became 
 — by the marriage of Robert de Harley with 
 Margaret de Brampton — the possessors of 
 Brampton Castle^ and with it of a considerable 
 estate at Brampton Bryan, in that agreeable 
 broken country which lies on the Welsh border, 
 between the Clun Hills and the larger valleys, 
 and spreading pastures, which extend from 
 Leominster to the Severn. Somewhat remote, 
 it has many pleasant characteristics : hills and 
 hanging woods, small rivers, and villages of 
 thatched cottages with picturesque black and 
 white walls, numerous apple orchards, and grey 
 church towers, give the landscape pleasing variety. 
 In mediaeval times the castle and the church 
 stood side by side, almost surrounded by the 
 village ; a park studded with well - grown oaks 
 stretched — as it does to-day — up the hillside to 
 the west, and pastures sloped from the castle 
 walls to the willows by the Teme. In 1644 both 
 
 ^ The Castles of Herefordshire, By the Rev. C. J. Robinson, p. 8. 
 
SIR ROBERT HARLEY 7 
 
 castle and church were reduced to ruins by the 
 Royalists under Sir Michael Woodhouse, but in 
 1661-62 Sir Edward Harley rebuilt the church, 
 and erected the existing house close to the castle, 
 which, unroofed and ivy-clad, to-day rises pictur- 
 esque and peaceful from the lawn. 
 
 Both Robert Harley 's father and grandfather 
 were public - spirited and high - minded men, both 
 were members of Parliament possessing an influence 
 which extended beyond the bounds of their county. 
 His grandfather, Sir Robert,^ was a man of ability 
 and learning, numbering among his friends Dr. 
 Donne, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and George 
 Herbert; one of the Puritanical left wing of the 
 Church of England, he was intolerant in his 
 religious opinions, and was an influential member 
 of the Parliamentary party until his death. 
 
 Sir Robert Harley showed his zeal for Puri- 
 tanism not only as a stout soldier, but as a narrow- 
 minded iconoclast. Chairman of the Commons 
 Committee which was appointed in 1644 with 
 instructions to destroy superstitious and idolatrous 
 relics, from April of that year to the follow- 
 ing August he was active in the destruction 
 of monuments, stained glass, and everything in 
 the nature of artistic or architectural adornment 
 at Westminster Abbey, St. Margaret's Church, 
 and the chapels at Whitehall and Hampton 
 
 1 1579-1656. 
 
8 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 Court ; and Canterbury [Cathedral suffered from 
 his misguided zeal.^ 
 
 Thrice married, his last wife was Brilliana 
 Conway, one who in those stirring times made 
 her name famous — she was courageous, sagacious, 
 and lovable. Her letters, long preserved at 
 Eywood,2 were published by the Camden Society 
 in 1853, and give posterity an insight into her 
 character, and, with those which have remained 
 among the archives at Welbeck, present a complete 
 picture of a most admirable woman. She was bom 
 in 1600 and married in 1623. As in the instance of 
 her memorable contemporary, Mary, Lady Verney, 
 the trials of the times prematurely ended her life. 
 Left in 1643 |in charge of her husband's house, 
 and entrusted with the management of his busi- 
 ness. Lady Harley took up her task cheerfully 
 and bravely. ** Since you think Brampton a safe 
 place for me," she wrote to him on the 15th of 
 July, " I will think so too, and should not for 
 anything do that which would make the world 
 believe our hope did begin to fail in our God. 
 But be pleased to send me directions what I 
 should do if there should be any stir."^ And 
 
 ^ The following is one among many similar entries : " 1645. 
 May 13. Receipt by Thomas Stevens of 26s. from Sir Robert 
 Harley for defacing pictures on the N. side of the Abbey." — Harley 
 Papers^ i. 133. 
 
 * Now in the possession of R. W. D. Harley, Esq., of Brampton 
 Bryan. 
 
 * Harley Papers^ i. 91. 
 
HklMIA.NA I.ADY HAKJ,KV 
 
 1-rovi afoi-liait in //u- /i>ssrssio;t of K. 1 1'. />. Harh-y, I'.sq., at Ih-aiii/'lon Kryaii, Hcyefordshu'e 
 
SIR EDWARD HARLEY 9 
 
 stir there was, for in the autumn Brampton was 
 besieged by a body of the Royalist party under 
 Sir William Vavasour. It was an age of heroines, 
 and Brilliana Lady Harley showed no less courage 
 at Brampton Bryan than did the more famous 
 Lady Derby at Lathom House, and the beautiful 
 Lady Blanche Arundel at Wardour Castle. For 
 six weeks she defended her home with resolu- 
 tion and spirit. In October she wrote to her 
 husband: *'A11 the children are well, but I have 
 taken an exceeding great cold, which much troubles 
 me. I beseech the Lord to preserve you and to 
 give you a comfortable meeting with your most 
 affectionate wife." But this was not to be, for in 
 the same month Lady Harley died, worn out by 
 the fatigues and anxieties of the preceding weeks. 
 
 Sir Edward Harley,^ who was made a Knight 
 of the Bath in 1667, was as public-spirited as his 
 father, but more moderate and more statesmanlike 
 in opinion. Though he fought in the Parliamentary 
 armies with great gallantry, he was opposed to a 
 strong anti- Monarchical policy, and, after the death 
 of the King, to the assumption by Cromwell of 
 almost autocratic power ; and, like others who had 
 served the cause of Parliament well, he lost in 
 time the confidence of the Protector. It was 
 natural, therefore, that he should be in favour of 
 the return of Charles 11. ; but though a member of 
 
 1 1 624-1 700. 
 
10 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 Parliament during the reign of that King and of 
 James ii., he held himself aloof from party struggles. 
 He was heartily an adherent of William of Orange, 
 and after the Revolution was always ready in 
 Parliament to support all reasonable measures. 
 
 He died in 1700 at his Herefordshire home. 
 ** He had," wrote his second son, Auditor Harley, 
 "all the accomplishments of a gentleman. His 
 features were very exact, and he had great quick- 
 ness in his eyes, which commanded respect. His 
 temper was naturally very passionate, though 
 mixed with the greatest tenderness and humanity. 
 His passion he kept under strict restraint, and had 
 a manner totally subdued, but his generosity and 
 tender compassion to all objects of charity con- 
 tinued to the last." 
 
 From these staunch upholders of popular rights 
 and religious freedom — a strange origin for the 
 future Tory Prime Minister — Robert Harley 
 sprang. He was Sir Edward s eldest son by his 
 second marriage, his mother being Abigail Stephens, 
 daughter of Nathaniel Stephens of Essington in 
 Gloucestershire, and he was born in 1661. When 
 quite young he left his pleasant home, for in 
 August 1 67 1 he went to the school of a Mr. Birch 
 at Shilton in Oxfordshire, where among his school- 
 fellows was his future colleague Harcourt. On the 
 28th of that month he sent his first letter home. 
 Robert Harley, imbued with ancestral Puritanism, 
 
SCHOOL LIFE 11 
 
 wrote — probably under the eye of his master — in 
 a more formal style than the schoolboy of to-day. 
 
 "1 67 1, August 28th, Shilton. Please to accept 
 my most humble duty to you and my Lady Mother 
 in this line from a learner. I hope through the 
 grace of God, with your blessings and prayers, 
 which I earnestly beg, my endeavours may in time 
 send you fairer fruits than these first beginnings." ^ 
 
 It has been sometimes supposed that Harley 
 was educated at Westminster School, but of this 
 there is no evidence. In 1677 he was still at 
 Shilton, for he writes in that year particulars of an 
 illness from which he had been suffering there ; and 
 in the next spring there is a letter from his father 
 to him at the same place. In June 1678, Sir 
 Edward, writing to Lady Harley from Westminster, 
 where he was staying, remarks at the end of his 
 letter, ** Bull and Robin are well," showing that 
 young Harley was in London with him, but not, 
 it would seem, at Westminster School. In the 
 following July he was at Shilton, and his father 
 not only writes to him there, but adds, in the 
 manner of a parent to a son at school or college, 
 "Study the Greek lexicon and Erasmus's adages." 
 About this time Sir Edward seems to have thought 
 of sending his son to Oxford, for in October he 
 writes, ''Acquaint Mr. Birch that it will not now 
 
 1 Harley Papers^ i. 324. Endorsed " First letter." 
 
12 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 be needful to provide you a lodging at Oxford. I 
 have altered my thoughts thereon." ^ Harley there- 
 fore must have remained at Shilton for the whole 
 period of his early youth. But in 1680 the time 
 had come for him to go to some more advanced 
 place of education, and one was selected in London. 
 We are told that too great stress is set in the 
 present day on physical exercises, but when Sir 
 Edward Harley recommends M. Foubert's house 
 to his wife, he dwells as much on the training of 
 his son's body as of his mind — 
 
 "(16)80, July 6th. Monsieur Foubert, who for 
 his religion was driven out of France, has set up 
 an Academy near the Hay market for riding, fencing, 
 dancing, handling arms, and mathematics. He is 
 greatly commended, and has divers persons of 
 quality. I was with him and like him very well, 
 so that if you dislike not I would have Robin 
 spend some time there." ^ 
 
 At this school, if such it can be called, Robert 
 Harley remained until December 1682. 
 
 For the next few years little can now be dis- 
 covered of his life. In 1684 he was living in 
 London, and in letters from his parents he is asked 
 to undertake various small pieces of business for 
 them : *' I desire some good wine," writes his father. 
 ** You know what I like — neither hot, sharp, nor 
 
 * Harley Papers^ i. 361. * Harley Papers^ i. 366. 
 
MARRIAGE 13 
 
 sweet ; some Canary requisite for friends. If you 
 could find a right sort of white wine, neither * eager 
 nor stummed,' it would do well." 
 
 In May 1685, Harley married Elizabeth Foley, 
 the daughter of a Tory magnate, Thomas Foley of 
 Whitley Court, Worcestershire. Always delicate, 
 she was a victim in 1691 of that scourge of the age, 
 smallpox. But in 1694 he married again,^ form- 
 ing a very different alliance, for his second wife was 
 Sarah Middleton, daughter of Simon Middleton, 
 a merchant of London. In a letter to his father 
 in the very year of his first marriage, Harley 
 remarked that the doctor had prescribed his wife 
 a course of physic for six weeks, and then he 
 quaintly added, *' I find myself well, but weak, 
 especially my eyes. Many advise the cutting off of 
 my hair, but I hope it will wear off without that." ^ 
 
 Harley, during the next four years, lived 
 sometimes in London, sometimes in Herefordshire, 
 taking, as became his father's son, an important 
 share in local affairs, and qualifying himself for a 
 wider field of activity by intercourse with politicians 
 in town. At length, in 1689, his parliamentary 
 career began by his election in the first Parliament 
 of William and Mary for the borough of Tregony, 
 one of those numerous little Cornish constituencies 
 which were usually filled by court placemen. 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ i. 552, 557. See post^ p. 199. 
 * Harley Papers^ i. 389. 
 
14 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 The new member was in full sympathy with the 
 principles of the Revolution ; and if it be allowable 
 to call him a party man at all, at that time he 
 must be regarded as a Whig. But the funda- 
 mental differences which were presently to divide 
 the country and Parliament had not yet arisen, and 
 it was as a friend of civil and religious liberty, and 
 as an adherent of the new dynasty, that Harley 
 entered Parliament. He did not, however, long 
 remain a member for the little Cornish borough 
 with its hundred and fifty obedient electors, for 
 when in the following year the general election 
 occurred, he contested the borough of New Radnor. 
 At first unsuccessful, he was ultimately, after the 
 hearing of a petition in November, given the 
 seat by a Committee of the House of Commons. 
 
 During the next ten years Harley 's political 
 influence steadily increased ; and he soon gained a 
 great parliamentary reputation, less by the display 
 of striking powers than by sound sense, and by a 
 close attention to, and unusual study of, the forms 
 and the business of the House of Commons. ** I 
 have often heard it said, though he had but ;^500 a 
 year, he spent half of it on clerks to copy out what 
 papers were given into the House of Commons 
 concerning treaties, etc., so that Mr. Blathwaite 
 and others of the King's people were almost afraid 
 to speak before him."^ 
 
 ^ Wentworih Papers^ edited by Cartwright, p. 134. 
 
SOCIABILITY 15 
 
 In 1690, Harley became a Commissioner for 
 Public Accounts, in the following year he **was 
 put into the chair of the Committee for examining 
 the estimates of the Fleet." A single paragraph 
 from a letter of Edward Harley to his father shows 
 very clearly the estimation in which his brother 
 Robert was held at this time. " The favour and 
 acceptance that the goodness of God has given my 
 brother in the House of Commons is extraordinary 
 and much taken notice of."^ 
 
 At the height of his power Harley was essentially 
 a man of social and kindly instincts ; nothing pleased 
 him better than to receive Swift or Prior without 
 ceremony, and to drink a bottle of claret with them. 
 The same characteristic is found in his life at this 
 time, perhaps touched with the unrestrainedness of 
 youth, which on one occasion led to a parental 
 remonstrance, quaint to modern ideas when we re- 
 member that Harley was already a capable member 
 of Parliament. To it this letter is an answer ; its 
 language may seem too scriptural, but it was com- 
 posed in a style which would be pleasing to Sir 
 Edward Harley, who had for years been one of the 
 Parliamentary and Nonconformist party. It reveals 
 a glimpse of Harley's personal life at this time. 
 
 "The paper received last night could not but 
 occasion great thoughts of heart, though in the great 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ i. 487. 
 
16 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 commotion and distraction by the multiplicity of busi- 
 ness hath been my lot this day, may be less fit so fully 
 to express myself as this great occasion requires, yet 
 deem it absolutely due to the duty owing a father 
 endeared by innumerable tokens of affection, and to 
 what is dearest to a man and a Christian, to give the 
 soonest answer which, God willing, shall be enlarged. 
 ** In the first place, I desire to look up to Heaven, 
 without the permission of which neither a hair falls 
 to the ground nor a cubit taken from our reputation, 
 and I doe most humbly and syncerely bend my 
 knees to the Father of mercies, imploring his mercie 
 and grace, that this rebuke may bring forth in my 
 soul a joyful harvest of humble, strict walking, 
 with al circumspect holyness, in faith and obedience. 
 As to the matter charged, I beg leave to say with 
 syncerity and singleness of heart, I trust I have 
 that in me that I dare confess my faults, rather by 
 much than add to them by the covering of a lye. I 
 can most solemly declare I have not been in any 
 public-house — except just the time of dining — since 
 I came out of the country. I have so absolutely 
 withdrawn myself from al acquaintance, that I have 
 spent al the time hath not been taken up in my 
 public and privat affairs with one person only at the 
 Temple, whom I have — for divers reasons — con- 
 stantly attended in the evening. 
 
 ** It is possible from many shots of the like 
 nature, I could easily guess the bow whence this 
 
TRIENNIAL BILL 17 
 
 poysoned arrow was shot ; but I desire to look 
 higher, that it may be admonition to more heavenly 
 mindedness and humility, for which I humbly beg 
 the concurrence of your prayers, and that you wil 
 please to permit me to interpret this holy jelosie of 
 yours over me an additional mark of your most 
 tender affection to him who with al humility and 
 obedience beseeches your blessing."^ 
 
 Two measures during the last years of the 
 seventeenth century chiefly engrossed the attention 
 of Parliament and the country — the Triennial Bill,^ 
 as it was popularly called, and the reduction of the 
 standing army. Each was distasteful to the King, 
 and each, as was to be expected, was supported by 
 Harley. Triennial Parliaments had been brought 
 into existence by the Long Parliament in 1641, and 
 they had been destroyed by the Tories after the 
 Restoration. All the influences arising from family, 
 early training, and temperament, caused Harley to 
 be in favour of a measure which might be regarded 
 as completing the constitutional changes produced 
 by the Great Rebellion. 
 
 The first Bill which was introduced in 1693 
 passed both Houses, and after some hesitation was 
 vetoed by the King. It had a curious parliament- 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ i. 467. 
 
 2 More strictly — a Bill for the more frequent meeting and calling 
 of Parliament. 
 
 2 
 
18 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 ary history. Early in the following session, in 
 November, it was again introduced, and was then 
 thrown out by the Commons ; ^ but in December a 
 new Bill was passed by the Lords and rejected by 
 the Commons.^ It was supported effectively by 
 Harley : "In the great debate of yesterday about 
 the triennial parliaments, the Lord was pleased to 
 enable your brother to speak so that some in the 
 House called upon me to bless God that vouchsafed 
 to give me a son so to speak, and also the mercy 
 to me to hear him."' 
 
 The Harleys in each generation were an 
 affectionate and united family, and it is in these 
 touching words that Sir Edward writes of his son's 
 parliamentary merits. 
 
 The session was long and did not end until the 
 25th of April 1694, but the first business of the House 
 of Commons when Parliament again met in Novem- 
 ber was to order Harley to prepare and bring in yet 
 another Bill. It was suggested that the assent to 
 the measure by the King was the price of supply. 
 Be that as it may, it passed through all its stages 
 without opposition, and received the royal assent.* 
 
 Macaulay has asserted that Harley liked to 
 thwart the King, and that in order to do so he was 
 ready to act with either of the two parties in the 
 
 1 Pari. Hist, v. 788. « Pari Hist, v. 822, 826. 
 
 « Harley Papers, i. 548. Pari, Hist, v. 759. 
 * Pari Hist, v. 860, 861. 
 
OPPOSITION TO STANDING ARMY 19 
 
 State. But in opposing William and his Whig 
 Ministry in 1697 after the Peace of Ryswyck in 
 regard to a standing army, Harley acted with 
 perfect consistency, and the position which he 
 maintained was moderate and statesmanlike. For 
 once, at any rate, the middle course so dear to him 
 was the right course ; whether he looked on a stand- 
 ing army as a menace to civil liberty, or whether 
 — and this seems the chief reason for his action — he 
 objected to it in the interests of national economy, 
 does not much matter. He perceived the danger 
 of extreme action whether by the Court or its 
 opponents. "The prospect is very cloudy," he 
 writes to his father on 23rd November 1697, 
 ** every one is full of the common topic — a standing 
 army — and it is talked with heat on both sides." 
 A week later he says, '* The argument against a 
 standing army has raised a great heat in the town. 
 There is very little prospect of moderate councils." 
 And on the 30th he observes, ** The heat against 
 an army rather increases than otherwise, so that 
 it is thought necessary to disband the four French 
 [Dutch?] regiments which were to be kept."^ 
 It was an occasion when a politician always 
 favourable to moderate counsels, economical in his 
 financial views, and imbued with much common 
 sense, could make his influence felt. The King, 
 who as a foreigner could not possibly understand the 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ i. 593. 
 
20 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 state of English feeling, regarded the question from 
 a purely military point of view, one not confined 
 to the defence of England, but embracing possible 
 continental campaigns. Harley, while in touch 
 with the feeling of the country and of Parliament, 
 was also perceptive of the reasonableness to some 
 extent of the King's motives, and yet sympathised 
 with those who urged the danger of a standing army 
 on historical and theoretical grounds. The details 
 of the parliamentary measures of 1697 ^^^ 1^9^ 
 have long since ceased to be of practical importance, 
 but in the contest between the King and his Parlia- 
 ment we perceive the ground-swell of the storms of 
 the Rebellion and of the Commonwealth, the dread 
 of absolutism and of militarism — for men still 
 remembered both the pretensions of Charles i. and 
 the rule of the Major-Generals — struggling with 
 the needs of a changing state of society, in which 
 a standing army as much as parliamentary parties 
 was becoming a necessary feature of the English 
 polity. We perceive, too, the remarkable influence 
 of Harley, at once commanding and moderating. 
 Not objecting to a standing army on principle, he 
 moved in December 1697 that the number of troops 
 should be the same as in 1680. The indefiniteness 
 of this arrangement produced fresh difficulties, and it 
 was not until the following January, after an attempt 
 had been made by the King's friends to rescind 
 Harley's resolution, that by arrangement between 
 
HARLEY'S PARLIAMENTARY TACT 21 
 
 Ministers and the House of Commons the number 
 was fixed at 10,000 men. To support this army 
 Montague desired a vote for ;^400,ooo, but Harley 
 would have limited it to ;^300,ooo. The House, 
 with that sense of compromise so strongly marked 
 in English assemblies, split the difference. 
 
 But in December 1698 the parliamentary con- 
 test was bitterly renewed, for the new Parliament 
 was more hostile to a standing army than that 
 which had been lately dissolved. The Kings 
 Ministers, unwilling to face the storm, left the 
 initiative to the House, and under the tactful 
 leadership of Harley the army was fixed at 7000 
 natural born Englishmen (January 1699). Had 
 Parliament followed its own inclination, the army 
 would have been entirely disbanded ; it was 
 Harley s parliamentary management that built the 
 golden bridge over which the King could — how- 
 ever unwillingly — pass, and who not only resolved 
 a difficult and a dangerous crisis, but established 
 a parliamentary and a constitutional basis for the 
 system of a standing army. *'My brother's con- 
 duct in this affair," wrote Edward Harley to his 
 father, *'is very much commended"; and a little 
 later, *'The difficulties concerning disbanding the 
 army seem to be over. It is no small cause of 
 thankfulness that a dear relation is so eminently 
 useful and has his health so well."^ 
 
 ^ Harley Paper s^ i. 600, 601. 
 
22 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 At the end of the seventeenth and the be- 
 ginning of the eighteenth centuries the commercial 
 expansion of England was beginning. It was an 
 immense national impulse striving for outlets ; 
 among other forces, internal peace, a growing 
 population, and individual liberty all tended to 
 turn the energies of the English people towards 
 the making of money and the utilisation of capital, 
 and in its modern form of joint stock enterprise 
 this new vitality was already conspicuous. Yet at 
 the same time men were loath to act without the 
 assistance and the favour of the Crown. Some of 
 the new undertakings — such as the Hudson Bay 
 Company, which had been incorporated by Royal 
 Charter — had been successful. The Bank of 
 England had been established by Montague and 
 the Whigs in 1694, largely in the interest of the 
 merchants of London, who were identified with 
 the Whig party, and its creation, in spite of early 
 difficulties, was already seen to be of national 
 importance. Harley, watchful of the movements 
 of the public mind, and appreciative of the 
 advantage to the mercantile community of the 
 Bank of England, became responsible for another 
 financial scheme, which he expected would supply 
 the Government with money and benefit the 
 landowners, of whom he was a representative. 
 The antagonism of town and country, which was 
 accentuated by the fact that these localities were 
 
LAND BANK ESTABLISHED 23 
 
 in some degree marked by religious as well as by 
 political differences, thus, under the influence of 
 modern national development, took a new form. 
 The originator of the plan was Dr. Hugh 
 Chamberlen, one of those charlatans who some- 
 times are able to impose even on sensible men. 
 This medical practitioner had before 1696 per- 
 sistently advertised his scheme of a Land Bank, 
 and a Committee of the House of Commons had, 
 in 1693, pronounced it to be practicable. In 
 February 1696 the House of Commons passed a 
 resolution that money should be raised by this 
 means, and Harley thereupon carried through 
 Parliament a BilP which, among other financial 
 details, created what was to be called a National 
 Land Bank. Two and a half millions were to be 
 raised by public subscription, the loan bearing 
 interest at the rate of 7 per cent., which was to 
 be paid from the proceeds of a special Salt Tax, 
 and the subscribers were to be incorporated as 
 the Governor and Company of the National Land 
 Bank. Half a million was to be advanced to 
 landowners on mortgage at 3^ per cent, interest, 
 and the Bank was empowered to issue notes. To 
 gratify the landowners and the Tories, no person 
 interested in the Bank of England was to have 
 any share or lot in the new undertaking. The 
 idea was attractive to a Government which was 
 
 1 7 & 8 Will. III. c. 31. 
 
24 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 hard pressed for money ; it pleased the country 
 party, and it appeared likely to give to it the same 
 credit which the Bank of England had given to its 
 opponents. Fortunately, a scheme which would 
 assuredly have ruined all connected with it, from the 
 first found no popular support, the people showing 
 more sagacity than Parliament. Scarcely a penny 
 was raised, much to the chagrin of its promoters, 
 who forgot that by excepting from any participation 
 in it those who were connected with the Bank of 
 England, they were eliminating most men of busi- 
 ness, and that neither for loan nor notes was there 
 any sufficient or realisable security.^ Failure, how- 
 ever, though this scheme was, its legislative incep- 
 tion throws light both on Harley's character and 
 career, since we see him carrying a financial 
 measure which, unsound though it may have been, 
 was at the time regarded as of the first importance 
 by large numbers of his contemporaries, and was 
 undoubtedly an ingenious attempt to utilise grow- 
 ing commercial tendencies for the needs of a 
 political party. 
 
 In a parliamentary sense Harley had now, and 
 at an early age, attained a position which was 
 certain to lead sooner or later to office. Hitherto, 
 in the first stage of his life, he had been eminently 
 successful. He was presently to pass on to a 
 
 ^ Pari. Hist., v. pp. 994, 1 1 56. Rogers, First Nine Years of the 
 Bank of England^ p. 50 et seq. 
 
POSITION IN PARLIAMENT, 1701-2 25 
 
 stormier sea, where more commanding qualities 
 than he had yet been called upon to show were 
 essential for a statesman. Up to this point he had 
 been in a state of comparative political freedom ; 
 he was as yet unbound by troublesome party ties, 
 his action was still unfettered by the necessity of 
 aiming at definite political objects, and of consider- 
 ing personal idiosyncrasies either of colleagues 
 or of his sovereign. His keen perception of 
 political currents, his common sense, his dislike 
 of extreme courses, had hitherto been actually 
 advantageous to him, though in later years these 
 same qualities tended to his weakness. 
 
 The first period of Harley s life, as we have 
 seen, ends with the century. Hitherto he has 
 been steadily pursuing a parliamentary career, 
 and he has been noticeable as one of an active, 
 intelligent, and influential family, keenly interested 
 both in the affairs of the nation and of his country, 
 one of a family group, with each member of which 
 he was and always remained on friendly and 
 affectionate terms, and every one of whom always 
 delighted in his successes and sympathised with 
 him in his trials. Up to this date his father and 
 his brother Edward,^ who in a useful public life 
 
 ^ Edward Harley, 1664-1735, a member of the Middle Temple, 
 M.P. for Leominster 1698-1722. In 1702 he was appointed Auditor 
 of the Imprest for life. He wrote some works on religious subjects, 
 and took an active and practical interest in charitable schemes both 
 in London and in Herefordshire. 
 
26 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 well sustained the traditions of the family, are more 
 clearly defined characters than Robert Harley ; for 
 even in those early years he was reserved, careful 
 in his expressions of opinion, but popular for his 
 moderation and for a kindly manner which he 
 never lost, since it was the outcome of a kind 
 heart. Often, indeed, in later life his good nature 
 was turned by his enemies to his disadvantage. 
 It was his habit to promise where he could not 
 perform, to speak smoothly to hide his intentions ; 
 such were the things said against him, not always 
 without foundation. But sometimes a desire to 
 oblige, and a dislike to refuse in the one case, and 
 a wish not to hurt by harsh words and a curt 
 manner in the other, became to prejudiced persons 
 evidence of insincerity and cunning. 
 
 In those days, too, there must have been much 
 that was agreeable in his character, since there 
 had grown up a close friendship between himself 
 and Charles Montague.^ They were of the same 
 
 ^ Charles Montague (1661-1715), created Baron Halifax in 1700, 
 and raised to an earldom in 17 14. In 1687, in collaboration with 
 Prior, he wrote a burlesque of Dryden's "Hind and Panther." In 
 1689 he was elected to the Convention Parliament, and in 1692 
 became a Lord of the Treasury. In 1694 he carried a Bill which 
 created the Bank of England, and in the same year was appointed 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1697 Montague became First 
 Lord of the Treasury in place of Godolphin. In 1699 his great 
 influence in the House of Commons began to decline, and he 
 resigned his offices on being created a peer. Henceforth he 
 continued to take a leading part in English politics — becoming 
 First Lord of the Treasury in 17 14 for the second time, acting 
 consistently with the Whig party. 
 
FRIENDSHIP WITH MONTAGUE 27 
 
 age, and Montague had already won a conspicuous 
 parliamentary position by his brilliant talents, and 
 by his remarkable financial ability. But the ease 
 and courtesy of Harley's manner, and a temper 
 rarely ruffled, concealed a mind watchful and re- 
 sourceful, ever active in schemes to effectuate its 
 aims, until, somewhat after middle age, a career 
 which had been one of continuous work and of 
 constant anxiety, and the lassitude which comes 
 from health, lessened his mental vigour. His 
 father and brother were of a franker and more 
 open nature, and were sometimes unable to under- 
 stand a character and a capacity which were 
 gradually giving him a political position scarcely 
 realised by his relatives. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 SPEAKER AND SECRETARY OF STATE 
 1701-1705 
 
 Harley elected Speaker of the House of Commons- 
 State OF Political Parties— England and France— Harley 
 again elected Speaker in Last Parliament of William in. 
 —Accession of Anne — Declaration of War with France 
 — Harley Speaker in Parliament of 1702 — Effect of the 
 War on Domestic Politics— Secretary of State— Occasional 
 Conformity Bill— Harley's Management of the House of 
 Commons— His Political Position— Harley and Godolphin. 
 
 The second period of Harley's life begins with the 
 year 1701, when on loth February he was elected 
 Speaker in the fourth Parliament of William in.^ 
 The office had in the first instance been offered to 
 the veteran Tory leader, Sir Edward Seymour; but 
 the very day he declined it, Godolphin nominated 
 Harley.^ By his opposition, temperate though it 
 was, to the proposals of the King in regard to a 
 standing army in the previous Parliament, Harley 
 had gained favour with the Tories, while his know- 
 ledge of parliamentary business, his family con- 
 
 ^ His opponent was Sir Thomas Onslow, who was defeated by 
 one hundred and twenty votes.— Pari. Hist.y vol. v. p. 1232. 
 2 Harley Papers^ ii. 14. 
 
SPEAKER OF HOUSE OF COMMONS 29 
 
 nections, and his admitted moderation of opinion, 
 caused his candidature to be regarded favourably 
 in nearly every part of the House. Evelyn notes 
 the fact in a suggestive sentence: "The old 
 Speaker laid aside, and Mr. Harley, an able 
 gentleman, chosen." In the words of an impartial 
 and experienced observer, we have the best indica- 
 tion of the real opinion of Harley among those who 
 were not political partisans, and the best evidence 
 of the influential position to which he had already 
 risen. 
 
 The evolution of two well-defined parliamentary 
 and political parties out of two radical and national 
 divisions was now in progress. To the one 
 belonged the clergy of the Established Church, the 
 majority of landowners and country gentry, and 
 many of the peers ; to the other the Nonconformists 
 and the inhabitants of the towns, whether engaged 
 in commerce or professions. The first, which was 
 once the Royalist party, acquiesced — many of them 
 reluctantly — in the Revolution ; the other assisted 
 and welcomed it, but in order to complete it had 
 to support the foreign policy of William in. The 
 Whigs thus became the War party. The death 
 of the King (8th March 1702), however, removed 
 a strong individual force from the conduct of public 
 affairs, while the fact that his successor was a 
 woman increased the influence of the change, 
 hastening the transference of the executive power 
 
30 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 from the Sovereign to a select body of the chief 
 politicians who were becoming the Cabinet. Greater 
 responsibility was thrown on leading statesmen, 
 who were necessarily obliged to seek support from 
 their adherents in the country and from the 
 representatives of it in Parliament. Thus from 
 the beginning of the eighteenth century the two 
 political bodies became more compact, the members 
 in Parliament less individual, and more organised 
 in a course of continuous political action session by 
 session. In other words, a purely dual party system 
 was in process of formation, definite though im- 
 perfect, not easy to reckon with but often of re- 
 markable force. Religious freedom and toleration 
 were the basis of the Whig party, as support of 
 the Church of England and of clericalism was that 
 of the Tories ; again, the right of the people to 
 choose their own sovereign underlay Whig prin- 
 ciples, as the divine right of kings was believed 
 in by many Tories. But in no other respect were 
 the characteristics of the two parties, which are so 
 conspicuous later in the eighteenth and in the 
 nineteenth centuries, then visible. The Whigs in 
 the reign of William iii. were the Court party, as 
 the Tories were in that of Anne and of George in. ; 
 but on the other hand, the Whigs were throughout 
 the reign of Anne the War party, as the Tories were 
 the Peace party. The Whigs found most support 
 in the towns, and the Tories in the country ; but 
 
STATE OF PARTIES IN 1701-2 31 
 
 though the difference gradually tended to the 
 liberalism of the one and the conservatism of the 
 other, it did not in the age of Anne affect their 
 action in regard to social or commercial questions. 
 There was, in fact, except as to religious toleration, 
 little to remind us of the parties of a later time. 
 The favour with which the Whigs regarded the 
 Hanoverian succession, and the sympathy of the 
 Tories, though not universally — since the Whim- 
 sical or Hanoverian Tories are constantly in 
 evidence — for the Pretender, were the result of a 
 past national struggle, and were abnormal features 
 of party distinctions, though, as Harleys life 
 markedly exemplifies, they were invaluable for the 
 purposes of political warfare. While, therefore, it 
 is convenient in the age of Anne to designate the 
 two adverse parties by names which have grown 
 familiar, and which even then had sufficient signi- 
 fication, we must be careful to realise that they 
 had not the exact meaning of more modern times. 
 Nor should the posthumous influence on English 
 parties of William iii., and of his policy, the basis 
 of which was an Anglo- Dutch alliance against 
 France, be overlooked. The Dutch, too, were 
 Protestants, with whom the Dissenters were in 
 sympathy, and the French Protestant emigres 
 were active members of the Whig party, anta- 
 gonistic to the existing government in France. 
 On the other hand, the preference of the Church 
 
32 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 of England and of many of the Tories was for 
 a friendship with France, where the divine right 
 of kings still flourished. Sentiment plays a larger 
 part in international affairs than statesmen are 
 willing to admit, and it had a considerable effect 
 in shaping the views of the two great English 
 parties upon foreign affairs during the reign 
 of Anne. For from 1710 the peace policy of 
 Harley's ministry was adhered to not only because 
 the people desired the cessation of the war, but 
 because it was a French and therefore a Tory 
 policy. Friendship for France, as much as its 
 benefit to England, was the basis of Bolingbroke's 
 commercial treaty, and friendship for Holland — 
 the direct legacy of William — was in a measure a 
 cause of the virulent opposition of the Whigs to 
 the Treaty of Utrecht, and especially to the negotia- 
 tions which preceded it. 
 
 The action of parties was frequently uncertain, 
 and was complicated by the sovereign's consider- 
 able personal influence ; but it reflected and was 
 influenced by the opinion of the constituencies, 
 undemocratic though they were, which in their turn 
 were addressed by writers on behalf of the party 
 leaders, who were the forerunners of the modern 
 party journalists, and of whose increasing influence 
 no one was so perceptive or appreciative as Harley. 
 
 At the moment of its election in the first year 
 of the eighteenth century, the House of Commons 
 
ENGLAND AND FRANCE 33 
 
 represented the state of opinion of the majority of 
 the people, a majority which was eagerly desirous 
 of peace and of relief from the burdens of war, but 
 only of a peace which should not involve a disturb- 
 ance of the new constitution and of the Protestant 
 religion. The ignorance of Louis xiv. and his 
 advisers of the sensitiveness on these two points 
 of the English people, produced a rapid change 
 of public opinion on the question of peace. In 
 November 1700 the French King had, on the death 
 of Charles 11. of Spain, repudiated the Partition 
 Treaties of 1698 and of 1700, by which the 
 kingdom of Spain was to be so divided on the 
 death of its existing ruler as not to fall to the lot 
 of the Bourbons. With utter disregard for these 
 international engagements, which were made to 
 preserve the peace of Europe, Louis accepted for his 
 grandson, the Duke of Anjou, the crown which by 
 the will of the late sovereign was bequeathed to the 
 Dauphin's son. This act would probably have had 
 no great effect on English opinion, nor have pro- 
 duced a European war, had not Louis towards the 
 end of 1 701, with the assent of the Spanish authori- 
 ties, taken possession of the line of Spanish fortresses 
 which bordered the Netherlands, and ten days 
 after the Triple Alliance was signed (7th September 
 1701), on the death of James 11., recognised the 
 Pretender as King of England. The Tory Parlia- 
 ment, which during its brief and stormy existence 
 3 
 
34 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 had impeached the Whig leaders, Portland, Somers, 
 Halifax, and Orford, and had committed the Kentish 
 petitioners to prison, no longer representing the 
 feeling of the country, was dissolved by the King 
 in November, and was replaced by one in which 
 the Whigs were in a majority. The general 
 election of November-December 1701 was fought 
 on the issue of confidence or no confidence not in 
 a Ministry responsible to the country, but in the 
 King, who was his own Prime Minister, and the 
 country gave him the answer he desired. When 
 the sixth and last Parliament of William in. 
 assembled (30th December 1701), Harley was 
 again chosen Speaker, but only by fourteen votes, 
 over Sir Thomas Littleton, the candidate of the 
 Court, and William opened the new session by a 
 speech which became a political testament. Not 
 only did he formulate a foreign policy by which 
 England was to take her part as a continental 
 power, but also, under, it is said, the advice of 
 Somers, he recommended domestic divisions which 
 affected parties for many years after his death. 
 ** Let there be no other distinction heard of among 
 us for the future but of those who are for the 
 Protestant religion and the present Establishment, 
 and of those who mean a Popish prince and a 
 French Government." This was at the moment 
 an effective war-cry, for it rallied to the Govern- 
 ment that great mass of non-party men who would 
 
SPEAKER FOR THIRD TIME 35 
 
 not tolerate the return of the Stuarts, or any risk 
 to the Protestant reHgion, but it helped to create a 
 parliamentary party system by accentuating national 
 divisions during the whole of Harley s political 
 career. 
 
 It was not until the 4th of May 1702, almost 
 two months after the death of William, that war 
 was declared. The new Parliament, which met on 
 20th October 1 702, was Tory, and Harley for the 
 third time became Speaker. The change of party 
 predominance in the House of Commons was 
 remarkable but not surprising, since the Tories 
 were not for the time being opposed to a popular 
 war, and there had rapidly sprung up a feeling 
 of personal loyalty to the new sovereign, which 
 stirred the Conservative forces in the constitu- 
 encies. Godolphin gathered under his leadership 
 a Tory Cabinet, which presently resolved itself into 
 a Whig administration ; but at first, though the war 
 was a Whig war, and was waged to carry out the 
 principles of European policy, which had seemed 
 good to the late King and to his Whig friends, it 
 had the approval of the Tories and of the people. 
 
 But it introduced into English politics, at the 
 moment when political and parliamentary parties 
 were assuming their modern form, a factor at 
 once extraordinary and powerful, affecting Harley 
 more than any other statesman. By temperament 
 and by opinion he was averse to England becom- 
 
36 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 ing involved in European complications, costly 
 both in money and life. Thus the war was a 
 practical reason for a closer alliance between 
 Harley and the Tory party, which presently 
 became for the next few years the Peace party. 
 But in internal politics there were two cardinal 
 divisions in existence from the beginning to 
 the end of the reign of Anne. The Whigs, 
 except on one singular and abnormal occasion, 
 were the defenders of religious freedom and 
 toleration, and they were unanimously and strenu- 
 ously in favour of the Hanoverian succession. 
 The Tories, on the other hand, were the Church 
 party, were full of sectarian bitterness, and some 
 were unquestionably Jacobites. Had there been 
 no war Harley s natural place would have been 
 with the Whigs, but the war prevented this political 
 connection, and was the cause of introducing into 
 his career curious and remarkable complications. 
 
 Once the new war was commenced, the national 
 strength was spent upon it : it engrossed the 
 attention of the country and of Parliament, the 
 thoughts of Godolphin and his Ministers. Such was 
 the state of affairs whilst Harley during his third 
 term occupied the Chair of the House of Commons 
 — a place to which his moderation both of opinion 
 and in debate, the absence of party bias which was 
 so conspicuous in his character and speeches, and 
 his knowledge of the practice of Parliament, 
 
APPOINTED SECRETARY OF STATE 37 
 
 rightly entitled him. In this position he remained 
 until April 1705. A year previously, however, he 
 had become also Secretary of State with apparent 
 reluctance and under some pressure from Marl- 
 borough, who recognised in him a politician posit- 
 ively loving parliamentary business, and free from 
 that party bias which the soldier so thoroughly 
 detested. 
 
 *' I am sensibly concerned," wrote the general 
 in 1703, **at what you mention of the heats that 
 continue between the two parties, and should esteem 
 it the greatest happiness of my life if I could any 
 way contribute towards the allaying them. Upon 
 this occasion you will give me leave to be so free as 
 to tell you that what you write confirms me very 
 much in the desire I have for some time had, of 
 retiring from these uneasy and troublesome broils." ^ 
 
 Harley thus joined the Government almost as 
 a non-party man. At most he was a moderate 
 Tory, not in principle, but to some extent because, 
 in addition to causes already stated, both his father 
 and he had opposed what they regarded as the 
 extravagant financial policy of the late King,^ which 
 
 1 Longleat MSS., Hist. MSS. Com., p. 56. 
 
 2 " Sir E. Harley ... in this and the succeeding Parliaments con- 
 stantly opposed the extravagant ways they were then taking for 
 running the nation into debt, and the suspension of the Habeas 
 Corpus Act. This drew upon him and his family the implacable 
 rage of the Lord Wharton, Lord Somers, and the other Whigs of 
 their party." — Memoirs of the Harley family, by Edward Harley, 
 Auditor of the Exchequer. Harley Papers^ iii. 645. 
 
38 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 was supported by the Whigs, who in domestic 
 politics were the friends of civil and religious 
 freedom. He superseded the overbearing and 
 bigoted Nottingham, and he had so high a reputa- 
 tion for sobriety of thought and action, that Go- 
 dolphin might reasonably expect that by securing 
 him as a member of his administration he had 
 definitely attached to his middle party one who, 
 if nominally a Tory, would carry with him the 
 moderate members of that party without offending 
 the Whigs, on w^hom he could most steadily rely. 
 Nor would Godolphin have been disappointed 
 if he had not underestimated the violence of 
 partisanship and the bitterness of party hostility, 
 as well as the influence of the Queen. An 
 uncertain and obscure political factor, she was 
 neither stupid nor spiritless. She was impressed 
 with the idea of the sovereign's personal responsi- 
 bility, but she was greatly under the influence of 
 those around her. Her mind was neither resolute 
 nor quick ; she was affected by constant ill-health, 
 and the only consistent political motive which 
 influenced her was a predilection for the High 
 Church party, which necessarily produced a dislike 
 of the Whigs, identified as they were with the 
 Nonconformists. It is needless to attempt to 
 apportion minutely how much of each political 
 action of the Queen belonged to her initiative or 
 to the advice and the support of her immediate 
 
HARLEY AND GODOLPHIN 39 
 
 friends ; but whether moved by her own volition 
 or by those around her, she had an important 
 influence on the course of events. 
 
 The accession of Harley to the Cabinet gave 
 Godolphin more than a painstaking and zealous 
 member of his administration, for Harley at once 
 became the most trusted and the most intimate 
 of his colleagues, upon whose judicious advice in 
 regard to home and foreign affairs, and to many 
 delicate personal matters, it was his practice con- 
 stantly to rely. Godolphin's confidence in Harley 
 necessarily increased Marlborough's trust in the 
 new Secretary of State, and there is no stronger 
 confutation of the erroneous view which has often 
 been taken of Harley 's capacity, than the un- 
 bounded trust in his zeal and abilities which was 
 shown by Godolphin and Marlborough from 1704 
 to 1707. Harley 's tone towards Godolphin during 
 this period, as indicated by his correspondence, 
 was one of an almost too subservient humility, 
 which may well have led Godolphin to think that 
 Harley would never differ from him on any vital 
 point of policy ; while, on the other hand, Godol- 
 phin's unconcealed reliance on him may easily have 
 deceived even so sagacious a man as Harley, and 
 caused him to believe that he was too valuable 
 a colleague to be dismissed from Godolphin's 
 administration.^ He underrated Harley's political 
 
 1 Longleat MSS., Hist. MSS. Com., p. 51. 
 
40 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 foresight and firmness, and he could not forecast 
 the influence of the war on popular feeling. 
 
 Harley took office in May, amid universal con- 
 gratulation. ** The superiority of your genius," 
 wrote the Duke of Shrewsbury, a nobleman second 
 to none in the country in influence and sound 
 judgment, **will make that easy to you which 
 others have found vexatious." ^ 
 
 In August (1704) Marlborough fought the 
 battle of Blenheim. When the civilised world 
 was ringing with his victory, the Tories could not 
 hope for popular support in any attacks that they 
 might make on the General or on the policy of the 
 administration which supported him. 
 
 Blenheim gave renewed confidence to the 
 Whigs, and enabled Harley easily to rally round 
 him the moderate Tories. His parliamentary tact 
 was needed by the Ministry, for the extreme mem- 
 bers of the Tory party, elated by their success at 
 the last general election, and relying on the High 
 Church predilections of the Queen, had thrown 
 aside any assumption of religious toleration, and 
 early in the new Parliament carried through the 
 House of Commons a Bill to prevent Occasional 
 Conformity. That practice was certainly not 
 theoretically admirable, and it was one which 
 De Foe, friend though he was of the Dissenters, 
 was constantly criticising. But it was the result 
 1 Longleat MSS., Hist. MSS. Com., p. 57. 
 
OCCASIONAL CONFORMITY BILL 41 
 
 of intolerant legislation, and it was the only means 
 by which a Dissenter was eligible for various civil 
 offices ; by taking the Sacrament once he complied 
 with legal conditions. But the Bill, in December 
 1702, was ultimately lost. Neither Lords nor 
 Commons would surrender their amendments ; 
 conference after conference was in vain. To the 
 annoyance of many of the more reasonable Tories, 
 the most virulent of the party, actuated by an 
 extraordinary sectarian bitterness, and a positive 
 personal animosity to the Dissenters, in the follow- 
 ing session (25th November 1703) introduced and 
 carried a Bill on similar lines, but more moderate 
 in detail, through the House of Commons. It was 
 of course rejected by the Lords. Such were then 
 the strange complexities of party warfare, that it 
 was supported by Godolphin and opposed by the 
 majority of the Bishops. But the subject was not 
 allowed to slumber, and presently the headstrong 
 Tories decided (1704) to **tack" an Occasional 
 Conformity to a Land Tax Bill, with the object of 
 obliging the House of Lords — unable by constitu- 
 tional usage to reject money Bills — to pass the 
 purely political measure. Harley's conduct now 
 justified Marlborough's selection, for it was he 
 who took the chief share in defeating this 
 manoeuvre in the House of Commons. The 
 House of Lords was certain to throw out, directly 
 or indirectly, the Occasional Conformity Bill alone ; 
 
42 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 joined to a money Bill it might not be so easy. 
 Thus this step of the High Churchmen was objec- 
 tionable to Harley from every point of view : as a 
 friend of the Dissenters and of political moderation, 
 and as a lover of parliamentary precedent. ** I 
 hope everybody will do you the justice to attribute 
 the greatest share of it (the rejection of this motion 
 to * tack'), to your prudent management and zeal for 
 the public " ; ^ so wrote Marlborough to Harley. 
 And yet even this obvious action gave rise to 
 rumours of deceit. The Tories, it was said, took 
 this parliamentary course on the advice of the 
 Speaker — advice given only, it was asserted, in 
 order to decoy them into a snare.^ 
 
 Blenheim — as has been said — smoothed Harley s 
 official and parliamentary path ; he would be the 
 first to see its influence on public opinion. Six years 
 later it was the unpopularity of the war — of which 
 he was equally aware — that enabled him to super- 
 sede Godolphin. In following the fortunes of the 
 statesmen of the age of Anne, personal contests 
 and Court intrigues have been too much considered. 
 Larger causes were affecting the course of English 
 politics : the progress of the European war, the 
 unrecognised strength of the English party system, 
 
 ^ 1 6th December 1704, Coxe's Marlborough^ ii. 69. Longleat 
 MS., Hist. MSB. Com., p. 65. 
 
 ^ Pari. Hist.y vol. vi. p. 359. The "tack" was rejected by 
 251 to 134 votes, Harley voting in the majority. Pari Hist.y vol. 
 vi. p. 368. 
 
HIS POLITICAL MODERATION 43 
 
 the powerful factor which existed in the sovereign's 
 individual will, and the intense determination of 
 the people never to accept a Roman Catholic 
 sovereign, or to allow any attack on the Established 
 Church. 
 
 For eleven months Harley was both Speaker 
 and Secretary of State — offices to modern ideas 
 so incompatible. As Speaker he was on the best 
 of terms with Godolphin and with Marlborough, 
 and was gaining a unique influence both in Parlia- 
 ment and the country. But in the beginning as 
 in the end of his official life the same things were 
 said of him. When he became Secretary of State 
 he was called a ''trimmer" by those who disliked 
 him, and he was taunted with having ** caressed" 
 both parties. When, ten years later, he ceased to 
 be Lord Treasurer, the same accusation, uttered 
 with greater emphasis, was heard from one end 
 of England to the other : It was caused by an 
 adherence to a particular course of political conduct, 
 which was based on a reliance, not on the moderate 
 members of one party only, but on the hope 
 that he might have their support, and at the 
 same time by his moderation of political opinion 
 gain some favour with their opponents. It was 
 an elaborate and a continuous attempt to recognise 
 and yet to nullify the newly developing party 
 system by a man to whom it was repugnant. 
 Harley never attempted to form a middle party ; 
 
44 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 he took parties as they were, and endeavoured to 
 pursue a course of conduct which was necessarily 
 insincere and calculated to dupe both sides. This 
 remarkable political position, which he had secured 
 with so much skill and tact, is well illustrated by 
 a singularly frank letter written in 1704 by his 
 friend, Stanley West, at the very moment that his 
 management of the House of Commons was so 
 pleasing to Marlborough. 
 
 " For want of other information, be pleased to 
 give me leave to acquaint you with my observation 
 of people's opinion of your Honour. You have a 
 happier fate attending you than any in the present 
 Ministry, or in former either. You are entirely 
 master of two opposite parties. Both think you to 
 be theirs, and confide in you as such, to promote 
 their several different interests. Whatever dis- 
 tinguishing favour you show to either side, doth 
 not lessen your esteem in the other party ; 'tis all 
 ascribed to a depth of policy which they cannot 
 comprehend, and which they say is peculiar to 
 yourself, but is not a leaving the party. And in 
 such an unprecedented manner do you manage 
 the heads of both parties, that both sides believe, 
 at a proper time and occasion, you will show 
 yourself entirely in their distinct interests. I am 
 very glad to see so eminent a post free from the 
 reproach that usually hath attended it, and to 
 
SIDNEY, EARL OF GODOLPHIN 
 
 From a portrait hi the possession of the Duke of Leeds at Hornby Castle, Vorl-s 
 (Probably by Sir Godfrey Kneller) 
 
COMPARED WITH GODOLPHIN 45 
 
 observe your Honour stands so right in the people's 
 opinion, being very confident you will so manage 
 the weaknesses and follies of both sides as will in the 
 issue redound to the true interest and advantage of 
 the kingdom. 
 
 **The Duke, the Treasurer, and yourself are 
 called the Triumvirate, and reckoned the spring 
 of all public affairs ; and that your interests and 
 counsels are so united and linked together that 
 they cannot be broken, nor in any danger of it 
 during this reign." ^ 
 
 It was natural that there should be this connec- 
 tion between Harley and Godolphin, for in many 
 points they were strikingly alike ; yet it is remark- 
 able that men so similar in political opinion, and 
 so little fitted in many ways to be leaders, should 
 have been at the head of affairs throughout the 
 reign of Queen Anne. '* Both," writes Mr. Lecky, 
 ''were slow, cautious, temporising, moderate, and 
 somewhat selfish men, tedious and insufficient in 
 debate, and entirely without sympathy with the 
 political and religious fanaticism of their party." 
 For the moment, one wonders how these politicians, 
 apparently so ordinary in character, could ever have 
 carried on the business of the nation. But while 
 this description sets out in negatives certain 
 similarities of both statesmen, it omits to de- 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ ii. 215. 
 
46 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 scribe those qualities which led to their attainment 
 of power, qualities which since their time have over 
 and over again been found to be the most valuable 
 for success, not only in the House of Commons, 
 but in every representative assembly in the world 
 — patience and perseverance and good temper, tact 
 and knowledge of business, and an intuitive insight 
 (in Godolphin it was often humorous) into the weak- 
 nesses of men with whom they came into contact. 
 By the admission of all his contemporaries, Harley 
 possessed a first-rate capacity as a leader in the 
 House of Commons, and his decline may perhaps 
 be dated from the day when he quitted it. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 HARLEY AND DE FOE 
 
 1703-1714 
 
 De Foe in Newgate— Released by Harley's Interces- 
 sion—The Relations between De Foe and Harley— De 
 Foe's Work— His Mission to Scotland — His Hope of 
 Official Employment— His Opinion on Harley's Fall in 
 1708— Continues in Godolphin's Service after Harley's 
 Dismissal — His Return to Harley in 17 10 — Prosecuted 
 for Libel in 17 13— Intercession of Harley— The Review— 
 Harley and Journalism. 
 
 It was in 1703, while Harley was still Speaker, 
 that he entered into close relations with De Foe. 
 In December 1702, when religious passions were 
 roused by the parliamentary controversy upon 
 occasional conformity, De Foe had published The 
 Shortest Way with the Dissenters, Assuming the 
 character of a High- Flyer — as the extreme intoler- 
 ant High Churchmen were called, whom above all 
 others De Foe disliked — the writer advised the ex- 
 tirpation of the Nonconformists. Characterised by 
 the realism which marks all De Foe's works, from a 
 New Voyage round the World to Robinson Crusoe^ 
 the pamphlet was approved by many Tories. But 
 its publication resulted in De Foe's prosecution for 
 libelling the Church. He was convicted, and sen- 
 tenced (July 1703) to imprisonment and the pillory, 
 
 47 
 
48 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 and for the last three days of the month stood in 
 Cornhill, in Cheapside, and at Temple Bar, amid a 
 friendly crowd, who drank in pots of beer to the 
 health of the author of the True-Born Englishman 
 and of the spirited Hymn to the Pillory. 
 
 It was in November 1703^ that, through 
 Harley's good offices, De Foe was set at liberty. 
 ** What you propose about De Foe may be done 
 when you will and how you will," wrote Godolphin 
 to Harley on the 26th of September, and on the 4th 
 of November he remarks, *' I have taken care on 
 the matter of De Foe." On the 9th comes the first 
 of those numerous and vivid letters, full of varied 
 facts and fresh suggestions, which for ten years 
 De Foe was constantly writing to Harley. There 
 was but one interruption in their course — during 
 the period that Harley was out of office. 
 
 ^ De Foe's biographers have placed his release from Newgate as 
 having occurred about August 1704, the Review as having been 
 begun in Newgate in February 1704, and a Collection of the Most 
 Remarkable Casualties and Disasters which happened in the Late 
 Dreadful Tempest both by Sea and Land as being the first of his 
 imaginative works. The storm reached its height on 26th November, 
 and De Foe tells (p. 25), with every appearance of truth, how 
 on the preceding day he was nearly injured by materials from a 
 house. The book itself is largely a compilation of accounts of the 
 storm, many of which have the appearance of simple narratives of 
 facts. This publication, taken in connection with the letters at 
 Welbeck, is evidence of De Foe's release in 1703. That he was set 
 at liberty in 1703 is further substantiated by letters of the 12th and 
 presumably i6th May 1704 {Harley Papers^ ii. p. 83), as to meetings 
 with Harley, and a letter from an informer that De Foe was in Canter- 
 bury in June 1704 (p. 93), a fact quite inconsistent with his release in 
 August 1704. The dates are plainly legible in the original letters. 
 
RELEASE OF DE FOE 49 
 
 ** As there is something surprising in your 
 bounty to a mortified stranger, so I am more than 
 usually at a loss in what manner to express my 
 sense of it ; but at the same time that you stoop 
 to do good you subject yourself to a necessity of 
 bearing the impertinence of a thankful temper. 
 
 '* Of all the examples in sacred story none moves 
 my indignation like that of the ten lepers who were 
 healed by our Saviour. I, like that one grateful 
 wretch, am come back to pay the tribute of thank- 
 fulness which this so unexpected goodness com- 
 mands from me. 
 
 **And though I think myself bound to own 
 you as the principal agent of this Miracle, yet, 
 having some encouragement from you to expect 
 more particularly to know my benefactors, I cannot 
 but wish for that discovery, that my acknowledg- 
 ments may in some measure be proportioned to 
 the quality of the persons, and the value of the 
 favour. 
 
 "It remains for me to conclude my present 
 application with this humble petition, that if pos- 
 sible I may by some means or other know what 
 I am capable of doing, that my benefactors, who- 
 ever they are, may not be ashamed of their bounty 
 as misapplied. Not that I expect to be able to 
 merit so much goodness ; but as a grateful temper 
 is always uneasy to be loaded with benefits, so 
 the virtue which I call gratitude has always so 
 4 
 
50 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 much pride in it, as makes it push at a retribution, 
 though 'tis unable to effect it. Whoever are the 
 principals in this favour, I cannot but profess myself 
 a debtor wholly to yourself, who till I may be 
 otherwise instructed appears the original as to me. 
 And in the kindness the manner is so obliging, 
 and all the articles of it so generous, that as a 
 man astonished at the particulars, I am perfectly 
 unable to express my sense of it. 
 
 " Only in the humblest manner I can most 
 earnestly pray that I may have some opportunity 
 put into my hands by Providence to make more 
 explicit acknowledgments. . 
 
 " 1 
 
 Harley could not have assisted De Foe at a more 
 critical or opportune moment, for the business at 
 his brick and pantile manufactory at Tilbury had 
 been ruined by his imprisonment. **A11 my pro- 
 spects," he wrote to Harley after his release, ** were 
 built on a manufactorie I had erected in Essex ; 
 all the late King's bounty to me was expended 
 there. I employed a hundred poor families at 
 work, and it began to pay me very well. I 
 generally made six hundred pounds profit per 
 annum. I began to live, and took a good house, 
 bought me coach and horses a second time. I 
 paid large debts gradually, small ones wholly, and 
 many a creditor after composition whom I found 
 ^ Harley Papers^ ii* 75* 
 
DE FOE IN 1703 51 
 
 poor and decayed, I sent for and paid the re- 
 mainder to, though actually discharged." ^ The 
 brighter De Foe painted his previous good fortune 
 the gloomier appeared his subsequent state, and it 
 is not improbable that this picture is a little over- 
 coloured, for it was the prelude to an appeal for 
 help. He had seven children, "whose education," 
 he remarks, with his usual common sense, ** calls 
 on me to furnish their heads if I cannot their 
 purses." Yet certainly for the moment De Foe 
 was in a friendless and moneyless state, from 
 which he was undoubtedly rescued by Harley. 
 Thus began a connection which had no little in- 
 fluence on the careers of both men. How much 
 Harley owes to De Foe's ability it is hardly pos- 
 sible to overestimate ; to De Foe his patronage 
 was for the next ten years a constant source of 
 livelihood — the means of a most active existence 
 as a pamphleteer and a political agent. 
 
 Harley 's action, however, did more than restore 
 De Foe to freedom and to prosperity, it placed him 
 — now in the prime of life^ — again in touch with the 
 leading members of the Government. He had been 
 in the confidence of William, but in little more than 
 a year he had, as he says, tasted the difference 
 between the closet of a king and the dungeon of 
 Newgate. Voluminous as Voltaire and Diderot, he 
 was not a philosophical writer stimulating the minds 
 
 ^ Harley Pa^ers^ ii. 88. ^ De Foe was born in 1660 or 1661. 
 
52 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 of his readers by abstract theories ; his gifts were of 
 a quite opposite order, for he had an extraordinary 
 power of formulating practical projects, to execute 
 which a man high in office was necessary. So 
 that when De Foe gained Harley's support, he had 
 obtained not only personal freedom and an assured 
 income, but also the possibility of securing the 
 fulfilment of some, at any rate, of the innumerable 
 plans which were always in his head, in many of 
 which he anticipated the reforms of a later age. 
 
 But long though their connection lasted, Harley 
 was never united to De Foe by that tie of personal 
 friendship which marked his intercourse with Swift. 
 Their relations were always strictly business-like, 
 though it pleased De Foe to assert that they were 
 based on other grounds — that on Harley's part 
 they began through "a generous compassion to a 
 man oppressed by power without a crime," that on 
 his side his services were ** founded rather, and 
 indeed entirely, on a deep sense of duty and grati- 
 tude for that early goodness." He avowed that 
 he had full liberty to pursue his "own reason and 
 principles, so that he could declare his innocence 
 in the black charge of bribery."^ All this and 
 more he wrote to Harley at a time when he was 
 in receipt of a fixed salary from the Government, 
 and of special payments from Harley himself, and 
 he reiterated it so persistently in public, that there 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ ii. 213. 
 
HARLEY AND DE FOE 53 
 
 has hitherto been a doubt whether or to what 
 extent he was a paid agent. But it should never 
 be forgotten that, though De Foe and Harley were 
 united by a tie of personal and reciprocal interest, 
 pecuniary on the one side and political on the 
 other, they had also much in common. Each 
 possessed a sound sense producing a moderation 
 of political opinion ; intolerance, whether among 
 High Churchmen or Dissenters, Whigs or Tories, 
 was repugnant to each, and each set great store on 
 peace, progress, and social improvement. It is 
 thus not difficult to understand how De Foe and 
 Harley could work together, differing sometimes, 
 as in the case of the peace with France, or on 
 the manner of securing an object, but agreeing on 
 general principles of policy. De Foe was certainly 
 not always consistent in his treatment of political 
 questions : thus, after Harley lost office in 1708, 
 his advocacy of the Whig party was somewhat 
 opposed to his subsequent writings in favour of 
 peace. But his relationship with Harley was 
 characterised by a general consistency of political 
 argument which shows a community of opinion 
 between the writer and the statesman. 'Durinof 
 the whole of their connection De Foe never 
 hesitated to tell his patron when he needed money, 
 and Harley was never niggardly in his payment, 
 though no one could have had a better return for 
 his expenditure. Just as Harley employed Ogilvie, 
 
54 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 or " Jean Gassiot " as he called himself, in Paris, 
 so he utilised the services of De Foe, or — to give 
 him his assumed names — "Mr. Goldsmith" or 
 ** Claude Guilot," in England and Scotland. De 
 Foe would have fulfilled his duty had he stated 
 only such facts as would be useful to his employer, 
 but he did a great deal more, for he delighted to 
 give his personal views upon every point which 
 occurred to a mind never at rest, and extra- 
 ordinarily fertile and imaginative. His opinions 
 were always liberal, and his vivid imagination was 
 constantly creating plans of social and economical 
 progress. Nothing, indeed, is more noticeable 
 than the outspokenness of De Foe and Swift, so 
 opposed not only to Harley's habitual reticence, 
 but to the vagueness and want of candour which 
 at that time marked the communications of so 
 many politicians and statesmen. 
 
 Harley did more than effect De Foe's release, 
 he obtained for him an allowance — probably secret 
 in its payment — which after the loose fashion 
 of the times was by no means always punctually 
 paid, a fact of which De Foe took good care to 
 remind his patron. " I am forced " — this was in 
 171 2 — *' by importuning circumstances to remind 
 you that of that allowance or appointment, which 
 by your intercession or Her Majesty's goodness 
 I enjoy, there are two quarters behind, which 
 insensibly (except to me) elapsed during the melan- 
 
DE FOE EMPLOYED BY HARLEY 55 
 
 choly interval when your Lordship was hurt and 
 things unsettled."^ 
 
 Not long after De Foe's release in 1703, 
 Harley began to use De Foe's marvellous capacity 
 for obtaining intelligence, and for describing the 
 results of his journeys. In the summer of 1704 he 
 was commissioned to travel through England, to 
 ascertain the opinions of different localities, and to 
 report systematically to Harley. In July, as he is 
 on the point of starting, he enthusiastically declares, 
 ** I firmly believe the journey may be the foundation 
 of such an intelligence as never was in England." ^ 
 
 De Foe kept his word, and by his means Harley 
 was enabled to obtain a view of English opinion 
 which was invaluable to him in forming a judgment 
 upon his political course. De Foe's letters were 
 full not only of facts but of original ideas deduced 
 from what he saw and heard, and of vivid sketches 
 of men and places. He was more than a mere 
 collector of information ; it was part of his task to 
 mould opinion and to lead it towards that temper- 
 ance in political thought on which Harley set so 
 high a value. 
 
 *' In all parts," says De Foe to his patron in 
 1705, at the end of a long paper which he calls 
 " An Abstract of my Journey with Casual Observa- 
 tions on Public Affairs," '*the greatest hindrance 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ iii. 214. See also ibid.^ p. 275. 
 2 Harley Papers^ ii. 106. 
 
56 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 to the forming the people into moderation and 
 union among themselves, next to the Clergy, are 
 the Justices."^ In a letter of somewhat earlier 
 date he speaks of ** spreading principles of temper, 
 moderation, and peace." These were the prin- 
 ciples which Harley tried to follow from the be- 
 ginning until the end of his parliamentary career ; 
 it was his manner of applying them to practical 
 politics that caused so much adverse criticism in 
 his own and in succeeding ages. 
 
 The connection between Harley and De Foe 
 is of even greater moment in 1 706, when the union 
 with Scotland became the burning question of 
 domestic politics, and the articles of union which 
 were signed in London in July were handed to 
 the Scottish people and Parliament for discussion. 
 As one of Godolphins administration, Harley is 
 entitled to the credit which belongs to every 
 member of a Cabinet which carries a measure so 
 far-reaching in its consequences as the union 
 between England and Scotland. Of the Lord 
 Treasurer's policy Harley unquestionably approved, 
 and he actively aided it.^ As the negotiations 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ ii. 272. 
 
 2 The following is one example. 23rd July 1706, in reference to 
 the Duke of Queensberry, Harley says, " I believe now he has an 
 opportunity of serving himself and at the same time doing the 
 greatest thing for the advantage and settlement of his own country 
 such as no man before ever had in so easy a way — what I mean is 
 as to the union which I might plainly show it is his Grace's interest 
 to promote." — Harley Papers^ ii. 318. 
 
DE FOE SENT TO SCOTLAND 57 
 
 approached the final stage, Harley's chief ally was 
 De Foe, who, after completing his survey of Eng- 
 land, was sent by him to Scotland upon a similar 
 errand. 
 
 On 13th September 1706, De Foe states that 
 he was about to wait on the Minister, and take 
 his last instructions before departing for Scotland, 
 when he received the order to leave at once, 
 without further conferences. He remarks that as 
 Harley has acquainted the Queen and the Lord 
 Treasurer with his mission, it is important that 
 he should be successful in it, and he then proposes 
 to set down what he understands his present 
 business to be, summarising with great clearness 
 and brevity the results of the conversations which 
 have taken place between himself and Harley : — 
 
 ** However, that if my notions are wrong I may 
 be set right by your instructions, I beg leave, though 
 it be beginning at the wrong end, to set down how 
 I understand my present business, as follows : — 
 
 " I. To inform myself of the measures taking, 
 or parties forming, against the Union, and apply 
 myself to prevent them. 
 
 *'2. In conversation and by all reasonable 
 methods to dispose people's minds to the Union. 
 
 **3. By writing or discourse, to answer any 
 objections, libels, or reflections on the Union, the 
 English, or the Court, relating to the Union. 
 
58 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 *' 4. To remove the jealousies and uneasiness of 
 people about secret designs here against the Kirk," 
 etc.i 
 
 De Foe presently breaks away from business, and 
 as usual concludes by a diffuse demand for money, 
 which he was constantly needing, and which Harley 
 ungrudgingly supplied. No man could have done 
 his work more zealously and effectively. Not only 
 was he a collector of information, he was also an 
 apostle of the Union — he was a modern diplomat- 
 ist and journalist in one. Through Harley his 
 letters reached the Lord Treasurer, further proof, 
 if it were needed, that Godolphin and the Secret- 
 ary of State were working in harmony for a 
 common end so far as this particular measure was 
 concerned. 
 
 ** De Foe's letter," writes Godolphin on i6th 
 January 1707, *' is serious and deserves reflection. 
 I believe it is true, and it ought to guide us very 
 much in what we are doing here, and to take care 
 in the first place to preserve the peace of that 
 country."^ 
 
 So closely united were the fortunes of De Foe 
 and Harley at this time, that it is convenient to 
 follow their intercourse for the next few years. 
 After the completion of De Foe's mission to 
 Scotland, Godolphin, on Harley 's persuasion, was 
 
 * Harley Papers^ ii. 327. ^ Harley Papers^ ii. 382. 
 
DE FOE DESIRES EMPLOYMENT 59 
 
 looking round for a permanent post in which he 
 might place him. At one time there was a ques- 
 tion of an office in the Customs, but nothing came 
 of it. 
 
 ** I was just on the brink of returning," De Foe 
 writes to Harley in September 1707, "when, like 
 life from the dead, I received your last with my 
 Lord Treasurer's letter. But hitherto his Lord- 
 ship's goodness to me seems like messages from 
 an army to a town besieged, that relief is com- 
 ing, which heartens and encourages the famished 
 garrison but does not feed them."^ And on hope, 
 so far as official employment was concerned, De 
 Foe had, perhaps fortunately for posterity, to feed 
 all his life. For to his need for money, as much as 
 to his superabundant vitality, we may ascribe the 
 many future products of his pen. 
 
 As Harley s fall drew near, the preference which 
 De Foe appears to have had for him as an employer 
 by no means lessened. On loth February 1708 he 
 wrote — 
 
 ** The report which fills the mouths of your 
 enemies of your being no longer Secretary of State 
 alarmed me a little, I confess, and particularly 
 brought me to wait upon you this night. Others 
 compliment you on the accession of your good 
 fortune ; I desire to be the servant of your worst 
 
 1 Harley Papers^ ii. 445. 
 
60 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 days. And yet, upon my word, I know not whether 
 to congratulate or condole. I think verily you are 
 delivered from a fatigue which never answered the 
 harassing you in such a manner and the wasting 
 your hours in the service of those that understand 
 not how to value or reward in proportion to 
 merit. Particularly you are delivered from envy, 
 and I persuade myself you are removed from 
 a tottering party that you may not share in their 
 fall. 
 
 ** My business was only in duty and gratitude 
 to offer myself to you against all your enemies. 
 My sphere is low, but I distinguish nobody when 
 I am speaking of the ill-treatment of one I am 
 engaged to, as to you, in the bonds of an inviolable 
 duty. I entreat you to use me in anything in 
 which I may serve you, and that more freely than 
 when I might be supposed following your rising 
 fortunes. 'Tis also my opinion you are still rising 
 — I wish you as successful as I believe you unshaken 
 by this storm." 1 
 
 De Foe was at all times an optimist, and his 
 foresight and knowledge of public feeling enabled 
 him accurately to forecast the future ; and now he 
 saw that the tide would presently turn in Harley's 
 favour. Thus he could write in this cheerful tone. 
 And Harley, relying much on De Foe's opinion, 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ ii. 477. 
 
DE FOE AND GODOLPHIN 61 
 
 would gather confidence from it; and so, looking 
 forward, each saw that in no long time other 
 influences would become powerful, and that a 
 temporary disappearance from office was but the 
 prelude to a period of power. 
 
 But neither personal liking nor faith in the 
 future prevented De Foe, when his patron retired 
 from office in 1708, from continuing to serve 
 Godolphin ; for neither he nor Harley had the 
 least sentiment about their relations. De Foe has 
 told how Harley, **in the most engaging terms," 
 allowed him to offer his services to the Lord 
 Treasurer, whom hitherto he had only served 
 through the intervention of Harley. The incident 
 illustrates the absence of bitterness in Harley's 
 nature. He had been accused by Godolphin of 
 ingratitude and treachery, and through his influence 
 he had been compelled to resign his office. But 
 he did not hesitate for a moment to approve the 
 continuance of the ablest journalist of the time in 
 the service of his opponent. Nor, though during 
 the intervening years of opposition De Foe had 
 been of great service to Godolphin, did Harley 
 in 1 7 10, when he reached that supreme position 
 to which De Foe had looked forward, refuse 
 again to employ him. Nothing could be more 
 plausible or more in keeping with his character 
 than the letter which De Foe wrote at that time 
 to Harley. 
 
62 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 *' I cannot," he says on the 12th of August 
 1 710, "but heartily congratulate you on the happy 
 recovery of your honour and trusts in the Govern- 
 ment. Her Majesty is particularly just in placing 
 you in this station, where you had been so coarsely 
 treated. It is with a satisfaction that I cannot 
 express that I see you thus established again ; and 
 it was always with regret that when you met with 
 ill-treatment I found myself left and obliged by 
 circumstances to continue in the service of your 
 enemies. And now, though I am sunk by the 
 change, and know not yet whether I shall find help 
 in it or no, yet I not only rejoice in the thing, but 
 shall convince you I do so, by publicly appearing 
 to defend and reconcile things, if possible, to open 
 the eyes of a wilfully blind and prejudiced party. 
 In order to this, I shall wait on you in the evening 
 with those sheets I showed you, finished from the 
 press, and to lay before you some measures I am 
 taking to serve that honest principle which I know 
 you espouse, at a time so nice and when every man 
 thinks 'tis in his power to wound the Government 
 through the sides of the Treasury, and to run down 
 their masters by running down the public credit. 
 I have two or three times set pen to paper to move 
 you in my own case, yet cannot put on assurance 
 enough to do it, believing also your own generosity, 
 and the former goodness I have had such experience 
 of, will move you in my behalf. 
 
DE FOE'S SECRET EMPLOYMENT 63 
 
 " Providence seems to cast me back upon you 
 (I write that with joy), and lays me at your door, 
 at the very juncture when she blesses you with the 
 means of doing for me what your bounty shall 
 prompt to. 
 
 ** But in recommending myself to you, I would 
 fain have an eye to your service. I would not be an 
 invalid, and my hope is, that as you were pleased to 
 recommend me to another as one that could be made 
 useful, and who it was worth while to encourage, 
 the same argument will move you to entertain the 
 man yourself, since your merit and the voice of the 
 nation places you in the same point in which you 
 were pleased to present me to another. 
 
 *' I cease to press you on this head ; I shall 
 study to make myself useful, and leave the rest 
 wholly to your goodness."^ 
 
 *' Useful" scarcely expresses the value of De 
 Foe's services to Harley during the next four years. 
 Useful he was in the continuation of his mission 
 to Scotland, which was resumed in October,^ but 
 extraordinary in the fertility of his financial and 
 practical suggestions. 
 
 That the employment of De Foe was not dis- 
 covered by Harley's enemies, is surprising. Had he 
 
 ^ Harley Papers, ii. 562. 
 
 2 Queries for Management, 21st October 1710, Harley Papers, ii. 
 616. 
 
64 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 been less ingenious and less bold it would certainly 
 have become known. The secret, indeed, nearly 
 became public in 17 13, when De Foe published, 
 among other pamphlets, one which he called 
 Reasons against the Hanover Succession. Part of 
 it was, he says, irony, the rest "clear and professed 
 banter upon the Pretender." But the irony was so 
 clever that he now deceived the Whigs, as ten years 
 before he had fooled the Tories ; and proceedings 
 on their behalf were taken by a member of the 
 House of Commons named Benson, against its 
 author, on the ground that the essay was treason- 
 able. He was brought before the Lord Chief 
 Justice, but by Harley's management was admitted 
 to bail. His gratitude was extreme, though no 
 doubt his previous experience of Newgate caused 
 him to have a lively appreciation of Harley's 
 intercession. 
 
 **This is the third time I am rescued from 
 misery and a jail by your generous and uncommon 
 goodness ; and this is the goodness for which the 
 gratitude of this age would have me, against 
 principle, conscience, honour, and gratitude, maltreat 
 and abuse you, and for refusing which they fall upon 
 me in this manner. But I am bound to your Lord- 
 ship in bands too strong, and am sure, unless God 
 and nature abandon me together, it is impossible 
 I can forbear to serve your person and interest, 
 
DE FOE PROSECUTED IN 1713 65 
 
 while I live, at what hazard soever. I should be 
 unjust to Mr. Borrett if I did not acquaint you 
 that he executed your orders so wisely, with 
 so much caution, so much indifference, and yet 
 with so just an authority, that no suggestion 
 could be made of his being directed, and yet 
 the end was immediately answered ; and I was 
 set free, giving two sufficient bail for ;^8oo and 
 myself ^800."^ 
 
 It is one thing, however, to be admitted to bail, 
 another to be acquitted of a charge ; and the 
 difficulty before De Foe and his patron was to 
 obtain an acquittal without revealing the connec- 
 tion between them, which would have diminished 
 the effect of De Foe's writings, since he always 
 posed as the independent and untrammelled ex- 
 ponent of his own clear and individual opinions. 
 It is clear, too, that De Foe considered that this 
 disclosure would be injurious to Harley and to 
 his Ministry, as to himself. 
 
 ** I. Their design is aimed at your Lordship 
 and Her Majesty's interest, to let the nation see 
 how formidable their faction is, and that they 
 could overthrow any man who dared oppose 
 them in spite of Her Majesty's favour or pro- 
 tection. 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ iii. 282. 
 5 
 
66 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 " 2. They aim at making a discovery to the 
 nation who are or are not in your Lordship's 
 service, so that their falling upon me must, as they 
 thought, infallibly answer their end one way or 
 other ; for that if the Ministry did not protect me, 
 they knew they should oppress and sink me by the 
 partiality and favour of my Lord Chief Justice 
 (whose conduct has been really wonderful in it), 
 and if you did protect me, then they gained the 
 other point by publishing first that I was secretly 
 entertained and employed by you, which hitherto 
 they have made much noise of, but could never 
 prove ; and secondly, that your Lordship should 
 oppose a prosecution which seemed to be in behalf 
 of the house of Hanover. 
 
 " They have a third end in all this, viz. merely 
 to show an insult upon the Ministry, of which I 
 need say no more here." ^ 
 
 But the unfailing ingenuity of De Foe suggested 
 a means by which he could be both prosecuted and 
 acquitted. He thought that a seeming prosecution 
 might be begun, "only I must depend upon your 
 Lordship that it be not pushed on," he cautiously 
 remarks, and then he continues — 
 
 ** I. This prevents their stirring in any separate 
 prosecution effectually. 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ iii. 283. 
 
DE FOE OBTAINS HIS PARDON 67 
 
 ** 2. The true reason for not prosecuting It may 
 be want of good evidence, which really will be 
 wanting. 
 
 ** 3. They have no reason to examine why the 
 Government does or does not prosecute after an 
 information is laid. 
 
 "All this while I will complain loudly of the 
 oppression, I will petition (I mean in print) to be 
 brought to trial, and shall have abundant room to 
 expose them for attacking me in a thing they can- 
 not make out; and thus the pretence of being 
 protected by your Lordship or the Ministry will be 
 quite taken away. 
 
 ** If there is any defect in this scheme which I 
 cannot foresee, I humbly refer it to your wisdom ; 
 the reason of my proposing it is purely to disap- 
 point them in that part of their malicious design 
 which is pointed at your Lordship's person and 
 administration. For there is no doubt but having 
 a full stop put to their rage by your authority 
 would be much more for my safety as well as 
 reputation, particularly as it would make them 
 cautious of falling upon me again ; but I see 
 who this bullet is shot at, and if they do this 
 in the green tree, what would they do in the 
 dry.^"i 
 
 In the result, though Harley was obliged to 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ iii. 284. 
 
68 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 obtain for De Foe a pardon under the Great Seal, 
 their secret relations were never discovered. 
 
 His journeys over Scotland and England, the 
 interviews here and there, the correspondence with 
 London, would have been, one might suppose, 
 sufficient employment for De Foe; but this man, 
 incredibly active in mind and body, was able at 
 the same time to write and to manage the Review 
 from the 17th of February 1704 until July 1713. 
 It appeared week by week, and its small sheets 
 circulated over the whole of England. At first 
 it was described as *'A Review of the Affairs of 
 France and of all Europe as influenced by that 
 Nation," and the earliest numbers were marked 
 by a clear intention to impress on the English 
 people the strength of France and the reasons 
 for it. The public must understand the power 
 of the opponent with whom they were at war; 
 there must be no national delusions. Gradually 
 De Foe's paper lost its historical tone and its 
 defined limits ; with its second volume its title was 
 extended, and it became a more General Review. 
 Unlike Swift, who frankly avowed himself a Tory, 
 De Foe always posed as a non-party man, as a 
 patriot. " The cause of Liberty and the cause of 
 Truth" were what he advocated, and his support 
 of Harley was so effective because the writer and 
 the Minister had the same ends in view. Yet the 
 skill with which, in number after number of the 
 
DE FOE'S WRITINGS 69 
 
 Review, De Foe maintains this independent attitude 
 is remarkable. That he intended to advocate the 
 general policy of those by whom he was employed 
 there can be no doubt, and his connection with 
 Harley fortunately gave him the opportunity to 
 combine the support of a patron with the pro- 
 mulgation of his own fundamental ideas. Party 
 peace, religious toleration, purity of elections, were 
 Harley 's objects as they were his. De Foe was 
 a true reformer ; his keen vision saw the social 
 and political faults of his generation, and his 
 equally sound common sense suggested the reme- 
 dies for them ; while his energy, his imagination, 
 and his power of forcible yet homely literary 
 expression made him the most effective and the 
 most untiring publicist of his own or of any 
 succeeding age. For him, too, foreign trade, 
 influenced as it was by the spirit of adventure, 
 had an extraordinary interest ; it appealed to his 
 practical sense as well as to his imagination, as 
 we are constantly reminded in every page of his 
 New Voyage round the World, On this great 
 subject he expressed in the Review more than a 
 mere individual opinion ; he represented the spirit 
 of the time, the desire for commercial expansion 
 which was felt in every considerable city in the 
 kingdom. In May 1713, shortly before the Review 
 ceased to appear, the Mercator was started, and 
 in this journal De Foe supported Harley's financial 
 
70 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 measures and the commercial treaty which was to 
 follow that of Utrecht. And all this time he was 
 issuing other works on various subjects, among 
 which is conspicuous the inimitable brochure which 
 
 he called Eleven Opinions about Mr, H -y 
 
 (171 1). In it he professes to give a candid account 
 of the opinions of several groups of politicians 
 at home and abroad ; but he first skilfully enlists 
 the sympathy of the reader with those men whose 
 views were best worthy of consideration, such as 
 the moderate Dissenters and Tories, and against 
 others, such as the extremists of the October 
 Club. By a simple statement, therefore, of the 
 favourable view taken by the former of Harley s 
 management of public affairs, De Foe contrives 
 to place before the wavering or indifferent poli- 
 tician excellent reasons for supporting the Prime 
 Minister and his Government. And meanwhile, 
 with amazing energy, De Foe was — It must be 
 repeated — constantly travelling over England or to 
 the north. Finally, In October 1714, he published 
 The Secret History of the White Staff, which, 
 though Harley publicly disavowed any complicity 
 in its compilation, was a strikingly able and effect- 
 ive defence of his patron's political conduct. 
 
 It was the last service in that remarkable 
 connection, for when, on the death of the Queen, 
 the Whigs came into power, De Foe entered 
 into the employment of the new Government. 
 
DE FOE EMPLOYED BY WHIGS 71 
 
 Harley had ceased to be of value as a paymaster, 
 and it was only as such that the late Prime 
 Minister could be of use to De Foe. Yet this 
 service on the one side and employment on the 
 other are creditable to both men. In the main, 
 De Foe advocated political and social progress, 
 religious freedom and personal moderation. In 
 what he said he certainly spoke his real opinions. 
 For what he said he was paid by Harley and 
 what he said was approved of by Harley. De 
 Foe, who was Beaumarchais' equal as a liar, and 
 whom he resembled in his versatility, his untiring 
 energy, and his capacity as a man of affairs and 
 of letters, on this occasion said no more than the 
 truth when he wrote, " It is my great satisfaction," 
 — and he is speaking here of the contents of the 
 Review, — "that what first is founded on principle 
 and reason, agreeable to conscience, equity, and 
 the good of my country, ay, and to these unhappy 
 people's interest too, if they understood their 
 interest, is at the same time agreeable to your 
 Lordship, and that while I am rendering you 
 service I am discharging the debt of justice to 
 truth and liberty, the great principle on which I 
 hope I shall never cease to act, and which, while 
 I pursue, I am always and sure to please and 
 oblige you."^ 
 
 Harley by his long engagement of De Foe 
 
 ^ Harley Papers, iii. 213. 
 
72 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 shows the value he set on the growing power of 
 journaHsm ; indeed, its importance had been evi- 
 dent to him from the beginning of his public life. 
 So early as 1702, when he was Speaker, he wrote 
 to Godolphin on the subject — 
 
 ** I . . . again take the liberty to offer to your 
 Lordship that it will be of great service to have 
 some discreet writer of the Government's side, if 
 it were only to state facts right ; for the generality 
 err for want of knowledge, and being imposed 
 upon by the storys raised by ill - designing 
 men. 
 
 By his patronage also of De Foe, Harley 
 gave evidence of a liberalism of opinion that was 
 constantly hampered by a party connection which, 
 while it enabled him to attain great political 
 power, was at the same time a political anomaly. 
 An example of this conflict between inclination 
 and official necessity is to be found in the fact 
 that a severe check was placed on the growth of 
 journalism by the newspaper tax of 1712^ — a tax 
 which, while it pressed heavily on all journals, 
 did not prevent the publication of the worst kind 
 of libels. Less than a year after the passing of 
 the measure by which the duty was created, ** the 
 
 1 Brit. Mus. Add. MSS., 28055. 
 ^ 10 Anne, c. xix. s. loi, July 1712. 
 
DE FOE AS JOURNALIST 73 
 
 unparalleled licentiousness of the Press in publish- 
 ing seditious and scandalous libels " was referred 
 to in the speech from the Throne — evidence of 
 the ineffectiveness of the tax for the purpose for 
 which it was created. If Swift is to be believed, 
 Bolingbroke was the author of the measure, though 
 Harley must necessarily have consented to it, 
 since it is incorporated in a statute which deals 
 with the whole question of the revenue. En- 
 deavouring probably to meet the wishes of the 
 Queen and of Parliament, he agreed to legislation 
 which, while it added to the revenue, would have 
 little effect — he may have thought — in curtailing 
 the influence of the Press, upon which he set so 
 high a value. 
 
 For, while the attention of politicians great or 
 small was fixed on the intrigues which were carried 
 on in London, and on personal rivalries and am- 
 bitions, Harley throughout his career had ever in 
 mind the mass of his countrymen. By means of 
 De Foe's writings he appealed during nearly all 
 his official life to their common sense — for De 
 Foe's journalism differed entirely from the malicious 
 party squibs which delighted the coffee-houses of 
 London and ridiculed the personal peculiarities of 
 eminent men. It was a legitimate and a new way 
 to influence public opinion ; for before De Foe 
 came into Harley 's employment there had never 
 been a really consecutive publication of printed 
 
74 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 arguments addressed to the common sense of 
 the whole of England, and the Lord Treasurer 
 could never have sanctioned either the manner or 
 the reasonings of De Foe without a robust belief 
 in the force of democratic opinion even in an age 
 when votes were often bought and sold like parcels 
 of goods. 
 
 Important and noteworthy event, however, in the 
 history of English journalism, as is the connection 
 between Harley and De Foe from 1703 to 1714, 
 it is the unique personality of De Foe which stands 
 forth most vividly during this period. This was 
 the memorable climax of his strenuous life. His 
 correspondence with Harley recalls De Foe at this 
 time very clearly — we can see the spare man, with 
 the hardy brown complexion and clear grey eyes 
 and the hawklike nose, active, untiring, and fear- 
 less, arguing with a Scotsman, expostulating with a 
 Dissenter, smiling at a country vicar, always full 
 of hope, and always wanting money, perpetually 
 journeying from place to place, and when most men 
 would have rested, only varying his labour, writing 
 — with a mind ever fertile in expedient and 
 suggestion — voluminous letters to Harley, or, with 
 an interest which never flagged, preparing a new 
 number of the Review. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 SECRETARY OF STATE 
 1705-1708 
 
 Difference of Godolphin's and Harley's Views— Godol- 
 phin's Alliance with the Whigs — Result on Harley's 
 Position— The Drawback Bill— Increasing Coolness be- 
 tween Harley and Godolphin— The Queen and Church 
 Patronage— Accentuation of Differences between Harley 
 AND Godolphin — Harley's Resignation of Office — His 
 Definite Alliance with the Tories. 
 
 THE last three years of Harley's term of office 
 as Secretary of State form an interesting 
 period in his life, for during it there is to be 
 observed in him a noticeable political develop- 
 ment. From an administrator and a leading 
 member of the House of Commons he gradually 
 became the chief of one of the two great parties 
 in the State. Wanting though he did some 
 conspicuous and brilliant qualities which attract 
 popular notice, this development could not have 
 come to pass without personal traits which are by 
 no means common — patience, courage, a capacity 
 to utilise opportunity, and an unfailing tact. Most 
 men would have hesitated to differ from so astute 
 a politician as Godolphin, to oppose so bitter and 
 
 75 
 
7Q ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 capable a group as the Junto which governed the 
 Whigs ; few would have perceived so clearly the 
 strength which could be gained by an alliance with 
 the Queen, or would have been willing and able 
 to undertake the irksome and delicate task of 
 securing and retaining her confidence. 
 
 The elections of 1705 had resulted in favour 
 of the Whigs, and to this fact is undoubtedly due 
 the first differences between Harley and the Lord 
 Treasurer, which are visible in the spring of 1 706, 
 when a distinct cleavage of their views upon an 
 important point of parliamentary support occurred. 
 The Queen's servants, Godolphin states in a letter 
 to Harley (the 22nd of March),^ numbered 100 in 
 the House of Commons, the Tories 190, and the 
 Whigs 160. Then, asked the Lord Treasurer, 
 was it the best course to rely on the Whigs, who 
 had been supporting the Administration, or on 
 the Tories, who were apparently adverse to it } 
 He decided that Ministers should keep the 160 
 and rely on obtaining some stragglers from the 190, 
 who, when "they found themselves disappointed, 
 would willingly make a little fair weather again." 
 
 In other words, Godolphin now threw himself 
 distinctly on to the side of the Whigs. But Harley 
 had joined the Cabinet inclining to the Tories. 
 He well knew that the Queen had a personal pre- 
 ference for them, and though he was always longing 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ ii. 291. 
 
godolphi:n and harley n 
 
 to follow a middle course, the decision of Godolphin 
 rendered it necessary for him to gain some of 
 that influence with the Queen which Godolphin 
 would surely lose. To hope for the support of 
 any Tories at all he must henceforth act to some 
 extent in opposition to the Lord Treasurer, whose 
 determination clearly gave Harley the opportunity 
 of becoming for the time being the parliamentary 
 head of the Tory party. In a sense, therefore, 
 he was unwillingly forced to oppose his chief, and 
 he was certain to incur the enmity of the Whigs 
 if he would not in fact become, as did Godolphin, 
 an ally of their party. He would have preferred 
 to have remained in the Cabinet as a moderate 
 Tory, but the course of strategy determined on 
 by Godolphin forced him to defend his position, 
 and ultimately led to his dismissal from office. 
 If he had followed the practice of more recent 
 times, Harley would in 1706 have handed his 
 resignation to the Prime Minister, but the modern 
 parliamentary and party system was then in its 
 infancy, and Harley acted in consonance with the 
 ideas of the age. 
 
 But while Godolphin's decision forced Harley 
 to adopt an attitude in the Cabinet adverse to his 
 chief, it is not clear that he took any steps actively 
 hostile to him. The Drawback Bill of 1707 has 
 been regarded as an instance of Harley's disloyalty 
 to the Lord Treasurer ; it may have been an error 
 
78 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 of judgment in him to introduce it, but certainly 
 it was an honest attempt to check what Godolphin's 
 biographer has called a ''fraudulent and mischiev- 
 ous" transaction, though one which in these days 
 appears perfectly legitimate. 
 
 By the Act of Union, the articles of which 
 were signed in February 1706, there was to be 
 free trade between England and Scotland from 
 I St May 1707. Meanwhile the import duties were 
 lower in Scotland than in England ; it was there- 
 fore the most natural and business-like thing in 
 the world for goods, as soon as the substance of 
 the Union became known, to be imported in large 
 quantities into Scotland, with a view to their sub- 
 sequent transmission free of duty across the border. 
 But these transactions aroused the jealousy of 
 English merchants, and were mentioned by De 
 Foe in the spring of 1 707 both to Godolphin and 
 to Harley ; for De Foe, placed in Scotland to 
 watch the progress of events, and to assist the 
 cause of the Union, overlooked no detail, however 
 slight, which had the least bearing on the moment- 
 ous matter which was before the two countries. 
 The introduction by Harley of a Bill to prevent 
 the importation of goods into Scotland with a view 
 to their evasion of the English duties immediately 
 followed,^ and it was under discussion at so late 
 a period in the session as the month of April 
 
 1 Pari, Hist., vi. 58a 
 
THE DRAWBACK BILL OF 1707 79 
 
 that a clause was inserted by Harley to give it a 
 retro-active effect. Having regard to the hostiHty 
 felt by many Scotsmen to the proposed Union, 
 and to the extraordinary sensitiveness for the time 
 being of the Scottish people, Harley 's measure was 
 clearly impolitic. He was always on the watch 
 for the movements of public opinion, and well 
 served though he was by De Foe, the expostula- 
 tions of English merchants, who were near, pro- 
 bably impressed him more than the hostility of 
 the Scotch, who were at a distance. 
 
 " I must," said De Foe, writing after the Bill had 
 been put an end to by the closing of the session, 
 ** if Parliament had not dropped the Drawback Bill, 
 have fled this country. It is scarce possible to 
 describe to you the disgust that affair gave here."^ 
 Nor did Godolphin himself assert his authority to 
 stop the measure ; he regarded it as unwise and 
 nothing more. ** I have seen the clause," he says, 
 certainly referring to the retrospective section, 
 "and think it in some particulars impracticable 
 and in others unreasonable, and so I believe it 
 will be thought in the House of Lords, but how 
 you will be able to deal with it in your House 
 I cannot judge." ^ 
 
 For the Lord Treasurer to allow the Bill to 
 proceed at all was in some respects to countenance 
 it, but we must remember that ministerial responsi- 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ ii. 407. * Harley Papers^ ii. 415. 
 
80 KOBERT HARLEY 
 
 bility was not understood then as in later years, 
 and just as Godolphin did not put his veto on the 
 Bill directly, though he disapproved of it, so Harley 
 did not cease to press it because his chief objected 
 to it. Under these circumstances it is scarcely 
 justifiable or reasonable now to charge a statesman 
 with disloyalty to a colleague. Harley certainly 
 considered he was acting for the best in bringing 
 in his Bill,^ and as certainly underrated the hostility 
 it would arouse in Scotland. He behaved as one 
 would expect from his character and career, with 
 an absence of the larger outlook of the statesman, 
 and was actuated by the motives of a punctilious 
 parliamentary financier. 
 
 It was a natural result of the fundamental dif- 
 ference between the policy of Godolphin and of 
 Harley, a difference as visible to the one as to 
 the other,^ that Harley should (1707) resist the 
 appointment of Sunderland as Secretary of State 
 in place of the Tory Sir Charles Hedges. And it 
 also followed that subsequently he should oppose 
 Godolphin in a further alliance with the Whigs. 
 
 ^ See Harley's letter of explanation to De Foe, Harley Papers^ 
 ii. 418. 
 
 2 " The concern you express in the close of your letter is very 
 agreeable, and but due to what you could not but observe in me. I 
 never had, nor ever can have, a thought of your being out of the 
 Queen's service while I am in it ; but I am as sure I neither desire nor 
 am able to continue in it, unless we can agree upon the measures by 
 which she is to be served both at home and abroad." — Godolphin to 
 Harley, i8th September 1707, Longleat MSS., Hist. MSS. Com., 
 p. 182. 
 
HARLEY'S POLICY IN 1707 81 
 
 ''The Queen," he wrote to the Lord Treasurer 
 in 1707, **is the centre of union. I dread the 
 thought of running from the extreme of one faction 
 to another, which is the natural consequence of 
 party tyranny." ^ This being the position of the 
 Queen, it was Harley's object to strengthen himself 
 with her, and to fortify her in her personal objec- 
 tion to the Whigs. We may call this ''caballing" 
 if we like — in truth it was the conflict of opposing 
 policies in the same Cabinet conducted according 
 to the ideas of the age. Which of the two policies 
 was the safest it is not easy to judge. Little as 
 Harley liked the war, the time had not yet come to 
 oppose it openly, and a good understanding with 
 the Tories did not therefore involve an active policy 
 of peace. Marlborough, desiring support from all 
 sides and looking only to the successful conduct 
 of the war, was a somewhat lukewarm believer in 
 Godolphin's policy, and there was this strong point 
 in favour of Harley's view, the Queen was so 
 adverse to the Whigs, so much depended on her 
 personal favour, that her preference for the Tories 
 was an influence which would go far to give 
 stability to an Administration chiefly composed 
 of the members of that party. In Harley's opinion, 
 whatever temporary strength Godolphin obtained 
 by an alliance with the Whigs was more than 
 counterbalanced by the favour he thereby lost 
 
 1 Coxe's Marlboroughy iii. 394. 
 
82 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 with the Queen, and with all the Tories, whether 
 extremists or moderates. But, on the other hand, 
 the determination of the Whig peers to obtain 
 power was so fixed and persistent, and the party 
 was so strong, united, and well organised, that their 
 influence was a factor which could not be neglected. 
 It was a dilemma which might well puzzle the 
 acutest politician. 
 
 But this difference of opinion between the Lord 
 Treasurer and his Secretary of State necessarily 
 caused all the efforts and the enmity of the 
 Whigs to be directed against Harley. At the 
 moment when they had overcome Godolphin, it 
 appeared as if another statesman might unex- 
 pectedly and effectually bar their way to power. 
 Anger was not unmixed with fear, for an intimacy 
 had arisen between Harley and Abigail Hill, 
 who had supplanted the Duchess of Marlborough 
 as the favourite and the friend of the Queen. 
 They believed that Harley 's influence with Anne 
 had enabled him successfully to oppose Godolphin 
 and Marlborough, when the Sees of Chester and 
 Exeter became vacant in 1707, and to induce the 
 Queen to fill them with High Churchmen. But 
 Church patronage was the thing above all others 
 on which the Queen exercised her own judgment, 
 and her inclination was distinctly in favour of the 
 High Church party. In this instance, considered 
 at the time by the Whigs as certain evidence of 
 
CONTEST WITH THE JUNTO 83 
 
 Harley's influence with the Queen, there is not 
 the smallest doubt that she acted entirely on her 
 own opinion. But the importance attached by 
 them to these appointments, and their unconcealed 
 anger, reveals the true nature of the contest. The 
 Junto were determined to obtain the government 
 of the country, and to gain complete mastery over 
 Anne, regardless alike of her feelings and her 
 situation. The little knowledge of human nature 
 shown by the Junto, by Marlborough, and by 
 Godolphin at this crisis, is surprising. It was to 
 the conspicuous absence of kindness and common 
 sense in their relations with the Queen on the 
 part of his opponents that to some extent the 
 success of Harley in 1710 was due. But now 
 Marlborough and Godolphin, having capitulated 
 to the Junto, any person who advised the Queen 
 contrary to their wishes or interests, was neces- 
 sarily opposing both the Minister and the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief. That Harley was endeavouring 
 at this time to supplant Godolphin as Lord 
 Treasurer there is no satisfactory evidence, and 
 it is certain that he had no intention of superseding 
 Marlborough. As Secretary of State, Harley held 
 a high and laborious office. He was not a man of 
 burning ambition, and he might with reason look 
 forward to still higher honours in the normal course 
 of a tranquil official career. He would have been 
 content had Godolphin remained in office, relying 
 
84 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 on the goodwill of the Queen and on the moderate 
 Whigs and Tories. That he was trying to form 
 some kind of combination against the Junto is 
 certain, but it was a combination not against 
 Marlborough and Godolphin personally, but against 
 the group of peers who had captured them. Oppo- 
 sition to this band of aristocrats became opposition 
 to Godolphin, and produced that outburst of feeling 
 to which he gave way in his final letter to Harley.^ 
 
 ^ On 17th' September 1707, Harley wrote to Godolphin to deny 
 that he was acting against him and that he had "directly or 
 indirectly " taken part in the appointment of the Bishops of Chester 
 and Exeter (Somerville's Queen A?ine^ p. 626, and Longleat MSS.)- 
 
 On i8th September, in reply (Longleat MSS.), Godolphin, 
 evidently hoping for a reconciliation, tells him that " I never had, 
 nor ever can have, a thought of your being out of the Queen's service 
 while I am in it." 
 
 On 5th December an interview took place (Somerville, p. 626). 
 
 On 30th January ,1708, Harley wrote the following letter to Go- 
 dolphin (Somerville, p. 628, and Longleat MSS.) : — 
 
 "Last night Mr. Attorney acquainted me that I was fallen into 
 your Lordship's displeasure — he would not tell me any particulars. 
 This I could not but receive with the utmost grief, and had it not 
 been so late I had given your Lordship the trouble of a letter to 
 desire leave to call upon you to clear myself. This morning my 
 Lord of Marlborough gave me permission to attend him upon a like 
 occasion, and her Grace was pleased to tell me the particulars. I know 
 it is impossible to v/ard against misrepresentations and misconstruc- 
 tions, or the application of things said generally to a particular 
 purpose, which was never thought of ; for I do solemnly protest I 
 never entertained the least thought derogating from your Lordship 
 or prejudicial to your interest. I am confident in my own innocency, 
 and I know no better way to clear myself than to desire your Lordship 
 will let me by my actions demonstrate the sincerity of my intention 
 and my zeal and duty for your Lordship's person and service." 
 
 To this letter Godolphin replied apparently on the same day — 
 
 " I have received your letter and am very sorry for what has 
 happened, to lose the good opinion I had so much inclination to 
 
HARLEY AND THE QUEEN 85 
 
 In his belief in the importance of the goodwill of 
 the Queen to the Administration Harley was right ; 
 his mistake lay in overestimating the power of the 
 Crown alone. Without a majority on her side in 
 Parliament, and without the support of the country, 
 the Queen could not effectually oppose the Junto ; 
 and at present that necessary majority and that 
 popular support did not exist. 
 
 Fortune, too, favoured his opponents. A wholly 
 unexpected and abnormal incident placed Harley 
 
 have of you, but I cannot help seeing nor believing my seniors. I 
 am very far from having deserved it from you. God forgive you " 
 (Somerville, p. 528, and Longleat MSS., Hist. MSS. Com., p. 190). 
 
 Against Harley's letter of 30th January has to be set Swift's 
 letter to Archbishop King of 12th February. This letter contains 
 gossip and hearsay only, and must therefore be critically considered ; 
 the statements in it can only be reconciled with Harley's assertions 
 by assuming, which is probable, that an attempt to modify Godol- 
 phin's ministry was exaggerated into an attempt to supersede the 
 Lord Treasurer. 
 
 ''i2th Feb. 1707-8. 
 
 "... Mr. Harley had been some time, with the greatest art 
 imaginable, carrying on an intrigue to alter the Ministry, and began 
 with no less an enterprise than that of removing the Lord Treasurer, 
 and had nearly effected it by the help of Mrs. Masham, one of the 
 Queen's dressers, who was a great and growing favourite, of much 
 industry and insinuation. It went so far that the Queen told Mr. St. 
 John a week ago 'that she was resolved to part with Lord Treasurer,' 
 and sent him with a letter to the Duke of Marlborough, which she 
 read to him to that purpose ; and she gave St. John leave to tell it 
 about the town, which he did without any reserve, and Harley told a 
 friend of mine a week ago that he was never safer in favour or 
 employment. ... It is said that Harley had laid a scheme for an 
 entire new Ministry, and the men are named to whom the several 
 employments were to be given ; and though his project has miscarried, 
 it is reckoned the greatest piece of Court skill that has been acted these 
 many years " (Swift's Works, edited by Scott, 2nd ed. vol. xv. p. 287). 
 
86 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 at too great a disadvantage for the time being to 
 withstand them. He had in his office a clerk 
 named William Greg, who entered into corre- 
 spondence with Chamillart, the French Secretary 
 of State. One of the packets which contained 
 a communication from Greg was opened in 
 Holland, and his treason was discovered. On 
 being examined before the Privy Council, he at 
 once acknowledged his guilt, and on the i6th of 
 January was convicted of high treason at the Old 
 Bailey. Greg's position was such as to afford 
 ample grounds in the age of Anne for the circu- 
 lation of the worst suggestions against Harley. 
 He was more than a mere clerk. His kinsman, 
 Hugh Greg, was English Resident at Copenhagen 
 from 1693 to 1702, during the latter part of which 
 time William Greg acted as his secretary. He 
 was still in Denmark after this date, but in 1705 
 ** he was out of business," as he says, referring 
 in a letter to Harley to an offer of a tutorship — 
 
 " Twenty pounds a year did surprise me, yet 
 when the meanness of my circumstances would 
 have tempted me to close with his Lordship's 
 conditions, prudence bade me stay and try 
 whether your Honour could not better my fortune, 
 which I should look upon as desperate were it not 
 in so good hands." ^ 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ ii. 159. 
 
HARLEY AND GREG 87 
 
 Later we find him writing from Scotland ; 
 evidently sent to the north partly as a spy, 
 partly as a diplomatist. Then he became poorer, 
 and Harley probably placed him in his office merely 
 for the purpose of retaining him in his service 
 until he was again needed as a spy. It is certain, 
 also, that it was Greg's poverty which caused him 
 to disclose confidential papers to the French. In 
 a memorandum of his examination before the Privy 
 Council, in Harley s handwriting, there is, amongst 
 other statements, one that Greg was to receive a 
 hundred guineas for a particular piece of informa- 
 tion. It is equally clear that strong attempts were 
 made to cause Greg to reveal something adverse 
 to Harley, but wholly without success ; and in an 
 account of his execution, sent to Harley by another 
 confidential clerk, named Thomas, Greg's state- 
 ment on the scaffold is repeated, that Harley was 
 ''perfectly innocent" of any knowledge of the 
 treasonable correspondence. 
 
 We can thus clearly see how Greg came to his 
 position in 1708, how he was enabled to obtain 
 the information which he sold to France, and how 
 suspicions could grow against his employer. The 
 system of espionage is sometimes double-edged, 
 and Harley on this occasion fell a victim to his own 
 use of it. The agent in this instance was dishonest, 
 so the master had to suffer. The risk of such 
 treachery was not as great as one would expect 
 
88 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 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 resigna- 
 tion 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 
 
HARLEY'S RESIGNATION 89 
 
 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 Committee ^ 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 nth, bowing before the storm, he placed his 
 resignation in the hands of an unwilling sovereign.^ 
 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 consoli- 
 dated 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 success- 
 ful end, and of taking advantage of the change 
 
 ^ 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, td. Dartfnouth and Hardwicke, v. 354. 
 
90 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 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 sus- 
 picious of each other, were united by a common 
 dislike of the Junto, Nonconformists, and monied 
 men. Once included in it, Harley was thence- 
 forward 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 offend- 
 ing 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. Masham— 
 Revolt of the Queen against the Whigs— Dismissal of 
 GoDOLPHiN— Harley appointed Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer— Harley's Political Position. 
 
 OF opposition by Harley to Godolphin's admin- 
 istration 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 com- 
 mitted, 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. 
 
 92 
 
COURSE OF EVENTS, 1708-1710 93 
 
 The course of events from 1708 to 17 10 as they 
 affect Harley's life is clear, though it has been 
 clouded by personal intrigues. The war had 
 continued for a long time, and was rapidly becoming 
 more and more unpopular. The Whigs knew that 
 Marlborough and Godolphin must rely on them 
 as long as they supported it, and they became 
 in consequence bolder and more arrogant. They 
 held the balance of power in the Cabinet, but with 
 this they were not satisfied. They were constantly 
 seeking for greater influence — and not unsuccess- 
 fully — as in 1709, when Lord Orford was placed at 
 the head of the Board of Admiralty. The position 
 of Godolphin had thus become extremely humiliat- 
 ing and altogether vexatious. Each success of the 
 Whigs alienated the Queen more from the Lord 
 Treasurer, producing inversely a greater need for 
 personal expostulation with the sovereign, which 
 still further served to throw her on the side of the 
 Tories, who grew more confident as the knowledge 
 of the increasing dislike of the Queen for the Whigs 
 was spread by news-letters in country towns, and 
 among the parsonages and manor-houses where 
 the Dissenter was still called a knave. The hopes 
 of the clergy manifestly increased as the day of 
 triumph over Nonconformity and the Whigs seemed 
 to be approaching, and the churches resounded 
 with harangues animated with militant intolerance.^ 
 
 ^ " Mr. Cornwall preached the same sermon before the judges at 
 
94 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 Thus both In the country and at Court circumstances 
 were surely tending to Godolphin's downfall. He 
 had driven Harley from his Cabinet and into active 
 opposition ; tactful, watchful, and incessantly but 
 quietly active, Harley now sounded one politician 
 and now interviewed another, and he had a valu- 
 able ally by the side of the Queen. Thus sup- 
 ported by public feeling and the favour of the 
 sovereign, his opportunity had come. By a com- 
 bination of circumstances partly personal and partly 
 public, some of his own making and some arising 
 from the necessary evolution of events, he was 
 carried to the summit of political power. 
 
 Among these personal and secondary causes 
 the influence of Abigail Masham with the Queen 
 was the most effective in raising Harley from 
 opposition to office. 
 
 Abigail Hill, a first cousin of the Duchess of 
 Marlborough, the daughter of an impoverished 
 London merchant, had been placed by her 
 powerful relative in the royal household. By good 
 luck she became, about 1704, Bedchamber Woman 
 to the Queen, and in 1 707 married Samuel Masham, 
 an official of the Court. From that moment the 
 quarrel between the Duchess, jealous of the rising 
 favourite, and her cousin began. It was not, how- 
 Salop with applause, the text, Psalms the 94th and i6th verse, 'Who 
 will rise up for me against the evil doers, and who will stand up for 
 me against the workers of iniquity?'" — R. Knight to R. Harley, 
 4th April 1710. Harley Papers^ ii. 539. 
 
THE QUEEN AND MRS. MASHAM 95 
 
 ever, until after Harleys resignation in 1708 that 
 Abigail Masham became a factor in politics. 
 
 She was Harleys cousin, and the Duchess of 
 Marlborough has herself stated that she was the 
 same relation to him as to her. But it was not 
 until 1707 that the relationship appears to have 
 been discovered by Harley — for he had then, 
 wrote Addison, ** found out" that she was his 
 cousin. It was a most opportune discovery. It 
 at once gave him more influence with the Queen 
 than had any other statesman. Lady Masham — as 
 she became in 171 1 when her husband was created 
 a peer — was not yet a power in politics, and her 
 influence with the Queen arose not a little from the 
 fact that she was simply the personal friend of the 
 sovereign, and not a recognised ally of either party. 
 Swift, with the enthusiasm for those whom he liked 
 which was characteristic of him, said that she was 
 a woman of '' boldness and courage superior to her 
 sex." This is a far too flattering description of an 
 ordinary woman, not without some sagacity and 
 tact, but whose chief virtue in the eyes of her 
 mistress was that she did not bully her. 
 
 Pleasant in manner and good - natured, with 
 considerable natural shrewdness, Abigail Masham 
 had a real affection for the Queen, though it was 
 often tinged with something akin to contempt : *' I 
 am very much afraid of my aunt's (Queen) conduct 
 in her affairs, and all will come from her want of a 
 
96 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 little ready money (courage) ; for hitherto, you know, 
 the want of that has made her a most sad figure 
 in the world. I shall be very glad to have your 
 opinion upon things, that I may lay it before her ; 
 for that is all can be done. I trust in God and 
 beg of Him to supply her, that she may not be so 
 blinded, but save herself while it is in her power." ^ 
 Such was her opinion of her sovereign in July 
 1 708. As the Queen was more and more harassed 
 by Godolphin, by Marlborough, and by the Duchess, 
 it needed but little tact on the part of Mrs. 
 Masham to become a confidante of Anne — while 
 the waiting-woman in her turn relied on her newly 
 found cousin. ** I shall be very glad to have your 
 opinion upon things, that I may lay it before her." 
 The advice of a statesman conveyed through the 
 agreeable medium of a young, pleasant, and 
 straightforward lady - in - waiting, anxious for the 
 happiness of her mistress, was a very different 
 thing from the peevish complaints of Godolphin, 
 the reluctant but masterful interposition of Marl- 
 borough, and the tantrums of his wife. Anne's 
 woman's nature thus tended to Harley's success. 
 At first the aim of these two persons may have 
 been uncertain, but by the end of 1709 it had 
 become clear. '' I received yours by Mr. Davenant 
 and also that by Mrs. Banks very safe, and desire 
 I may not burn the first, till I have read it to my 
 
 ^ Harlcy Papers^ ii. 499. 
 
QUEEN ANNE 
 
 After a portrait by Michael Dahl in the .\ationul Portrait Gallery 
 
DISMISSAL OF SUNDERLAND 97 
 
 friend (the Queen), who wants such good instruc- 
 tions ; and though she has had the same advice 
 last year, yet I think it cannot be too often repeated 
 to one that shows so little courage and resolution 
 as she has hitherto done. I have a great mind to 
 go to London to see you before you leave that 
 place, but shall not be able to compass that design 
 till about the 24th of this month. As for you 
 writing a letter for me to show my friend, you 
 had better not do it, for I fear she will be afraid 
 of being examined about it, so I dare answer she 
 would much rather know nothing of the matter. 
 I have often spoken to her about Lord T.'s office, 
 but never could obtain a satisfactory answer. If 
 I cannot be so happy to secure it for you, I won't 
 attempt doing it myself" ^ 
 
 The object, therefore, which at that time Harley 
 and Mrs. Masham had set themselves to obtain is 
 clear — he was to become Lord Treasurer. 
 
 The most serious sign at the centre of affairs of 
 the approaching fall of Godolphin was the dismissal 
 of Sunderland on the 13th of June 17 10 — not only 
 a leading Whig, but also the son-in-law of Marl- 
 borough. This decisive action could not fail to 
 strike public attention ; and it was very suggestive, 
 for men could well remember how the coming 
 domination of the Whigs over Godolphin and the 
 unwilling Queen was signalised by the appoint- 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ ii. 524. 
 7 
 
98 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 ment in 1 708 of Sunderland as Secretary of State. 
 Thus there was a peculiar irony in his fall which 
 was a personal satisfaction to Harley and the 
 Queen. Yet the first step was conducted with the 
 tact which one would expect from Harley. Sunder- 
 land was known to be extremely obnoxious to the 
 Queen, while his hot temper and arrogant manner 
 made him little liked even by political friends. He 
 could be dismissed without alarming the country 
 and the monied men, especially the merchants of 
 London, and without much regret being felt by his 
 own party. He was succeeded by Lord Dartmouth, 
 a judicious and amiable nobleman, whose appoint- 
 ment was intended to show the Queen's moderation, 
 and to allay the fears of the large body of persons 
 who hovered in opinion between the two sharply 
 divided parties. 
 
 But all things tended in the same direction : the 
 over-reaching claims of Marlborough, the impolitic 
 trial of Sacheverell, the hostility of public opinion, 
 especially of the High Churchmen, the unpopu- 
 larity of the war, the personal position of Godolphin 
 forcing him to be importunate with the Queen. 
 These different political streams finally uniting, 
 overwhelmed the Lord Treasurer. On the 8th of 
 August 1 7 10 he received by letter his dismissal from 
 his Queen ; on the same day Harley was appointed 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, and then became 
 Prime Minister. That political term was then 
 
FALL OF GODOLPHIN 99 
 
 almost unknown, but it alone expresses the abso- 
 lutely dominating political position of Harley when 
 he came into office. In the country he had been 
 preparing the public for a change of Government, 
 but, as before, he had been careful to demonstrate 
 his unique position as a moderating politician. 
 *' Since I had the honour of seeing you," wrote 
 the ubiquitous De Foe to him on the 28th of 
 July 1 7 10, ** I can assure you by experience I 
 find the acquainting some people they are not all 
 to be devoured and eaten up, will have all the 
 effect upon them could be wished for, assuring 
 them that moderate counsels are at the bottom of 
 all these things ; that the old mad party are not 
 coming in ; that his Grace the Duke of Shrewsbury 
 and yourself are at the head of the management, 
 and that neither have been moved, however ill- 
 treated, to forsake the principles you always served ; 
 that toleration, succession, or union are not struck 
 at, and that they may be easy as to the nation s 
 liberties."^ 
 
 These were the principles of the Revolution, in 
 other words, the principles of the Whig statesmen, 
 whom Harley had just defeated, but they were the 
 principles upon which Harley had acted in the past, 
 and by which he was determined to be guided 
 in the future. Yet he was taking office as the 
 leader of the Tories, never more hot with animosity 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ ii. 552. 
 
100 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 against the Nonconformists than at the moment 
 when they had for their new leader one who was 
 the son and grandson of rigid Puritans, and 
 himself more in sympathy with a Baptist than a 
 High Churchman. Harley's accession to power 
 was an actual check not only to the present policy 
 of the Whigs, but also to the unbounded ambitions 
 and arrogance, the constantly increasing claims of 
 the Whig chief, who by conmon action had obtained 
 the control of an obedient and united Parliamentary 
 party. His object had been secured by the com- 
 bined action of the personal will of the sovereign 
 and of popular feeling, aided by the most influential 
 Tories, by whom he was regarded as the only 
 leader who could bring them back to power. 
 " No one," wrote Bolingbroke to him soon after 
 the triumph of the Whigs in 1708, **is able to 
 do so much as you towards removing our present 
 evils." ^ We cannot, however, too clearly re- 
 member that in each of the two capital events of 
 Harley's political career — his defeat by the Whigs 
 in 1708 and his triumph in 17 10 — more powerful 
 than intrigue or personal ambitions was the force 
 of popular opinion. 
 
 1 Longleat MSS., Hist. MSS. Com., p. 193. Seealsop. 191 : "You 
 broke the party ; unite it again." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 PRIME MINISTER 
 
 1710-1714 
 
 Harley's Negotiations with the Whig Junto— The Posi- 
 tion OF Halifax — Harley forms a Tory Cabinet — Contrast 
 BETWEEN Harley and Bolingbroke— Introduction of Swift 
 TO Harley— Erasmus Lewis— Swift and Harley— The Rela- 
 tions OF Marlborough and Harley— The Conclusion of 
 Peace the Object of Harley's Policy— Guiscard's Attempt 
 on Harley's Life — Harley created Earl of Oxford and 
 APPOINTED Lord Treasurer— Negotiations with France— 
 Marlborough opposes Harley's Policy— The Government 
 defeated in the Lords on the Address— Temporary Alli- 
 ance of High Church Tories and Whigs— Bill against 
 Occasional Conformity carried— De Foe's Suggestion to 
 defeat it— The Political Crisis— Harley's Confidence— 
 The Creation of Peers— 1711 and 1832— Dismissal of Marl- 
 borough— Triumph OF Harley— The Restraining Orders- 
 Conclusion OF Peace. 
 
 HARLEY had no sooner attained to supreme 
 power in 1710, than, acting on those prin- 
 ciples of moderation which he was always endeav- 
 ouring to follow, he sought to induce Somers, 
 Cowper, Halifax, and other Whigs to take office 
 in his Administration. The negotiations between 
 Halifax and Somers on the one hand and Harley on 
 the other continued to the end of the year 1711,^ 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ iii. 108, 115, 120. 
 101 
 
102 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 Halifax being apparently the chief mover in them. 
 Though tliey hadTio-rj^sult, the relations of the two 
 statesmen were throughout the continuance of the 
 new Admihistfatioh isi'ngularly cordial and confi- 
 dential. The position of Halifax differed from that 
 of the other Whig chiefs. During part of the reign 
 of William iii., from 1692 to 1699, he had held a 
 remarkable place in the State and in the House of 
 Commons, and as Chancellor of the Exchequer he 
 had achieved unexampled success. Fallen from 
 office, and disappointed, he had during Godolphin's 
 Ministry failed to obtain any high employment. 
 This exclusion from power undoubtedly was a 
 constant grievance to him, and from 17 10 to the fall 
 of Harley's Ministry Halifax was unquestionably 
 hopeful of forming some kind of coalition with 
 Harley, the friend of his youth and of his manhood. 
 Each was keenly interested in the national finances, 
 and both, though each differed on two cardinal 
 points of policy from his party, found in them a 
 common political bond. For both agreed in the 
 desire for religious toleration, and both were sin- 
 cerely anxious for peace between France and Eng- 
 land, though at one time they disagreed on its terms. 
 Yet each was so bound to the party to which he 
 belonged, that it was impossible for them openly to 
 coalesce ; and warm and confidential as was their 
 private union, Halifax ultimately became a member 
 of the Administration which impeached his lifelong 
 
CHARLES MONTAGUE, EARL OF HALIFAX, K.G. 
 
 Frotn a portrait by Sir Godfrey KnelUr hi the National Portrait Gallery 
 
NEGOTIATIONS WITH WHIGS 103 
 
 friend. The negotiations, however, with the Whig 
 chiefs at least showed Harley's moderation to many 
 who, especially in London and the larger towns, were 
 watching the change of Government with apprehen- 
 sion and anxiety, and they indicated that the new 
 Minister did not intend abruptly to end the policy 
 of the late Ministry. They thus served a useful 
 purpose, perhaps as much as Harley hoped or 
 intended, though they did not result in a political 
 union. The Prime Minister would willingly have 
 leavened a Tory Ministry if he could, and some of 
 the minor Whig officials retained their offices ; but 
 the chief places in the Government had to be filled 
 with Tories, and therefore between the dissolution 
 of one Parliament on 21st September and the 
 meeting of another on 25th November, the new 
 Administration had become wholly Tory. Henry 
 St. John, who had retired with Harley in 1708, 
 returned to office as the one of the two Secretaries 
 of State more particularly concerned with the 
 conduct of foreign affairs ; Harcourt,^ who repre- 
 
 ^ Simon Harcourt, i66i(?)-i727, was the only son of Sir Philip 
 Harcourt of Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire. He was at school at 
 Shelton with Robert Harley, and went subsequently to Oxford, and 
 in 1683 was called to the Bar. In 1688, Harcourt succeeded to the 
 family estates, and in 1690 became member for Abingdon. He 
 subsequently took a leading part in the House of Commons, and 
 in 1707 became Attorney General, but resigned office with Harley 
 in 1708. He defended Sacheverell in 17 10 — at that time being 
 without a seat in the House of Commons. After a further short 
 period of office as Attorney General, he was appointed Lord Keeper 
 of the Great Seal in Harley's Ministry, and on 3rd September 1711 
 
104 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 sented not only Tory lawyers but Tory squires, 
 became, after an interval of office as Lord Keeper, 
 Lord Chancellor, and Dartmouth retained the other 
 Secretaryship of State. Harley himself was at 
 first only Chancellor of the Exchequer, but in 
 May of the following year he was appointed to the 
 supreme office of Lord Treasurer, having a week 
 before been created Earl of Oxford and Earl 
 Mortimer. 
 
 From the very beginning of his administration 
 its policy was wholly directed by himself and St. 
 John — they were as yet friends, Harley still the 
 "dear Master to his Harry." 
 
 It has not been altogether fortunate for Harley's 
 fame that he should have had a colleague so 
 brilliant as Bolingbroke, one so entirely his opposite 
 and with so striking a personality. 
 
 **The Earl of Oxford is an indefatigable man 
 of business, of a lively and aspiring spirit, and 
 manages the caballing parties with that dexterity 
 that he keeps in with both. It was his good 
 fortune to understand how to improve the in- 
 discreet blunders of the late Ministry to his own 
 purpose, by using the Queen with all duty and 
 respect imaginable, while they used her with 
 
 he was created a peer by the title of Baron Harcourt. In September 
 17 14 he was dismissed from office by George I. He died in London 
 on 29th July 1727. Harcourt was neither a learned lawyer nor an 
 eminent statesman, but he had a great reputation as a speaker. 
 
CONTRAST WITH BOLINGBROKE 105 
 
 contempt; and while he was concerned with the 
 public affairs asked nothing contrary to her pleasure 
 and good liking, whereby he engrossed to himself 
 all her favour and esteem, and by his smooth tongue 
 and winning mien got so great an ascendant over 
 her that he has her approbation of all that he does, 
 so that he now steers the helm of state with as 
 great sway as ever Richelieu or Mazarin did in 
 France ; and to fix himself faster therein he has 
 introduced persons (in a manner) subservient to 
 him, some of low birth and small fortune, but 
 good parts, and others of good birth and great 
 fortune, but without experience and of indifferent 
 parts." ^ 
 
 Such was the description of Harley which 
 Prince Eugene gave to the Court of Vienna after 
 his mission to England in 171 2. It may well be 
 compared with the better-known sketch of Boling- 
 broke which Swift has left us — 
 
 ** I think Mr. St. John the greatest young man 
 I ever knew, with capacity, beauty, quickness of 
 apprehension, good learning, and an excellent taste ; 
 the best orator in the House of Commons, admir- 
 able conversation, good nature and good manners ; 
 generous, and a despiser of money, the only fault 
 is talking with friends in way of complaint of too 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ iii. 157. 
 
106 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 great a level of business which looks a little like 
 affectation ; and he endeavours too much to mix 
 the fine gentleman and man of pleasure with the 
 man of business."^ 
 
 In his gifts as an orator and a writer, in his 
 versatility and his social gaiety, Bolingbroke was 
 the antithesis of his chief — a halting speaker, a 
 parliamentary archaeologist, a collector not a maker 
 of books, and whose letters are as involved as 
 Bolingbroke's are clear. In his domestic life 
 Harley was as irreproachable as Bolingbroke was 
 irregular. 
 
 As a politician, Bolingbroke, who was every inch 
 a cultivated aristocrat, was without principles or 
 scruples, full of vanity and ambition. Harley, on 
 the contrary, a type of the common-sense English- 
 man of the upper middle class, held and acted on 
 fixed ideas of political conduct, but was unfitted 
 for a party leader in a national crisis. Strangely 
 enough, while Bolingbroke, a pronounced free 
 thinker, ultimately became the head of the High 
 Church section, Harley, who was now chief of the 
 Tory party, was a friend of the Dissenters, and 
 was more in sympathy with the opinions of his 
 opponents than with those of whom he was the 
 leader. He was the most unassuming of men, and 
 for many years led a laborious public life rather 
 
 ^ Journal^ 3rd November 171 1. 
 
SWIFT AND HARLEY 107 
 
 from a love of practical work than from the 
 desire of personal distinction. From temperament 
 and from an accurate perception of the varying 
 feeling of the country, trained by the observation 
 of a constant volume of information collected by 
 trustworthy subordinates, he sought to steer a 
 course which would give him the support of the 
 moderate men of both parties, and of that large 
 mass of the people who desire peace and prosperity 
 without regard to party fortunes. A Whig in 
 principle, he was always endeavouring to moderate 
 the actions of the Tory High-flyers and never to 
 press harshly on the Nonconformists. How difficult 
 and indeed impossible such an ideal of political 
 conduct was when reduced to practice in such an 
 age as that in which Harley lived, his fortunes 
 sufficiently show. How it involved him in double 
 dealing is equally clear. And yet it was an object 
 for which there was much to be said, and which 
 in other times might not have been impossible of 
 success. 
 
 It has been told how Harley and De Foe 
 became acquainted ; in 1710 the friendship between 
 Harley and Swift began, which was ended only by 
 death. In that year Swift returned from Ireland 
 to the centre of political affairs in London. Dis- 
 appointed with the Whigs, he arrived in England 
 as the change of Government was in process of 
 completion, anxious to settle once for all the long 
 
108 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 outstanding question of the Irish first-fruits.^ 
 Never a thorough believer in the policy of the 
 Whigs, it is not surprising that he turned to those 
 who were now in the ascendant. He was promised 
 an interview with Harley, and on 4th October he 
 was introduced to him by Erasmus Lewis. This 
 useful person never rendered Harley, a better service 
 than when he made Swift personally known to him. 
 It is the natural fate of many who have had an 
 important but unseen influence on public affairs, 
 and on the actions of eminent public men, to pass 
 into oblivion. Lewis was one of those persons 
 who move silently behind the scenes, influencing 
 events but unknown to the world. Though his 
 counsel had great weight with the Tory leaders, he 
 has been almost forgotten. His career, however, 
 is noteworthy and interesting. Born in 1670 in the 
 Vale of Towy, he obtained a scholarship at West- 
 minster and thence proceeded to Trinity College, 
 Cambridge. After living for some years in 
 Germany, he became — about 1700 — Secretary to 
 
 ^ Swift had come over to England in 1708 empowered by the 
 Archbishop of Dublin on behalf of the Irish clergy, to obtain for them 
 a remission of the first-fruits and tenths — the first whole year's profit 
 of a preferment and one-tenth of the subsequent annual profits — 
 which were paid to the Crown. In England these payments had 
 been granted to the clergy by charter, confirmed by statute in 1703 
 (2 & 3 Anne, c. 11), and formed the fund then and since known as 
 Queen Anne's Bounty. Swift had several interviews with Godolphin, 
 the Earl of Pembroke, and other Ministers on the subject, and was at 
 length assured that the Queen had made the grant. But he had to 
 return to Ireland in 1709 much vexed at the business being still 
 uncompleted. 
 
JONATHAN SWIFT 
 
 From a portrait by Charles yervas in the Xaiional Portrait Gallery 
 
ERASMUS LEWIS 109 
 
 Lord Macclesfield, then Ambassador in Paris, 
 after whose recall in 1701 Lewis appears to have 
 fallen to the prosaic position of a schoolmaster at 
 Carmarthen. By some means he became known 
 to Harley, who, with his usual insight into character, 
 appointed him in May 1704 one of his secretaries. 
 His fortune was now assured. Hard-working, 
 judicious, and agreeable, he became an invaluable 
 assistant to Harley. After the fall of his chief, he 
 was given, in 1709, the place of Under-Secretary 
 of State, a post he continued to hold throughout 
 Harley s Administration. When the Whigs came 
 into power in 1714, Lewis' official career ended, 
 but Harley, with his customary kindness, appointed 
 him his steward, chiefly, one may think, for the 
 purpose of paying him a salary. For Lewis trans- 
 acted very little business, and lived thenceforward 
 an easy, agreeable life, now visiting in this house 
 and now in that, playing ombre with the ladies and 
 gossiping with the men. He had reached the 
 mature age of fifty-four before he married, when, 
 with his usual prudence, he selected a well-to-do 
 widow lady no younger than himself. A typical 
 permanent official, he was the business man of that 
 coterie of men of letters and statesmen with whom 
 Harley foregathered ; the judicious friend of Swift 
 and Prior, of Parnell and Pope, of Arbuthnot and 
 Gay, he outlived them all, not dying till the age of 
 eighty-three, in 1754. 
 
110 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 This, then, was the man who initiated the famous 
 friendship between Harley and Swift. 
 
 " To-day," says Swift in the Journal to Stella, 
 " I was brought privately to Mr. Harley, who 
 received me with the greatest respect and kindness 
 imaginable." The gift of accurate perception of 
 efficient subordinates was always a marked feature 
 in Harley 's character. *' He was seldom mistaken 
 in his judgment of men," says Swift himself, ''and 
 therefore not apt to change a good or ill opinion 
 by the representation of others." This quality 
 was never more clearly shown than by the rapid 
 unreserve of his immediate and close intercourse 
 with Swift ; his treatment of him was masterly, 
 indicative of his keen insight into men's characters, 
 for he received him with a frankness and a friend- 
 ship, unlike his usual reserve, thus at once winning 
 the permanent confidence and goodwill of a man 
 who was not only at the moment irritated by want 
 of success in his negotiations with the Whigs, but 
 was to the last degree sensitive and proud. Harley 
 possessed the rare power of attaching some men 
 to him by a tie of personal affection. Swift, Prior, 
 and Erasmus Lewis remained for years friends as 
 much as fellow-workers ; to retain their confidence 
 is sufficient evidence that there were traits in 
 Harley's nature more admirable than were 
 apparent to many of his contemporaries. 
 
 The time which followed this introduction was 
 
SWIFT AND HARLEY 111 
 
 certainly the happiest part of Swift's Hfe ; it had its 
 anxieties and its cares, but he was hopeful for the 
 future, and his ambition was for the moment 
 gratified in a way to which he could a short time 
 before never in his most sanguine hours have 
 looked forward. For his influence, as he well 
 knew, and as every one took care to inform him, 
 was felt both by the public and by the Government. 
 No one but a Cabinet Minister was ever so near 
 the centre of affairs, and no one enjoyed more 
 keenly the excitement of political warfare, or 
 appreciated more the consideration which his 
 unique position caused him to receive. Every one, 
 from an ambassador to a literary hack, sought his 
 assistance. To a man of Swifts temperament, 
 the retrospect in after years of that singular time, 
 and of his share in memorable events, was enough 
 to cause a career more agreeable than that of an 
 Irish Dean engaged in letters and in political 
 controversy, to appear flat, unprofitable, and 
 wholly disappointing. 
 
 From the first the relations of Harley and 
 Swift were very cordial, marked by an agreeable 
 and social kindness on the part of the statesman, 
 by a varied enjoyment in which personal dignity 
 was never lost on the part of the man of letters. 
 Harley was always ready to listen, and to appre- 
 ciate Swift's views on the affairs of the nation. 
 **His mind," wrote Lewis in 1713, **has been 
 
112 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 communicated more fully to you than any one 
 else," while Swift on' his side stated his opinions 
 to the Minister with a frankness which never for 
 a moment interrupted the personal friendship of 
 the two men — *'in your public capacity," he wrote 
 in 1 714, **you have often angered me to the heart, 
 but as a private man never once." 
 
 Swift soon got to work for his new friends, 
 and from November 17 10 until the following 
 June he wrote a weekly essay in the Examiner ^ 
 which had lately been established by Bolingbroke. 
 He avowed himself to be a Tory, but yet a reason- 
 able, honest man who hated *' mad, ridiculous 
 extremes." His essays were admirable advocacy; 
 they appealed to the common sense of his reader, 
 placing him on good terms with himself. He 
 glided over weak places with so much art, and his 
 strong points emerged so naturally, while every 
 line was illuminated by a delightful vitality, that 
 whether he was defending the change of Ministry, 
 the treatment of Marlborough, or the negotiations 
 with France, the person who perused his writings 
 insensibly found himself a stronger Tory than the 
 author. The famous pamphlets which followed — 
 The Conduct of the Allies and Remarks on the 
 Banner Treaty — for the same reasons were 
 equally effective. 
 
 Harley's accession to power necessarily brought 
 him again into close connection with Marlborough, 
 
MARLBOROUGH AND HARLEY 113 
 
 but their relations were different from those of four 
 years before, when Marlborough was chiefly instru- 
 mental in bringing him into high office. Funda- 
 mentally they were, and had always been, in 
 agreement in regard to English parties. To 
 Marlborough, Whig and Tory were ** detested 
 names," to Harley they were significant of ''party 
 tyranny." If Marlborough and Harley could have 
 dispensed with party support, the one for the con- 
 duct of the war, the other for the retention of 
 office, they might have remained on terms of 
 political and personal friendship. 
 
 -It was long before Marlborough could be per- 
 suaded to take up a position hostile to Harley, 
 and it was only when he thought that the Lord 
 Treasurer and the Tories were likely to hinder his 
 opportunities as a soldier, that he was willing to take 
 actively the side of the Whigs. But by the time 
 that Harley was placed in office by the Queen in 
 1 7 lo, Marlborough's friendship had turned to dislike. 
 ** He will continue by the army," he writes to the 
 Duchess in October 1710, when the new Parliament 
 was being elected. And he continues, *' I detest 
 Mr. Harley, but think I have lived long enough 
 in the world to be able to distinguish between 
 reason and faction." Years before he had written 
 to his wife, '' I meddle with no business but what 
 belongs to the army." It was vexation at the 
 
 hindrance which Harley, whom he now rightly 
 8 
 
114 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 associated with the Tory party, would be to him 
 as a general, that had caused his change of 
 opinion ; it was disappointment and weariness 
 at the party battles which to him seemed so 
 unreasonable, so unnecessary, and so childish ; it 
 was regret at the loss of Godolphin, who had so 
 strenuously aided him at home. 
 
 In many respects Harley was in exactly the 
 same frame of mind, but from an opposite point 
 of view. John Drummond, who had long been 
 his confidential agent in Holland, wrote to him 
 on the iith of November 1710 — 
 
 ** All the weak arguments which I can produce 
 can be but of little influence if matters be other- 
 wise fixed and a scheme laid by which that great 
 man is to lose his command, and I only should 
 reason in the dark if I pretended to give the best 
 reasons I am capable of on that subject, and there- 
 fore as to a reconciliation I should think it nowise 
 impracticable if there were a real inclination to it 
 on both sides, and that it be the Queen's intention. 
 The true way to begin it is by a mutual complais- 
 ance, and I could wish there were no dispute who 
 was to begin and make the first advances. I 
 think a faithful, honest man who had no by-end, 
 and in whom both had some confidence, might by 
 a mutual consent of both parties break ground, 
 and try by one or two preliminary points whether 
 
MARLBOROUGH AND HARLEY 115 
 
 there were hopes of succeeding in an entire treaty. 
 I am confident you would strengthen your party 
 more by gaining that one man than by any other 
 thing imaginable, and I believe he is sensible of 
 the intolerable measures which others encouraged 
 him to go into. I know he hates some of their 
 leaders very heartily, and I believe he would 
 abandon his old friend so far as never to desire 
 to have him in play again, but let him lie by the 
 rest of his days. I am also persuaded he would 
 part with any one or all of the damnation club for 
 their ill-behaviour ; but these may be conjectures, 
 and cannot be well known till they are proposed. 
 I know this would be insupportable doctrine to 
 Lord Rivers and the Duke of Argyll, whom I both 
 honour, love, and esteem ; but as no private man's 
 interest ought or must come in computation with 
 the present welfare of the public, and to get 
 honourably rid of this bloody, pernicious, expen- 
 sive, and destructive war, neither any private pique 
 ought to prevail so far as to hinder or any wise 
 encourage the enemy not to renew their proposals 
 for a peace, which the Dutch I am sure, and very 
 sure, want but to have in a manner on any terms ; 
 and if ever proposed, if they don't come to a con- 
 clusion as well as they can, I shall never pretend 
 to know anything of them or their measures for 
 the future, and we are in no worse circumstances 
 than when the enemy made their last proposals. 
 
116 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 We have gained two battles In Spain and four 
 strong towns in Flanders, and the like success 
 another campaign must bring us upon the terri- 
 tories of old France. 
 
 '* What is it, are we to imagine, that hinders or 
 will hinder their new proposals, but what they 
 write us every day, viz. the hopes they have of 
 the divisions in England, and that the Duke of 
 Marlborough will be made so uneasy as to be 
 obliged to retire and abandon the army, who they 
 know has been no less instrumental in keeping 
 the Allies together as in his success in the field. 
 It is not for his person, but for the public good 
 that I argue or presume to meddle in so important 
 an affair, for well do I know all his vices as well 
 as his virtues, and I know as well that though his 
 covetousness has gained him much reproach and 
 ill-will on this side of the world, yet his success in 
 the field, his capacity or rather dexterity in council 
 or in the Cabinet, and his personal acquaintance 
 with the heads of the Alliance and the faith they 
 have in him, make him still the great man with 
 them, and on whom they depend. I can tell you 
 with certainty what I meet in daily conversation : 
 that you will have little money to expect from this 
 if he stay at home ; that they wish with all their 
 hearts almost any sort of peace before he be taken 
 from them ; that there is no Englishman who they 
 have any opinion for the command of an army 
 
MARLBOROUGH AND HARLEY 117 
 
 but himself; that his agreeing so well with Prince 
 Eugene is one of their greatest contentments, and 
 to make a new acquaintance and intimacy of such 
 a nature with any one what they fear and abhor 
 the thoughts of."^ 
 
 To this sensible and clear expostulation 
 Harley replied by thanking Drummond for 
 having written **so plain, so prudently, and with 
 so much affection," then he continued — 
 
 " As to any reconciliation between me and the 
 (Duke of Marlborough), give me leave to say that 
 I were unworthy the Queen's service should I not 
 live with any one that her service or the public 
 good requires. I do solemnly assure you I have 
 not the least resentment towards him or any one 
 else. I thank God my mind puts me above that. 
 I never did revenge injuries, and never will 
 sacrifice the public quiet to my own resentment. 
 I believe there is not one here thinks I retain any 
 revenge, but have given many instances (of for) 
 giving and forgetting very great injuries. I (have) 
 scarce used the common caution of doing anything 
 se defendendoy for fear it should be thought to be 
 the effect of resentment. In one word, I do assure 
 you I can live and act with the Duke now in the 
 same manner and with the same easiness as the 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ ii. 620. 
 
118 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 first day that ever I saw him ; and that you may 
 be convinced this is my temper and not words only, 
 I must tell you some things which have passed 
 since April last, and many more I could add. . . . 
 But this I find by experience, those who have done 
 injuries are more difficult to be reconciled than 
 those who have received injuries ; and hatred, the 
 more groundless and unreasonable it is, the more 
 durable and violent it most times proves. Now I 
 have opened to you my heart upon this subject, 
 and do again assure you that no resentment of 
 mine shall ever obstruct the public service or 
 hinder the co-operating with any one for the good 
 of the common cause." ^ 
 
 This letter was communicated to Marlborough, 
 and it produced a determination on the part of 
 the Duke to act with the new Ministry. *' He has 
 faithfully promised," wrote Drummond on the 
 9th December 1710, ''that he is resolved to live 
 with you, if you will make it practicable or possible 
 for him ; he will not enter into the heat of party 
 details, but will go heartily and sincerely into all 
 the measures that may be esteemed proper for 
 carrying on the war."^ The interview was long, 
 and much more was said to the same effect, all 
 ending in the one fact that, to use Drummond s 
 phrase, the Duke was prepared '* to live " with 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ ii. 623. ^ Harley Papers^ ii. 634. 
 
MARLBOROUGH AND HARLEY 119 
 
 Harley's Ministry. In the previous October 
 Marlborough had told the Duchess of his fear 
 lest peace should *'give power and strength to 
 Mr. Harley, the Queen, and Mrs. Masham to vex 
 me and those I wish well to." This compromise, 
 therefore, at first could not be cordial, but, for 
 the time being, a reconciliation was as necessary 
 for Marlborough as it was for Harley; neither 
 could dispense, if he would, with the other. For 
 private reasons Marlborough was anxious to con- 
 tinue on good terms with Harley, for he had 
 set his heart on the completion of his house at 
 Blenheim, which was being built at the public 
 expense. Harley assured him that the work 
 should be pushed on, and so Marlborough in the 
 summer of 171 1 was satisfied with "his friend- 
 ship and good offices."^ On Harley, in place of 
 Godolphin, Marlborough had to depend to supply 
 the pay of the army, and the subsidies of the allies. 
 Marlborough, without doubt, was the only man who 
 could achieve success in the field and manage the 
 troublesome and heterogeneous forces which were 
 under his command. If Harley had desired to 
 dismiss the Duke from his high position, which he 
 certainly did not — for no one recognised more 
 clearly Marlborough's genius as a soldier — it was at 
 present impossible. Thus the official relations of 
 the two men continued amicable. Harley communi- 
 
 1 Longleat MSS., Hist. MSS. Com., pp. 203, 205. 
 
120 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 cated with him fully on the financial requisites of the 
 allied forces ; Marlborough had as heretofore a free 
 hand in the conduct of the campaign. During the 
 first few months of his administration Harley was 
 therefore in the position of a war minister ; he had 
 to continue the task which Godolphin had under- 
 taken, and it was his first object to show that 
 though men were changed the foreign policy of 
 the Cabinet was unaltered. John Drummond, by 
 Harley 's orders, told his friends at Amsterdam *'that 
 the gentlemen now employed by the Queen were as 
 hearty for the Revolution as any in England, that 
 they are firm Protestants, that they are uninter- 
 ested, that they have good land estates to lose 
 which they cannot remove, that the change of 
 Ministers had made no change of measures as to 
 the common cause, unless it were in being more 
 hearty and expeditious, more frugal of the nation's 
 money, and more in earnest for a speedy and 
 reasonable peace." ^ 
 
 In the last sentence of the letter, we see the 
 real purpose of Harley s policy.^ He had to 
 attain a single and very definite object — he had to 
 end the war. 
 
 As soon as a Ministry comes into power, much is 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ iii. 639. 
 
 2 The Plan of Administration, dated 30th October 17 10 {Hard- 
 wicke State Papers^ ii. 485), has little importance as an indication 
 of Harley's policy and principles ; it is scarcely more than a memor- 
 andum on some details of party management. 
 
WOUNDED BY GUISCARD 121 
 
 expected of it, and if something capable of popular 
 appreciation is not quickly accomplished a reaction 
 ensues. It was impossible for Harley's policy 
 to produce the desired results at once, and in the 
 beginning of 171 1 Harley appeared to be losing 
 popularity. By a mere accident he was suddenly 
 and extraordinarily strengthened. A broken-down 
 Frenchman named Guiscard, who for many years 
 had been a mere adventurer — sometimes a soldier, 
 sometimes a diplomatist, and more often a spy — was 
 being examined on nth March 171 1 at Whitehall 
 before the Privy Council. He was receiving an 
 allowance from the Government, and this by 
 Harley's direction had been reduced ; discovered 
 to be in treasonable communication with France, 
 he had been arrested by Bolingbroke's orders. 
 In the middle of his examination he stabbed 
 Harley with a small knife. The wound in itself 
 did not prove serious, but it produced a grave 
 constitutional disturbance, and for the time this 
 rather theatrical attempt on his life gave Harley 
 an extraordinary emotional popularity. Addresses 
 and letters of congratulation on his escape and his 
 recovery from the wound poured in to him from 
 all parts of the country, and every writer of verse 
 addressed to him an ode in which his life was 
 declared to be necessary for the salvation of 
 England. To the influence arising from his 
 mastery of parliamentary details was now added 
 
122 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 a personal and a popular sympathy. " I hear," 
 writes one of Harley's daughters to her aunt, 
 Abigail Harley, describing his reception by the 
 House of Commons after his recovery, "the 
 Speaker made a very fine speech. My father was 
 received in a very extraordinary manner; there 
 was not one in the House but what took occasion 
 to make their compliments to him, and crowded 
 about him. The House was very full." Favoured 
 by the sympathy of the nation and his sovereign, 
 Harley was on the 23rd of May raised to the 
 peerage as Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, 
 and on the 29th was advanced to the high dignity 
 of Lord Treasurer. Thus again, whilst giving due 
 credit to Harley for his many considerable quali- 
 ties, we yet see him singularly assisted by com- 
 paratively trivial circumstances. He returned to 
 his task renewed in political strength by an event 
 in itself of no importance. 
 
 It was now essential for his policy that decided 
 progress should at once be made towards the con- 
 clusion of a peace with France. ** We must have 
 peace, be it a bad or a good one," wrote Swift in 
 the previous March ; the necessity for it on financial 
 and popular grounds was now still more urgent. 
 In the beginning of 171 1 informal pourparlers 
 had commenced between Louis and the Ministry 
 through the agency of the Abbd Gaultier, who, 
 after being chaplain to Marshal Tallard during his 
 
NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE 123 
 
 Embassy to England, had stayed in London on the 
 same mission for the French Government as De 
 Foe fulfilled in Scotland for Harley. These con- 
 fidential communications were interrupted by 
 Barley's wound and illness, but in April Gaultier 
 for the second time returned to England, bringing 
 more precise but yet vague terms from Louis. 
 The negotiations, if such indeed they can be called, 
 now — Harley being convalescent — took a more 
 practical and active turn. But the Allies could 
 not be altogether passed over, and on Gaultier's 
 return in April a communication was made to the 
 Dutch Ministers, in which these vague terms from 
 France were transmitted. The answer, as might 
 be expected, was a request for further particulars. 
 But affairs were growing too important to be 
 entrusted to a man like Gaultier, who by his mode 
 of life was inclined to place too much value on 
 gossip and second-hand news. It was decided to 
 send Prior to Paris, and so he departed on the ist 
 of July from that remarkable and agreeable society 
 of politicians and men of letters which gathered 
 round the Court of Anne. His mission, kept 
 secret even from one who was on such confidential 
 terms with Harley as Swift, concealed too from 
 the Dutch, resulted in the conclusion of the pre- 
 liminaries of peace on the 27th of September. 
 
 Of these negotiations with France Marlborough 
 was kept wholly ignorant. It was not until Sep- 
 
124 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 tember that an inquiry from him elicited from 
 Harley a reply entirely couched in generalities, and 
 giving no details of the important steps which 
 were being taken in the direction of peace. Marl- 
 borough reiterated his wish for a speedy end of 
 the war ; some months later he expressed the same 
 desire to the Lord Treasurer in still stronger 
 terms. 
 
 In October, Marlborough stated that he was 
 satisfied with everything Harley had done ; but 
 on his return to England later in the month his 
 attitude changed. On the Continent he could act 
 on his own opinion ; at home he was strongly 
 influenced by his wife, by Godolphin, and the 
 Whigs, and he was persuaded by them to become 
 actively hostile to Harley. He could not object to 
 peace, but he could oppose the proposed terms, 
 which was for practical purposes the same thing ; 
 and so he remonstrated personally with the Queen 
 against the preliminaries. This step alone was 
 sufficient to place the Ministry in direct conflict 
 with him. Marlborough never braced himself to 
 these remonstrances with the Queen willingly, but 
 the self-confidence of the Whigs did not allow 
 them to see the danger of such an open attack on 
 Harley. On December the 7th, Parliament met, 
 and in the speech from the Throne spoken by 
 the Queen herself she said that ** notwithstanding 
 the acts of those who delight in war, both time 
 
JOHN CHURCHILL, DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH 
 
 From a portrait by Sir Godfrey KticUcr in the Xational Fortrait Gallery 
 
WHIG AND TORY ALLIANCE 125 
 
 and place are appointed for opening the treaty of 
 a general peace." These decisive words were a 
 clear warning to the Whigs that Harley and the 
 Queen were not to be driven from the policy which 
 they had laid down for themselves. 
 
 But an alliance had been arranged which, as 
 an instance of political immorality, can hardly be 
 matched in the annals of our party system. So 
 hostile were the Whigs to the foreign policy of 
 the Government, that, to obtain the assistance of 
 some of the dissatisfied and more bigoted Tories, 
 they consented to support a Bill similar to the 
 measures against Occasional Conformity, which 
 had so often during the last ten years been brought 
 into Parliament. The principles of this measure 
 they had always successfully opposed ; to support 
 it was to act against the political convictions by 
 which they had hitherto been guided. The result 
 of this alliance, from which the Whigs hoped so 
 much — " it is Dismal who will save England at 
 last," ^ said Wharton, the chief manager of the party, 
 speaking of Nottingham by the name by which 
 from his melancholy countenance he was called 
 alike by friends and foes — was quickly seen. 
 Nottingham at once moved to add a clause to the 
 address to the effect that no peace would be safe 
 or honourable which left the West Indies and 
 Spain in the hands of the House of Bourbon. 
 '^ Journal to Stella^ 5th December 171 1. 
 
126 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 It was carried, with Marlborough's support, against 
 the Government by a majority of 64 to 52.^ But 
 the same clause was rejected in the House of 
 Commons by a large majority — 232 against 106.^ 
 The figures in both Houses are important, for they 
 show with the utmost plainness that Harley was 
 backed by the House of Commons and was certain 
 of popular support. 
 
 So far, indeed, from weakening the resolution 
 of the Ministry, this action of the House of Lords 
 strengthened Harley and Bolingbroke in their 
 determination to conclude peace with France, even 
 if the terms of it, though satisfactory to Great 
 Britain, should not be approved by her allies. 
 For in the tactics of the opposition the Ministers 
 perceived the result of intrigues between the Dutch 
 Minister Buys, Bothmar, the representative of 
 Hanover, and the Whig leaders — **the General 
 (Marlborough) and the foreign Ministers have 
 united to blow up this which will turn upon them- 
 selves," wrote Harley to Lord Strafford^ on the 
 day after the memorable division. Some justifi- 
 cation therefore existed for separate negotiations 
 between England and France, and in the famous 
 restraining orders to which allusion will presently 
 
 1 Pari. Htsti vi. 1039. 
 
 * Pari. Hist.j vi. 1043. 
 
 3 Bolingbroke to Lord Strafford, 8th December 171 1"; and 
 Harley to Lord Strafford, of same ddXQ.-^Bolin^brokds Corrcsp.y 
 edited by Parke. 
 
AFFAIRS ON THE CONTINENT 127 
 
 be made, we see the counter-move of Harley and 
 Bolingbroke to the manoeuvre of the Dutch. 
 
 The policy of the Whigs was singularly stupid ; 
 it promised as the sequel to splendid victories, 
 nothing but an indefinite continuance of the war. 
 They lost sight of the changed state of affairs 
 on the Continent and in England. The Emperor 
 Joseph had died, and Charles of Austria, the can- 
 didate of the Allies for the Spanish throne, was 
 the new Emperor ; at the same time Louis of 
 Anjou, the nephew of the French King, was de 
 facto King of Spain. The Allies had no one to 
 put in his place, for the union of the Empire and 
 the throne of Spain was admittedly impossible. 
 Apart from the jealousies it would create, it 
 threatened that balance of power which was ever in 
 the minds of the statesmen of the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries. To seek for another candi- 
 date was to open the door to intrigue, and to 
 create dissensions among all the continental powers. 
 Above all, the power of the French King was 
 broken and humbled, and the majority of the 
 English people perceived that he had ceased to 
 be a menace to European peace, and to what they 
 valued above all, the principles of the Revolution 
 of 1688. Year after year enormous sums had 
 been raised for the purposes of the continually 
 recurring campaigns, and the policy of Harley 
 was the only one which gave the least hope of 
 
128 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 the cessation of this drain on the manhood and the 
 resources of England, the ''packhorse of the war."^ 
 The first move in the alliance of the Whigs 
 and dissatisfied Tories having been apparently suc- 
 cessful, the second had now to take place ; and so 
 on the 15th of December 171 1 the Bill against 
 Occasional Conformity was introduced by Notting- 
 ham into the House of Lords, and presently passed 
 both Houses without opposition.^ The action of 
 the Whigs has been excused by Mr. Lecky on the 
 ground that as the Bill had three times been passed 
 by the House of Commons, and as the country 
 had been shown to be on the side of the High 
 Church party, the Lords should not have put 
 a permanent veto on the measure. But the 
 Whig peers were certainly guided by no such 
 academic constitutionalism, as De Foe among 
 others plainly perceived, and had they been actu- 
 ated by the modern democratic theories which 
 have been ascribed to them,^ they would not have 
 opposed the Ministry, the House of Commons, and 
 the nation in their desire to conclude peace. The 
 Bill was one contrary to every principle which 
 Harley valued, and it may therefore be asked 
 how it came to pass unopposed. The answer is 
 obvious. However personally distasteful this 
 measure might be to the Lord Treasurer, he did 
 
 ^ Lord Strafford to Electress Sophia, Stowe MS., p. 224. 
 
 2 Pari. Htst.i vi. 1046. • Lecky, History of England^ i. 94. 
 
OCCASIONAL CONFORMITY, 1711 129 
 
 not dare to lose the support of his party by oppos- 
 ing it, even if opposition under the circumstances 
 could have been effectual, which it certainly would 
 not, for the political treachery of the Whigs made 
 the Bill sure to become law. Nor from some 
 points of view could Harley pretend to regret 
 that this question so perpetually arising should be 
 set at rest, at least for a time ; for the passing of 
 this Bill removed a subject from parliamentary 
 discussion on which it was impossible for him to 
 act without offending either his Tory supporters 
 or his Dissenting friends. De Foe, overlooking 
 this aspect of the matter, and eager in the cause 
 of toleration, suggested to Harley a bold way to 
 destroy the Bill. 
 
 ** I confess myself," he writes, **so much sur- 
 prised with the particulars which your Lordship 
 did me the honour to communicate to me on 
 Tuesday of the conduct of a set of men with 
 respect to the Dissenters, that I could not express 
 myself on several things needful to be observed to 
 you on the occasion, which defect, according to the 
 freedom you are pleased to allow me, I supply in 
 this manner. 
 
 *' And first, in the midst of my real and just 
 
 concern for the interest of the Dissenters, which I 
 
 look upon as ruined, I cannot but look up with 
 
 thankfulness in your behalf that the mouths of 
 
 9 
 
130 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 your enemies are most effectually stopped in offer- 
 ing to lay the reproach of their disaster upon your 
 Lordship, which is most apparently the effect of an 
 implacable, but I hope impotent, aversion to you, 
 and of a manifest resolution to injure and insult 
 you. Had it not been too late to retrieve the 
 injury, I should have rejoiced also in behalf of the 
 Dissenters, that the idols they adored have appeared 
 capable of so mean a step as to sell the party that 
 ventured their safety on the leaky bottom of a 
 supposed zeal, into perpetual Tory bondage to 
 form a new interest for the supporting their party 
 designs ; but this joy is like singing a psalm at a 
 funeral, too sad to be sonorous. 
 
 ** As you have for the sake of a little sincerity 
 borne with a great deal of coarse and unpolished 
 plainness from me, indulging a freedom which I 
 have no title to but from your own goodness, so I 
 beg you to bear with one humble motion in behalf 
 of an interest which I know your Lordship has 
 been a patron of, which has been valued by you, 
 and which, though the usage of some of the people 
 to you has been inexcusable, yet I am fully per- 
 suaded you have still at heart ; I mean that of the 
 Dissenters. 
 
 "There remains but one point between them 
 and the fate of their whole cause, viz. Her Majesty 
 passing or not passing the Bill. I know the negative 
 is not without its hazard, and many watch the 
 
DE FOE AND THE DISSENTERS 131 
 
 advantage. But Her Majesty has solemnly passed 
 her royal promise to the Dissenters to preserve 
 the toleration inviolable. I know my duty too 
 well to enter on any argument on the consistency 
 of passing this Bill with the keeping this promise, 
 yet I could not satisfy myself, neither in duty to 
 the Dissenters' interest or the immediate interest 
 of your Lordship, without humbly moving you in 
 this case, viz. how effectually it would bind to 
 your interest, and to Her Majesty's person and 
 Government and to all your just measures, the 
 whole body of the Dissenters, and Low Church- 
 men also, who are as ill-pleased as any ; how 
 effectually it would bring in those very people who 
 have suffered this chicane of a party to be passed 
 upon them, and are raging with shame and con- 
 fusion at what they have done ; how effectually it 
 would rivet your Lordship in the hearts of all good 
 men, silence past unjust clamours, and powerfully 
 establish your Lordship as the protector of liberty, 
 the patron of justice, and the true refuge of an 
 injured people — all this, I firmly believe, with a 
 blessing from Heaven, would be the consequence, 
 if Her Majesty, in maintenance of her sacred 
 promise aforesaid, may be advised to refuse this Bill. 
 **God Almighty give your Lordship wisdom 
 and counsel from Himself to direct in an affair of 
 so nice but important consequences, so as may 
 issue in His glory, your own blessing, and an 
 
132 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 innocent people's deliverance ; asking pardon for 
 this freedom."^ 
 
 This advice was far too drastic even for a bolder 
 man than Harley to follow, but we like De Foe 
 all the better for giving it. 
 
 Harley 's policy was now to combat the active 
 and deadly hostility of the Whigs by action 
 equally resolute. The Commissioners who had 
 been appointed to investigate the charges brought 
 against Marlborough of illegally appropriating 
 public monies to his own use, were ordered by 
 the House of Commons instantly to report their 
 proceedings. This report — very adverse to the 
 Duke, and in parts unjust — was amply sufficient 
 for the purposes of the Ministry. 
 
 Yet all this time the exultation of the Whigs was 
 unbounded, while the Tories were correspondingly 
 depressed. Even those who were most favourable 
 to the Ministry foretold its fall : the Queen was 
 false to it, the Duchess of Somerset had gained 
 so large an influence over her that Harley s period 
 of power was nearly ended — such sayings were in 
 the mouths of those who frequented Westminster 
 and Kensington, while Bolingbroke, Swift, and 
 Lewis, each a representative of a different section 
 of the Tory party, were at one moment hopeful, 
 at another so depressed that they could think of 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ iii. 130. 
 
DISMISSAL OF MARLBOROUGH 133 
 
 nothing but the best arrangements to make in 
 view of the imminent victory of the Whigs. 
 
 In this feverish excitement, amid these hopes 
 and fears, Harley went about his business with a 
 quiet confidence which surprised those who met 
 him. '*A11 will be well," he said to incredulous 
 hearers. No one knew his plans, every one tried 
 to guess his schemes, while the half- contemptuous 
 and half-humorous reticence which marked his 
 manner vexed and perplexed his friends. At last 
 the blow fell, and on 30th December the Duke of 
 Marlborough was dismissed, and twelve new peers 
 were created. Harley had thus again a majority in 
 the House of Lords on which he could now depend. 
 The crisis was at an end, the Tories were once 
 more firmly fixed in power ; it was the supreme and 
 most striking moment of Harley 's political life. 
 
 If we look at these facts dispassionately, it is 
 clear that Harley was fully justified in his action 
 at this time. 
 
 No one perceived more clearly than he the 
 general desire of the English people — even of the 
 English soldiers — for peace with France, daily 
 more conscious as they were of the burdens and 
 distresses of the never-ending European campaigns. 
 No one saw more accurately that the outbreak of 
 popular enthusiasm for the Church of England, 
 which had had apparently so important and so 
 adverse an influence on Godolphin's position just 
 
134 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 before he fell, was one of those evanescent, though 
 striking, expressions of popular feeling, the import- 
 ance of which is easily overrated. Religious 
 conflicts evoke passion in a high degree, and 
 priestly enthusiasm can always raise some follow- 
 ing. But that these movements are not necessarily 
 lasting or deep, the fleeting popularity of Sache- 
 verell shows. The populace joined in the move- 
 ment which this hot-headed divine did so much to 
 stimulate, not little because it was the easiest and 
 most ready means of showing their present discon- 
 tent with and their objection to the Ministry which 
 happened to be in power. The mob which shouted 
 for Sacheverell cared little that the Church of 
 England should be pulchra, sttavis et decora. 
 Blinded by their desire for the supremacy of the 
 Church, Atterbury and the clergy who followed 
 him imagined that the people were in favour of 
 the divine right of kings, a doctrine which, as has 
 been well said, was in itself a condemnation of the 
 Revolution. At a later date — on the death of the 
 Queen — the tranquillity with which the change of 
 sovereign was received showed how little real 
 support the High Churchmen had in the country 
 — a fact which no one perceived more clearly than 
 the Lord Treasurer, who realised that the true 
 force of the hostility to Godolphin's Ministry was 
 the national desire for peace. 
 
 Marlborough having definitely and deliberately 
 
HARLEY'S CREATION OF PEERS 135 
 
 allied himself with the Whigs in opposition to 
 Harley's policy, his disgrace had become a political 
 necessity. If we regard his weakness in connection 
 with money matters, it appears so trivial in com- 
 parison with his splendid military services, that it is 
 not surprising that some have said he fell a victim 
 to faction and to national ingratitude. But if 
 Harley had not taken this decisive step, would the 
 Peace of Utrecht have been signed ? He could 
 act as he did because he was strong by reason of 
 his knowledge of the temper of the country, and 
 because he was certain that he was supported by 
 the people and by the Queen. In converting a 
 Whig majority in the House of Lords into a 
 minority by a measure so drastic as the creation of 
 a number of new peers, he was acting as the 
 champion of the House of Commons against the 
 arrogance of a group of Whig noblemen who held 
 control of the House of Lords. He was as fully 
 justified in this step as Lord Grey would have been 
 in 1832, had he carried into action his threat to 
 advise the creation of peers in order to obtain the 
 passing of the Reform Bill. On each occasion the 
 Prime Minister used the royal prerogative to enforce 
 the will of the people; on each occasion, too, he 
 was a man of steady judgment, who yet had at a 
 national crisis the courage and boldness in the one 
 case to adopt, in the other to threaten to employ, 
 a very extraordinary measure, at a moment when 
 
136 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 boldness was vital to the success of the policy to 
 carry out which each had been raised to power. 
 Yet one Prime Minister was nominally a Tory and 
 the other a Liberal. Strangely enough, it was the 
 Tory statesman who created a fundamental con- 
 stitutional precedent. Bolingbroke had no share in 
 this important action ; if his own statement is to be 
 believed — and on this point it may be — he regarded 
 the creation of new peers as "an unprecedented 
 and invidious measure, to be excused by nothing 
 but the necessity, and hardly by that " — a step to 
 which Harley had been " forced " by political 
 necessity. He did not perceive that only a states- 
 man imbued by tradition and by training with 
 a belief in the supreme power of the House of 
 Commons, and impressed with a knowledge of the 
 will of the people from a long and constant study 
 of public opinion, so far as it could be ascertained 
 in that age, would have ventured to advise the 
 Queen to exercise the prerogative of the Crown in 
 a manner so new and so modern. 
 
 Harley's conduct at this critical time was that 
 of a Liberal statesman. He was fighting against 
 aristocratic pretensions, for peace and for retrench- 
 ment, and yet he was the head of a Tory party of 
 which many of the High-flyers were Jacobites. 
 "Early impressions," says Goethe, "can never be 
 shaken off," and Harley throughout the whole of 
 his political life felt the influence of those principles 
 
ATTACK ON TERMS OF PEACE 137 
 
 which his father and his grandfather had professed, 
 and which they had taught him in his youth. But 
 he would have been a more consistent poHtician if 
 he could have forgotten them altogether. At no 
 moment, however, did he so certainly maintain the 
 principles of democratic government, as when — 
 backed up, it is true, by the Queen — he overthrew 
 the Whigs, who thought with the world-famous 
 name of Marlborough to destroy his adminis- 
 tration. 
 
 Once again, after this apparently overwhelming 
 defeat, it seemed as though the Whigs were about 
 to resume their attempts to destroy Harley s ad- 
 ministration, and with it the hopes of the people 
 for peace; for "on 15th February 171 2, Halifax 
 carried a motion against the terms of peace as 
 then formulated by the French plenipotentiaries 
 at Utrecht. Harley allowed it to pass without 
 a division, and one may perhaps, considering 
 the terms of confidence which existed between 
 Halifax and Harley, suspect that the motion was 
 not altogether undesired by the Ministry, since if 
 carried it would necessarily strengthen it in the 
 formal negotiations which had commenced and were 
 ultimately concluded by the Peace of Utrecht on 
 the 31st of March 1713. 
 
 These negotiations it is not proposed to follow, 
 for unquestionably the chief actor in them from the 
 beginning was not Harley but Bolingbroke, who 
 
138 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 conducted them with unwearied patience, sagacity, 
 and resolution. 
 
 So many and various national interests were 
 involved that they were singularly complex. The 
 object of the Ministry of Queen Anne was clear : to 
 obtain from France peace on reasonable terms, but 
 not to exact from Louis the extreme demands of 
 the Allies, demands which might result again, as 
 they had in previous years, in an indefinite continua- 
 tion of hostilities. The situation was curiously 
 complicated, for the two open enemies, France and 
 England, understood each other, and can hardly be 
 regarded as actually hostile ; but the Dutch and the 
 Allies were jealous of this country, which had been 
 their paymaster, and they were actuated by self- 
 interest and conflicting ambitions. But whilst 
 abroad the Ministry was embarrassed by allies who 
 were neither frank nor friendly, it had at home 
 to encounter in the two Houses of Parliament a 
 persistent and violent opposition. It is often said 
 that party strife ceases in national emergencies, or 
 when the Administration is involved in delicate 
 negotiations with foreign powers. But in this 
 initial period of the modern political system, foreign 
 affairs afforded the commonest subject for the 
 bitterest and most harassing party attacks. These 
 in the Commons it fell to Bolingbroke to repel ; in 
 the Upper House the task was Harley's. During 
 these difficult negotiations Harley was cognisant 
 
NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE 139 
 
 of their course, sometimes intervening in them, 
 but their general direction he entrusted to the 
 Secretary, on whom he then thoroughly relied. 
 
 *' II ne me sera necessaire non plus de vous 
 parler du g^nie, ni de I'esprit de ce seigneur; 
 vous en etes d^ja convaingu par tout le cours de la 
 n^gociation. II suffit de vous dire que nous nous 
 reposons sur ses soins pour en voir la fin, et de vous 
 assurer que vous trouverez en lui, au-dessus de toutes 
 les autres belles qualites qu'il possede, un desir plus 
 ardent du monde pour hater le repos de I'Europe." ^ 
 
 It was in these generous terms that Harley 
 wrote to De Torcy shortly before Bolingbroke pro- 
 ceeded on the embassy to Paris which hastened 
 the conclusion of peace. The finances of the 
 country, the management of the two Houses of 
 Parliament, the arrangements with the Queen — 
 these were his more immediate care. 
 
 But though the collective responsibility of 
 Ministers had not reached its modern extent, it 
 is not possible to give either the whole credit for 
 the conclusion of peace or discredit attaching to 
 any part of the negotiation to Bolingbroke alone. 
 For the famous restraining orders Harley must be 
 regarded as responsible as Bolingbroke, though it 
 was by the Secretary of State that they were 
 
 ^ Morrison Collection of MSS., ist series, vol. v. p. 79. 
 
140 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 sent.^ They form apparently so singular a piece 
 of diplomacy that they cannot be overlooked in 
 any sketch of Harley's political career. It was 
 in May 17 12 that the negotiations arrived at a 
 phase so favourable, in the opinion of the English 
 Ministers, to peace, that Bolingbroke on the loth 
 despatched to Ormond, who in the beginning of 
 the month had assumed command of the English 
 army in place of Marlborough, directions not to 
 engage in a battle or undertake a siege until 
 further orders, and to keep these instructions 
 secret. Information of these facts was also sent 
 to Mardchal Villars, the French General. The 
 position could not but be humiliating to the English 
 commander, and in his letters to Harley he did not 
 conceal his vexation.^ It was not surprising that 
 Harley should not reply to Ormond, a leading 
 member, though he was of the Tory party. To 
 a General there could be no defence for such 
 orders. Their justification existed in the abnormal 
 state of affairs. There was more cordiality 
 between France and England than between 
 England and Holland ; there was a sincerer wish 
 for peace among the statesmen of France and 
 England than among those of Holland and 
 Germany. The only argument to which the 
 
 ^ For a gossiping suggestion that Harley alone was responsible, 
 see Burnett's History of his Own Times (Hardwick's note), vi. 128. 
 
 * Harley Papers, iii. 176. Hodgkin MSS., Hist. MSS. Com., 
 15th Rep. App. pt. ii. pp. 208, 212. 
 
THE RESTRAINING ORDERS 141 
 
 Dutch would yield was that of self-interest, and 
 the object of these orders — in addition to that of 
 preventing a useless bloodshed during a period of 
 negotiation — was to prove to the Allies the necessity 
 of concluding peace by the danger to which their 
 armies would be exposed without the assistance 
 of Great Britain. "The Allies," wrote the Lord 
 Treasurer, when at last he broke silence, "might 
 see what they had lost by Her Majesty's with- 
 drawing her forces."^ The parliamentary apologia 
 fell wholly to Harley. Ormond, he said, had been 
 ordered not to risk a battle, but he had liberty 
 to besiege a town ; an inaccurate quibble which 
 was easily disposed of by the Duke of Marl- 
 borough, who quietly asked what was to happen 
 if in the course of a siege an attack was made by 
 the enemy. An adverse vote was averted only 
 by an undertaking that the Ministry would not 
 conclude a separate peace. ^ Wholly different was 
 Bolingbroke's action, since on the very day of the 
 debate he was writing vigorously to Ormond that 
 the Queen's orders "were founded on the most 
 just as well as most prudent considerations," and 
 that Ormond was to find " the most plausible 
 pretence" he could "of sending a trumpet to 
 Mar^chal Villars. You are to inform that General 
 
 1 Hodgkin MSS., Hist. MSS. Com., 15th Rep. App. pt. ii. p. 213. 
 August 5-16, 17 1 2. 
 
 '^ Pari, /^/j/., vi. 1135. 
 
142 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 of the true state of this affair ; you are to acquaint 
 him that we shall not continue long in this 
 uncertain condition, since in a few days we 
 shall expect to hear that the peace is secure."^ 
 
 The Treaty of Utrecht has often been severely 
 criticised, and the Whigs, actuated primarily by 
 purely party motives, before and after it was 
 ratified never ceased to condemn it, though we 
 can estimate the value of some of their strictures 
 by the private approval of Halifax of the peace 
 which Harley and Bolingbroke had secured. 
 Nothing, however, is easier than to attack the 
 terms of a treaty, and the more distant it is, 
 the less difficult becomes academic criticism. 
 For a just appreciation of the Treaty of Utrecht 
 one must comprehend accurately the temper at 
 the time of the English people, the unexampled 
 increase of taxation and of the National Debt, and 
 the difficulty of recruiting, as well as the policy, the 
 action, and the intentions of our continental allies. 
 The people of England peremptorily demanded 
 peace, and the Ministry gave them peace. It is 
 not necessary that the historian should approve all 
 its terms, but he has to note the cardinal fact, that 
 where Godolphin's Ministry failed that of Harley 
 succeeded. In practical life every bargain results 
 from compromises ; to gain here, it is necessary to 
 relinquish there ; and international contracts are 
 1 Bolingbrokis Correspondence^ i. 514. See note, p. 145. 
 
THE TREATY OF UTRECHT 143 
 
 preceded by similar negotiations. We must look 
 at the sum of the whole matter, bearing in mind, 
 as best we can, all the circumstances of the time. 
 Placing one's self in the position of a candid and 
 just -minded contemporary, there can be little 
 doubt that the policy of Harley was worthy of the 
 national aprroval. Much may be urged against 
 the secret manner in which from time to time 
 the negotiations were carried on ; but there is 
 this to be said for Harley and his Ministry, that 
 previous negotiations in 1709 and 17 10 had been 
 largely unsuccessful owing to the uncompromis- 
 ing attitude and the unreasonable demands of the 
 Allies. Thus a separate and secret preliminary 
 negotiation with France alone was most likely 
 to result in a peace. Nor — if occasion had offered 
 — would Holland, jealous of the commercial 
 benefits which Great Britain would obtain, have 
 hesitated, if by separate action she could have 
 gained special advantages for herself.^ In the 
 result the impressive fact was clear, that the war 
 had been successful and that peace was restored. 
 Harley and Bolingbroke had rightly interpreted 
 and faithfully fulfilled the will of the English 
 people. The unbounded pretensions of France 
 had been stayed; the ultimate succession of 
 the Elector to the English throne was safe- 
 
 ^ See the correspondence between Petkum and Torcy, Hist. 
 MSS. Com., 14th Rep. App. pt. ix. p. 32Q. 
 
144 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 guarded ; Gibraltar became an English fortress ; 
 the seaboard of Canada and the territory of 
 Hudson Bay, with all their future potentialities, 
 were ceded to Great Britain ; the assiento contract 
 which the Dutch desired for themselves was trans- 
 ferred to England ; and, for a time, the friendship 
 of France was gained. Above all, the inestimable 
 blessing of a much-desired peace was secured.^ 
 
 ^ No fact more strikingly illustrates the burden which the war of 
 the Spanish Succession had become, than the rapid increase of the 
 National Debt — 
 
 1688, National Debt, ;^664,263. Annual charge, ;^39,855 
 
 1702 „ 12,767,000 „ 1,215,324 
 
 1 7 14 » 36,000,000 „ 3^063,135 
 
 According to the statement supplied to the Commissioners for the 
 
 Union in 1706, the revenue of England was then ;^5,69i,8o3. 
 
¥ 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 LAST YEARS OF POWER 
 
 1711-1714 
 
 Harley's Financial Policy— The South Sea Scheme— De 
 Foe's Influence on it— Estrangement of Harley and 
 bolingbroke on conclusion of peace— defeat of the 
 Government on the Commercial Treaty with France- 
 Differences IN THE Political Views of Harley and Boling- 
 broke— Advisers of the Elector doubt Harley's Good 
 Faith— The Schism Bill— The Struggle between Harley 
 
 AND BOLINGBROKE— Fall OF HARLEY— CAUSES OF HIS FALL — 
 
 Death of the Queen. 
 
 THE national finances rather than the negotia- 
 tions with France engrossed Harley's atten- 
 tion during his administration. Great sums of money 
 had been spent on the war, and more was continually 
 needed. The Minister who has charge of the 
 Exchequer is never without correspondents who 
 volunteer their advice ; and throughout his official 
 career Harley constantly received any number of 
 suggestions as to the best manner of raising funds 
 with the least possible burden to the people. Some 
 of the ideas placed before him were sensible, most 
 were fantastic. But each paper, with characteristic 
 care, he considered and preserved, and they are still 
 to be seen in the library at Welbeck Abbey, often 
 
 lO 
 
146 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 endorsed in Harley s own hand with the date, and 
 sometimes with a note upon their value or contents. 
 In the spring of 171 1, before his illness, he had 
 begun to develop his plans, the South Sea scheme 
 being the mainspring of his financial policy. It 
 was based on the same principles as the Bank of 
 England, and as his abortive Land Bank of 1704, 
 its object being to place a portion of the un- 
 funded debt with a number of individuals, some of 
 whom were already Government creditors, holders 
 of army and navy debentures, not charged, how- 
 ever, on any special fund. Dreams of the wealth 
 of the Indies and the Spanish Main, which had 
 stimulated the Elizabethan seamen, still lingered in 
 men's minds, though their energies were differently 
 directed. The new plan was essentially fitted to 
 meet the somewhat visionary ideas of the older 
 age, and the more modern commercial instincts of 
 the existing community. The project had a most 
 specious appearance ; it seemed to be formed to 
 encourage and to reward private enterprise, and 
 to support it by the assistance of the Government, 
 thus giving to a purely speculative undertaking an 
 appearance of commercial solidity which it certainly 
 did not possess. The resolutions embodying 
 Harley's plans passed the House of Commons on 
 2nd May,^ and later came the South Sea Act,^ ** for 
 making up deficiencies and satisfying the public 
 
 ^ Pari. Hist.y vi. 1022. * 9 Anne, c. 21. 
 
SOUTH SEA SCHEME 147 
 
 debt ; and for erecting a Corporation to carry out 
 a trade in the South Seas ; and for the encourage- 
 ment of the fishery, and for liberty to trade in 
 immigration, and to repeal the Acts for registering 
 seamen." 
 
 From this legislation for the relief of the public 
 credit and the enlarging of British commerce, there 
 resulted the "Company of Merchants of Great 
 Britain trading to the South Seas and the other 
 parts of America, "of which Harley became governor, 
 and St. John, and Benson, the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, two of the first directors. It came 
 into being on 7th September 171 1, and on its 
 formation the floating debt of ten millions was 
 assigned to the new Corporation, with a guaranteed 
 interest at the rate of six per cent. To the Company 
 was also granted a nominal monopoly of the trade 
 in the South Seas — nominal because the English 
 statute could only give an exclusive right of trade 
 to this Corporation as against English subjects. 
 However visionary the commercial advantages of 
 this scheme may have been, the speculation which 
 it created, and the ruin which followed in 1720, were 
 in no sense necessary sequels to Harley s plan. 
 The speculation in which, a few years hence, high 
 and low, politicians and the public, madly rushed, 
 arose from one of those financial fevers from which, 
 from time to time, England has suffered. In its 
 inception the enterprise had, as against other 
 
148 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 English traders, a monopoly, and in India and North 
 America two great monopolistic Corporations were 
 then achieving success. It looked for its immediate 
 profit to a sure and undoubted source of revenue 
 — the slave trade. No word at the beginning of 
 the eighteenth century was more commonly heard 
 among merchants than assiento, by which was 
 understood the right to supply the Spanish colonies 
 with slaves. By the preliminaries of peace signed 
 in September 1711, this right, hitherto enjoyed by 
 the French, and which the Dutch would only have 
 been too glad to obtain, was to be granted ex- 
 clusively to the English, Louis relinquishing a 
 privilege which was regarded as of the highest 
 commercial value. How closely, therefore, this 
 Company was associated with Harley's administra- 
 tion, how much the success of his chief financial 
 scheme was involved with the success of his main 
 political object, is obvious. No wonder that, when, 
 during the course of the negotiations, De Torcy told 
 him that the article in regard to the Spanish trade 
 "was impossible to be granted," Prior should write — 
 
 ** My heart ached extremely, and I was ready 
 to sink, but, recollecting myself, I thought it time 
 to say that if this was to continue a maxim I was 
 very sorry that my coming hither was of no effect, 
 and that I looked upon myself as very unhappy, 
 while I told him with the same plainness, ouveriure 
 
SOUTH SEA SCHEME 149 
 
 de coeur, that he used to me, that it was impossible 
 that peace should be made on any other condition." ^ 
 
 The loss of the treaty would have caused the 
 failure of this plan ; the signing of the preliminaries 
 assured its success. 
 
 But though the principle of the South Sea 
 scheme was similar to that of the Land Bank of 
 1704, many things suggest that its inception was 
 largely due to De Foe. On 17th July 171 1, a 
 remarkable letter to Harley clearly points to previous 
 communications between them on this subject. ** In 
 pursuance," De Foe begins, **of your lordship's orders 
 of putting my thoughts in writing on the subject of 
 the trade to the South Seas, I have enclosed to you 
 a short general." Then follows a memorandum : — 
 
 "I. Respecting the Government, that a debt of 
 nine millions be at once satisfied, and the Govern- 
 ment eased of so great a demand. 
 
 " 2. That the creditors for that debt may receive 
 some advantage above their 6 per cent., that may 
 be so considerable as to raise their actions, and 
 make them gainers by their subscription." ^ 
 
 This was exactly the object of Harley 's policy. 
 But De Foe was too clear-headed to overlook the 
 dangers which threatened the Company, and he 
 did not hesitate to point them out — that though 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ iii. 36. ^ Harley Papers^ iii. 50. 
 
150 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 possessed of a monopoly in name, the Company had 
 not one in fact. 
 
 On 23rd July De Foe writes again. From 
 the commencement of the letter it is obvious that 
 for some years schemes for trading in the South 
 Seas had long been fermenting in his ever-active 
 brain, and had been formulated and submitted 
 to the late King — 
 
 ** The two papers I have already sent your 
 Lordship were only the thoughts in general which, 
 in obedience to your commands, I have reduced to 
 form on the South Sea expedition. I here offer 
 to your Lordship a scheme for the practice. I hope 
 it may not be less acceptable to you for that it has 
 been formerly proposed, since I can assure you no 
 eye ever saw the draft except his late Majesty and 
 the Earl of Portland, and the originals were always 
 in my own hand, till my Lord Nottingham's fury 
 forced me to burn them with other papers to keep 
 them out of his hands. They are here rough and 
 indigested, but if you approve of them in the gross 
 I shall single it out to put in a dress more suitable 
 for your service. Meantime I shall go on to lay 
 the remaining schemes before you." ^ 
 
 From this correspondence — bearing in mind, 
 too, the reliance which Harley placed on De Foe's 
 judgment as well as his own want of imagination 
 * Harley Papers^ iii. 59. 
 
HARLEY AND BOLINGBROKE 151 
 
 and initiative — it is hardly possible to overrate the 
 influence of De Foe upon the consolidation of the 
 floating debt and the creation of the South Sea 
 Company. 
 
 The head of the Administration by which the 
 commercial and the political results of the Treaty 
 of Utrecht were obtained, should have been in con- 
 quence greatly strengthened. On the contrary, the 
 conclusion of peace was the beginning of Harley s 
 fall. The cardinal object of the policy which served 
 as a bond between the Prime Minister and Boling- 
 broke was attained, and the field of domestic politics 
 was left free for the most passionate and personal 
 dissensions. Harley was a moderate Whig by con- 
 viction and temperament, Bolingbroke was a Tory 
 from ambition and policy. The keynote of Harley's 
 policy w^as management ; of Bolingbroke's, mastery. 
 The one was over-cautious, the other rash. The 
 one sought to discover the drift of public opinion 
 and to trim his sails according to it ; the other acted 
 on his individual judgment, which was that of an 
 academic thinker, who had some of the contempt 
 of the fashionable aristocrat for the ideas of the 
 general public. There was yet another reason for 
 their political divergence. Harley, though one of 
 the landed gentry and intimately acquainted with 
 their views and wishes, had a keener appreciation 
 than Bolingbroke of the power of the towns, and of 
 the increasing importance of the commercial class. 
 
152 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 But it was the opinion of Bolingbroke — and one 
 which says little for his sagacity — that when the 
 war was ended the landed interest would rise, " and 
 the monied interest, which is the great support of 
 Whiggism, must of course decline."^ A statesman 
 possessed with this idea would naturally unite 
 himself more and more closely with what he con- 
 ceived to be the party of the future. But such 
 an association with the landed interest necessarily 
 produced an active alliance with all the extremer 
 sections of the Tory party, and an antagonism to 
 all the theories by which Harley s political career 
 had hitherto been guided. Thus, apart from their 
 peculiar personal positions, a conflict between the 
 two men was now inevitable. Bolingbroke too, 
 unscrupulous, abler, and more determined than 
 Harley, was serving under him — it was impossible 
 he should continue a subordinate. Yet Harley, 
 though not a man consumed by ambition, enjoyed 
 political business ; he had a good deal of stubborn 
 pride, and no man will willingly and quietly sink 
 into the second place. A struggle for supremacy 
 was therefore certain. Harley has stated that the 
 disagreement between himself and Bolingbroke 
 commenced in February 171 1, when Bolingbroke 
 began to form a separate party ; ^ but up to this 
 
 ^ Bolingbroke^ s Corresp., edited by Parke, Ap. 29, 1712. 
 
 2 " The Lord Treasurer Oxford's Letter to the Queen, June 9, 
 1 7 14, covering a Brief Account of Public Affairs since August 8, 
 1 7 10." — Pari. Hist.y vi. ccvliii. App. No. 4. 
 
HENRY ST. JOHN, VISCOUNT BOLINGBROKE 
 
 From a portrait by Hyacinth Rigaitd in the National Portrait Gallery 
 
TREATY OF COMMERCE, 1713 153 
 
 moment he had no active personal dislike of 
 Harley. ** I began, indeed, in my 'heart,'" he 
 says, speaking of the events of 171 2 many years 
 afterwards, "to renounce the friendship which till 
 that time I had preserved inviolable for Oxford." 
 From that moment he conceived for him a contempt 
 which grew to the bitterest detestation. 
 
 The Treaty of Commerce of 17 13 between 
 Great Britain and France was also an important 
 cause of difference between the two statesmen. 
 This engagement was based on free trade prin- 
 ciples. The eighth and ninth articles of the 
 Treaty provided that all English and French 
 goods should enjoy the same commercial privileges 
 as to duties and customs as the most favoured 
 nation ; that the English should repeal all prohibi- 
 tions of French goods which had been imposed 
 since 1664; and that no French goods imported 
 into England should pay higher duties than similar 
 goods imported from any other European country. 
 On the other hand, the French were to repeal all 
 prohibitions of English goods since 1664. 
 
 This scheme was too bold and far-seeing, too 
 much in advance of public opinion, to have been 
 evolved by Harley. Bolingbroke, with his philo- 
 sophic turn of mind, his large views, his habitual 
 contempt for public opinion, was its originator. On 
 1 8th June, however, the Bill to make effective the 
 eighth and ninth articles of the Treaty was thrown 
 
154 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 out in the Commons by a majority of nine votes,^ 
 several of the Tories who had previously supported 
 the measure now opposing it. ** The reason of the 
 majority was," wrote Bolingbroke to Lord Strafford, 
 "that there had been during two or three days' 
 uncertainty an opinion spread that the Lord 
 Treasurer gave up the point." It is more probable 
 that Harley, aware of the public and commercial dis- 
 like of the Treaty, was secretly assisting its enemies. 
 At that very time he was in close communication 
 with Halifax, the founder of the financial system 
 of the Revolution. It .would be in accord with 
 Harley 's financial opinions to object to his masterful 
 colleague's advanced views, and he would not be 
 unlikely to thwart them by underhand means.* 
 
 But the difference between the aims of the 
 Lord Treasurer and of the Secretary of State were 
 so fundamental and so marked, that agreement was 
 impossible. Harley attempted to govern by the 
 
 ^ Pari. Hist.^ vi. 1223. 
 
 2 The following letter, written on 28th May by Halifax to Harley, 
 may refer to this subject, since the first debate on the Bill took place 
 on 14th May. On the other hand, the letter closely follows some 
 which refer to securing the Protestant succession :— 
 
 " I should be wanting to the confidence and favour your Lordship 
 showed me in your last letter, if I did not acquaint you that I have 
 so far discoursed some of my friends as to be able to assure you that 
 your Lordship may depend upon their being ready to concur with 
 your Lordship, if you think it fit to oppose the wild proceeding with 
 which we are threatened. I am ready to attend your Lordship at 
 St. James', or anywhere else you shall appoint, if you really think I 
 can serve you and desire I should."— //izr/^y Papers^ iii. 292. 
 
HANOVERIAN SUCCESSION 155 
 
 most elaborate system of playing one party against 
 the other, while nominally the chief of that which 
 was in power, that any statesman has ever ventured 
 on. It involved him after 1713 in nothing less 
 than a tissue of duplicity, and yet the foundation 
 of it all was his desire to act on principles of 
 moderation. It caused him even to be impeached 
 as a traitor, while at the same time it did not gain 
 the confidence of those whom he intended to cajole. 
 Whigs and Hanoverians, Tories and Jacobites 
 alike had doubts of his good faith, which were 
 magnified because the whole political atmosphere 
 was thick with distrust. Every politician was in a 
 state of extraordinary apprehension and uncertainty, 
 and every word which was spoken was listened to 
 with suspicion, if not with disbelief. Baron Schutz, 
 who had become the Hanoverian Envoy to London 
 in April 17 13, was active, meddlesome, and in- 
 credulous, and he had formed the opinion, which 
 coloured his correspondence, that Harley was not 
 sincere in his expressions of fidelity to the 
 Hanoverian succession. '' The protestation which 
 the Lord Treasurer himself made to me, that he 
 would take care of our affairs in case of the Queen's 
 death, have little weight with me."^ These im- 
 pressions, conveyed to the advisers of the Elector 
 and transmitted to him, must undoubtedly have 
 
 ^ Macpherson Papers^ ii. 554 (Schutz toRobethon, 13th February 
 1714). 
 
156 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 prejudiced a man who regarded English politics 
 
 and English statesmen as a foreigner. Harley's 
 
 friends were equally ready to endeavour to 
 
 take advantage of the Elector's ignorance of 
 
 England. On one occasion, Anthony Murray told 
 
 Harley, in a long letter from Hanover, how he had 
 
 informed the Elector in the course of conversation, 
 
 that in 17 lo "the Duke of Marlborough was 
 
 endeavouring to have a patent to be generalissimo 
 
 for life, my Lord Godolphin to be Great Treasurer 
 
 for life, my Lord Wharton to be Vice-King of 
 
 Ireland, etc. In which I told His Highness, if they 
 
 had succeeded Her Majesty was not only no more 
 
 Queen, but they would have sold the powerful 
 
 crowns and dominions of Great Britain." The 
 
 writer then adds that the Elector asked if ** it was 
 
 certain " that these noblemen " endeavoured to 
 
 have these great offices for life," and he repeats 
 
 his assertions. By way of enhancing his pretensions 
 
 to Harley's favour, Murray concludes by the remark 
 
 that a person not a relative, but '*a faithful 
 
 friend and servant like me, will also be minded in 
 
 telling the truth in your favour, as not being 
 
 suspected of any partiality."^ 
 
 It was unfortunate for the policy which Harley 
 was pursuing, that in this abnormal political situa- 
 tion the Electress Sophia and her son should have 
 been prevailed on to allow Baron Schutz to demand 
 
 * Harley Papers, iii. 477-479 (2nd June 1714)- 
 
ELECTORAL PRINCE 157 
 
 for the Electoral Prince a writ of summons to the 
 House of Lords in right of his peerage as Duke of 
 Cambridge. No one denied that he was entitled 
 to it, but the demand created unbounded excitement 
 among statesmen both at Hanover and in London. 
 The Elector and his advisers, as well as the Whig 
 chiefs in England, doubted the good faith of the 
 Queen, and were apprehensive that the Pretender 
 would be invited by her to London. They knew 
 that she had some affection for her brother, that 
 she must be influenced by the letters which she 
 received from him, and it was the knowledge of 
 this fact which excited the apprehension of the 
 Whigs. The mission (1714) of Thomas Harley — 
 the cousin of the Lord Treasurer — to Hanover to 
 express the goodwill of the Queen to the Elector 
 only increased the suspicions of the Opposition. 
 If the Electoral Prince came to London, it was 
 thought by them that the Hanoverian succession 
 would, upon the death of the Queen, be secured 
 as well as their own return to power. But the 
 objections of the Queen to this demand were 
 strong and open.^ It made the Queen, said 
 Harley, more angry than he had ever seen her, 
 and it was obvious to him that the visit would 
 shatter his whole present policy, parties would be 
 sharply divided, and to become on friendly terms 
 with the Electoral Prince and his advisers would 
 
 ^ Macpherson Papers^ ii. 589. 
 
158 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 cause him to incur the displeasure of the Queen, 
 and would terminate his alliance with the Tories. 
 His object was to keep affairs in their present state, 
 to continue as Prime Minister of the Queen during 
 the short period of life which might remain to 
 her, and if possible to obtain a renewal of power 
 when in no long time the Elector should ascend 
 the throne. The accentuation of party differences 
 was also opposed to his lifelong political views, 
 and, as has been said, the visit of the Electoral 
 Prince must, he thought, have this result. **The 
 factions," he wrote to Baron Duyvenvoorde, "are 
 so high, it will be very unfortunate for so great a 
 prince to be only prince over a party which can 
 never last long in England " ; ^ and to Thomas 
 Harley he said that this visit would ''shift the 
 dispute. It will be no more between a Popish 
 Pretender and the Serene House of Hanover, 
 but people will immediately change it into a 
 contest between the present possessor and the 
 future successor."^ Though it was clearly to 
 Harley s personal advantage that affairs should 
 be allowed to run their course, yet in opposing 
 the visit of the Electoral Prince he was acting 
 also in the best interest of the country ; for how- 
 ever much the Queen may have regretted that her 
 brother had debarred himself from mounting the 
 
 ^ Macpherson Papers^ ii. 593. 
 
 2 Harley Papers^ iii. 418 (13th and 24th April 17 14). 
 
POPULAR AVERSION TO POPERY 159 
 
 throne, there is no reason to suppose that she 
 would have taken the violent step of actively 
 assisting in his return, or that such a policy would 
 have received the support of more than the 
 Jacobite minority. For the majority of the 
 English people — troubled and puzzled though they 
 were by the notorious differences between the 
 Ministers of the Queen — expected and were in 
 favour of the Hanoverian succession. " Notwith- 
 standing the aspersions that have been thrown, 
 there is," wrote Lord Berkeley to the Earl of 
 Strafford, **such an aversion to Popery, that I 
 believe in my conscience the generality thinks 
 of nothing after the Queen but the house of 
 Hanover." ^ Harley was well aware of this deeply 
 rooted national feeling, which rendered measures 
 to safeguard the succession to the throne un- 
 necessary, and it was only the anomaly of his 
 position as head of the Tory party that prevented 
 him from showing his opinions more openly. His 
 antagonism, however, to the proposal seemed to the 
 Elector and his advisers inconsistent with his pro- 
 fessions of friendship for the house of Hanover. 
 
 Bolingbroke, on the other hand, boldly and 
 publicly threw himself on the Tory side. "They 
 are like hounds, fond of the man who shows them 
 game and by whose halloo they are used to be 
 encouraged." Thus, many years later, he de- 
 
 ^ Wentworth Papers^ 361 (i6th March 1714)- 
 
160 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 scribed the character of the House of Commons. 
 The description exactly suits the disposition of the 
 Tory party when Bolingbroke bid for the leadership 
 of it. His policy from his point of view had this 
 great merit, it must inevitably give him the chief 
 place in his party, and eventually also must cause 
 the downfall of Harley. Bolingbroke's plan was 
 quite simple, but none the less effective for its 
 purpose. In May 17 14 his friend Sir William 
 Windham moved to introduce a Schism Bill, to 
 prevent schoolmasters from carrying on their 
 occupation unless they had taken the sacrament ; 
 it passed through the House of Commons,^ and 
 in the Lords was pressed forward by Bolingbroke. 
 This was a blow aimed at the Dissenters, a 
 proceeding gratifying to the High Churchmen and 
 extreme Tories, but distinctly harmful to the 
 welfare of the nation. It instantly placed Harley 
 in a dilemma. He had never sympathised with 
 ecclesiastical fanaticism, and he was sincerely 
 anxious to promote peace and goodwill in England. 
 But, chief of the Tory party, how could he oppose 
 Windham's and Bolingbroke's Bill .'* De Foe, on 
 whose opinions Harley relied so much, was of 
 course strongly hostile to it. On 21st May he 
 wrote a weighty letter to his patron — 
 
 *' Last night's conversation could not but afford 
 
 * Pari. Hist.y vi. 349. 
 
THE SCHISM BILL 161 
 
 many useful remarks to me, and I thought it my 
 duty to mention to your Lordship again my observa- 
 tions on that part which relates to the Dissenters. 
 
 '* First the Bill depending about the Dissenters' 
 schools, which I fear will pass, it is true the 
 conduct of the Dissenters has called for more than 
 this, and this may remind them of a hint I gave 
 them in 'The Letter,' ^ whether they enjoyed no 
 favours from Her Majesty's bounty which they 
 might not forfeit by their present behaviour. I 
 doubt not, but their pretended friends, the Whigs, 
 will give them up in this, as they did in the 
 Occasional Bill ; ^ and which is worse, they will 
 give themselves up too, rather than not carry on 
 their party mischief; I pity them, but I cannot 
 but recommend the interest of posterity to your 
 compassion. As to their academies, if there had 
 never been any, I know not but their interest had 
 been as good, and fewer beggars and drones had 
 bred up for ministers among them. But for the 
 schools for common introduction (?) of children, I 
 think their loss will be irreparable. It is true that 
 they will have schools still, they will be no more 
 illegal than before, but it seems hard upon the 
 nation in general to make laws which it will be 
 necessary to break, like that of the late Abjuration 
 Act in Scotland." ^ 
 
 ^ Letter to the Dissenters, (Dec. 1713) urging them to moderation. 
 2 See p. 128. ^ Hurley Papers^ iii. 444. 
 
 II 
 
162 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 Halifax, with whom — though one of the Junto 
 — Harley was constantly taking counsel, evidently 
 considered that the Bill gave the Lord Treasurer 
 an opportunity of placing his country before party. 
 
 " The Land Tax," he writes on May 29th, " and 
 the Malt (Tax) are passed, and the Bill of Schism 
 is at the door ; if I am any judge of opportunities, 
 your enemies have thrown such a game into your 
 hands as never happened to any man before, and 
 is the peculiar happiness of my Lord Oxford. I 
 beg you to make use of this conjuncture, which 
 is most favourable, too, in other respects, to save 
 your country. Allow me to wait upon you and 
 explain my thoughts to you upon this occasion. 
 If you will name the time when you will be at 
 St. James', I will attend you, and come disposed 
 to join in any measures you shall direct, or pre- 
 pared to offer such a scheme as may save this 
 kingdom from distraction and ruin." ^ 
 
 But though Harley's principles prevented him 
 from actively consenting to this unjust measure, his 
 desire of retaining office, his wish not yet to break 
 away from the party of which he was still nominally 
 the leader, and his naturally non-combative and 
 uncommanding spirit, would not permit him to 
 oppose it, as a bolder statesman, as great men 
 like Chatham or Fox, would have done, or as, a 
 few years later, Walpole opposed the Peerage Bill. 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ iii. 451. 
 
vacillatio:n of harley igs 
 
 His feeble and vacillating action showed that he 
 could not cope with the difficulties which con- 
 fronted him. He suggested that the Bill was of 
 some value, and that the hardships pointed out 
 by the Whigs might be eliminated in committee. 
 When a motion was made that the Nonconformists 
 should be heard by counsel, he refused to commit 
 himself and would not vote, yet at other stages 
 he was found voting with its supporters ; ^ and so 
 he pleased neither his opponents nor his own 
 party. Neither Nonconformists nor Tories could 
 — it was clear — rely on him ; but while of the 
 former he desired to be the good friend, of the 
 latter he was the nominal leader. Such action, 
 therefore, could have but one result : the loss of 
 all authority as chief of the Tory party, and, it 
 must be frankly added, on this occasion, of credit 
 either as a statesman, or as an honest and straight- 
 forward politician. Comparisons between states- 
 men of different epochs are often misleading, but 
 it is impossible not to contrast Harley and Peel. 
 Each had some remarkable points in common : 
 a love of moderation and of national economy, 
 each was free from religious animosity, each was 
 head of the Tory party, and each in principle was 
 in sympathy with his opponents. But whereas 
 Peel was true to his convictions, Harley never 
 had the courage to sacrifice his party to principle, 
 
 1 Pari HisL, vi. 1354. Wentworth Papers^ 386, 388. 
 
164 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 though he was not hypocrite enough to be able 
 to hide his real opinions. Each statesman was 
 in the result disowned by his party, but the one 
 gained the appreciation of posterity, the other its 
 condemnation. 
 
 The game was now in Bolingbroke's hands. 
 The political conflict became a personal strife 
 around the sick and lonely Queen. Hers must 
 be the last word ; and so in her Cabinet Harley 
 had to make his last stand, Bolingbroke and his 
 faction striving meanwhile to gain her consent 
 to the dismissal of the Lord Treasurer. Anne s 
 ecclesiastical prejudices, and her jealousy of her 
 successor, were played on by the enemies of the 
 Lord Treasurer ; while on his side he had to 
 justify his policy, sometimes sharply, to depreciate 
 his antagonists, to suggest that they were plotting 
 for the Pretender. It was a discreditable and 
 undignified conflict, in which it is difficult to follow 
 Harley's actual course. A pitiful and unmanly 
 conduct has been attributed to him by some, a 
 vigilant and composed attitude has been the de- 
 scription of others. There is probably truth in each 
 statement. That he would play on the Queen's 
 feelings now in one way and now in another, was 
 certain ; he would now appeal to her heart and now 
 to her head, now talk to her as a friend and now 
 address her as a Minister. And throughout, his 
 expressions, after the manner of the age, would be 
 
HARLEY AND BOLINGBROKE 165 
 
 exaggerated ; and so an appeal to the Queen's good 
 feelings, somewhat pitifully framed, should not be 
 taken too literally. Hitherto, neither political suc- 
 cess nor political disaster had ever disturbed 
 Harley's unvarying serenity, and there is no reason 
 to suppose that he lost his habitual self-control 
 during the conflicts which preceded his ultimate 
 fall. But such a struggle as this was fitly ended 
 by a woman's influence. Lady Masham was ever 
 by the side of the Queen, and her influence, veiled 
 under the attractive guise of friendship, was the 
 final factor in Harley's fall as it was in his rise to 
 supreme power.^ It was a strange political scene, 
 one which has never been and can never be 
 
 ^ Dr. Arbuthnot, who as physician to the Queen had unique oppor- 
 tunities of knowing the course of events at Court, wrote to Swift on 
 26th June : " I will plague you a little by telling you the Dragon dies 
 hard. He is now kicking and cuffing about here like the devil." 
 On loth July : " The Dragon holds fast with a dead grip the little 
 machine" ("the treasurer's staff"). On the 17th : "Our situation at 
 present is in short thus : they have ro7nper e7i visilre with the 
 Dragon, and yet don't know how to do without him. My Lady 
 Masham has in a manner bid him defiance, without any scheme or 
 likeness of it in any form or shape, as far as I can see. Notwith- 
 standing, he visits, cringes, flatters, etc., which is beyond my com- 
 prehension." On 24th July : " I was told . . . that I did not know 
 the half of his (Harley's) proceedings. Particularly, it was said, 
 though I am confident it is a mistake, that he had attempted the 
 removing her (Lady Masham) from the favour of a great person. 
 In short, the fall of the Dragon does not proceed altogether from his 
 old friend (Lady Masham), but from the great person (the Queen), 
 whom I perceive to be highly offended by little hints that I have 
 received. In short, the Dragon has been so ill-used, and must serve 
 upon such terms for the future, if he should that I swear, I would 
 not advise Turk, Jew, nor Infidel to be in that state." — Correspond- 
 ence printed in Aitken's Life of Arbuthnot^ pp. 63, 67, 70, 74. 
 
166 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 repeated, illustrative only too vividly of the un- 
 exampled state of English politics when Harley 
 ceased to be Prime Minister. 
 
 The struggle ended on July 27th ; on that day 
 Harley was dismissed from the Queen's service. 
 
 *'My good friend," wrote Lady Masham to 
 Swift on 29th July, '' I own it looks unkind in 
 me not to thank you all this time for your sincere 
 kind letter ; but I was resolved to stay till I could 
 tell you the Queen had got so far the better of 
 the dragon as to take her power out of his hands. 
 He has been the most ungrateful man to her, and 
 all his best friends, that ever was born. 
 
 ** I cannot have so much time now to write 
 all my mind, because my dear mistress is not 
 well, and I think I may lay her illness to the 
 charge of the Treasurer, who for three weeks 
 together was teasing and vexing her without in- 
 termission ! And she could not get rid of him 
 till Tuesday last. 
 
 " 1 
 
 Anne's ostensible reasons for the dismissal of 
 Harley were as personal as those which served for 
 that of Godolphin, and were childishly inaccurate — 
 
 ** He neglected all business; he was seldom 
 to be understood ; when he did explain himself 
 she could not depend upon the truth of what he 
 
 ^ Swift's Works y xvi. 164. 
 
FALL OF HARLEY 167 
 
 said ; he never came to her at the time she 
 appointed ; he often came drunk ; lastly, to crown 
 all, he behaved himself toward her with bad 
 manners, indecency, and disrespect." 
 
 The blow having been struck, Harley suffered 
 it with an outward calm, characteristic of his 
 public demeanour throughout his life. This com- 
 posure came partly from temperament, partly from 
 a long course of self-restraint, by no means common 
 among his contemporaries. He announced his fall 
 to his sister with the same remarkable absence 
 of vexation as he did to Swift. This may by 
 some be regarded as affectation ; it was real, and 
 never throughout his most intimate correspondence 
 did he allude, except with calmness, to his loss of 
 power, or show either resentment or even annoy- 
 ance at the action of Anne, ** the dear Queen," 
 as he writes of her on the eve of her funeral,^ and 
 once overthrown, he made no sustained attempt, as 
 a more ambitious man would have done, to rise. 
 Equally genuine was his idea of duty ; for in the 
 strange and difficult political circumstances of the 
 age he followed a consistent, if a somewhat question- 
 able, standard of political conduct. 
 
 ** I hope," he writes on July 29th, "my dearest 
 sister was sufficiently prepared for what happened 
 
 ^ Lord Oxford to Edward Harley, igtli August 17 14. Brampton 
 MSS., No. 117. 
 
168 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 on Tuesday night, that there was no need of my 
 writing by that post, if it had been possible. 
 
 *' I came in with the expectation of the treat- 
 ment I meet with. I thought it as much my duty 
 then to come in as now to be out, and it is my 
 comfort I do go out with as much honour and 
 innocency as I came in. Let me send you the 
 following imitation : — 
 
 " ' To serve with love, 
 
 And shed your blood, 
 Approved is above ; 
 But here below, 
 Th' examples show. 
 It is fatal to be good.' 
 
 ** God preserve my dearest sister. Affectionate 
 service to Sister Harley. I pray God bless all the 
 little ones." ^ 
 
 When most men would have been unable to 
 conceal their thoughts on the importance of the 
 event which had just occurred, Harley was osten- 
 tatiously interested in a childish rhyme. For he 
 says at the conclusion of a letter at the same time 
 to Swift, " I send you an imitation of Dryden 
 (composed) as I went to Kensington." They are 
 the same jingling lines which he despatched to his 
 sister. 
 
 Harley 's fall was the necessary result of his 
 desire to stand well with two deeply antagonistic 
 
 * Harley Papers^ iii. 477. 
 
HARLEY'S SCHEME IN 1713 169 
 
 parties, of an incapacity boldly to sever himself 
 after the Peace of Utrecht from the Tories ; he lost 
 their confidence without gaining the support of their 
 opponents. That throughout the last two years of 
 his official life Harley was not only on the closest 
 terms of political intimacy with Halifax, but was 
 planning with him some kind of political combina- 
 tion, is now abundantly clear. " I shall wait upon 
 you to-morrow at St. James'," wrote Halifax on 
 the 27th of May 1713, ** with an earnest desire on 
 my part, and sufficient authority from others, to 
 make a perfect union with your Lordship to sup- 
 port the true interest of our country under your 
 directions." ^ The existence of some scheme for 
 such a union as that which Halifax indicates, a 
 union probably of the less virulent Whigs, led by 
 Halifax and Somers, with a small number of 
 Tories who Harley hoped would act with him, is 
 the most probable explanation of his conduct. 
 Had the Queen lived, a coalition might perhaps 
 have resulted ; but It was frustrated by the death 
 of Anne before it was ripe, and the political 
 edifices of Harley and of Bolingbroke were thus 
 alike laid low. By the extreme members of the 
 Tory party the professions of sympathy with the 
 Jacobite cause which Harley may have thrown out 
 in hints were fast becoming regarded as unreal ; by 
 a still larger number he was thought to be luke- 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ iii. 292. See also pp. 270, 271. 
 
170 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 warm in his attachment to the Church of England, 
 and to be a Dissenter in disguise. Men said too — 
 and this was not altogether untrue — that, having 
 secured for himself a high place in the peerage, 
 his ambition was satisfied. Thus at the end of his 
 administration he inspired no confidence as a party 
 leader ; losing the trust of the Tories, he lost also 
 that of the Queen, and, like Godolphin, he was 
 obliged to resort to the same system of expostula- 
 tion and of entreaty. Like Godolphin, his political 
 life was finally destroyed by Lady Masham. Why 
 she had ceased to be Harley's friend and ally, and 
 had become his enemy, is not quite clear. Every 
 one about the Court had a different reason to 
 give. Probably a conjunction of comparatively 
 unimportant causes — personal estrangement, dis- 
 satisfaction with what she regarded as persecution 
 of the Queen, the influence of Bolingbroke, 
 perhaps the fact that she had not received shares 
 in the South Sea Company, combined to produce 
 this change. It was sufficient, however, to become 
 the final cause of Harley's fall. As with Godol- 
 phin, so it was with Harley — one was watching to 
 succeed him. All things therefore tended towards 
 one result, and it was scarcely possible for Harley 
 to have escaped from this political catastrophe.^ 
 
 ^ The narrative of Harley's administration ought not to be left 
 without referring to the careful work of Dr. Felix Salamon, GcschichU 
 des letzten Ministeriums Konigin AnnaSy Gotha, 1894. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IMPEACHMENT— IMPRISONMENT— RETIREMENT 
 
 1714-1724 
 
 Harley's Position on Death of Queen Anne— His Hopes 
 ON Accession of George i. — Proceedings against the Tory 
 Leaders— Impeachment of Harley— Imprisonment in the 
 Tower— Difference between the Two Houses— Acquittal 
 — Harley and the Jacobites— Opposition to the Peerage 
 Bill — Indifference to Financial Distress resulting from 
 South Sea Scheme— Harley and his Friends— Prior and 
 Swift— Death— Summary of his Character and Life. 
 
 NO political victory was ever more momentary 
 than that of Bolingbroke, for or. the ist of 
 August 1 7 14 the Queen died, and the power which 
 he had hardly grasped fell from his hands. With the 
 accession of the Elector of Hanover to the English 
 throne, the Whigs returned to power for a genera- 
 tion, and Harley's political career — whilst he was 
 still in the prime of life — was permanently con- 
 cluded. From boyhood somewhat delicate, his 
 health and vigour had been exhausted by the 
 critical and trying years — few though they were — 
 which had elapsed since he became Prime Minister 
 in 1 7 10. Many statesmen have remained in 
 supreme power for a longer period, but none for 
 
 171 
 
172 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 one which was more momentous' and memorable, 
 than the last four years of the reign of Anne. 
 
 Immediately after the Queen's death the fallen 
 Minister retired, first to Wimpole in Cambridge- 
 shire, the home by marriage of his eldest son, and 
 then to Brampton. There he interested himself 
 in the local elections for the new Parliament which 
 met in March 17 15, and which, unlike that just 
 dissolved, was entirely Whig in sentiment. For 
 a moment some hope seems to have arisen in his 
 mind that his experience and his moderation of 
 opinion, and the desire which, in his correspondence 
 with the Elector, he had always shown to stand 
 well with the new sovereign, might cause him to 
 be recalled to office. The King's ** unacquainted- 
 ness and partial information " would, he thought, 
 prevent him from forming a stable administration. 
 ** Neither party of the two denominations separ- 
 ately," he wrote to his late colleague. Lord Dart- 
 mouth, "can form any such as is practicable, they 
 have not credit enough,"^ so "an understanding 
 must be found among those who wish a settlement 
 in England." The same dominating idea which 
 had possessed Harley through his whole career 
 still governed him, but in the belief which he thus 
 expressed to Dartmouth he showed a lack of 
 appreciation of the political situation and of the 
 
 1 Dartmouth MSS., Hist. MSS., nth Rept. App. part v. p. 321 
 (end of August 17 14). 
 
ACCESSION OF GEORGE I. 173 
 
 strength of party bitterness. True, it was not he 
 who now was to be the moderator, it was Dart- 
 mouth's "healing hand" which was to apply the 
 remedy ; for which he thought there was a great 
 preparation and disposition everywhere. But this 
 hope did not last long, and before the Elector 
 arrived in England Harley perceived that there 
 was no possibility of his return to power.^ 
 
 A fate very different from the formation of 
 Cabinets was to be his during the ensuing years, 
 for in the spring of 17 15 there began the famous 
 proceedings against the leaders of the late Tory 
 Ministry. Threats against them occupied a 
 prominent place in the Address in answer to the 
 Speech from the Throne. *' It appears," ran that 
 which was moved by Walpole in the Commons 
 referring to the action of the Pretender, *^ that his 
 hopes were built upon the measures that had been 
 taken for some time past in Great Britain. It 
 shall be our business to trace out those measures 
 whereon he placed his hopes, and to bring the 
 authors of them to condign punishment." ^ Boling- 
 broke, to escape from the impeachment which was 
 
 ^ In a letter to his brother, Auditor Harley, from the Tower, of 
 13th February 1717 (Brampton MSS.), Harley says that on the 
 Queen's death he gave assurances to the King and his Ministers of 
 " my fixed resolution to retire, and I did put the same in practice 
 until my accusation called me out of the country." The letter to 
 Dartmouth was written at the end of August, and the King arrived on 
 1 8th September. 
 
 2 Pari Hist, vii. 4. 
 
174 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 impending, fled on the 26th of March to France, 
 and in July became Secretary of State to the 
 Pretender. It appeared to be a public avowal 
 of his intrigues with the Jacobites. Of this, at 
 any rate, there can be no doubt, it showed in 
 Bolingbroke extraordinary want of sagacity, it 
 suggested a close negotiation with the Pretender 
 before the death of the Queen, and it is the clearest 
 evidence of unpatriotism, because he could not 
 have intended to remain as Secretary of State 
 to a king without a kingdom, and that kingdom 
 could only be obtained at the cost of a civil war. 
 Bolingbroke's action therefore unquestionably tends 
 to justify Harley's opposition to him in the Cabinet, 
 because it is some proof, if not of actual Jacobite 
 intrigues, at any rate of unsound political judgment. 
 Harley, answering an urgent appeal from his brother 
 Edward — Auditor Harley — to hasten to London, 
 replied curtly, "The going away of Lord Boling- 
 broke is like his other practices. I thank God I was 
 never in his secret, and for late years out of his 
 way of converse, but only what was necessary." ^ 
 
 By some it was thought that Bolingbroke's 
 flight would sufficiently satisfy the enemies of the 
 late Government, and that Harley would not be 
 molested ; but they were mistaken. On the 9th 
 of April a secret Committee, of which Walpole 
 was elected Chairman, was appointed to inquire 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ iii. 510 
 
IMPEACHMENT OF HARLEY 175 
 
 into the late peace and other matters. On the 
 loth of June — the Committee having reported — 
 Walpole moved the impeachment of Bolingbroke, 
 which was carried without a division. Presently 
 Lord Coningsby ^ — a violent and unswerving Whig, 
 and a bitter local opponent of Harley — rose. 
 *' The worthy Chairman of the Committee," he 
 said, **has impeached the hand, but I do impeach 
 the head ; he has impeached the Clerk, and I the 
 Justice ; he has impeached the scholar, and I 
 the master : I impeach Robert Earl of Oxford 
 and Earl Mortimer of high treason and other 
 crimes and misdemeanours."^ It is doubtful 
 whether the Government intended to impeach 
 the late Lord Treasurer. If such had been their 
 policy, it was he who from his rank should have 
 been first proceeded against, and the motion 
 should have been made not by a private member, 
 but, as in the case of Bolingbroke and Ormond, by 
 the Chairman of the Committee or by one of the 
 Administration. After speeches from Harley's 
 relative, the Auditor, and Mr. Foley, Sir Joseph 
 Jekyll, Chief Justice of Chester and a staunch 
 Whig and one of the Committee, spoke, declaring 
 
 ^Thomas Earl Coningsby (i656(?)-i729), M.P. for Leominster 
 1 679-1 710 and 171 5- 171 9, when he was raised to the English peerage 
 as Earl Coningsby, having been created an Irish peer in 1692. An 
 ardent supporter of William ill., he was by his side at the battle of 
 the Boyne, and held various official positions and also local dignities 
 in Herefordshire and Radnorshire. 
 
 2 Pari Hist.^ vii. 67. 
 
176 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 that there were no grounds for an impeachment. 
 Then the Whigs perceiving the weakness of 
 their case, *'a member of the Committee" rose 
 and declared that besides what had appeared in 
 their report, "they had other evidence viva voce" 
 In other words, the House was asked to pass the 
 motion not on the facts before it, but on something 
 undisclosed and unknown. Party spirit ran too 
 high for the majority to be judicial, and Harley's 
 friends doubtless thought that resistance at the 
 moment was inopportune ; so this theatrically 
 worded resolution was carried without a division, 
 and Harley on the 9th of July was committed to 
 the Tower. 
 
 The first articles of impeachment^ contained 
 charges which were no more than criticisms of 
 policy, and were wholly without weight as a 
 criminal indictment. In August, however, six 
 further articles were added, one of which was an 
 accusation of high treason, for it charged Harley, 
 vaguely enough, with aiding the Pretender. His 
 answers to the accusations against him took the 
 form of a general defence of his political actions, 
 and of his policy during the last four years of the 
 reign of Queen Anne. Throughout this defence 
 the modern idea of ministerial responsibility is 
 conspicuously absent. Every act of Harley was 
 done with the knowledge and the approbation — he 
 
 ^ ParL Hist.y vii. 67, 74. 
 
HARLEY IN THE TOWER 177 
 
 asserts — of his sovereign, and he shields himself 
 — if fault he has committed — behind the authority 
 of his mistress. So that in reading Harley's 
 elaborate apologia of his policy and conduct, we 
 are constantly reminded of the still embryonic 
 state of theories of political conduct which are 
 now accepted as axiomatic, and of the still un- 
 doubted influence of the Crown. 
 
 But the Ministers of the new sovereign had 
 more pressing business on hand than that of 
 carrying on a State trial, and from a party point 
 of view it was sufficient that the late Lord 
 Treasurer lay imprisoned under a charge of high 
 treason. Delay after delay ensued, and for two 
 years Harley remained a prisoner in the Tower. 
 When at last, on the 24th of June 17 17, he was 
 brought to the Bar within the historic walls 
 of Westminster Hall, his trial was dramatically 
 interrupted by his old colleague. Lord Harcourt, 
 who moved that the Peers do adjourn to their 
 own House. There Harcourt at once moved and 
 carried a resolution that the Commons be not 
 admitted to proceed with Harley 's trial for high 
 crimes and misdemeanours, **till judgment be first 
 given upon the articles for high treason." The 
 object of this step was obvious. It was impossible, 
 as had been evident from the beginning of the im- 
 peachment, that Harley could be convicted of high 
 
 treason ; and acquitted upon this charge, the whole 
 12 
 
178 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 sting of the prosecution would be gone. Moreover, 
 as the House of Commons were the accusers and 
 the House of Lords the judges, the Peers by this 
 motion were infringing the privileges of the Lower 
 House, and were thus creating a technical difficulty, 
 which could only be overcome by the withdrawal 
 of the motion or by the waiving of the Commons' 
 rights. As neither side would give way, the con- 
 ferences between the two Houses produced no 
 result, and a motion in the Commons on the ist 
 of July that the trial should proceed in the manner 
 indicated by Harcourt was negatived. This was 
 the virtual end of Harley's long-impending trial, 
 and on the 3rd of July, the Commons not appear- 
 ing, he was acquitted by the House of Lords, ^ the 
 
 1 The following are the steps in the impeachment of Harley : — 
 
 1715. 
 loth June. Resolution passed in House of Commons for impeach- 
 ment of the Earl of Oxford. — Pari. Hist., vii. 67. 
 7th July. Articles of impeachment agreed to by House of Commons 
 
 and sent to House of Lords. — Pari. Hist., vii. 74. 
 7th July. Order by House of Lords for committal of Earl of Oxford 
 
 to custody. — Pari. Hist., vii. 106. 
 1 2th July. Order for committal to the Tower. — Pari. Hist., vii. 
 
 107. 
 2nd Aug. Six further articles of impeachment read and carried to 
 
 House of Lords. — Pari. Hist., vii. 114. 
 3rd Sept. Answer of Earl of Oxford delivered to House of Lords. 
 
 —Pari. Hist., vii. 158. 
 7th Sept. Answer sent to House of Commons and debate thereon. 
 
 — Pari. Hist., vii. 211. 
 nth Sept. Replication of House of Commons to the answer carried 
 to the House of Lords. — Pari. Hist., vii. 212, 213. 
 1717. 
 22nd May. Petition of Earl of Oxford that his case be taken into 
 
END OF THE IMPEACHMENT 179 
 
 very body which during his Ministry had been his 
 most troublesome and determined enemy. The 
 time had in truth gone by when purely political 
 action on the part of a statesman, however odious 
 to his opponents, could bring him to the block. 
 Half a century later, Harley would never have 
 been impeached — a vote of censure would have 
 been his severest punishment ; a little more than 
 fifty years earlier he might have lost his head on 
 Tower Hill. Time, too, softens even the rancour 
 of party, and nearly two years of office had lessened 
 
 consideration and debate thereon in the House of 
 
 Lords. — Pari. Hist.^ vii. 462. 
 27th May. After debate, 13th of June appointed for trial. — Pari. 
 
 Hist.^ vii. 465. 
 1 2th June. Motion in House of Commons for postponement of trial. 
 
 — Pari. Hist.^ vii. 475. 
 24th June. Trial of Earl of Oxford opened in Westminster Hall, and 
 
 adjournment. — Pari. Hist., vii. 481. 
 24th June. Motion carried in House of Lords that the Commons be not 
 
 admitted to proceed till judgment be first given upon 
 
 the articles for high treason. — Pari. Hist.^ vii. 486. 
 27th June. Conference between the two Houses, and messages 
 
 between the two Houses. — Pari. Hist.^ vii. 487. 
 1st July. Motion in House of Commons that Harley's trial do proceed 
 
 as indicated by the House of Lords, lost on a division. 
 3rd July. Trial renewed (7 p.m.), and on the nonappearance of 
 
 Commons the Earl of Oxford was acquitted. — Pari. 
 
 Hist., vii. 494. 
 3rd July. Address to King carried in House of Commons to except 
 
 the Earl of Oxford from Act of Grace. — Pari. Hist., 
 
 vii. 496. 
 See also Howell's State Trials, xv. 1046, and The Whole Pro- 
 ceedings against Robert Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortifuer, 
 London, 171 5, which contains the first portion only of the proceed- 
 ings, the writer amiably expressing his hope that in a future publica- 
 tion he may describe Harley's condemnation and punishment. 
 
180 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 the resentment of many of the Whigs to a man 
 who had almost unwillingly been their antagonist. 
 By the people generally he had neither been loved 
 nor hated, but large numbers regarded him with 
 respect because of his admitted moderation of 
 character, and sympathised with him for an im- 
 prisonment which hei bore with dignity, courage, 
 and good temper. Thus his acquittal was received 
 with approval by the public. *' Our friend," wrote 
 Erasmus Lewis to Swift, on the day after Harley's 
 release, "has at present many more friends than 
 ever he had before in any part of his life." Under 
 these circumstances some men would have tried to 
 regain political power ; but though Harley did not 
 cease to take a part from time to time in parlia- 
 mentary business, he never made a vigorous 
 attempt to recover the important position which he 
 had held so long among contemporary statesmen. 
 
 In his own age, and in those which have 
 followed, there have been many who have con- 
 sidered that Harley was guilty of something hardly 
 distinguishable from treason. But the charges 
 which have been made against him appear to show 
 a complete misconception both of his policy and of 
 his character, even of the common methods of 
 contemporary party warfare. **You set up the 
 Church and Sacheverell against us ; and we set 
 up trade and the Pretender against you " ; ^ so said, 
 
 ^ The behaviour of the Quceiis last Ministry y Swift, Works^ v. 313. 
 
HARLEY AND THE JACOBITES 181 
 
 with much frankness, a person in great employment 
 to Swift. For a party policy such as this it was 
 necessary that suggestions and insinuations of 
 disloyalty should be spread abroad. To these, 
 collected in memoirs and biographies, too much 
 weight is apt to be attached in succeeding centuries. 
 Not a little has been made of a statement by 
 the Due de Berwick that the Abb6 Gaultier 
 brought him definite propositions from Harley 
 for the succession of the Pretender after the death 
 of Anne. But nothing is clearer than that the 
 Berwick Memoirs must be scrutinised closely before 
 they are accepted as historical authority. Berwick 
 thus begins his account : '* A la fin de 17 lo lAbb^ 
 Gaultier, dont la cour de France se servit pour 
 traiter en secret de la paix avec lAngleterre, vint 
 me trouver a St. Germain de la part du Comte 
 d'Oxford, nouvellement fait grand tr^sorier."^ 
 But Harley was not Earl of Oxford and Lord 
 Treasurer until May 171 1. In this passage there 
 is, therefore, a radical confusion, throwing suspicion 
 on the whole narrative, which throughout has the 
 appearance of a vague summary written at some 
 time long after the years of which it tells. A little 
 later, the narrative says — 
 
 ** Apres ces pr^liminaires, nous entrames dans 
 le detail des moyens de parvenir au but; mais 
 
 ^ Mimoires du Mardchal du Berwick^ Petitot Collection, Ixvi. 219. 
 
182 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 I'abb^ ne put pour cette premiere fois entrer dans 
 un grand detail, attendu que le tr^sorier ne lui avait 
 pas encore blen expllqu6 ses intentions, que meme 
 pr^alablement a tout il fallait que la paix ftit con- 
 clue ; sans quoi le ministere present n oserait 
 entamer une matiere si delicate a manager." 
 
 But if nothing could be done until peace was 
 concluded, one object of which was the safeguard- 
 ing of the Hanoverian succession, and the carrying 
 out of the Act of Settlement, it is obvious that 
 Harley never made any real proposals to the Due 
 de Berwick. Gaultier's business was to collect in- 
 formation, and it is probable that he constantly 
 placed on vague conversations definite meanings 
 which they were never intended to convey. 
 
 If the evidence of Harley's Jacobite intrigues 
 was confined to such statements as those of 
 Gaultier and to current rumours, it would scarcely 
 be worthy of a moment's consideration. It has, 
 however, been stated that while he was in the 
 Tower he communicated directly with the Pre- 
 tender. This assertion rests on a passage in a 
 letter from Harley among the Stuart papers, which 
 Sir James Macintosh appears to have seen, but 
 which has since disappeared. That Harley should 
 have written this letter is highly improbable. His 
 position at the moment was so powerless — he had 
 no partisans to please, no office to retain — it was so 
 
HARLEY AND THE JACOBITES 183 
 
 essential for his safety at that time not to endanger 
 his chance of Hberty, that it is difficult to believe he 
 would venture on so dangerous a course. At that 
 very moment, also, he was assuring his relatives of 
 his innocence and of his honour. On 13th April 
 1 7 16 he wrote to his brother Nathaniel at 
 Aleppo — 
 
 " I begin a letter to my dearest brother, though 
 I do not know that my weak hand will obey my 
 heart enough to write more than a very few lines. 
 You may be sure I have received the frequent 
 intelligence of your coming home with that joy 
 that can only be conceived by those who love each 
 other so entirely, that I know you will not be 
 displeased to receive a few lines from me, even 
 out of this place. I have been here since i6th 
 July 17 1 5, and desire only to come out with the 
 same honour, the same innocency, as I came in. 
 I know I have served my country successfully and 
 usefully, my Queen faithfully, and observed the 
 laws religiously and strictly, to which I have not 
 only the testimony of my own conscience, but the 
 applause of nine parts in ten of the nation, so that 
 I will not exchange my integrity and a prison for 
 the mind and the power of some others." ^ 
 
 Then on March 23rd, 17 16, he writes to his 
 brother Edward — 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ iii. 521. 
 
184 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 "... nothing Is more notoriously known than 
 my uniform conduct without trepidation in the two 
 preceding reigns for the service of the present 
 Royal Family ; and the success has satisfied all 
 that I foretold them and their Ministers. ... I 
 never had the least view in anything I did for the 
 promoting the Protestant succession for my own 
 private advantage ; my only motive was that I 
 thought it was for the good of my country."^ 
 
 To his wife, a homely woman who seldom went 
 near the Court, he said — 
 
 *'. . . as I look for no favour, so I shall do 
 nothing towards my freedom that may not become 
 the character of an English gentleman, and I will 
 go out of this place with the same honour and 
 innocence as I came into it." 
 
 In other private and confidential communica- 
 tions Harley emphatically denied that he had 
 schemed for the return of the Pretender, a denial, 
 the truth of which is confirmed by the fact that 
 even in April 17 14 the credulous Gaultier was in 
 doubt of the Lord Treasurer's intentions, and that 
 in the previous February Berwick had written to 
 James that Harley in his conversations with 
 Ormonde |*' never would come to determination, 
 though pressed very home by the other." ^ 
 
 These two instances are the strongest which 
 
 ^ Harley Papers, iii. 530. 2 Hist. MSS. Com. : Stuart Paper, i. 294. 
 
HARLEY AND THE ELECTOR 185 
 
 have been advanced against Harley, and they show 
 the danger of relying too much on mere biographical 
 relics ; we must look rather to his character and 
 policy. By temperament he was the last man in 
 the world to plunge into anything in the nature of 
 a plot, while all his family sympathies and his early 
 training were such as to make him an anti- Jacobite. 
 Again and again he had openly declared to the 
 Elector his zeal for, and his *' inviolable attachment " 
 to, the Hanoverian succession.^ His expressions 
 were never more emphatic than in 17 14, when 
 Baron Schutz, the Hanoverian Envoy, demanded 
 a Writ of Summons to the House of Lords for 
 the Electoral Prince by virtue of his peerage as 
 Duke of Cambridge. He seized the opportunity 
 to reiterate his attachment to the house of 
 Hanover. Writing to his cousin, Thomas Harley, 
 then English Envoy at Hanover, he said, ** I have 
 thus sincerely opened my heart to you, and out of 
 the warmest zeal for the interest of that serene 
 house, I beg you will lay this before His Electoral 
 Highness, to whom with my humblest duty you 
 may give the utmost assurances mortal man is 
 capable of doing. I will do my utmost to calm 
 things here. It is the mutual interest of the Queen 
 and the Elector to have a firm friendship, and that 
 the world should know it so."^ It is impossible 
 
 1 E.g. Harley to Elector, Oct. 5-16, 171 1, Stowe MS., 224, p. 178. 
 
 2 Harley Papers^ iii. 418 (13th April 17 14). 
 
186 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 not to contrast these statements in Harley's own 
 handwriting, so open and so uncompromising, with 
 the vague gossip upon which so much unjustified 
 reliance has hitherto been set. The character of 
 his poHcy and his poHtical position as leader of the 
 Tory party, the left wing of which was Jacobite, 
 required that he should from time to time make 
 some show of Jacobite sympathies. Still it is 
 astonishing that men could have been so long 
 duped ; " that which was most wonderful in all 
 this part was," says De Foe, " that the whole body 
 of the Jacobites in Britain were capable of being 
 imposed upon to such a degree, and that it was 
 possible the Staff could use them as tools to such a 
 length and not take one real step in their favour, 
 as It is certain he never did ; and yet they should 
 be so stupid, as that to the last four months or 
 thereabouts to believe him in their interest."^ But 
 as the Whigs and the Elector's advisers were 
 certainly suspicious of him, it is clear that he 
 played this dangerous game with a realism 
 sufficient not only to fool the Jacobites, but to 
 negative his efforts to stand well with the Elector. 
 " It is true," wrote Bothmar, the Hanoverian 
 
 1 The Secret History of the White Staff, ii. 12. This pamphlet 
 contains an elaborate defence and explanation of Harley's conduct, 
 but he did not, openly at least, favour it. " The Whigs brag in print 
 they caused the two books of the White Staff io be written, and the 
 policy is plain. He ought to be treated as a fool who had the Staff, 
 if he ever encouraged a vindication." — Harley to Dr. W. Stratford (?), 
 23rd November 17 14. 
 
HARLEY'S POLICY 187 
 
 Envoy, in July 17 14, '*the Treasurer receives me 
 very well, but the question is if he is sincere."^ 
 
 No more elaborate and remarkable political 
 trickery — ** the most exquisite piece of management 
 that has been acted by any Minister of State in 
 this or the last age," is De Foe's delicate descrip- 
 tion — is to be found in the history of English politics. 
 Barley's action is the more striking because it was 
 that not of a bad man or a vicious statesman, but 
 of one who was actuated by honourable principles, 
 and by a desire to serve his country, who had 
 little or nothing to gain by remaining in office, 
 and everything to lose should a charge of treason 
 be brought against him. To act so as to hold the 
 good opinion of the moderate members of two 
 opposite parties, was an impossibility under the 
 circumstances of that particular time. To show a 
 desire for the Hanoverian succession, to engage 
 in schemes for a political union with Halifax, and 
 at the same time to affect sympathy with the 
 Pretender, was to carry a difficult political intrigue 
 to a point which could hardly fail to result in 
 political disaster. But whatever we may think of 
 Harley's methods, they were not treasonable, and 
 when he reofarded himself as an ill-used man it is 
 impossible to doubt the genuineness of the feeling. 
 Certainly, too, the Jacobitism of the Tory party 
 in England has been exaggerated, for there is no 
 
 ^ Macpherson Papers^ ii. 633. 
 
188 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 evidence of any real and practical scheme for the 
 restoration of the Pretender. If he could have 
 returned to the throne under a new parliamentary 
 title, or if on an armed attempt considerable popular 
 enthusiasm had been shown for his cause, there 
 were many who would have welcomed him. There 
 was much correspondence of an indefinite kind with 
 France, and expressions of sympathy were constantly 
 conveyed across the Channel ; but of any bold and 
 thorough scheme to place the son of James ii. on 
 the throne there is no sign. 
 
 It may be doubted even whether Bollngbroke, 
 who in 1 7 14 had become the real leader of the 
 Tories, had determined on his future action should 
 the Queen remain alive. We know that he had 
 decided to construct a strong Tory Government 
 and fortify it In the country. Having accomplished 
 — If he could — that object, there were two courses 
 open to him : either to be content to remain in 
 power as head of a Tory Administration, accepting 
 the Act of Settlement, or to endeavour to make 
 use of his supremacy to bring back the Pretender 
 before the Queen died. The only reason for 
 this latter policy was that if James were on the 
 throne Bollngbroke's personal authority would be 
 more assured and more considerable than under 
 the Elector ; and his ambition and love of power 
 were so remarkable that it is a reason to which 
 weight must be attached. If, on the other hand, 
 
TORY AIMS IN 1714 189 
 
 the Queen were to die before the Act of Settlement 
 was repealed, the new King would at any rate be 
 received by a Tory Ministry who would take good 
 care to capture the inexperienced sovereign, and 
 would be able to retain their places at the beginning 
 of another reign. Bolingbroke, unlike Harley, was 
 free from Whig associations and Whig principles, 
 and he might well believe that from a purely Tory 
 vantage point the game in either eventuality was 
 in his hands. His plans failed because he lacked 
 Harley 's sagacious understanding both of public 
 opinion and public men, and had not the personal 
 authority, the clear sight, and the vigorous deter- 
 mination to dominate a crisis. Whether, however, 
 we consider the policy and position of Harley or of 
 Bolingbroke — or indeed of any prominent member 
 of the Tory party — it should never be forgotten 
 that for party purposes no charge by the Whigs 
 was so effective as an accusation of Jacobitism. 
 Unless the Elector and the English people were 
 effectually prejudiced against the advisers of the 
 Queen, there was always a danger that they might 
 remain in office under a new sovereign ; and that 
 danger was painfully present to the minds of the 
 Whigs whenever they reflected on Harley and on 
 his remarkable career. 
 
 Before finally passing away from the period of 
 Harley 's imprisonment, it should be noted how he 
 was the last statesman to hold high office, and to find 
 
190 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 himself in the Tower. Thus he is unquestionably a 
 link between the old and the new political systems. 
 At the very moment when English parties were as- 
 suming their modern forms, the statesman who 
 more than any other of the age was democratic in 
 his sensitiveness to public opinion, became a victim 
 to the methods of the pre-revolutionary era, set in 
 motion by party leaders and from party bitterness. 
 The circumstances in which Harley's last years 
 in office were passed were so exceptional and so 
 dramatic, that the little which remained to him of 
 political life after his release from the Tower in 1 7 1 7 
 appears tame and commonplace. From the moment 
 when he reached the peerage, his quiet energy had 
 abated, and a certain dilatoriness of mind and action 
 characterised the last period of his administration. 
 In retirement this inertia increased, and after 171 7 
 Harley seldom took any part in current politics. 
 In 1718 he spoke in the debate on the state of the 
 coinage,^ and a few weeks later opposed the Mutiny 
 Bill ^ of the Ministry, basing his opposition to it both 
 on the constitutional ground that courts martial 
 were inconsistent with civil liberty, and on the 
 practical reason that the number of men asked for 
 by the Government was too large from a political 
 and financial point of view. Walpole was at first 
 a leading opponent of the measure, and in the 
 dissensions of the Whigs one may probably perceive 
 
 1 Pari. Hist., vii. 533. * ParU Hist,^ vii. 538. 
 
THE PEERAGE BILL, 1719 191 
 
 the real cause of this parliamentary attack on a 
 Bill which was easily capable of defence, since a 
 standing army could not be governed by the common 
 law, and in numbers a reduction had been made. 
 But a statesman who had been kept by his opponents 
 for two years in the Tower could scarcely be ex- 
 pected to lose this opportunity, especially in an 
 age when party spirit was so strong. The Peerage 
 Bill introduced by Sunderland and Stanhope in 
 the following year was a more fitting object of 
 opposition, and the vigour with which Harley 
 attacked it seemed to suggest that he was about 
 to take again an active part in contemporary 
 politics. By this measure a radical change in the 
 constitution was proposed, not for constitutional 
 reasons, but for the purposes of party safety ; for 
 the Whigs were alarmed, lest on the accession to 
 the throne of the Prince of Wales an unlimited 
 creation of peers should, as in 17 12, overthrow their 
 power in that House of Parliament where they 
 were strongest. The object of it was to prevent 
 the increase of the existing number of English 
 peers by more than six, though it permitted the 
 creation of a new on the extinction of an old peerage. 
 It shortened the tenure of future peerages by 
 limiting them to the grantees and the heirs male 
 of their body. It proposed to replace the sixteen 
 elective peers of Scotland by twenty-five hereditary 
 noblemen. It would necessarily have resulted in 
 
192 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 an alteration of the character of the English peerage, 
 which would have become a caste apart from and 
 ceasing to be replenished by the middle classes. 
 Harley had every motive to oppose it : he had 
 seen the utility, as a political mechanism, of the 
 royal prerogative to create peers, and had used it 
 on the popular side. As one of those who had 
 passed from the ranks of the landed gentry to the 
 House of Peers, he could recognise the value of 
 the existing constitution ; as a Tory and a party 
 politician, he might not be without hope that, after 
 the secession of Walpole and Townshend from 
 the Ministry in 17 17, a union of dissatisfied Whigs 
 with the Tories might replace him in power. Thus, 
 from the moment this constitutional question was 
 pressed on the attention of Parliament, he opposed 
 it actively,^ not only in Parliament but in the 
 
 ^ The following are the steps of this measure : — 
 1719 
 28th Feb. The Duke of Somerset moved and the Duke of Argyll 
 seconded that a day be appointed for the House 
 to be in Committee to take into consideration the 
 present state of the peerage of Great Britain. 
 This motion was opposed by the Earl of Oxford. 
 2nd March. Message from the King relinquishing his prerogative 
 
 of creating peers. 
 4th March. Resolutions embodying the principle of the Bill were 
 passed by 83 to 30. 
 March-April. Bill passed first and second readings, and not further 
 proceeded with. 
 25th Nov. Bill again introduced and passed in the House of 
 Lords. 
 8th Dec. Bill rejected in the Commons on motion that it be 
 committed. 
 
END OF HARLEY'S PUBLIC LIFE 193 
 
 country. ** Above an hundred peers in Scotland," 
 wrote Lord Balmerino to him on the i6th of March 
 1 719, "owe your Lordship humble thanks."^ 
 
 Though unable in the House of Peers to 
 prevent the progress of this measure, Harley's 
 efforts were certainly not without influence in the 
 country ; and though it was to Walpole and the 
 House of Commons that the destruction of the Bill 
 was finally due, the late Lord Treasurer's conduct 
 at this juncture must always be placed to his credit 
 as a patriotic statesman. 
 
 But the rejection of this Bill did not overthrow 
 the Government ; on the contrary, it apparently 
 strengthened the position of Stanhope and 
 Sunderland, since it induced them to bring back 
 Walpole and Townshend to their Administration. 
 Thus any hope which Harley might have had of 
 securing some kind of Tory-Whig combination 
 fell to the ground. On May i6th, Harley had 
 written, "I congratulate the time being come that 
 the wolf dwells with the lamb, and the leopard lies 
 down with the kid. These are very happy prog- 
 nostics." But the omens were fallacious, and at 
 the end of the year Harley was definitely and 
 finally without hope of office. 
 
 In his retirement — sometimes in Herefordshire, 
 sometimes at Wimpole — he more and more 
 became isolated from that public life in which he 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ iii. 58. 
 13 
 
194 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 had lately taken so noteworthy a part. In 1720, 
 when the minds of men were engrossed with the 
 South Sea Company, then so rapidly falling to ruin, 
 some efforts seem to have been made to induce 
 him to come to London and save the situation. 
 The public originator of the scheme, many looked 
 to him for assistance in this time of trouble ; but he 
 could have done nothing, and he did do nothing. 
 Speculation and avarice must have their necessary 
 results, and any effort to stay the course of events 
 would, he thought, be unavailing. 
 
 And so he lived on quietly, his leisure occupied 
 with country life, or broken by a rare visit to 
 London, interested in his own and his brother's 
 family, content with his bowls and his books, and 
 with watching the increase of that library which to 
 many is his most enduring monument. 
 
 Considerably removed from the centre of 
 political and literary activity, he yet kept up some 
 intercourse with his former associates, though his 
 growing indolence, arising from bad health, made 
 him rather a receiver than a giver of correspondence. 
 Bromley — one of the pillars of the High Church 
 party — who had served with him in his Administra- 
 tion, had time to write to him pessimistic letters 
 on the state of affairs. Prior occasionally corre- 
 sponded with him. The accomplished diplomatist 
 and poet, in bad health, not overburdened with 
 money, an exile from political life, found in Harley's 
 
PRIOR AND HARLEY 195 
 
 family the solace of his later years ; Wimpole, the 
 house of Harley's eldest son, was more a home to 
 him than his own Down Hall. " I do not think 
 myself," he says on 23rd December 1720, **more 
 sensibly obliged to Lord Harley for any favour I 
 have lately received from him than for the news 
 he gives me of your being better as to your health, 
 and to those wishes which he daily makes with 
 the piety of an excellent son. I know you will 
 give me leave to add mine, with the sincerity of 
 a faithful friend. I have almost wintered here, 
 and indeed have been detained for a month past 
 by an indisposition which kept me within doors, 
 which was the only trouble I found from the illness, 
 for your son has treated me with kindness, which 
 prevented me asking anything, and with a freedom 
 which made me think I was in Duke Street, at 
 Prior's own palace. I am going thither in three 
 or four days, and shall not stir from thence till 
 either you come towards Lincoln's Inn or Lord 
 Harley to Dover Street, for I am frightened with 
 the roaring of the South Sea, and tired with the 
 madness of the people. . . . This is the world, 
 my Lord, and the same tricks are played in Courts 
 and camps, universities and hospitals, and so men 
 act and have acted, for the proof which your 
 Lordship and your humble servant need not read 
 much history. There are some exceptions to this 
 rule, but I think I might name them all without 
 
196 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 writing to the bottom of the page ; but I am tired 
 with the thought, and will quit it for a pleasanter, 
 which is that of telling you we are all in perfect 
 good health. My Lord, Yours, Mathew."^ 
 
 In less than a year — on September i8th, 1721 
 — this accomplished and versatile man died at 
 Wimpole. "His death," wrote Lord Harley to 
 Humphrey Wanley, "is of great trouble to us all 
 here, but I have this satisfaction, that nothing was 
 wanting to preserve his life." 
 
 Swift sometimes wrote to him. In political 
 misfortune he had stood staunchly by his patron. 
 Five days after being committed to the Tower, 
 Harley had received from him a letter which 
 began : "It may look an idle or officious thing 
 in me to give your Lordship any interruption 
 under your present circumstances ; yet I could 
 never forgive myself if, after being treated with 
 the greatest kindness and distinction by a person 
 of your Lordship's virtue, I should omit making 
 you at this time the humblest offers of my poor 
 service and attendance." Distance, engrossment 
 in Irish affairs, the absence of reciprocal com- 
 munication, did not, as time elapsed, lessen the 
 fidelity of this friendship.^ 
 
 * Harley Papers^ iii. 6io. 
 
 2 Sir Henry Craik suggests that Harley, in obtaining only the 
 Deanery of St. Patrick (17 13) for Swift, had shown ingratitude for 
 his services : " Swift was vexed at the vacillation, at the strain which 
 a return so much under his deserts had called for. The picture of 
 
After a pictKrc by Thoi, 
 
 MATTHEW PRIOR 
 
 Hudson froui a portrait by Jonathan Richardson in the National Portrait Gallery 
 
SWIFT AND HARLEY 197 
 
 " Bussy Rabutin," — Swift thus wrote from Dublin 
 on 6th November 1723, — *'in his exile of twenty 
 years writ every year a letter to the King, only to 
 keep himself in memory, but never received an 
 answer. This hath been my fortune, and yet I 
 love you better than ever I did, and I believe you 
 do not love me worse. I ever gave great allow- 
 ance to the laziness of your temper in the article of 
 writing letters, but I cannot pardon your forgetful- 
 ness in sending me your picture. If you were still 
 a first Minister, I would hardly excuse your promise 
 of nine years ; I will be revenged, I will put Lord 
 Harley, nay, I will put Lady Harriet, upon you. 
 Mr. Minet hath sometimes made me uneasy with 
 his accounts of your health ; but he and the public 
 papers being silent in that particular, I am in hopes 
 it is established again. I am recovering mine by 
 riding, in hopes to get enough one summer to attend 
 you at Brampton Castle, for I have a thousand 
 things to say to you in relation to somewhat quod 
 et hunc in annum vivat et plures. Be so kind in 
 two lines to invite me to your house ; you asked 
 me once when you governed Europe whether I 
 was ashamed of your company ; I ask you now 
 whether you are ashamed of mine. It is vexatious 
 
 timidity, shuffling, and ingratitude on the part of Oxford is not a 
 pleasant one" {Life of Swift ^ p. 261). Harley seems to have done 
 the best he could for Swift, and the latter, if not satisfied, was certainly 
 not displeased with Harley. 
 
198 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 that I, who never made court to you in your great- 
 ness, nor ask anything from you, should be now 
 perpetually teasing for a letter and a picture. 
 While you were Treasurer you never refused me 
 when I solicited for others ; why in your retirement 
 will you always refuse me when I solicit for myself ? 
 I want some friend like myself near you to put you 
 out of your play. In my conscience I think that 
 you, who were the humblest of men in the height of 
 power, are grown proud by adversity, which I confess 
 you have borne in such a manner that if there be 
 any reason why a mortal should be proud, you 
 have it all on your side. But I, who am one of 
 those few who never flattered or deceived you 
 when you were in a station to be flattered and 
 deceived, can allow no change of conduct with 
 regard to myself, and I expect as good treatment 
 from you as if you were still first minister. Pray, 
 my Lord, forgive me this idle way of talk, which 
 you know was always my talent, and yet I am very 
 serious in it, and expect you will believe me, and 
 write to me soon, and comply with everything I 
 desire. It is destined that you should have great 
 obligations to me, for who else knows how to 
 deliver you down to posterity, though I leave you 
 behind me ? Therefore make your court and use 
 me well, for I am to be bribed, though you never 
 were. I pray God preserve you and your illustrious 
 family (for I hope that title is not confined to 
 
DEATH OF HARLEY 199 
 
 ' Germanes'), and that you may live to save your 
 country a second time." ^ 
 
 But in those days Herefordshire and Ireland 
 were far apart, and Swift and Harley were never to 
 meet again ; for little more than six months later, 
 on May 21st, 1724, Harley, whose health had for 
 some time been failing, died during one of his short 
 visits to London at a house in Albemarle Street. 
 His body was borne to Brampton, and laid in the 
 quiet churchyard with his worthy fathers. Within 
 the church a marble tablet was placed to his 
 memory, on which are narrated the chief events in 
 his life, and on which the four last lines of Pope's 
 famous dedication are inscribed as an epitaph. 
 "His friendship and conversation," wrote Swift to 
 the new Earl,^ on hearing of his death, *' you will 
 ever want, because they are qualities so rare in the 
 world, and in which he so much excelled all others." 
 Harley could not have asked for a more pleasing 
 epitaph, and, a little overstrained though it may be. 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ iii. 636. 
 
 2 Harley had by his first wife: Edward, Lord Harley (1689-1741), 
 who married Henrietta Cavendish, daughter of John, first Duke of 
 Newcastle ; Elizabeth, who married the third Duke of Leeds ; and 
 Abigail, who married the seventh Earl of Kinnoul. The title became 
 extinct on the death of Alfred, sixth Earl of Oxford, in 1853. The 
 estates devolved on his sister. Lady Langdale, and on her death in 
 1872, Robert William Daker Harley, a direct descendant of Sir Bryan 
 de Harley, son of Sir Robert de Harley. See p. 6. 
 
 Harley's second wife (marriage Oct. 1694) was Sarah, hitherto said 
 to be dau^jHter of Simon Middleton, but see Harley Papers^ i. 552, 554 
 (widow?). See ante^ p. 13. 
 
200 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 it stated with truth his most agreeable characteristic. 
 It is the last word in a personal union which ex- 
 hibits in Swift a constant heart and an independent 
 spirit, in Harley the recognition of genius, of tried 
 and invaluable services, and of a friendship which 
 was unbroken in good fortune and in adversity. 
 
 Harley 's courage and patience, his good temper 
 and absence of pride and affectation, were very attrac- 
 tive to Swift, and no one had better opportunities 
 of perceiving them. To us it is as a politician 
 that he is chiefly interesting. With many of the 
 characteristics of the modern Liberal, perceptive 
 of popular forces and of the value of the Press, 
 he lived in an age of transition, when other in- 
 fluences had still to be carefully considered — the 
 wishes of the Queen, the persistence and union 
 of the Whig party, the hopes and fears of men 
 who favoured the Stuarts or the house of Hanover, 
 an element in party politics which has never since 
 existed. He was always a friend of civil and 
 religious liberty, and in his opposition to a large 
 standing army under William iii., even in his 
 vacillation as to the Schism Bill, — events at the 
 beginning and the end of his career, — we see this 
 political conviction in imperfect but real action. 
 
 In the history of English parties Harley holds 
 a unique place, for he was the first party leader in 
 the modern political understanding of the term, and 
 he was, from the fall of Godolphin to a few days 
 
HARLEY'S PUBLIC CHARACTER 201 
 
 before the death of Anne, acknowledged as their 
 chief by every one of the Tories, not excepting 
 Bolingbroke. On the other side, no statesman 
 was in the same position, for the Whigs were 
 led by a group of noblemen, not one of whom would 
 have admitted the supremacy of the other ; and it 
 was not until Walpole had attained to a position 
 of undoubted authority over the Whigs, that any 
 leader held a distinct personal ascendancy over 
 Harley's former opponents. Harley, too, was the 
 first, but not the last, of those chiefs of the Tory 
 party who, while acknowledged as their leader, 
 has had singularly little sympathy with the bulk 
 of his followers. 
 
 Sprung from the landed gentry and a land- 
 owner himself, and well acquainted with the wants 
 and the wishes of the rural population, he was yet 
 in sympathy with the commercial aspirations of 
 the country, occupying for a time the chief place in 
 the most important commercial corporation of the 
 age. Indeed, throughout the whole of Harley's 
 career, we are constantly reminded of the expan- 
 sion of Great Britain : we see it in the South Sea 
 scheme, and in the capturing of the Assiento 
 Contract, which, while it made England the chief 
 slave-trading nation of the age, was a signal mark 
 of her approaching commercial supremacy. It is 
 visible, too, in her territorial enlargement, in the 
 I possession of Hudson Bay and Acadie, which were 
 
202 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 valued by the nation for the opportunities they 
 gave for the employment of increasing wealth and 
 modern energy. They were steps in the evolution 
 of England, growing from an insular kingdom to a 
 world-wide power ; and as in Harley we note a 
 statesman perceptive above others of the influence 
 of literature and journalism, so in him we also 
 observe a mind alive to the needs of a growing 
 commercial community. 
 
 Throughout his public life Harley was in favour 
 of peace, of national economy, and of financial 
 purity. His bitterest enemy never brought a 
 charge against his uprightness in regard to money 
 matters, whether public or private. Of this purity 
 he could be justly proud, in an age when public 
 men could and did secretly enrich themselves at 
 the expense of the nation, and when such conduct 
 was easily pardoned. So far, indeed, from becom- 
 ing more wealthy by official life, Harley was 
 actually poorer,^ and we cannot find a single 
 accusation against him in this respect, in memoirs, 
 pamphlets, or party rhymes, in years when political 
 enmity struck with personal weapons, when blame 
 and praise were both strongly marked by exaggera- 
 tion. ** If a man was ever born under the necessity 
 of being a knave, he was," ^ is the acrid description 
 of Harley which one of his most formidable Whig 
 opponents has handed down to posterity. Against 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ iv. 208. See App. ii. ^ Cowper*s Diary^ p. 33. 
 
RETIREMENT 203 
 
 it we may set Pope's praise of his philosophic 
 tranquillity in retirement, which is as much too 
 complimentary as Bolingbroke's posthumous and 
 depreciatory damnation is unjust — 
 
 "A soul supreme, in each hard instance try'd, 
 Above all pain, all passion, and all pride ; 
 The rage of power, the blast of public breath, 
 The lust of lucre, and the dread of death." 
 
 These fine lines are scarcely applicable to a states- 
 man with a body and mind wearied by toilsome 
 and anxious political life, who could no longer 
 serve his country. Fortunate in his love of books 
 and literature, in a united and sympathetic 
 family, having sufficient means, country tastes, a 
 high position, and a tranquil temperament, Harley 
 could pass with contentment the last decade of life 
 among the pleasant country scenes of Hereford- 
 shire, and in the library at Wimpole. 
 
 In looking back upon the life of a statesman, 
 there is perceptible an obvious division between 
 foreign and domestic affairs. For Englishmen, 
 from the time when Harley's career commenced, 
 there were two simple and opposite foreign policies : 
 that of William iii., which he bequeathed to the 
 Whigs — by which, in his own words, England was 
 to hold *'the balance of Europe," and which, how- 
 ever gratifying to its pride, involved this country in 
 continental disputes — and a policy of non-interven- 
 tion, of regarding Great Britain primarily as a sea 
 
204 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 power unconcerned with the disputes of Europe, un- 
 less they directly affected English interests. When 
 Harley in 1697 opposed a large standing army, he 
 commenced an adherence to the latter policy from 
 which he never deviated, one practical result of 
 which was the Treaty of Utrecht. It necessarily 
 follows that, in the mind of a statesman holding such 
 opinions, foreign questions must occupy a secondary 
 place, and thus Harley appears to have had but 
 a limited knowledge of, and no strong interest 
 in, the details of continental affairs, and he has 
 left no mark upon this department of Govern- 
 ment. He took a far larger share in the manage- 
 ment of the finances of the country. Though a 
 careful administrator, he had neither the large 
 mental outlook nor the daring to venture on 
 schemes involving novelty. He was content with 
 lotteries, land-taxes, and the excise, while the re- 
 markable plan with which his name is connected, the 
 South Sea Company, was not based on any new 
 ideas of his own, and the practical application of 
 those on which it was framed was probably due to the 
 bolder mind of De Foe. As a domestic politician, 
 Harley would in quiet times, and in an age when 
 party feeling was less bitter, when the ethics of 
 party warfare had become clearer, and when all 
 doubts as to the succession to the throne had 
 passed away, have gained a solid and lasting 
 reputation ; for, to employ an admirable phrase 
 
CAUSES OF HARLEY'S SUCCESS 205 
 
 of Bagehot's, he abounded in pacific discretion. 
 By indefatigable labour and perseverance in a 
 single career, fair abilities, a considerable capacity 
 for business, remarkable tact, and an unusual gift 
 for perceiving the drift of parliamentary and public 
 opinion, with the assistance derived from the 
 reputation of his family and from local position, 
 he was enabled to reach a high political place. 
 But a lifelong Whig by opinion and tempera- 
 ment, he became the head of a Tory Ministry, 
 chiefly because that party was opposed to a war 
 policy — in other words, was in favour of peace 
 and retrenchment, the watchwords of the Whigs 
 of a later generation. But when the Treaty of 
 Utrecht, by producing a European peace, took 
 from the Tories the element in their policy which 
 was the bond of union between them and Harley, 
 his position as head of that party was impossible 
 and anomalous, and he lacked the boldness at once 
 to break away from it. But for the war Harley 
 could not have remained for so long the leader of 
 the Tories. The desire for peace had, during its 
 continuance, made party dissatisfaction harmless, 
 but the moment this influence was removed party 
 feeling caused Harley 's position to become un- 
 tenable. That their leader should try to carry 
 into public affairs the Whig doctrines which Locke 
 had enunciated in his Letters on Toleration, was an 
 anomaly to which militant Tories could not submit. 
 
206 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 Jealousy and fear of the Nonconformists — increasing 
 as they were in wealth and influence — was the 
 strongest idea in the Tory mind at the end of the 
 reign of Queen Anne, and as the Church of England 
 was as yet far too powerful to permit, for many 
 years, the admittance of Nonconformists to all 
 the privileges of citizenship, inevitable as in time 
 that change might be, it was certain that for 
 Harley even to temporise on this question made 
 it impossible for him to continue as leader of the 
 Tories. It is probable that Harley perceived the 
 critical point in his political career at which he had 
 arrived, but his failure to take the bold and, indeed, 
 the only safe action, as we now see it was, resulted 
 in his loss alike of his high office and, what was 
 worse, of his political honour. And yet, whether 
 he intended it or not, at this time and by 
 action unfortunate for his reputation, he was 
 doing England a service. He prevented Boling- 
 broke and the extreme Tories from carrying out 
 schemes which, whether they were treasonable or 
 not, would have greatly disturbed the tranquillity 
 of the country. He so temporised with his col- 
 leagues and with the Pretender, that these plans 
 were deferred, and the Elector succeeded peace- 
 fully to the throne. If Harley could have passed 
 safely through the crisis of a new succession, it 
 is not impossible that his close and friendly 
 intercourse with Halifax would have resulted in 
 
HISTORICAL CHARACTER 207 
 
 a union between himself and a statesman who was 
 the least hostile of the Whigs to their opponents ; 
 and then Harley, had health permitted, might 
 have had some years of tranquil power. Instead, 
 not only did he find himself permanently 
 excluded from office, but he became, as Boling- 
 broke said with bitter truth, "the object of the 
 derision of the Whigs and of the indignation of 
 the Tories." He tried, in an age of extreme 
 political passions, to be tolerant and moderate, 
 but his good intentions involved him in intrigues 
 and political manoeuvres, on which it has been 
 his misfortune that history has dwelt to the ex- 
 clusion of any appreciation of the sterling qualities 
 which he certainly possessed, and of the difficulties 
 of a career which was a perpetual dilemma ; for 
 he had not attained the capacity of the modern 
 statesman, to deny some principles in order to 
 obtain the effectuating of others. As has been 
 well said of an incomparably greater man, ** Nature 
 had endowed him with a power of keeping his 
 own counsel, that was sometimes to pass for dis- 
 simulation." This capacity, as well as his modera- 
 tion, made men throughout his life doubtful of 
 his good faith. His policy in the last years of 
 office seemed to his contemporaries a confirmation 
 of all the suspicions which had gathered round his 
 career, and so gave him a reputation with posterity 
 more evil than was deserved. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE BOOK-COLLECTOR. THE FRIEND OF 
 MEN OF LETTERS 
 
 Harley's Taste for collecting Books and Manuscripts— 
 A Fashion of the Age— Harley as a Scholar— Humphrey 
 Wanley — Addition of the D'Ewes Collection to the 
 Library— Enlarged by Edward, Earl of Oxford— Its Dis- 
 persal—The Manuscripts purchased for the Nation — 
 Harley's Friendship with Men of Letters— Swift, Prior, 
 Arbuthnot, Gay— The Brothers' Club— The Scriblerus 
 Club— Politics and Letters in the Age of Anne. 
 
 SOME knowledge of the manner in which an 
 eminent man occupies his hours of leisure 
 helps to elucidate character, and sometimes throws 
 liofht on motives. When we think of Burke 
 sauntering thoughtfully and observantly over his 
 farm at Beaconsfield, we more \eadily understand 
 him ; and when we recall the hot, mad midnight 
 hours which Charles Fox so keenly enjoyed round 
 the gambling tables in St. James' Street, we realise 
 more clearly the nature of the ardent politician 
 who gloried in debate. Nor shall we have com- 
 pleted a study of Robert Harley if we consider 
 him only as a statesman ; we must picture him 
 carefully purchasing and laboriously perusing his 
 
 208 
 
TASTE FOR COLLECTING BOOKS 209 
 
 manuscripts. There Is another reason, too, why 
 his pastime interests this generation — it helped to 
 create the national collection which now exists at 
 the British Museum, which gives to his name a 
 celebrity besides that which belongs to him as 
 one of the first party leaders of the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
 To the collecting of rare books and manuscripts 
 Harley brought the same perseverance, the same 
 choice of competent assistants, as to his political 
 business ; and in his taste for topographical and 
 antiquarian works is visible the early ardour for 
 documentary research that enabled him to become 
 a high authority on parliamentary history and pre- 
 cedents. Among his books Harley found recrea- 
 tion, and while Godolphin passed his leisure in 
 watching his horses on Newmarket Heath, his 
 successor was creating the collection of which the 
 manuscripts were hereafter to become the property 
 of the English people. In this pursuit Harley was 
 not singular, since in his day it was a fashion of 
 the aristocracy and higher clergy. At Althorp the 
 Earl of Sunderland, Harley s most bitter political 
 antagonist, brought together a costly library ; and 
 students even complained that the Quality, for their 
 pleasure, purchased literary and antiquarian rarities 
 at a price beyond the means of poor men who 
 needed them for the purpose of their work. It 
 was a characteristic feature of a society which, 
 14 
 
210 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 whatever may have been its political faults, ap- 
 preciated and cultivated letters and intellectual 
 alertness ; but it was a pastime which existed only 
 so long as English art continued in comparative 
 abeyance. When, towards the middle of the 
 century, the abundant fertility of the genius of 
 Reynolds and Gainsborough placed delightful pic- 
 tures at the disposal of those who had a cultivated 
 taste and a long purse, the vogue for the collecting 
 of rare books gave way before an amusement with 
 which the formation of a library could not compete. 
 The enjoyments of Harley and Bolingbroke, of 
 Sunderland and Halifax, were in marked contrast 
 to the coarse pleasures of succeeding reigns, which 
 culminated in the gambling rooms in St. James' 
 Street, where Charles Fox kept a faro bank at 
 the end of the century. We must look across the 
 Channel, to the Paris of D'Alembert and the Due 
 de Choiseuil, of President Hdnault and Montes- 
 quieu, for a similar combination of letters, politics, 
 and pleasure. But Harley was no mere heedless 
 follower of a fashion ; even in the darkest hours 
 of life he happily found relief in his manuscripts, 
 and during his long imprisonment in the Tower 
 busied himself with genealogical inquiries to which 
 they gave rise.^ Yet the more his life is studied, 
 the more remarkable does this taste appear. He 
 had no literary gifts, though he dabbled in rhyme, 
 ^ Dartmouth MSS., Hist. MSS., Corres. nth Rep. App. pt. v. 324. 
 
THE BOOK-COLLECTOR 211 
 
 and — not to be behind the times — wrote trifling 
 verses, which one must suppose he regarded as 
 having some merit, since they were shown to 
 Swift and Bolingbroke, and Gay and Pope. Nor 
 in his early years are there any traces of a 
 tendency towards scholarship observable in his 
 letters, and his life was never that of a student. 
 Before he became a member of Parliament in 1689, 
 he passed his time busy in the conduct of local 
 affairs in Herefordshire; yet by the year 1701 he 
 was well known as a bibliophile and patron of 
 authors. " I have been in Oxford," wrote Dr. 
 George Hickes^ to him, "where all learned men 
 have a particular esteem and veneration for you,"^ 
 and it was even regarded as an honour to be 
 allowed to dedicate erudite works to him. And 
 though from the moment that he entered Parlia- 
 ment he devoted himself to its business with 
 unusual assiduity, yet by the year 1708 he had 
 found leisure enough to amass so large a collection, 
 that it became necessary to obtain the services of 
 the most capable librarian in the kingdom to 
 catalogue and to take charge of his books and 
 manuscripts. 
 
 Servile as were then many scholars and digni- 
 taries of the universities before a public man, and 
 
 1 1642-1715, non-juror — a learned divine, and author of the great 
 Linguaruvi veterum septentrionalium Thesaurus, 
 ^ Hurley Papers^ ii. 21. 
 
212 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 lavish as were their often empty compliments, it 
 cannot be doubted that Harley had managed to 
 accumulate a considerable store of learning. We 
 may safely place him in a position between Swift's 
 ** perfect master of the learned languages" and 
 Bolingbroke's '* no great scholar." That Harley 
 should ever have become even a moderate scholar 
 is evidence of remarkable perseverance, quiet 
 energy, and an inherent desire for knowledge. 
 Such erudition as he gained by formal teaching 
 in youth he had little time to increase when he 
 became absorbed in public life ; yet without a 
 university education, never favoured by the agree- 
 able tranquillity of a college library, he acquired, 
 even in the opinion of the most critical of his 
 contemporaries, no mean reputation for learning. 
 A successful collector of books need not be an 
 exact scholar, but without considerable attainments 
 there can be little pleasure in a library created 
 by the labour of competent assistants ; and that 
 Harley throughout his life found enjoyment in his 
 books and manuscripts, there is not the smallest 
 doubt. 
 
 Harley obviously began to collect books at an 
 early age, since in April 1701, the year in which 
 he became Speaker, Humphrey Wanley ^ was 
 
 ^ Humphrey Wanley, 1 672-1 726. Born at Coventry. In 1695 
 matriculated at S. Edmund Hall, Oxford, proceeding subsequently 
 to University College. At twenty-three compiled catalogues of 
 MSS. of Coventry School and the Church of S. Mary at Warwick. 
 
HUMPHREY WANLEY, F.R.S., F.S.A. 
 
 From a ineszolint after a picture by Thomas Hill 
 
HUMPHREY WANLEY 213 
 
 introduced to him. "This gentleman," wrote Dr. 
 George Hickes in the letter of introduction, *' is 
 Mr. Wanley of whom I spoke to you. He has 
 the best skill in ancient hands and MSS. of any 
 man not only of this, but I believe of any former 
 age, and I wish for the sake of the public that he 
 might meet with the same public encouragement 
 here that he would have met with in France, 
 Holland, or Sweden, had he been born in any of 
 these countries."^ This praise was not exagge- 
 rated. Apprenticed to a draper in Coventry, 
 Wanley, when a youth, had turned to the study 
 and to the translation of ancient documents with 
 the eagerness which an English boy usually re- 
 serves for his games. He was a man such as 
 Harley liked — trusty, full of knowledge and genial, 
 keen at a bargain, and not averse to carry it 
 through in a tavern over a bottle of wine. 
 Throughout his life he showed an unquenchable 
 enthusiasm for seeking out, verifying, and obtain- 
 ing rare books and manuscripts, and the toil of 
 compiling a catalogue was an unfailing pleasure 
 to one who united in himself the characters of a 
 man of business and a scholar. In his shrewd 
 
 In 1696 became assistant-librarian in the Bodleian Library, and in 
 1702 secretary to Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 
 In 1708 he was appointed library keeper to the Earl of Oxford, 
 in 1707 he was one of some antiquarians whose meetings were the 
 origin of the Society of Antiquaries. 
 ^ Harley Papers^ ii. i6. 
 
214 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 eyes and rough features one could read his 
 character. 
 
 In 1706 an important addition was made to the 
 library by the purchase for ;^500 of the valuable 
 though rather too voluminous collection which had 
 been created more than half a century before by 
 that untiring antiquary Sir Simon D'Ewes, and by 
 the year 17 15 that portion of Harley's library which 
 he had from time to time purchased, and exclusive 
 of the many gifts which he had received, was worth, 
 according to Wanleys computation, jC4573'^ At 
 this time a large part of the collection seems to 
 have been at Wimpole, the house of Lord Harley, 
 of which he had become the owner by his marriage 
 with the daughter and heiress of the Duke of 
 Newcastle. Even when he was at Oxford, Edward 
 Harley was entrusted by his father with the earlier 
 transactions for the acquisition of books and 
 manuscripts,^ whilst during the latter part of 
 Harley's life he largely relinquished the charge of 
 the library to his son, for whom Wanley was 
 continually adding to the collection, being in 
 constant correspondence with Lord Harley in regard 
 to its arrangement and enlargement. In the second 
 Earl of Oxford the interest of his father in collecting, 
 at once intelligent and judicious, degenerated into 
 a foolish and an extravagant habit. Inheriting 
 
 ^ Harley Papers^ iii. 514. 
 2 Harley Papers^ iv. 41. 
 
DISPERSAL OF THE LIBRARY 215 
 
 Robert Harley's good-nature, his son was without 
 his judgment and his business capacity. He 
 collected heedlessly and at great cost books, manu- 
 scripts, and curios. At the same time he had 
 four mansions to pay for, — his house in London, 
 Brampton, Wimpole, and Down Hall, — and so it 
 came to pass that he died in 1741 deeply in debt. 
 
 The dispersal to the four corners of the earth 
 of a collection, whether of books or pictures, the 
 growth of which a man has watched day by day 
 and year by year, affords admirable opportunity for 
 the moralist, and there is something sad in seeing — 
 common sight though it is — the results of the labour 
 of years scattered in a day. Fortunately, this was 
 not wholly the fate of Harley's collection. Passing 
 into the possession of Lady Oxford on her husband's 
 death, she decided to dispose of it, and the books 
 were in 1742 sold by her to Osborne the bookseller 
 for ;!f 13,000; less, it is said, than the cost of the bind- 
 ing. For Harley liked to have his books well bound, 
 and he enjoyed seeing his shelves filled with hand- 
 some volumes. H is favourite cover was red morocco, 
 enriched by a broad border of gold ; the material he 
 sometimes supplied himself But the indulgence of 
 this expensive taste added greatly to the cost of the 
 library, even though it was under the charge of 
 Wanley, who did not hesitate to bargain with the 
 binders. The books were gradually dispersed ; 
 but the manuscripts for some years remained in the 
 
216 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 possession of Lady Oxford, until in 1753 they were 
 bought from her for ;^i 0,000, by the trustees who 
 were nominated and empowered by Parliament to 
 buy the collection of Sir Hans Sloane^ and the 
 Harleian Manuscripts and to erect for them **one 
 general repository." These two libraries and the 
 Cottonian Manuscripts, acquired in 1 700 and trans- 
 ferred to the new trustees in 1753, formed the 
 nucleus for that national library which has unceas- 
 ingly increased, and which in its inception was based 
 not a little on the manuscripts of which many were 
 collected by Robert Harley as the recreation of an 
 anxious and laborious public life. 
 
 Harley 's great collection and the final home of 
 a large part of it have resulted in preserving his 
 name in the memory of many generations of the 
 English-speaking race, and have given him a vague 
 posthumous fame as a patron and a friend of men 
 of letters. This, though not undeserved, may easily 
 be exaggerated ; for though a lifelong collector, the 
 period during which he was the centre of a famous 
 literary society was short. Without also denying 
 Harley's intelligent interest in literature, it was 
 mainly owing to his political position that he was 
 brought in contact with a brilliant group of remark- 
 able men, who found in politics a livelihood and in 
 politicians patrons, men wholly different from the 
 antiquarians and the collectors, who were constantly 
 
 ^ 26 George 11. c. 22. 
 
THE TORY MEN OF LETTERS 217 
 
 in communication with him. Harley's connection 
 with De Foe, as has been told in previous pages, 
 was purely political, but both Prior and Swift from 
 political assistants became intimate personal friends, 
 and have added much to the importance of Harley's 
 life. The contrast of the characters of Swift and 
 Harley gives not a little piquancy to their associa- 
 tion ; for Swift was as egotistical as Rousseau, 
 restless, irritable, and susceptible, shaken by gusts 
 of anger and emotion at which Harley must often 
 have smiled as he answered him in his slow, 
 hesitating way, pondering the effect of Swift's 
 suggestions on the politicians whose divergent 
 views he had so constantly to reconcile. It was 
 characteristic of Harley's common good-nature to 
 offer Swift, in a moment of forgetfulness, fifty 
 pounds as if he were De Foe or Mrs. Manley. It 
 was like Swift to resent the well-meant kindness 
 of his patron, and to refuse to go near his house 
 till Harley had apologised for offering a gift which 
 had never been asked. But Harley was the last 
 man to be vexed at this show of independence, 
 which must have amused him ; for no one knew 
 better than he how dependent the best party 
 publicists were on high officials. 
 
 The able writers who were serving the Tory 
 party were eager for a reward in some form or 
 other, and when they received it in the shape of 
 an appointment they generally regarded it as less 
 
218 ROBERT HARTLEY 
 
 than they deserved, and a demand for money some- 
 times followed. 
 
 "I'm no more to converse with the swains, 
 But go where fine people resort ; 
 One can live without money on plains, 
 But never without it at Court. 
 
 If when with the swains I did gambol, 
 
 I arrayed me in silver and blue ; 
 When abroad and in Courts I shall ramble, , 
 
 Pray, my Lord, how much money will do?" 
 
 There are many ways of begging, and one could 
 not well be asked more agreeably than in these 
 lines, in which Gay, when he was appointed 
 through Harley s good offices secretary to Lord 
 Clarendon's mission to Hanover (1714), suggested 
 to the Lord Treasurer that a present would at the 
 moment be very acceptable.^ 
 
 De Foe did not mince matters in this fashion ; 
 he expected to be paid, and when the money did 
 not come promptly, he asked for it. He would have 
 taken the fifty pounds which Swift refused without 
 ado, and we like him all the better for his sincerity. 
 
 * Gay's request for money so pleasantly placed before the Lord 
 Treasurer was evidently without effect, for among the Welbeck 
 papers is the following note from Gay: "1714, June 10. — Your 
 Lordship's continued goodness towards me makes me presume to 
 remind you of your shepherd's petition. My Lord Clarendon tells 
 me he sends his things down the water to-morrow and embarks on 
 Saturday. The time to provide myself is very short, but I submit 
 myself entirely to your Lordship's will and pleasure, and now attend 
 your commands." — Harley Papers^ iii. 457. 
 
JOHN GA^■ 
 
 From an nnjittished sketch by Sir Godfrey Knelier in i/u A'ational Portrait Gallery 
 
THE PATRON 219 
 
 For Harley knew quite well that behind this 
 outward pride of Swift's existed the aesire for a 
 reward greater than a sum of money. He was 
 well aware, too, how in the age of Anne literary 
 success depended not a little on the patronage of 
 a nobleman. It was as a patron that Harley was 
 first interested in Pope. At his suggestion and 
 that of the Duke of Shrewsbury, Pope versified 
 the Satires of Donne, a fact which years after its 
 occurrence he was careful to state ; for no writer 
 ever had a more business-like mind. " Pardon 
 me," he once wrote to Gay, *'if I add a word of 
 advice in the poetical way," and that advice was — 
 " write something on the king or prince or princess." 
 And thus, while it pleased statesmen to believe 
 that they could suggest themes to an author, the 
 belief was still more agreeable to the writer, since 
 it enlisted in his favour the influence of powerful 
 patrons. It was a practice which, though it seemed 
 derogatory to the self-respect of a man of letters, was 
 well understood to be simply a form of advertise- 
 ment. No one took it very seriously, and its purpose 
 was achieved when it made known the work of an 
 author to a rather limited public. The news-letter, 
 the stage coach, and the patron were each of 
 them necessary in the existing state of society. 
 
 Harley had a kindly temperament, and was 
 without either pride or egotism. Nothing surprised 
 Swift more than that at the very beginning of their 
 
220 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 connection Harley should treat him like an old 
 friend. The highest honours did not change his 
 manner, and when Swift attended a levde soon 
 after Harley became Lord Treasurer in 1711, **he 
 whispered me," he writes in his Journal to Stella^ 
 "a jest or two, and bade me come to dinner." 
 
 To appreciate the society of the great writers 
 who were gathered in London at the beginning of 
 the eighteenth century, it was not necessary either 
 to be an author or a man gifted with literary per- 
 ception ; no intelligent person with a knowledge of 
 the world could fail to enjoy the companionship of 
 the men who were grouped around the Lord Trea- 
 surer. Yet it is remarkable that this union, which 
 is so famous, lasted, so far as Harley is concerned, 
 for so short a time. De Foe, whose connection 
 with him began, as we have told, in 1703, took no 
 part in the literary gatherings in London. Swift 
 did not know Harley before his introduction in 
 1 7 10, and Swift and Dr. Arbuthnot,^ who was the 
 life and soul of the company, did not meet till 171 1. 
 
 ^ John Arbuthnot, 1667- 1735. Born at Arbuthnot, Kincardineshire. 
 In 1689 took the degree of Doctor of Medicine at St. Andrews. He 
 came to London and gave lessons in mathematics ; from 1697-1700 
 published various scientific works. In 1704 Arbuthnot was elected 
 Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1705 Physician Extraordinary to 
 the Queen, and in 17 10 was admitted a Fellow of the College of 
 Physicians. In 17 12 he published Law is a Bottomless Pit^ or 
 the History of John Bull. He was the main if not the exclusive 
 author of the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus, first published in an 
 edition of Pope's Works in 1714. In his last years he wrote more 
 scientific and medical works. 
 
DR. ARBUTHNOT 221 
 
 No doubt Harley and Arbuthnot had been ac- 
 quainted before this year, for on 30th October 
 1705, Arbuthnot had become Physician Extra- 
 ordinary to the Queen. Though eminent in his 
 profession, he doubtless owed his appointment not 
 a Httle to his learning, humour, and agreeable 
 character. 
 
 "Preserve him cheerful, social, and serene, 
 And just as rich as when he served a Queen," 
 
 wrote Pope in a couplet admirably descriptive of 
 this excellent man and of the qualities which 
 tended to his advancement at Court. A distin- 
 guished physician, a scientific writer, and a wit who 
 could produce so permanent a pamphlet as the 
 History of John Bull, which gave to the Englishman 
 a sobriquet which has become perpetual, he was 
 valued by his friends as the most delightful of 
 companions. But besides Swift and Arbuthnot, 
 there were associated Gay,^ then quite young, 
 and but just beginning his odd life of mingled 
 failure and success ; and Parnell,^ who was now a 
 protege of Swift's, and whom he introduced to 
 
 ^ John Gay, 1 688-1 732. Born at Barnstaple and educated at its 
 Grammar School. In 1708 he published his first poem, "Wine" ; in 
 1714, "The Fair and the Shepherd's Week." In the same year he 
 became secretary to Lord Clarendon, the Envoy to the Court of 
 Hanover, whose mission was ended by the death of the Queen. In 
 1 7 16 "Trivia" was published, in 1727 "The Fables," and in 1728 
 the famous " Beggars' Opera." 
 
 2 Thomas Parnell, 1679-17 18. Born in Dublin, he was educated 
 at Trinity College, ordained in 1700, and held various preferments. 
 He inherited an estate in Armagh from his mother. He first visited 
 
222 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 Harley in 17 12. Pope, too, and Prior, with an 
 acknowledged reputation as a diplomatist and a 
 poet, were of the company. Just when Harley 
 reached the height of his power in 171 1, the in- 
 dividual intercourse of these kindred spirits became 
 closer, and occasional meetings of the friends more 
 frequent, and from that tendency to form political 
 and social organisations which was to develop into 
 the modern club, there grew an organised company. 
 In June 171 1 a club or society was formed, Tory 
 in its politics, but not established directly for party 
 purposes, of which the inner circle, with a mixture 
 of pleasantry and affection, called each other brother.^ 
 Its founder was Bolingbroke, and, strangely enough, 
 Harley was not elected to this company. "It 
 seems," says Swift in his Journal {21st June 1711), 
 ** in my absence they had elected a club and made 
 me one, and we made some laws to-day which I 
 am to digest and add to against next meeting. 
 Our meetings are to be every Tuesday : we are 
 yet but twelve : Lord Keeper and Lord Treasurer 
 were proposed : but I was against them and so 
 was Mr. Secretary, ^ though their sons are of it, 
 and so they are excluded. The end of our club 
 is to advance conversation and friendship and to 
 
 London in 1706. The first collected edition of his poems was pub- 
 lished in 1721. 
 
 ^ The society has consequently become known as the Brothers' 
 Club. 
 
 2 Bolingbroke. 
 
THE BROTHERS' CLUB 223 
 
 reward deserving persons with our interest and 
 recommendation. We take in none but men of 
 wit or men of interest : and if we go on as we 
 began, no other club in this town will be worth 
 talking of." Bolingbroke described it in similar 
 terms: *'The improvement of friendship and the 
 encouragement of letters are to be the two great 
 ends of our society."^ It met once a week, usually 
 at some tavern. ** Society day," notes Swift on 
 27th March 171 2, "you know that, I suppose. 
 Dr. Arbuthnot was President. His dinner was 
 dressed in the Queen's kitchen, and was mighty 
 fine. We ate at Ozindas Chocolate House just 
 by St. James'. We were never merrier nor better 
 company, and did not part till after eleven ... I 
 met Lord Treasurer to-day at Lady Masham's. 
 He would fain have carried me home to dinner. 
 No, no. What ! upon a society day ! " Sometimes 
 the members joined in a humbler repast at 
 Arbuthnot's rooms or at Prior's house, to which 
 Harley was invited — a fact suggestive of his tastes — 
 
 " Our weekly friends to-morrow meet. 
 At Matthew's palace, in Duke Street, 
 To try, for once, if they can dine 
 On bacon, ham, and mutton chine. 
 If, weary'd with the great affairs 
 Which Britain trusts to Harley's cares, 
 Thou, humble statesman, may'st descend 
 Thy mind one moment to unbend, 
 
 ^ Bolingbroke to the Earl of Orrery, I2th June 171 1. — Boling- 
 broke^s Corresp,, edited by Parke. 
 
224 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 To see thy servant from his soul 
 Crown with thy health the sprightly bowl ; 
 Among the guests which e'er my house 
 Received, it never can produce 
 Of honour a more glorious proof, 
 Though Dorset us'd to bless the roof." 
 
 Such was Prior's invitation to Harley to a dinner 
 of the club, which gradually increased in numbers. 
 Its repasts, too, became more costly. *' Our society 
 met to-day " (7th February 1 7 1 2) ; "we have lessened 
 our dinners, which were grown so extravagant that 
 Lord Treasurer and everybody else cried shame." 
 Harley was economical in private as in public 
 matters, and we see his judicious influence here ; 
 but it could not avail much, for Ormond, Bathurst, 
 and other noblemen who belonged to the club were 
 not the men to dine frugally. It was enjoyable 
 enough to listen to Swift and Prior demolish the 
 Whigs over the dinner-table, or to hear Swift read 
 his coming publications at dessert, but the evening 
 was pleasanter when the dishes and the wine were 
 as excellent as the company. Thus by the end of the 
 year the club had grown too fashionable and too 
 costly for some of its founders, and Swift was tired 
 of it. *' I propose (i8th December) our meetings 
 should be once a fortnight, for between you and 
 me we do no good. It cost me nineteen shillings 
 to-day for my club dinner; I don't like it." But 
 the men of letters who were members of it were as 
 close friends as ever — vivacity and wit and high 
 
THE SCRIBLERUS CLUB 225 
 
 spirits were their natural gifts, and under the in- 
 fluence of this union of qualities there grew that 
 unique literary and social companionship which 
 has become famous as the Scriblerus Club. Yet 
 stronger than the bond of intellectual was that of 
 personal sympathy, appreciation of and pleasure in 
 the attractive traits by which each friend was char- 
 acterised — kindness, generosity, and open-hearted- 
 ness. Common intellectual tastes and a common 
 political interest would never alone have produced 
 that true and kindly union which was the basis of 
 the Scriblerus Club. And it certainly was not be- 
 cause of his interest in letters, or his power as head 
 of the Tory party, that Harley was admitted to its 
 meetings. For the society to which the Brothers' 
 Club, as it has been called, with its singular union 
 of men of letters and powerful noblemen, had given 
 place was at once more intimate, more personal, and 
 less formal, one to which a man was not elected 
 unless he were liked. " Men of interest," who were 
 to form one element in the larger club, were not 
 wanted at its gatherings, but men of common 
 sympathies ; and it was because Harley possessed 
 some of those agreeable qualities which tend to 
 good fellowship — an equable and a cheerful temper, 
 and a simple and kindly nature — that he became a 
 friend of the writers with whom he mingled on equal 
 terms, and who invited the Lord Treasurer to join 
 them in their meetings without ceremony, and in 
 15 
 
226 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 simple good comradeship, welcoming him not as 
 their political chief, but as a pleasant and appreci- 
 ative companion. 
 
 "Then come and take part in 
 The Memoirs of Martin, 
 Lay by your white staff and grey habit ; 
 For trust us, friend Mortimer, 
 Should you Hve years forty more, 
 Hoc olitn mefninisse Juvabit." 
 
 Such is the concluding stanza of the lines sent to 
 Harley and signed ** by order of ye Club " by Pope, 
 Gay, Swift, Arbuthnot, and Parnell, bidding him to 
 their gatherings.^ 
 
 The club itself was short-lived. We hear of it 
 first in 1 7 14, and it ceased on Harley 's fall in the 
 same year. The object of those members who 
 were at once men of letters and intimate friends 
 was to write a series of satires on pedantry and 
 pretended learning. Some of this congenial task 
 was accomplished, the principal result being the 
 Memoirs of Scriblerus, of which the first book only 
 was completed. To ** ridicule all the false taste in 
 learning, under the character of a man of capacity 
 enough that had dropped into every art and science 
 but injudiciously in each," was Pope's description 
 of these memoirs. Probably written almost entirely 
 by Arbuthnot, they were not published until 1741, 
 and then among Pope's Works, The **Art of 
 Sinking in Poetry," and "Straddling versus Stiles," 
 ^ Aitken's Life of Arbuthnot^ from the Longleat MSS., p. 56. 
 
THE SCRIBLERUS CLUB 227 
 
 both in the same vein as the Memoirs, were origin- 
 ally published among Miscellanies in Prose and 
 Verse by Pope and Swift in 1727, whilst "An 
 Essay of the Learned Martinus Scriblerus con- 
 cerning the Origin of Sciences " appeared in another 
 volume of the same work in 1732. In these satires, 
 Pope, Swift, and Arbuthnot, as well as in some 
 measure Parnell and Gay, had a hand. Harley 
 may have given some hints, for, wrote Gay to 
 Swift in June 17 14, ''we had the honour of the 
 Treasurer's company last Saturday, when we sat 
 upon Scriblerus."^ This was the most critical time 
 in Harley's career, and it must have been with a 
 feeling of no little relief that he spent an evening 
 with these men of letters — at once sociable, witty, 
 and irresponsible, talking of their friends and of their 
 literary projects, where he could forget for the hour 
 the jealousies, the intrigues, and the ambitions of 
 which the Cabinet of the Queen was the centre. 
 
 From this literary group, united not only by 
 intellectual but by the closest personal sympathies, 
 Harley disappeared with dramatic rapidity, and 
 never rejoined it, though in his occasional visits 
 to London he met some of his old friends. " The 
 Dragon," wrote Arbuthnot to Swift in 1718, 
 using the sobriquet which the Dean had given to 
 Harley, because, as he said, *' he was the mildest 
 Minister that ever served a prince," **is just as he 
 
 ^ June 8th, 17 14. Aitken's Life of Arbuthnot, p. 60. 
 
228 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 was, only all his old habits ten times stronger upon 
 him than ever."^ Swift, too, departed from it 
 when he finally returned to exile in Ireland, to 
 be welcomed back only for a short time in 1727, 
 and Pope and Gay and Arbuthnot in after years 
 were left to represent the brilliant company which 
 the political cataclysm of 1714 permanently dis- 
 persed. In September of that eventful year Parnell 
 and Pope wrote to Arbuthnot a joint letter which 
 is a farewell to the club : ** It is a pleasure to us 
 to recollect the satisfaction we enjoyed in your 
 company, when we used to meet the Dean and 
 Gay with you ; and Greatness ^ itself condescended 
 to look in at the door to us. Then it was the 
 immortal Scriblerus smiled upon our endeavours, 
 who now hangs his head in an obscure corner 
 pining for his friends that are scattering over 
 the face of the earth." ^ By Harley these gather- 
 ings were remembered with satisfaction long after 
 those who formed them were dispersed by various 
 destinies. " I look back indeed," he wrote to Pope 
 in a dignified and friendly reply to the letter with 
 which in 1721 was sent the famous dedication to 
 Harley prefixed to the edition of Parnell's Poems, 
 ** I look back to those evenings I have usefully 
 and pleasantly spent with Mr. Pope, Mr. Parnell, 
 Dean Swift, the Doctor, etc."* 
 
 ^ Aitken's Life of Arbuthnot^ p. 92. ^ Harley. 
 
 3 Aitken's Arbuthnot ^ p. 79. * Pope's Works ^ viii. 189. 
 
CHARACTER OF THE SOCIETY 229 
 
 Not one of Harley's memories, as in his peaceful 
 Herefordshire home he surveyed the critical and 
 anxious years of his public life, can have been so 
 agreeable as that of the hours which he passed in 
 Arbuthnot's rooms in St. James' Palace, with the 
 men of letters who are inseparably identified with 
 the age of Anne, and among whom the harassed 
 statesman for a short time could forget his political 
 anxieties. 
 
 But neither the Brothers' nor the Scriblerus 
 Club can be regarded as isolated groups, for 
 Addison and Steele were the comrades of Wharton 
 and Sunderland, as Pope, Swift, and Gay were of 
 Harley and Bolingbroke. The club formed part of 
 a unique society in which Harley was a conspicuous 
 figure, and which was as remarkable for its sense of 
 equality as for its ease and brilliancy. It retained 
 some of the brightest characteristics of the Restora- 
 tion, and it had not yet been overcome by the 
 dulness of the Court of the four Georges. The 
 easy sociability of the Lord Treasurer's weekly 
 political dinners on Saturday afternoons was as 
 agreeable as the more intimate causeries in Lady 
 Masham's apartments, and the universal apprecia- 
 tion of letters broke down social barriers. When 
 Swift was at Court, he tells Stella, one day in 
 December (171 1), as the Tories were rejoicing at 
 Harley's unhoped-for victory over the Whigs, *'the 
 Duchess of Shrewsbury came running up to me, 
 
230 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 and clapped her fan up to hide us from the 
 company, and we gave one another joy of this 
 change." In all that invaluable letter -diary of 
 Swift's we have no more vivid and suggestive 
 picture than this : the poor Irish parson — for that is 
 what he was — and the Duchess with their heads 
 together behind the fluttering fan, rejoicing over 
 the defeat of their political enemies. Literature 
 and politics, high society, personal ambition and 
 personal enmity, are personified in a moment, in a 
 corner of the Court, that Court which was the 
 scene of the triumphs and of the downfall of 
 Harley. 
 
 In concluding this review of the connection 
 between Harley and his literary friends, it is scarcely 
 needful to point out that the association of literature 
 with politics, and so of men of letters with the Court, 
 was not a mere accidental social phenomenon, but a 
 noticeable phase in the history of English letters, 
 a result of that enlargement of national life, and that 
 growth of the modern spirit which showed itself so 
 vividly both in politics and commerce during the 
 first years of the eighteenth century, when, after 
 passing through the two unexampled crises of the 
 Rebellion and the Revolution, and after dominat- 
 ing the Grand Alliance against France in a war 
 which raged from the Scheld to the Danube, the 
 nation was ripe for the commencement of a new 
 epoch of peaceable development. The widespread 
 
LITERATURE AND POLITICS 231 
 
 interest which was felt from one end of England 
 to the other in the politics of the hour, gave, 
 when they discussed them, the largest scope to 
 the ablest writers of the day, the quickest and 
 surest rewards, the most extensive public applause. 
 Men of letters were never before or since so closely 
 concerned with public affairs, not in a special 
 capacity, as must always happen from time to time, 
 and as occurred in the secretaryship of Addison, 
 but as users of the pen. The open connection in 
 the age of Anne between statesmen and writers, 
 whether Whigs or Tories, was an official and public 
 recognition of the importance of their work and 
 of its increasing effect on English opinion — a re- 
 cognition which, as it became more general, became 
 the appreciation of journalism as a great factor in 
 national life, while the personalities of the men who 
 did the work were lost in the force which their 
 celebrated predecessors had created. This out- 
 burst of literary activity in the form which has now 
 become so vast and so common, is the more striking 
 since it was not only sudden in its advent, but was 
 singularly brilliant. It produced publications which, 
 though ephemeral in intention, have long outlived 
 their authors, and were powerful without visible 
 effort, and as effective in purpose as they were 
 attractive in style, and have caused the work of 
 Swift and Addison, of Steele and — though he was 
 not of the Court group, and an assistant, not a friend, 
 
232 ROBERT HARLEY 
 
 of Harley — it must be added, of De Foe, to 
 become English classics. The remarkable per- 
 ception which Harley possessed of the trend of 
 popular feeling, his natural love of books, his 
 kindly temperament, and his position as chief of 
 the Administration, caused him to become the 
 central figure round which were gathered in vary- 
 ing degrees of relationship or intimacy the men of 
 letters who were at work for the Tory party. In 
 the interest which is felt in the personal aspect of 
 these associations, one is inclined to overlook their 
 importance as incidents in the growth of national 
 life. 
 
APPENDICES 
 
 APPENDIX I 
 
 SWIFT'S CHARACTER OF THE EARL OF 
 OXFORD 1 
 
 The Earl of Oxford is a person of as much virtue as can 
 possibly consist with the love of power; and his love of 
 power is no greater than what is common to men of his 
 superior capacities ; neither did any man ever appear 
 to value it less after he had obtained it, or exert it with 
 more moderation. He is the only instance that ever fell 
 within my memory or observation, of a person passing 
 from a private life, through the several stages of greatness, 
 without any perceivable impression upon his temper or 
 behaviour. As his own birth was illustrious, being 
 descended from the heirs general of the Veres and the 
 Mortimers, so he seemed to value that accidental advantage 
 in himself and others more than it could pretend to deserve. 
 He abounded in good nature and good humour ; although 
 subject to passion, as I have heard it affirmed by others, 
 and owned by himself ; which, however, he kept under the 
 strictest government, till toward the end of his ministry, 
 when he began to grow soured, and to suspect his friends ; 
 and, perhaps, thought it not worth his pains to manage 
 
 ^ From an Inquiry into the Behaviour of the Queen's Last Ministry with 
 
 relation to their quarrels among themselves and the design charged upon 
 
 them of altering the succession to the Crown.— Swift's WorkSy v. 265. 
 \ 283 
 
234 APPENDIX I 
 
 any longer. He was a great favourer of men of wit and 
 learning, particularly the former ; whom he caressed with- 
 out distinction of party, and could not endure to think 
 that any of them should be his enemies ; and it was his 
 good fortune that none of them ever appeared to be so ; 
 at least if one may judge by the libels and pamphlets 
 published against him, which he frequently read, by way 
 of amusement, with a most unaffected indifference : neither 
 do I remember ever to have endangered his good opinion 
 so much as by appearing uneasy when the dealers in that 
 kind of writing first began to pour out their scurrilities 
 against me ; which he thought was a weakness altogether 
 inexcusable in a man of virtue and liberal education. He 
 had the greatest variety of knowledge that I have 
 anywhere met with ; was a perfect master of the learned 
 languages, and well skilled in divinity. He had a 
 prodigious memory and a most exact judgment. In 
 drawing up any state paper, no man had more proper 
 thoughts, or put them in so strong and clear a light. 
 Although his style were not always correct, — which, 
 however, he knew how to mend, — yet often, to save time, 
 he would leave the smaller alterations to others. I have 
 heard that he spoke but seldom in Parliament, and then 
 rather with art than eloquence : but no man equalled him 
 in the knowledge of our constitution; the reputation 
 whereof made him be chosen Speaker to three successive 
 Parliaments ; which office, I have often heard his enemies 
 allow him to have executed with universal applause. His 
 sagacity was such, that I could produce very amazing 
 instances of it, if they were not unseasonable. In all 
 difficulties, he immediately found the true point that was 
 to be pursued, and adhered to it ; and one or two others in 
 the Ministry have confessed very often to me, that, after 
 having condemned his opinion, they found him in the right 
 and themselves in the wrong. He was utterly a stranger 
 
APPENDIX I 235 
 
 to fear ; and consequently had a presence of mind upon 
 all emergencies. His liberality and contempt of money 
 were such that he almost ruined his estate while he was in 
 employment; yet his avarice for the public was so great 
 that it neither consisted with the present corruptions of the 
 age nor the circumstances of the time. He was seldom 
 mistaken in his judgment of men, and therefore not apt to 
 change a good or ill opinion by the representation of 
 others, except toward the end of his Ministry. He was 
 affable and courteous, extremely easy and agreeable in 
 conversation, and altogether disengaged ; regular in his 
 life, with great appearance of piety ; nor ever guilty of any 
 expressions that could possibly tend to what was indecent 
 or profane. His imperfections were at least as obvious, 
 although not so numerous, as his virtues. He had an air 
 of secrecy in his manner and countenance, by no means 
 proper for a great Minister, because it warns all men to 
 prepare against it. He often gave no answer at all, and 
 very seldom a direct one : and I rather blame this reserved- 
 ness of temper, because I have known a very different 
 practice succeed much better ; of which, among others, the 
 late Earl of Sunderland, and the present Lord Somers, 
 persons of great abilities, are remarkable instances ; who 
 used to talk in so frank a manner that they seemed to 
 discover the bottom of their hearts, and by that appearance 
 of confidence would easily unlock the breasts of others. 
 But the Earl of Oxford pleads, in excuse of this charge, 
 that he has seldom or never communicated anything which 
 was of importance to be concealed, wherein he has not 
 been deceived by the vanity, treachery, or indiscretion of 
 those he discovered it to. Another of his imperfections, 
 universally known and complained of, was procrastination 
 or delay : which was, doubtless, natural to him, although 
 he often bore the blame without the guilt, and when the 
 remedy was not in his power ; for never were prince and 
 
236 APPENDIX II 
 
 Minister better matched than his sovereign and he upon 
 that article ; and therefore, in the disposal of employments, 
 wherein the Queen was very absolute, a year would often 
 pass before they could come to a determination. I 
 remember he was likewise heavily charged with the 
 common court vice, of promising very liberally and seldom 
 performing ; of which, although I cannot altogether acquit 
 him, yet I am confident his intentions were generally 
 better than his disappointed solicitors would believe. It 
 may be likewise said of him that he certainly did not 
 value, or did not understand, the art of acquiring friends ; 
 having made very few during the time of his power, and 
 contracted a great number of enemies. Some of us used 
 to observe, that those whom he talked well of, or suffered 
 to be often near him, were not in a situation of much 
 advantage ; and that his mentioning others with contempt 
 or dislike was no hindrance at all to their preferment. I 
 have dwelt the longer upon this great man's character, 
 because I have observed it so often mistaken by the wise 
 reasoners of both parties ; besides, having had the honour, 
 for almost four years, of a nearer acquaintance with him 
 than usually happens to men of my level, and this without 
 the least mercenary obligation, I thought it lay in my 
 power, as I am sure it is in my will, to represent him to 
 the world with impartiality and truth. 
 
 APPENDIX II 
 
 MONEY LENT TO THE QUEEN BY THE 
 EARL OF OXFORD 
 
 [17 14, July.] — Two papers in Lord Oxford's hand- 
 writing, giving an " Account of money laid out of my own 
 for the Queen at several times." The dates, between 171 2 
 
APPENDIX II 237 
 
 and July 17 14, of the various advances are given, but not 
 in chronological order, with the amount of each advance 
 and the name of the person to whom it was paid. In two 
 cases, however, some disguise is meant, for two sums of 
 ^100 and ;^200 respectively are entered as paid in March 
 1 7 14 to " Kuthbert," written in Greek characters, and 
 ^100 is paid to " L. Orde," written in like characters, in 
 April of that year. 
 
 Altogether Lord Oxford puts down a total of ;6^4700 
 due to him ; he adds, " But it is much more, as will appear 
 by my memdms. ; this is only what occurs (to me ?)." 
 
 A third paper, evidently written many years after by 
 the second Earl of Oxford, runs thus : " Tuesday, 27th 
 July 1 7 14. — R., Earl of Oxford, delivered up the Treasurer's 
 staff to the Queen in her closet. Her Majesty was pleased 
 to talk with him after his delivery of the staff above two 
 hours, and among other matters told him she knew he had 
 laid out several sums of money for her service and by her 
 direction, that she expected he should come to her again, 
 that she would not then give directions for the payment 
 of the money, the doing of which she reserved till his next 
 coming to her. 
 
 " The Queen fell ill the next day and died the Sunday 
 following, so Lord Oxford had no opportunity of waiting 
 again upon Her Majesty. Lord Oxford, in his lifetime, 
 mentioned often to his brother and son that a considerable 
 sum of money was due to him from the late Queen, but 
 by reason of his troubles and his retirement in the country 
 he did not make application for it. His son, the present 
 Earl of Oxford, has found, among his father's papers, 
 memoranda in the late Earl's own hand which specify that 
 the late Queen owed him above £4700. 
 
 "It is, therefore, humbly hoped that out of the money 
 applicable to the Queen's debts this sum may be paid." 
 — Harley Papers^ iii. 481. 
 
238 APPENDIX III 
 
 APPENDIX III 
 
 NOTE ON THE MANUSCRIPTS AND LETTERS 
 OF AND RELATING TO ROBERT HARLEY, 
 EARL OF OXFORD 
 
 As is well known, and as has been already stated 
 (p. 216), the bulk of the MSS. collected by Robert Harley 
 and of his official papers were purchased by the Trustees 
 of the British Museum. But a mass of papers of an official 
 character were not disposed of by his daughter-in-law the 
 Countess of Oxford, and these remain at Welbeck Abbey. 
 Of the MSS. containing more especially correspondence — 
 letters written to or by Robert Harley — there are now three 
 main collections: (i) That of the Duke of Portland at 
 Welbeck Abbey. Much of this has recently been published, 
 and is contained in the Harley Papers ; vol. i. with this 
 sub-title is the same as vol. iii. of the Manuscripts of the 
 Duke of Portland preserved at Welbeck Abbey (Historical 
 Manuscripts Commission, 14th Report, Appendix, part ii.) ; 
 the Harley Papers, vol. ii. = Portland MSS., vol. iv. (Hist. 
 MSS. Com., 15th Rep. App. part iv.), the Harley Papers, 
 vol. iii. = Portland MSS., vol. v. 1899 (the former official 
 enumeration not being continued), and the Harley Papers, 
 vol. iv. = Portland MSS., vol. vi. 1901. All these papers 
 came into the possession of the Duke of Portland when 
 Edward Harley, second Earl of Oxford, married Henrietta 
 Cavendish, only daughter and heiress of John, first Duke 
 of Newcastle, the owner of Welbeck Abbey. Their only 
 daughter, Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley — the " noble, 
 lovely little Peggy " of Prior's charming lines — married in 
 1734 William, second Duke of Portland, to whom she 
 conveyed the estate of Welbeck, and the Harley corre- 
 spondence passed also to her husband. (2) The collection 
 
APPENDIX III 239 
 
 of Mr. R. W. D. Harley of Brampton Bryan, Herefordshire. 
 Edward, third Earl of Oxford, who succeeded to the title 
 and estates in 1741, was Robert Harley's nephew, being 
 the son of Edward Harley, Auditor of the Exchequer, of 
 Eyewood, Herefordshire. This collection consists chiefly 
 of family letters written by Robert Harley to his relatives. 
 (3) The collection of the Marquis of Bath at Longleat, 
 Wilts. Thomas, first Marquis of Bath, married in 1759 
 Lady Elizabeth Cavendish Bentinck, eldest daughter of 
 William, second Duke of Portland ; and by some means a 
 box of Harley's papers came after this marriage into the 
 possession of the Marquis of Bath. Interesting extracts 
 from these papers have been published in Aitken's Life of 
 Arbuthnot^ but a selection from the correspondence will 
 shortly be published by the Historical Manuscripts Com- 
 mission. Isolated letters written by or relating to Harley, 
 as well as statements in regard to him, are also to be 
 found among the MSS. in the British Museum, in various 
 collections which it is unnecessary to enumerate, in the 
 Reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, and in 
 published diaries and other works well known to the 
 student of the age of Anne. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abjuration Act, De Foe's allu- 
 sion to, i6i. 
 Addison, Joseph (1672-1719), 25, 
 
 229, 231, 232. 
 Anjou, Duke of, 33. 
 
 King of Spain, 127. 
 Anne, Queen (1664-17 14), Addison's 
 criticism of age of, 2, 3. 
 Whigs and Tories in reign of, 
 
 30, 31- 
 part played by sentiment in 
 
 foreign affairs in reign of, 
 
 32. 
 first Parliament of, 35. 
 personal loyalty for, at beginning 
 
 of reign, 35. 
 her political position, 38. 
 her predilection for High Church 
 
 party, 38. 
 her dislike of Whigs, 38. 
 her influence in the Government, 
 
 39. 
 causes affecting course of English 
 
 politics in age of, 42, 43. 
 characteristics of men at head of 
 
 affairs in reign of, 45. 
 her preference for Tory party, 
 
 76,81. 
 Harley's reliance on support from, 
 
 77. 
 church patronage of, 82. 
 Junto determine to have mastery 
 
 over, 83. 
 her power overestimated by 
 
 Harley, 85. 
 16 
 
 Anne, Queen — continued. 
 
 her personal character and diffi- 
 culties of her position, 88, 
 
 89. 
 her growing dislike of Whigs, 
 
 93, 94. 
 her friendship for Abigail 
 
 Masham, 94-97. 
 her revolt against Whigs, 98, 
 
 ICX). 
 her warning to Whigs about 
 
 conclusion of peace, 124, 125. 
 her support of Harley's creation 
 
 of new peers, 135. 
 the Elector and Whig chiefs 
 
 doubt good faith of, 157. 
 objects to Electoral Prince com- 
 ing to London, 157, 
 jealousy of her successor, 164. 
 death of, 169, 171. 
 book-collecting a fashion in age 
 
 of, 209. 
 literary success dependent on 
 
 patronage in age of, 219. 
 men of letters in reign of, 217- 
 
 232. 
 connection between statesmen 
 
 and writers in age of, 231. 
 outburst of literary activity in 
 
 reign of, 231. 
 money lent to — by Earl of Oxford, 
 
 Appendix H. 
 Arbuthnot, John (1658-1735), 109. 
 his letter to Swift about Harley's 
 
 fall, 165 (n.). 
 
242 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Arbuthnot, John — continued, 
 biographical sketch of, 220 (n. ). 
 Swift's description of, 221. 
 member of Scriblerus Club, 221, 
 
 226, 227, 228, 229. 
 member of Brothers' Club, 
 
 223. 
 Assiento, 144. 
 
 explanation of, 148. 
 
 rights of, granted to England by 
 
 Treaty of Utrecht, 17 13, 
 
 148. 
 De Torcy's allusion to, 148. 
 Prior's allusion to, 148, 149. 
 its effect on English commercial 
 
 expansion, 201. 
 Atterbury, Francis (1662 -1732), 
 
 134. 
 
 Balmerino, Lord, his reference to 
 
 Peerage Bill, 193. 
 Bank of England, establishment of, 
 22. 
 an allusion to, 146. 
 Bank, Land, scheme for, 23. 
 Plarley's participation in, 23. 
 Bill for, carried, 23. 
 failure of, 24. 
 allusion to, 146, 149. 
 Benson, member of House of 
 Commons, took proceedings 
 against De Foe on behalf of 
 Whigs, 64. 
 director of South Sea Company, 
 147. 
 Berwick, Due de (1670-1734), his 
 statement concerning Harley 
 and the Pretender, 181, 182. 
 Birch, Mr., his school at Shilton, 
 
 10. 
 Blaithwaite, Mr., reference to, 14. 
 Blenheim, battle of, 40. 
 
 its influence on polities, 40. 
 Bolingbroke (i 678-1 751), Viscount, 
 Henry St. John, attitude to 
 Harley, 2 (n.). 
 his friendship for France, 32. 
 
 Bolingbroke, V\s,c<i\m\.—contintud. 
 author of newspaper tax of 17 12, 
 
 73. 
 obtains office in Harley's Adminis- 
 tration, 103. 
 contrast between Harley and, 
 
 104-106. 
 Swift's sketch of, 105, 106. 
 his desire to conclude peace with 
 
 France, 126. 
 no share in Harley's creation of 
 
 new peers, 136. 
 and peace negotiations with 
 
 France, 1 37-139- 
 embassy to Paris, 139. 
 action in regard to restraining 
 
 orders, 139-142. 
 director of South Sea Company, 
 
 147. 
 difference of political views 
 
 between Harley and, 151- 154, 
 
 152 (n.). 
 originator of Treaty of Commerce, 
 
 153. 
 aspires to leadership of Tory party, 
 
 160, 188. 
 his description of House of 
 
 Commons, 159. 
 conflict between Harley and, 164, 
 
 165. 
 his share in Harley's fall, 164. 
 death of Anne destroys political 
 
 schemes of, 169, 171. 
 his negotiations with Pretender, 
 
 174. 
 his flight to France, 174. 
 becomes Secretary of State to 
 
 Pretender, 174. 
 his unpatriotism, 174. 
 Harley's criticism of flight of, 1 74. 
 impeachment of, 175. 
 political relations with Pretender 
 
 and Elector, 188, 189. 
 reasons for failure of his plans, 
 
 189. 
 his posthumous depreciation of 
 
 Harley, 203. 
 
INDEX 
 
 243 
 
 Bolingbroke, Viscount — continued. 
 his estimation of Harley's learn- 
 ing, 212. 
 founder of Brothers' Chib, 222. 
 Bothmar, representative of Hanover 
 during peace negotiations, 126. 
 his doubts of Harley's sincerity, 
 186, 187. 
 Brampton Bryan, situation and 
 description of, 6. 
 castle destroyed by Royalists, 7. 
 present house built, 7. 
 Harley retires to, 1 72. 
 Brampton, Margaret de, by marriage 
 brought Brampton Bryan to 
 Harley family, 6. 
 British Museum, Harley's share in 
 
 creating, 209. 
 Bromley, William, 1664- 1732 
 (Speaker, 1710; Secretary of 
 State, 1713), his correspondence 
 with Harley, 194. 
 Brothers' Club, formation of, 222. 
 Bolingbroke founder of, 222. 
 Swift's description of, 222, 223. 
 Bolingbroke's description of, 223. 
 extravagance of, 224. 
 Scriblerus Club grew out of, 225. 
 Buys, Dutch Minister, 126. 
 
 Cabinet, transference of power to, 
 30. 
 formation of Harley's Tory, 103. 
 Chamberlen, Dr. Hugh, originator 
 
 of Land Bank Scheme, 23. 
 
 Chamillart (1651-1721), French 
 
 Secretary of State, Greg's 
 
 correspondence with, S6. 
 
 Charles of Austria becomes Emperor, 
 
 127. 
 Charles II. of Spain, death of, 33. 
 bequeathed crown to Dauphin's 
 son, 33. 
 Commerce, Treaty of, between Eng- 
 land and France, 17 13, 153. 
 Bolingbroke originator of, 153. 
 defeat of Bill for, 154. 
 
 Commercial expansion of England, 
 
 201, 202. 
 Coningsby, Lord, (i656(?)-i729), 
 
 175 (n-). 
 his impeachment of Harley, 
 
 175. 
 Cowper, first Earl (d. 1723), member 
 of Whig Junto, loi. 
 his character of Harley, 202. 
 
 Dartmouth, first Earl of, William 
 Legge (1672-1750), succeeds 
 Sunderland as Secretary of 
 State, 98. 
 
 retains Secretaryship in Harley 
 Ministry, 104. 
 
 on accession of George i. Harley 
 expresses his hopes to, 172, 173 
 
 (n.). 
 Debt, National, 144. 
 De Foe, Daniel (1661-1731), quota- 
 tion from, I. 
 
 his "Maxim of Politicks," 4. 
 
 his attitude to Occasional Con- 
 formity Bill, 40. 
 
 entered into close relations with 
 Harley, 47. 
 
 writes The Shortest Way with 
 Dissenters, 47. 
 
 his prosecution for libel, 47. 
 
 his conviction and sentence, 47, 
 48. 
 
 regained his liberty through 
 Harley's good offices, November 
 1703, 48 (n.). 
 
 his first letter to Harley, 48, 49, 
 
 50. 
 the vitality and originality of his 
 
 letters, 48. 
 ruin of his tile manufactory, 5c. 
 how Harley helped, 51. 
 a pamphleteer and political agent, 
 
 51. 
 through Harley again placed in 
 
 touch with Government, 51. 
 had possessed confidence of 
 
 William in., 51. 
 
244 
 
 INDEX 
 
 De Foe, Daniel — continued. 
 
 his writings compared to Vol- 
 taire's and Diderot's, 52. 
 
 relations with Harley not based 
 on friendship but business, 52. 
 
 had much in common with 
 Harley, 53. 
 
 not always consistent in treat- 
 ment of political questions, 
 
 53. 
 
 Harley's employment of, in Eng- 
 land and Scotland, 54. 
 
 his assumed name, 54. 
 
 his fertile and imaginative mind, 
 
 54. 
 Harley obtains an allowance for, 
 
 54. 
 commissioned by',Harley to travel 
 
 through England to ascertain 
 
 opinions, 55. 
 value of his letters to Harley, 55. 
 his moulding of public opinion, 
 
 55. 
 Harley's chief ally during union 
 
 with Scotland negotiations, 57. 
 goes to Scotland to make'political 
 
 survey for Harley, 57. 
 an apostle of the union with 
 
 Scotland, 58. 
 his hope of official employment, 
 
 59- 
 
 his preference for Harley as an 
 
 employer, 59, 60. 
 his opinion on Harley's fall in 
 
 1705,59,60. 
 offers his services to Godolphin, 
 
 61. 
 his return to Harley in 17 10, 61. 
 his services to Harley as a writer, 
 
 63. 
 
 brought before Lord Chief Justice 
 for writing Reasons against the 
 Hanover Succession, 64. 
 
 admitted to bail by Harley's 
 management, 64, 6$. 
 
 Harley obtains pardon under 
 Great Seal for, 68. 
 
 De Foe, Daniel — continued. 
 
 writes and manages Review 
 from 1 704-1 7 13, 68. 
 
 his support of Harley's policy, 
 69. 
 
 his desire for commercial expan- 
 sion expressed in Revieiv, 69. 
 
 his Mercator, 69. 
 
 supports Harley's financial 
 measures and commercial 
 treaty, 69, 70. 
 
 publishes Eleven Opinions about 
 Mr. H y in 171 1, 70. 
 
 defends his patron's political 
 conduct in The Secret History 
 of the White Staff in 17 14, 
 70. 
 
 at death of Anne enters employ- 
 ment of new Government, 70. 
 
 his opinion on Harley's Draw- 
 back Bill, 79. 
 
 his letter to Harley in 17 10, 99. 
 
 his suggestions to Harley how 
 to defeat Occasional Con- 
 formity Bill, 129-132. 
 
 his influence on South Sea 
 Scheme, 149-151, 204. 
 
 his letter to Harley about Schism 
 Bill, 160, 161. 
 
 his criticisms of Harley's dealings 
 with Jacobites, 186 (n.), 187. 
 
 his connection with Harley 
 political, 217. 
 
 his sincerity, 218. 
 
 took no part in literary gatherings 
 in London, 220. 
 
 his works have become classics, 
 
 232. 
 
 D'Ewes, Sir Simon, Harley 
 
 purchases his collection of 
 
 books, 216. 
 
 Drawback Bill, its introduction, 78. 
 
 feeling in Scotland about, 79. 
 Drummond, John, Harley's con- 
 fidential agent in Holland, 
 correspondence of, 1 1 4 - 1 1 7, 
 118, 12a 
 
INDEX 
 
 245 
 
 Dutch, English Dissenters in 
 
 sympathy with, 31. 
 friendship for, partly cause of 
 
 Whig opposition to Treaty of 
 
 Utrecht, 32. 
 their attitude to England during 
 
 peace negotiations, 138, 140. 
 Harley's restraining orders showed 
 
 necessity of concluding peace to, 
 
 140, 141. 
 their jealousy of Great Britain, 
 
 143. 
 Duyvenvoorde, Baron, Harley's 
 comment to, on proposed visit 
 of Electoral Prince to England, 
 158. 
 
 Elector of Hanover (son of Elec- 
 tress Sophia and afterwards 
 George i.of England), unfavour- 
 able impressions of Harley con- 
 veyed to, 155, 156, 186, 187. 
 
 his ignorance of England, 156. 
 
 he doubts good faith of Queen 
 Anne, 157. 
 
 he doubts Harley's professions 
 of friendship for House of 
 Hanover, 159. 
 
 his accession to English throne, 
 171. 
 Electoral Prince (son of Elector, 
 grandson of Electress Sophia), 
 the Electress Sophia and her 
 son demand writ of summons 
 to House of Lords for, 157. 
 
 his visit to England objected to 
 by Queen Anne and Harley, 
 
 157, 158. 
 
 Electress of Hanover, Sophia, 
 156. 
 
 England, commercial expansion of, 
 22. 
 
 Eugene, Prince (1667- 1736), his 
 description of Harley, 104. 
 
 Evelyn, John (1620- 1706), his 
 reference to Harley's appoint- 
 ment as Speaker, 29. 
 
 Examiner^ The, established by 
 Bolingbroke, 112. 
 Swift's essays in, 112. 
 
 Foley, Elizabeth, Harley's first 
 
 wife, 13. 
 Foley, Thomas, father - in - law to 
 
 Harley, 13. 
 Foubert, Monsieur, for some time 
 
 Harley's schoolmaster, 12. 
 his academy near Hay market, 
 
 12. 
 France, England's attitude towards, 
 
 32. 
 friendship for, basis of Boling- 
 
 broke's commercial treaty, 32. 
 reasons for change of English 
 
 public opinion towards, 33. 
 England's declaration of war 
 
 against, 35. 
 Harley's peace negotiations with, 
 
 122, 123. 
 the humbled power of, 127. 
 England's desire for peace with, 
 
 133- 
 peace with, 140-144. 
 what England gained from, 143, 
 
 144. 
 defeat of Bill for Treaty of 
 
 Commerce with, 153, 154. 
 
 " Gassiot, Jean," assumed name of 
 
 Ogilvie, 54. 
 Gaultier, I'Abbe (1745-1818), allu- 
 sion to, 122, 123, 181, 182. 
 Gay, John (1688-1732), 109. 
 appointed secretary to Lord 
 Clarendon's mission to Han- 
 over, 218 (n.). 
 biographical sketch of, 221 (n.). 
 member of Scriblerus Club, 221, 
 226, 227, 228. 
 Godolphin, Sydney, Earl of (1635- 
 17 12), nominates Harley as 
 Speaker, 28. 
 leader of Tories in first Parliament 
 of Anne, 35, 
 
246 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Godolphin, Sydney — continued. 
 and the War of Spanish Succession, 
 
 36. 
 his hopes of Harley as a member 
 
 of his administration, 38. 
 his trust in Harley's abilities, 39. 
 Mr. Lecky's character of, 45. 
 comparison with Harley, 45. 
 called with Marlborough and 
 
 Harley, Triumvirate, 45. 
 qualities as a statesman, 46. 
 and the union with Scotland, 
 
 56. 
 promises De Foe official employ- 
 ment, 58, 59. 
 employs De Foe on fall of Harley 
 
 in 1710, 61. 
 first difference between Harley 
 
 and, 76. 
 sides with Whigs, 76. 
 his reference to Drawback Bill, 
 
 79- 
 
 increasing difference between 
 
 Harley and, 80-82. 
 his final letter to Harley, 84 (n.). 
 Harley's resignation a personal 
 
 victory for, 89. 
 his reliance on Whigs, 93. 
 circumstances tending to his 
 
 downfall, 93, 94 (n.), 97, 98. 
 his dismissal, 98. 
 allusion to his dismissal, 166. 
 Lady Masham a cause of his 
 
 fall, 170. 
 his occupation in leisure, 209. 
 "Goldsmith, Mr.," assumed name 
 
 of De Foe in England, 54. 
 Greg, William, clerk in Harley's 
 
 office, 86. 
 treasonable correspondence of, 
 
 86. 
 his trial and execution, 87. 
 Grey, Lord (i 764-1 845), allusion 
 
 to his threat to create new 
 
 peers in 1832, 135. 
 " Guilot, Claude," De Foe's as- 
 sumed name in Scotland, 54. 
 
 Guiscard, character of, 121. 
 attempts Harley's life, 121. 
 
 Halifax, Marquis of. See Mon- 
 tague. 
 Hanoverian succession, doubts of 
 
 Harley's support of, 155, 156, 
 
 186. 
 doubts of Queen Anne's desire 
 
 for, 157. 
 majority of English people in 
 
 favour of, 159. 
 safeguarding of, 182. 
 Harley's statement of his support 
 
 of, 184. 
 Harley's zeal for, 185. 
 Harcourt, Simon, Baron (1661 (?)- 
 
 1727), at school with Harley, 
 
 10. 
 takes office in Harley's Tory 
 
 administration, 103 (n.), 104. 
 influence in Harley's trial, 177, 
 
 178. 
 Harley, Brilliana Lady (1600- 
 
 1643), her letters, 8. 
 birth, marriage, character, 8. 
 defence of Brampton Castle, 9. 
 her heroism, 9. 
 letter to her husband, 9. 
 death, 9. 
 Harley, Edward (1664- 17 35), his 
 
 description of his father, 10. 
 M.P. for Leominster, 25 (n.). 
 Auditor of the Imprest, 25, 37 (n.). 
 mention of, 174, 175, 214. 
 Harley's statement concerning 
 
 Hanoverian succession to, 184. 
 Harley, Edward Lord (i 689-1 741), 
 
 Harley's eldest son, his home at 
 
 Wimpole, 172. 
 his kindness to Prior, 195, 196. 
 Harley gives charge of library to, 
 
 214. 
 he adds to library recklessly, 215. 
 his death, 215. 
 Harley, Sir Edward (1624- 1700), 
 character of, 9. 
 
INDEX 
 
 247 
 
 Harley, Sir Edward — continued. 
 
 public career, 9, 10. 
 
 his son, Auditor Harley's de- 
 scription of, 10. 
 
 death, 10. 
 
 fragments of letters from, 11, 12, 
 18. 
 Harley, Nathaniel, Harley's pro- 
 fession of his innocency to, 183. 
 Harley, Robert de, 6. 
 Harley, Sir Robert (1579- 1656), 
 character of, 7. 
 
 his friends, 7. 
 
 his Puritanism, 7. 
 
 his iconoclasm, 7, 8 (n.). 
 
 his third marriage, 8. 
 Harley, Robert, Earl of Oxford 
 (1661-1724), character in 
 history, 1-6. 
 
 Macaulay's description of, 2. 
 
 his ancestors — grandfather, father, 
 5-10. 
 
 early life, 10-12. 
 
 first marriage, 13. 
 
 second marriage, 13, 199. 
 
 Member for Tregony, 13. 
 
 Member for New Radnor, 14. 
 
 early work in Parliament, 14. 
 
 Commissioner for Public Ac- 
 counts, 15. 
 
 letter to his father, 15-17. 
 
 supports Triennial Bill, 17. 
 
 opposes large standing army, 19- 
 21, 200, 204. 
 
 carries Act to establish National 
 Land Bank, 22-24. 
 
 early political position, 24, 25. 
 
 character in early manhood, 26, 
 27. 
 
 Speaker of House of Commons, 
 28, 28 (n.). 
 
 how his candidature was re- 
 garded, 29. 
 
 Evelyn's note on, 29. 
 
 his perception of influence of 
 journalists, 32, 71, 74. 
 
 impeachment of, 175, 176. 
 
 Harley, Robert — continued. 
 chosen Speaker in William's last 
 
 Parliament, 34. 
 elected Speaker first Parliament 
 
 of Anne (i 702-1 705), 35, 36. 
 effect of war on policy of, 35, 
 
 36. 
 Secretary of State, 37. 
 letter from, 37 (n.). 
 his opposition to extravagant 
 
 financial policy of William in., 
 
 37 (n.). 
 
 accession to Cabinet, 39. 
 
 Godolphin's reliance on, 39. 
 
 his attitude to Godolphin from 
 1 704- 1 707, 39. 
 
 Duke of Shrewsbury's apprecia- 
 tion of, 40. 
 
 his parliamentary tact, 40. 
 
 his share in defeating Tories' 
 tacking of an Occasional Con- 
 formity Bill to Land Bill, 41. 
 
 letter from Marlborough to, 42 
 
 (n.). 
 
 effect of Blenheim on, 40, 42. 
 his political position from 1701- 
 
 1708, 43, 44. 
 Mr. Lecky's criticism of, 45. 
 comparison with Godolphin, 45. 
 qualities which led to his success, 
 
 46. 
 his capacity as a leader in the 
 
 Commons, 46. 
 his relations with De Foe, 47. 
 De Foe released from Newgate 
 
 through intercession of, 48 (n.). 
 letter to, on De Foe's release 
 
 from Godolphin, 48. 
 first letter to, from De Foe, 48. 
 rescues De Foe when friendless 
 
 and moneyless, 51. 
 his patronage a source of liveli- 
 hood to De Foe, 51. 
 relations with De Foe strictly 
 
 business-like, 52, 53, 217. 
 had much in common with De 
 
 Foe, 53. 
 
248 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Harley, Robert — continued. 
 extremism repugnant to, 53. 
 never niggardly in his payment 
 
 to De Foe, 53. 
 employment of Ogilvie in Paris, 
 
 De Foe in England and Scot- 
 land, 53, 54. 
 his reticence, vagueness, and want 
 
 of candour, 54. 
 obtained an allowance for De 
 
 Foe, 54. 
 he commissions De Foe to travel 
 
 through England to ascertain 
 
 opinions, 55. 
 the value of De Foe's letters 
 
 to, 55. 
 importance of connection with 
 
 De Foe at time of question 
 
 of union with Scotland, 56, 
 his aid and approval of Godol- 
 
 phin's measures, 56 (n.). 
 sends De Foe to make survey of 
 
 Scotland, 57. 
 retirement from office, 1708, De 
 
 Foe's opinion of, 59, 60, 61. 
 De Foe's writings valuable to, 
 
 63. 
 manages to have De Foe admitted 
 
 to bail when again in danger of 
 
 Newgate, 64. 
 obtains pardon under Great Seal 
 
 for him, 68, 
 his policy supported by De Foe 
 
 in the Review and Mercator^ 
 
 68, 69, 70. 
 defence of his political conduct 
 
 by De Foe in 1714, 70. 
 his political development be- 
 tween 1706 and 1708, 75. 
 realised strength to be obtained 
 
 by alliance with the Queen, 76. 
 first difference between Godol- 
 
 phin and, 76. 
 his policy when Godolphin sided 
 
 with the Whigs, 76, 77. 
 for time head of Tory party, 77. 
 introduces Drawback Bill, 78. 
 
 Harley, Robert — continued, 
 motives for bringing in Bill, 78, 
 
 79, 8o(n.). 
 increasing difference between 
 
 Godolphin and, 80-82. 
 his rising influence with Queen, 
 
 82. 
 his opposition to Junto, 83, 84 
 
 (n.). 
 his intimacy with Abigail Hill, 
 
 82. 
 overestimated power of Crown, 
 
 85. 
 a victim to his use of espionage, 
 
 86, 87. 
 his resignation, 89. 
 his definite alliance with the 
 
 Tories, 90. 
 active opposition to Godolphin, 
 
 94. 
 Abigail Masham's influence on 
 
 position of, 94. 
 his political relations with her, 
 
 96, 97. 
 appointed Chancellor of Exche- 
 quer and Prime Minister, 98. 
 his political position, 99, 100. 
 his negotiations with the Whig 
 
 Junto, lOl. 
 his relations with Halifax, 102. 
 his political moderation, 103. 
 his formation of Tory Cabinet, 
 
 103. 
 created Earl of Oxford and Earl 
 
 Mortimer, 104, 122. 
 appointed Lord Treasurer, 104, 
 
 122. 
 contrast between Bolingbroke 
 
 and, 104-106. 
 Prince Eugene's description of, 
 
 105. 
 commencement of friendship with 
 
 Swift, 107. 
 his relations with Swift, 110-I12, 
 
 217, 220. 
 relations of Marlborough and, 
 I 12-120. 
 
INDEX 
 
 249 
 
 Harley, Robert — continued, 
 conclusion of peace object of his 
 
 policy, 1 20 (n.)- 
 Guiscard's attempt on his life, 
 
 121. 
 his popularity, 122. 
 his peace negotiations with 
 
 France, 122, 123. 
 Marlborough's hostility to, 124. 
 passing of Occasional Conformity 
 
 Bill contrary to principle of, 
 
 128, 129. 
 letter from De Foe with sugges- 
 tion how to defeat Bill to, 129- 
 
 132. 
 his confidence during political 
 
 crisis of 171 1, 133. 
 creates twelve new peers, 133, 
 
 135. 136. 
 obtains Marlborough's dismissal, 
 
 133. 
 his share in peace negotiations, 
 
 137, 138, 139. 
 sends restraining orders to 
 
 Ormond, 139-142. 
 secures Peace of Utrecht, 142, 
 
 204, 205. 
 his financial policy, 145. 
 his South Sea Scheme, 146-151, 
 
 204. 
 De Foe's correspondence about 
 
 South Sea Scheme with, 149- 
 
 151- 
 his political views differ from 
 
 those of Bolingbroke, 151- 154, 
 
 I52(n.)._ 
 his share in defeat of certain 
 
 clauses in Treaty of Commerce, 
 
 153- 
 his relations with Hanover, 155- 
 
 159, 185. 
 his antagonism to proposed visit 
 
 of Electoral Prince, 159. 
 his action in regard to Schism 
 
 Bill, 160-164, 200. 
 Whigs and Tories suspicious of 
 
 his good faith, 163. 
 
 Harley, Robert — continued. 
 comparison between Peel and, 
 
 163, 164. 
 conflict between Bolingbroke and, 
 
 164. 
 his appeals, to the Queen, 164, 
 
 165. 
 Lady Masham final factor in fall 
 
 of, 165 (n.). 
 his dismissal, 166. 
 Lady Masham's reasons for dis- 
 missal of, 166, 167, 170. 
 his attitude after his fall, 167, 
 
 168. 
 his' poHtical intimacy with Hali- 
 fax, 169, 187, 206. 
 reasons for his fall, 168- 1 70. 
 his health, 171. 
 his position on death of Anne, 
 
 172. 
 his hopes on accession of George 
 
 I., 171, 172 (n.). 
 commencement of proceedings 
 
 against, 173. 
 his criticisms of Bolingbroke's 
 
 plight, 174. 
 his committal to the Tower, 
 
 176. 
 his defence of his political actions, 
 
 176, 177. 
 for two years a prisoner in Tower, 
 
 177. 
 his trial in 1717, 177, 17S. 
 Harcourt's action in the trial, 
 
 177. 
 steps in impeachment of, 178, 
 
 179 (n.). 
 
 his acquittal, 178. 
 
 public opinion of, 180. 
 
 his political dealings with the 
 Jacobites, 180-189. 
 
 a link between old and new polit- 
 ical systems, 189, 190. 
 
 characteristics of last years of 
 administration, 190. 
 
 his political life after release from 
 Tower, 190-193. 
 
250 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Harley, Robert — continued. 
 
 his opposition to Mutiny Bill and 
 Peerage Bill, 190-193, 192 (n.). 
 
 his hopes of Tory-Whig combina- 
 tion, 192, 193. 
 
 his retirement from public life, 
 
 193, 194. 
 his indifference to financial distress 
 
 owing to failure of South Sea 
 
 Company, 194. 
 his country life, 194. 
 intercourse with his friends, 194. 
 correspondence with Prior and 
 
 Swift, 194-200. 
 his death, 199. 
 summary of his character and life, 
 
 200-207. 
 his financial purity, 202. 
 Pope's praise of his philosophic 
 
 tranquillity in retirement, 203. 
 his knowledge of continental 
 
 affairs, 204. 
 his domestic policy, 204, 205. 
 his taste for collecting books and 
 
 manuscripts, 208, 209. 
 as a scholar, 210-212. 
 contrast of his enjoyments to those 
 
 of a later age, 210. 
 Wanley's introduction to, 213. 
 he appoints Wanley his library 
 
 keeper, 213. 
 he adds D'Ewes Collection to his 
 
 library, 214. 
 dispersal of his library, 215. 
 his manuscripts sold to nation, 
 
 216. 
 his friendship with men of letters, 
 
 216-232. 
 he condemns extravagance of 
 
 Brothers' Club, 224. 
 a member of ScriblerusClub, 225, 
 
 226, 227. 
 Swift's sobriquet of, 226. 
 his disappearance from literary 
 
 group of friends, 227. 
 his pleasant memories of his 
 
 literary friends, 228, 229. 
 
 Harley, Robert — continued. 
 
 Swift's character of. Appendix I., 
 
 233. 
 money lent to Queen Anne by, 
 
 Appendix II., 236. 
 note on his manuscripts and 
 letters, Appendix III., 238. 
 Harley, Thomas, cousin of Harley, 
 Earl of Oxford, his mission to 
 Hanover, 157. 
 English Envoy at Hanover, 185. 
 Hedge, Sir Charles, Harley's sup- 
 port of, 80. 
 Hicks, Dr. George (1642-1715), 
 211 (n.). 
 his introduction of Wanley to 
 Harley, 213. 
 High - Flyer, extreme intolerant 
 High Churchmen so called, 47. 
 Hill, Abigail. See Masham. 
 Holland. Sec Dutch. 
 
 Jacobites, 36. 
 
 Bolingbroke's intrigues with, 174. 
 Harley's dealings with, 180-189. 
 their belief in Harley, 186 (n.). 
 Jekyll, Sir Joseph, his defence of 
 
 Harley, 175, 176. 
 Journalism, its increasing influence 
 realised by Harley, 32. 
 De Foe's contributions to, 68-70, 
 
 73. 74. 
 check on growth of, 72. 
 Junto, 75, 83, 84, 85, 100, 201. 
 
 Kentish petitioners committed to 
 prison, 34. 
 
 Land Tax, 41, 162. 
 Lecky, Mr. W. E., his excuse for 
 Whigs for share in passing Oc- 
 casional Conformity Bill, 128. 
 Lewis, Erasmus (1670-1754), intro- 
 duces Swift to Harley, 108. 
 sketch of his life, 108, 109. 
 mention of, 132. 
 Littleton, Sir Thomas, 34. 
 
INDEX 
 
 251 
 
 Louis XIV. and the Partition Treaties 
 of 1698 and 1700, 33. 
 
 his disregard for international 
 engagements, 33. 
 
 accepts crown of Spain for 
 grandson, Duke of Anjou, 33. 
 
 took possession of Spanish for- 
 tresses in Netherlands, 1 701, 33. 
 
 recognised Pretender as King of 
 England, 1701. 
 
 peace negotiations between Eng- 
 land and, 122, 123. 
 
 no longer a menace to European 
 peace, 127. 
 
 Macintosh, Sir James, statement 
 concerning Harley and Pre- 
 tender made by, 182. 
 
 Malt Tax, Halifax alludes to, 162. 
 
 Marlborough, Duchess of, her op- 
 position to Harley, 88. 
 her jealousy of Abigail Masham, 
 
 94. 
 
 her declining influence on Anne, 
 96. 
 Marlborough, John Churchill, Duke 
 of (1650-1722), his dislike of 
 parties, 37, 113. 
 
 induces Harley to become Secre- 
 tary of State, 37. 
 
 his increased trust in Harley, 39. 
 
 letter to Harley, 42 (n.). 
 
 a lukewarm believer in Godol- 
 phin's policy, 81. 
 
 sides with Junto against Harley, 
 
 83. 
 refuses to remain in office with 
 
 Harley, 88. 
 his reliance of Whig support, 93. 
 growing dislike of Queen for, 98. 
 his attitude to Harley in 17 10, 
 
 113-120. 
 his wish to end war, 124. 
 his opposition to Harley's policy, 
 
 124, 126. 
 charges against, 132. 
 dismissal of, 133, 135. 
 
 Masham, Abigail, 82, 94. 
 her influence with the Queen, 
 
 94, 95, 165. 
 
 quarrel with her cousin the 
 
 Duchess of Marlborough, 94. 
 her relationship to Harley, 95. 
 Swift's opinion of, 95. 
 her opinion of Anne in 1708, 
 
 95, 96. 
 
 her political relations with 
 
 Harley, 96, 97. 
 final factor in Harley's fall, 
 
 165. 
 her letter to Swift about Harley, 
 
 166. 
 her reasons for dismissal of 
 
 Harley, 166, 167. 
 probable reasons for her antag- 
 onism to Harley, 170. 
 Mercator^ The. See De Foe. 
 Middleton, Sarah, Harley's second 
 
 wife, 13, 199 (n.)- 
 Montague, Charles, Earl of Halifax 
 
 (1661-1715), on question of 
 
 standing army, 21. 
 established Bank of England, 22. 
 biography of, 26. 
 friendship with Harley, 26, 27. 
 impeachment of, 34. 
 his position during reign of 
 
 William ill., 102. 
 negotiations with Harley in 
 
 i7ioand 1711, loi, 102. 
 carried motion against proposed 
 
 terms of peace with France, 
 
 137. 
 
 his private approval of peace, 142. 
 
 in close confidence with Harley 
 in 1713, 154 (n.). 
 
 his opinion of Schism Bill in re- 
 ference to Harley, 162. 
 
 his close terms of political inti- 
 macy with Harley, 169, 187, 
 206. 
 
 least bigoted of Whigs, 206. 
 Mortimer, Earl. See Harley, Earl of 
 Oxford. 
 
252 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Murray, Anthony, his letter to 
 Harley from Hanover, 156. 
 
 Mutiny Bill, Harley's opposition to, 
 190. 
 
 New Radnor, Harley member for, 
 
 14. 
 Newspaper tax of 17 12, 72. 
 Nottingham, Daniel Finch, second 
 Earlof(i647-i73o), 38. 
 nickname of *' Dismal," 125. 
 his opposition to Harley's peace 
 
 proposals, 125. 
 introduces Occasional Confor- 
 mity Bill, 128. 
 
 Occasional Conformity Bill passes 
 through Commons, 40. 
 explanation of, 40, 41. 
 loss of, 41. 
 
 a second on similar lines carried 
 by Tories through Commons, 
 rejected by Lords, 41. 
 an Occasional Conformity Bill to 
 be tacked by Tories to a Land 
 Bill, defeated, 41. 
 again introduced by Nottingham 
 
 and passed both Houses, 128. 
 De Foe's suggestion to defeat, 
 129-132. 
 October Club, allusion to, 70. 
 Ogilvie, "Jean Gassiot " assumed 
 name of, 54. 
 employed by Harley for political 
 purposes in Paris, 54. 
 Onslow Sir Thomas, 28 (n.). 
 Orford, Edward Russel, Earl of 
 (1653-1727), placed at head of 
 Board of Admiralty, 93. 
 Ormond, James Butler, Duke of, 
 superseded Marlborough in 
 command of English army on 
 Continent, 140. 
 Harley's restraining orders to, 
 
 140. 
 Bolingbroke writes to, 141, 142. 
 member of Brothers' Club, 224. 
 
 Osborne buys Harley's collection 
 
 of books, 215. 
 Oxford, Earl of. See Harley, 
 
 Robert. 
 
 Parnell, Thos. (i679-i7i8),i09. 
 member of Scriblerus Club, 221, 
 
 226, 227. 
 biographical sketch of, 221 (n.), 
 introduced by Swift to Harley in 
 1712, 222. 
 Parties. See Whigs and Tories, 
 growth of, 30. 
 posthumous influence of William 
 
 III. on, 31. 
 characteristics^of divisions of, in 
 
 reign of Anne, 36. 
 Marlborough's dislike of, 37, 
 
 113- 
 Harley's repugnance for, 43. 
 Partition Treaties (1698 and 1700), 
 
 Louis XIV. 's disregard of, 33. 
 Peel, Robert, comparison between 
 
 Harley and, 163, 164. 
 Peerage Bill introduced by Sunder- 
 land and Stanhope, 191. 
 Harley's opposition to, 191. 
 object of, 191. 
 Harley's motives for opposing, 
 
 192. 
 steps of the measure, 192. 
 defeat of, 193. 
 Peers, creation of new, by Harley, 
 
 133. 
 constitutional result of, 135, 136. 
 Pope Alexander (1688-1744), his 
 estimate of Harley, 5. 
 his praise of Harley's philosophic 
 
 tranquillity, 203. 
 allusion to, 109. 
 Harley's interest in, 219. 
 member of Scriblerus Club, 222, 
 226, 227, 228. 
 Portland, impeachment of, 34. 
 Pretender, Old, son of James 11., 
 recognised by Louis xiv. as 
 King of England, 1701, 33. 
 
INDEX 
 
 253 
 
 Pretender, Old — continued. 
 impeachment against supporters 
 
 of, 173. 
 Bolingbroke's negotiations with, 
 
 174. 
 Bolingbroke becomes Secretary of 
 
 State to, 174. 
 Ilarley's supposed intrigues with, 
 
 180-189. 
 no evidence of practical scheme 
 for restoration of, 188. 
 Prior, Matthew (1664-1721), allu- 
 sion to, 109, no. 
 his mission to Paris, 123. 
 his observation to de Torcy about 
 
 Assiento, 148, 149. 
 diplomatist and poet, 194. 
 his occasional correspondence 
 
 with Harley, 194. 
 kindness of Harley's eldest son 
 
 to, 195. 
 his death, 196. 
 
 member of Scriblerus Club, 222. 
 member of Brothers' Club, 223. 
 his poetical invitation to a dinner 
 of Brothers' Club, 224. 
 
 Reform Bill, allusion to, 135. 
 Revenues of England, 144. 
 Review, See De Foe. 
 
 Sacheverell, Henry (1674- 
 1724), his trial a cause of Go- 
 dolphin's fall, 98. 
 fleeting popularity of, 134. 
 Salt Tax, 23. 
 
 Schism Bill, passing of, 160. 
 object of, 160. 
 De Foe's letter to Harley on, 
 
 160, 161. 
 Halifax's letter to Harley on, 162. 
 Harley's action in regard to, 163. 
 Schutz, Baron, Hanoverian Envoy 
 to London, 155. 
 his opinion of Harley's fidelity to 
 Hanoverian succession, 155, 
 156. 
 
 Schutz, Baron — continued. 
 demands writ of summons to 
 House of Lords for Electoral 
 Prince, 156, 157, 185. 
 Scriblerus Club, members of, 220, 
 222, 226. 
 its growth, 225. 
 characteristics of, 225, 229. 
 Harley a member of, 225. 
 short life of, 226, 228. 
 publications by members of, 226, 
 
 227. 
 Pope and Parnell's farewell to, 
 228. 
 Settlement, Act of, 182, 188, 189. 
 Seymour, Sir Edward, Tory leader 
 
 in 1 701, 28. 
 Shrewsbury, Duke of, his comment 
 on Harley's accession to 
 Cabinet, 40. 
 De Foe's allusion to, 99. 
 Somers, John, Baron (1652-1716), 
 impeachment of, 34. 
 his advice to William in., 34. 
 his negotiations with Halifax and 
 Harley, loi, 169. 
 South Sea Company, mainspring of 
 Harley's financial policy, 146. 
 details of scheme, 146, 147. 
 inception of, largely due to De 
 
 Foe, 149. 
 De Foe's correspondence with 
 
 Harley on, 149-151, 204. 
 influence of, on expansion of 
 
 Great Britain, 201. 
 Act for incorporation, 146, 147. 
 Harley governor of, 147. 
 St. John and Benson directors, 
 
 147. 
 its monopoly of trade in South 
 
 Seas, 147. 
 slave trade to be means of profit 
 
 to, 148. 
 its connection with Harley's 
 
 administration, 148. 
 Harley's indifference to financial 
 distress on failure of, 194. 
 
254 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Spain, Charles il. of, 33. 
 
 Partition Treaties concerning, 33. 
 Spanish Succession, War of, events 
 leading up to, 33. 
 declaration of, 35. 
 "Whig and Tory approval of, 35. 
 effect of, on English domestic 
 
 politics, 35, 36. 
 growing unpopularity of, in Eng- 
 land, 93, 98. 
 changed state of continental 
 
 affairs before the end of, 127. 
 Treaty of Utrecht, 171 3, puts end 
 to, 137. 
 Standing army, 20, 21, 191. 
 Stanhope, James, first Earl (1673- 
 1721), and the Peerage Bill, 
 191-193. 
 Steele, Sir Richard (1675-1729), 
 
 229, 231, 232. 
 Stephens, Abigail, Sir Edward 
 Harley's second wife, mother 
 of Robert Harley, Earl of 
 Oxford, 10. 
 Strafford, third Earl of (1672-1739), 
 Harley writes about Whig 
 opposition to, 126 (n.). 
 Bolingbroke mentions defeat of 
 Bill of Treaty of Commerce to, 
 
 154. 
 
 Lord Berkley writes to, 159. 
 Sunderland, Charles Spencer, third 
 Earl of (1675-1722), Harley's 
 opposition to his appointment 
 as Secretary of State, 80. 
 
 his dismissal in 1 7 10, 97. 
 
 Queen's dislike of, 98. 
 
 he introduces Peerage Bill, 191- 
 
 193- 
 his literary taste, 209. 
 contrast of pleasures and those of 
 
 a later age, 210. 
 Addison and Steele friends of, 
 
 229. 
 Swift, Jonathan (1667- 1745), his 
 
 outspokenness contrasted with 
 
 Harley's reticence, 54. 
 
 Swift, Jonathan — contintud. 
 his opinion of Abigail Masham, 
 
 95- 
 his sketch of Bolingbroke, 105. 
 his arrival from Ireland, 108 (n.). 
 his introduction to Harley, 108. 
 his relations with Harley, 1 10- 1 1 2. 
 his essays in Examiner^ 112. 
 his political pamphlets, 112. 
 his reference to necessity of 
 
 peace, 122. 
 his depression about Tory pro- 
 spects, 132. 
 Dr. Arbuthnot's letter on Harley's 
 
 fall, 165 (n.). 
 Lady Masham's letter on Harley 
 
 to, 166. 
 Harley's announcement of his 
 
 fall to, 167. 
 his correspondence with Harley, 
 
 196-199. 
 his friendship for Harley, 196 
 
 (n.). 
 he asks Harley to invite him to 
 
 Brampton, 197-199. 
 his appreciation of Harley, 199, 
 
 2(XD. 
 
 his estimation of Harley as a 
 
 scholar, 212. 
 his character contrasted with 
 
 Harley's, 217. 
 member of Scriblerus Club, 221, 
 
 226, 227. 
 member of Brothers' Club, 222. 
 his description of same, 222. 
 his complaint of expense of 
 
 Brothers' Club, 224. 
 value of his letter-diary, 230. 
 his works have become English 
 
 classics, 231, 232. 
 his character of the Earl of 
 
 Oxford, Appendix L 
 
 ToRCY, Marquis de (1665- 1746), 
 Harley's letter to, 139. 
 his remark to Prior on Assiento, 
 148. 
 
INDEX 
 
 255 
 
 Tories, composition of, 29. 
 early principles of, 30. 
 Peace party in reign of Anne, 30. 
 their sympathy for Pretender, 31, 
 
 36. 
 their impeachment of Whig 
 
 leaders, 34. 
 their reliance on support of 
 
 Queen Anne, 40. 
 they carry Occasional Con- 
 formity Bill through House 
 
 of Commons, 40. 
 sectarian bitterness of, 41. 
 carried second Bill similar to 
 
 Occasional Conformity Bill 
 
 through House of Commons, 
 
 was rejected by Lords, 41. 
 decided to "tack" Occasional 
 
 Conformity to a Land Bill, 
 41. 
 their indignation with Harley for 
 
 his share in defeat of ' ' tacking," 
 
 42 (n.). 
 Anne's preference for, 76, 81. 
 Harley becomes bound to, 90. 
 growing confidence of, 93. 
 Harley takes office as leader of, 
 
 99, 201. 
 Harley's Cabinet of, 103. 
 Bolingbroke aspires to leadership 
 
 of, 160. 
 proceedings against leaders of, 
 
 in 1715. 173- 
 exaggeration of Jacobitism of, 
 187. 
 
 Townshend, Charles Townshend, 
 second Viscount (1674-1738), 
 192, 193. 
 
 Tregony, Harley member for, 13. 
 
 Triple Alliance signed 7th Sep- 
 tember 1 701, 33. 
 
 Union with Scotland, 56. 
 
 Utrecht, Treaty of. Whig opposi- 
 tion to, 32. 
 Bolingbroke chief actor in nego- 
 tiations for, 137, 138. 
 
 Utrecht, Treaty of — continued. 
 negotiations leading up to, 122, 
 
 123, 137-143. 
 criticism of, 142, 143. 
 what England gained by, 143 
 
 144. 
 the result of Harley's peace 
 
 policy, 204. 
 Harley's position as head of Tory 
 
 party after, 205. 
 
 Walpole, Sir Robert (1676-1745), 
 
 allusion to, 3. 
 allusion to Peerage Bill and, 162. 
 his part in proceedings against 
 
 Tory leaders, 173. 
 elected Chairman of secret 
 
 Committee, 174. 
 he moves impeachment of 
 
 Bolingbroke, 175. 
 opposes Mutiny Bill, 190. 
 his secession from Ministry, 171 7, 
 
 192. 
 rejoins Ministry on defeat of 
 
 Peerage Bill, 193. 
 became acknowledged Whig 
 
 leader, 201. 
 Wanley, Humphrey (i 672-1 726), 
 
 Lord Harley writes of Prior's 
 
 death to, 196. 
 his introduction to Harley, 212. 
 short sketch of, 212 (n.). 
 his character, 213. 
 becomes Harley's library keeper, 
 
 213, 214, 215. 
 West, Stanley, friend of Harley, 
 
 44. 
 his letter to Harley acquainting 
 
 him with public opinion, 45. 
 Wharton, Thomas, Marquis of 
 
 (1640-17 15). chief manager of 
 
 Whig party, 125. 
 his literary friends, 229. 
 Whigs and the Bank of England, 22. 
 composition of, 29. 
 became War party, 29. 
 early principles of, 30. 
 
256 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Whigs — continued. 
 
 in William iii.'s reign Court' 
 
 party, 30. 
 their liberalism, 31. 
 in favour of Hanoverian succes- 
 sion, 31, 36. 
 French Protestant emigres the 
 
 supporters of, 31. 
 their leaders impeached by Tory 
 
 Parliament, 1701, 34. 
 dislike of Anne to, 38. 
 Blenheim gives confidence to, 
 
 40. 
 take proceedings against De 
 
 Foe, 64. 
 their accession to power on 
 
 death of Queen Anne, 70, 171. 
 elections of 1705 in favour of, 
 
 76. 
 Godolphin sides with, 76. 
 Harley's resignation of office in 
 
 1708 a triumph for, 89. 
 growing arrogance of, 92, 93. 
 Marlborough and Godolphin's 
 
 necessary reliance on, 93. 
 revolt of Queen against, 97, 
 
 98. 
 principles of, 99. 
 Harley's triumph over, 1 00, 137. 
 their hostility to foreign policy 
 
 of Tory Government, 125. 
 
 Whigs — continued. 
 
 their condemnation of Treaty of 
 
 Utrecht, 142. 
 their accusation of Jacobitism 
 
 an effective charge for party 
 
 purposes, 189. 
 their object in introduction of 
 
 Peerage Bill, 191. 
 William in., first Triennial Bill 
 
 vetoed by, 17. 
 on question of standing army, 
 
 19, 20. 
 influence of his death on conduct 
 
 of public affairs, 29. 
 posthumous influence of, on party 
 
 politics, 31. 
 Anglo - Dutch alliance key of 
 
 his continental policy, 31, 203 
 
 204. 
 dissolves Tory Parliament Nov- 
 ember 1 70 1, 34. 
 his own Prime Minister, 34. 
 his sixth and last Parliament, 34. 
 his opening speech, and its 
 
 effect, 34, 35. 
 his death, 35. 
 Wimpole, home of Harley's eldest 
 
 son, 172, 193, 195, 203, 214. 
 Windham, Sir William, carried 
 
 motion for introduction of 
 
 Schism Bill, 160. 
 
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