Читать книгу The History of Constitutional Monarchy in England (1689 to 1837) - James Franck Bright - Страница 12

Table of Contents

Born 1660 = Sophia of Brunswick.

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George II. Sophia = Frederick William.

CONTEMPORARY PRINCES.

France.	Germany.	Spain.
Louis XIV., 1643.	Charles VI., 1711.	Philip V., 1700.
Louis XV., 1715.

Prussia.	Russia.
Frederick William, 1713.	Peter the Great, 1689.
	Catherine I., 1724.

POPES.—Clement XI.,

1700. Innocent XIII., 1721.

Benedict XIII., 1724.

Denmark.	Sweden.
Frederick IV., 1699.	Charles XII., 1697.
	Frederick I., 1720.

Archbishops.	Chancellors.
T. Tenison, 1694.	William Cowper, 1714.
W. Wake, 1715.	Lord Macclesfield, 1718.
	Lord King, 1725.

First Lords of the Treasury.	Chancellors of the Exchequer.	Secretaries of State.
1714. Halifax.	1714. R. Walpole.	1714 { Stanhope.
1715. Carlisle.	1717. Stanhope.	{ Townshend.
1715. R. Walpole.	1718. Aislabie.	1716 { Stanhope.
1717. Stanhope.	1721. R. Walpole.	{ Methuen.
1718. Sunderland.		1717 { Sunderland.
1721. R. Walpole.		{ Addison.
		1718 { Stanhope.
		{ Craggs.
		1721 { Townshend.
		{ Carteret.
		1724 { Townshend.
		{ Newcastle.

Probability of a restoration of the Stuarts.

England had been slow to accept the principle of succession by parliamentary instead of hereditary right; since 1688 the struggle had been continuous, it had reached a crisis in the closing years of Queen Anne. The triumph of the Whigs, secured to them by the constant successes of the War of Succession, had rendered them over-confident, and an act of foolish severity had been followed by their complete overthrow. The natural inclinations of the Queen, and the weakness of her character, which rendered her constantly liable to be subjugated by the influence of those around her; the talents and intriguing ambition of St. John, and the energy and compactness of the Jacobite body resting upon the general Conservative feeling of the nation, had rendered the return of the Stuarts to the throne a very probable event. A few weeks only were wanting for the completion of the plot, and James Edward would probably have been received as heir to the throne, and the work of the Revolution have been undone. The unexpected illness of the Queen, the rapidity and energy with which the Hanoverian Lords of the Council had carried out what was virtually a coup d'état, had destroyed these hopes. When the Lord Treasurer's staff was placed in the hands of the Duke of Shrewsbury, all hope of carrying out this counter-revolution with the aid of the executive was at an end. Although he had more than once faltered in his allegiance to the Whig party, it was now well understood that he was endowed with something not far short of a dictatorship, for the express purpose of carrying out the enactments of the Act of Succession. Everything was done as arranged by that Act. There was no difficulty with regard to the regency; sealed packets containing the names of those who were to act as the Council of Regency, chosen by the Protestant successor, Council of Regency. were in his hands. On their being opened, the names of eighteen Lords, almost exclusively of the Whig party, were found, who, together with the seven great officers named in the Statute, were to act, under the title of Lords Justices, as an interim Government until the arrival of the new King. It is to be observed that the name of the Duke of Marlborough was not among them.

Peaceful accession of the King.

Parliament was to continue for six months before dissolution, and everything for the present passed off quietly; the Civil List was voted as in the preceding reign; and on the 18th of September the King and his eldest son arrived in England. He was not a man to excite enthusiasm. An unostentatious man, used to a Court where his will was law, but where the manners were singularly primitive and plain, he was little suited to the peculiar position of an English Parliamentary sovereign, from whom, along with the possession of but little real power, much dignity and some magnificence were required. Unable therefore to comprehend the working of that constitution over which he had come to preside, and without ability sufficient to carry on a policy of his own, he naturally threw himself into the arms of that party to which he owed his Crown. The great offices, several of which had been for the last month united in the hands of Shrewsbury, were New Whig ministry. therefore distributed among the Whigs. Townshend was put at the head of the Government, and with him were Halifax, General Stanhope, Lord Cowper, Nottingham, and Lord Townshend's brother-in-law, Sir Robert Walpole; while Sunderland was made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and the Duke of Marlborough (though the King had already shown his well-founded mistrust of him) reassumed the offices of Commander-in-chief and Master of the Ordnance. His power, however, was gone.

Triumph of the Whigs.

The establishment of the Hanoverian house had thus very much the appearance of a triumph of a faction. There were no attempts at conciliation, such as had been made after the Revolution, no efforts to give a general and national character to the Government. The King came forward as the head of the triumphant Whig party. This attitude naturally at the time excited much ill-feeling, yet on the whole it was wise. George was not the man to carry out a scheme of comprehensive government which had already twice failed in the abler hands of William and of Marlborough. The questions at issue were too vital to admit of compromise, and the Whig party were wise in their view of the crisis. A crushing victory was necessary to teach both their conscientious and factious opponents a lesson,—the one must yield to the force of circumstances, the other must discover that their only road to office lay in concession to principles which they were too weak to shake. Conscientious upholders of the Stuarts must be taught that their choice lay between submission and the resignation of their claim to be regarded as Englishmen; those who used the Stuarts as a road to power must be led to see that they must henceforward limit their opposition to points of minor importance, that the main principles of government were fixed for ever.

Riots in the country.

But the conduct of the King and of the Whigs, though wise, was such as to drive the Jacobites to extremities, and to render an appeal to arms sooner or later almost certain. The irritation of the high Tories at once showed itself. In January, as the six months had elapsed, the House was dissolved, and on the meeting of the new House in March, it was found, as was at that time usually the case, that the party in power commanded a large majority. This however had not been secured without serious riots. In Manchester and the midland counties the riots assumed the form of an attack upon the dissenters, and were so serious as to necessitate the passing of a Riot Act. By this Act, which is still in force, it is enacted, that "If any twelve persons are unlawfully assembled to the disturbance of the peace, and any justice of the peace, sheriff, &c., shall think proper to command them by proclamation to disperse, if they contemn his orders, and continue together for one hour afterwards, such contempt shall be felony, without benefit of clergy."

Impeachment of the late ministers. March.

Having secured their majority, it became evident that the Whigs intended to use their regained ascendancy to the uttermost. The Address, both in the House of Lords and in the Commons, was obviously pointed against the framers of the Peace of Utrecht, and before three weeks were over a secret committee was appointed to consider that peace. Bolingbroke had already fled and taken service with the Pretender. Ormond, who till this time had remained in England, putting himself ostentatiously forward as the leader of the Jacobite opposition, followed his example. Oxford alone awaited his trial. The two fugitives were proceeded against by bill of attainder. The impeachment of Oxford was after a while dropped; in fact, it was difficult to substantiate the charge of treason against him. It was not till long afterwards that any real proof existed of treasonable correspondence with the Pretender; and it was scarcely possible to twist the faults and weaknesses of the Peace, the desertion of the Catalans, even the surrender, unasked, of Tournay, one of our conquests, into crimes under the law of treason; nor was the doctrine of the responsibility of ministers as yet sufficiently established to allow the majority at once to answer Oxford's solemn declaration, that he had acted distinctly upon the royal authority. It is true that the plea had been overruled in the case of Danby; but even in the last reign the Whigs had themselves sought shelter, after the battle of Almanza, behind the royal authority, and it was not till more than twenty years of regular party government had intervened that the doctrine was thoroughly understood and adopted.

Jacobite conspiracy.

Meanwhile the aggressive policy of the Whigs was hurrying on an outbreak of the conspiracy which the timely death of the late Queen had checked. It was widespread. Ormond, until his flight, had been busily engaged in organizing it in England, while Bolingbroke had taken it in hand in France: for then, as always, it seems to have been accepted, that any insurrection would be useless without material help from France. In many parts of the country, particularly in the west, the feeling against the Hanoverian succession was strong, and measures had been taken to secure Bristol and Exeter, and other great western towns. In Scotland the difficulty was rather to restrain than to urge forward the Jacobite feeling. Many causes combined to create a widespread Disaffection in Scotland. discontent in that country. In the north the feeling of loyalty to an hereditary chief was part of the national character, inwoven with the whole system of clanship. The national pride was flattered by the thought of a Stuart, a Scotchman, sitting upon the throne of England. Moreover, there was one chief of predominant power whose interests had been always Whig, and jealousy of the ascendancy of the clan Campbell, and of its head, the Duke of Argyle, or Mac Callum More, on this, as on several other occasions, tended to throw all rival clans into the arms of any party of which he was the declared enemy. In the Lowlands other influences were at work. The Presbyterians were not likely to forget the unsparing cruelty of the later Stuarts, and now that they had the upper hand, the tolerated Episcopalians met with no great courtesy at their hands; a constant source of quarrel was thus opened, and the Episcopalians and Catholics might be well expected to seek refuge from the intolerance of their victorious rivals, and a restoration even of their former superiority, in the establishment of the exiled dynasty. But more than that, everything English was unpopular. Two great imaginary injuries were rankling in the national mind. The nation had never forgiven King William's treatment of the Darien Scheme, and were still smarting under the supposed yoke which the Union had laid upon them. Whoever was King of England was their natural enemy, so that, except in those places where settled industry had already felt the advantage of the union with England, there was great readiness to join in any enterprise which would be injurious to her. There were therefore ready to join the cause of the Stuarts in the north all the great clans except the Campbells, and in the south the Episcopalians, and those nationalists who regarded as righteous any act of antagonism to England.

Failure of the Jacobite hopes of French assistance.

But the movement, both in Scotland and in England, was held to depend on the conduct of France, and it was probable that, under Bolingbroke's able management, assistance would come from that country. The King was indeed far different from the Louis of other days. Enslaved by the religious influence of Madame de Maintenon, and surrounded by bitter party disputes with regard to the legitimization of his bastards, his energy was gone, while war and taxes and persecution had much depressed the power of France. Still, irritated by the Whig assault upon his friends in England, the champion as he believed himself of legitimacy, and angry at the opposition raised by the English ministry to his new fortifications at Mardyke, he had used his influence with Spain to procure sums of money for the conspirators, had himself supplied arms, and had allowed a small squadron to be equipped at Havre at the expense of France. The flight of Ormond, the first blow to the conspiracy, was followed, on the 1st of September, by the death of Louis. The Government passed into the hands of the Regent Orleans, whose policy was of a purely personal character, his chief aim being the exclusion of the Spanish house from the succession should the young King die. To secure his plans at home external peace was necessary. Personal friendship, both for Stair the English ambassador, and for Stanhope the English secretary, rendered him still more disinclined to break with England. Hope from France was gone. Bolingbroke saw at once the course affairs were taking, and despatched a messenger to tell the leaders of the conspiracy that, as Scotland could not rise without England, and England could not rise without France, and France had no intention of moving, all thoughts of insurrection had better be dropped.

His prudent message came too late. The Pretender, weary of waiting, had taken matters into his own hands, and a leader had Mar organizes the insurrection in Scotland. already been despatched to raise the northern counties of Scotland. This leader was the Earl of Mar. At Anne's death Mar was Secretary for Scotland, a man of no very great ability, but who, for his skill in trimming his sails to the wind, had earned the nickname of "Bobbing John." He once more tried to play his old game, but found himself mistrusted, and had to give place to the Duke of Montrose. He now hurried to London, sought favour at Court, took a wife from among the leaders of the Whig party, and having thus thrown people off the scent, hurried back to Scotland to organize the insurrection. His chief influence was in Aberdeenshire, north of the Grampian hills; and there, early in September, he contrived a meeting of the chief clans of the neighbourhood. He was joined by Tullibardine, the heir of the Duke of Athol, who brought with him the Murrays, and by the great clan of the Gordons, with Lord Panmure, from the north of Perthshire, towards which county he at once began to march. The Pretender could not refuse to support Mar's open movement on his behalf. In October he hurried across France, evading an attempt of Orleans to arrest him, and an attempt on the part of the English ambassador to assassinate him. He reached St. Malo in safety. Thence an expedition under Ormond was to have been thrown upon the English coast. Twice Ormond was thwarted by the weather; his third attempt was Vigorous measures of the English Government. too late, the English fleet lay before the port. Had he succeeded in landing, no better fortune would have awaited him; the English Government had already heard of the gathering of the Highland clans, the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, the more active Jacobites arrested; such troops as were then in England, some 8000 in number, were hurried to the west (for the Scotch outbreak was looked upon only as a feint); some 6000 troops, due from Holland as a guarantee for the Protestant succession, were demanded; fresh regiments were rapidly formed; and the command in Scotland was given to Argyle, the natural opponent of the Jacobite clans. The vigorous measures of the Government had in fact already broken the neck of the conspiracy.

Mar's success in the Highlands.

But there was still real danger in the North, for Mar had an overwhelming superiority of forces, and before the end of October he had the complete command of Scotland as far as the Forth. Argyle, desirous of confining the rebellion as much as possible to the north and east, attempted to hold the line of that river. Mar, to whom immediate success was everything, and who overrated the strength of his party in England, was desirous of crossing the Border as soon as possible, in order to rally the disaffected round him. He had now about 12,000 men with him, but these were poorly armed, and even this poor equipment was due to no care of Mar's, but to a gallant dash by the Master of Sinclair upon an English ship lying in the Forth. With these troops he would probably have been unable to have passed Argyle at Stirling, even if he had not been prevented from moving by the expected arrival of the Pretender. It was therefore determined that a detachment under One detachment marches into England, Brigadier Mackintosh should be thrown across the Firth, and marched direct for England, while the main body should threaten and retain Argyle upon the upper river. The movement was well executed, and 1500 men passed over at a broad part of the estuary near North Berwick. They thence, after an ineffectual march upon Edinburgh, proceeded unopposed directly south to Kelso, as Argyle was kept from following them by Mar's movements. They were here joined by some horse under Lord Kenmure, and by a few English horsemen under Mr. Forster, with whom was Lord Derwentwater. One cause at least of the insurrection is clearly pointed out by a proclamation which was here issued, in which the chief stress was laid upon the foreign domination imposed upon the nation by the late Union. Some difficulty was found in persuading the Highlanders to cross the Border, and the march was directed therefore in a more westerly direction, following along the back of the Cheviots, and crossing into England near Longtown in the direction of Carlisle. Even in spite of this concession to their feelings, several hundreds of the Highlanders deserted, and the rest had to be tempted forward by a promise of pay. From Carlisle they marched up the valley of the Eden to Penrith, crossed the hills to Lancaster, where they were well received by the many Catholic families in the neighbourhood, and, foolishly leaving this strong place behind them, pushed on for Preston on the Ribble. Since entering England, the command-in-chief had devolved on Mr. Forster, and the insurgents knew that they were being followed by General Carpenter with between 2,000 and 3,000 men. Forster—a very inefficient commander—directed his attention only to the pursuing army, and discipline was much relaxed. On the 11th of November, General Wills was marching upon Preston northward from Wigan. To reach Preston he had to cross the Ribble by a bridge, and then pass upward along a lane which is described by Cromwell, in 1648, as "very deep and ill," and which it had cost him four hours to clear. Wills met no opposition till he reached the town, where a gallant defence was and is defeated at Preston. Nov. 13. made behind barricades. The neglect of all proper precautions is somewhat explained by the fact that Mr. Forster was unable to attend a council of war held that morning, having been compelled to take to his bed on account of "some damage" which he had received "at a convivial entertainment." On the 13th, however, Carpenter joined Wills, the town was completely surrounded, and the insurgents saw the necessity of a surrender. Much dispute has arisen about the terms of that surrender. It seems probable that Wills used ambiguous language, understood by the insurgents to contain a promise of clemency—by himself, as insisting upon an unconditional surrender. Colonel Oxburgh, Mr. Forster's negotiator, declared upon the scaffold that the words used were: "You cannot better entitle yourselves to that clemency than by surrendering yourselves prisoners at discretion." 1500 rebels gave themselves up, among them eight noblemen. As however a considerable number of English Catholics had joined the Scotch since entering Lancashire, a good many of the rebels must have made good their escape.

On the same 13th of November on which Generals Carpenter and Wills had joined their forces the insurgent operations in the North had also come to a disastrous conclusion. Mar had moved slowly south and west along the great valley of Strathmore, which leads direct from Perth to Stirling. He was approaching Dunblane when he heard that Argyle with 4000 regular troops was already occupying it. On a neighbouring eminence called Sheriffmuir, a spur of the Ochil hills, the armies encountered. The royalist left wing was unable to withstand the rush of the clansmen, and immediately withdrew Mar is defeated at Sheriffmuir. towards Stirling. The insurgents had held that their own left wing was secured by some marshy ground, but Argyle perceived that a light night-frost had rendered the morass passable. He fell with his cavalry upon the left flank of the Highlanders, and drove them from the field. The battle was thus equally balanced, the peculiar curve of the ground rendered any general view of the action impossible, and Mar, on his return from the pursuit of the right wing, finding his own left destroyed, determined to retreat, leaving to Argyle the full advantages of the victory.

The battle of Preston had proved the impossibility of relying upon any formidable insurrection in England. As the royalist troops were The Pretender appears, but flies before Argyle. collected and armies strengthened, the chances of success became less every day. Mar remained quiet at Perth, and Argyle and the English saw that delay was wholly in their favour. But in January a new colour was given to the affair by the arrival of the Pretender at Peterhead. He at once assumed the style of royalty, issuing proclamations and appointing a day for his coronation. The English ministry could not believe that so bold a step would have been taken without promised support from France. Immediate action became therefore necessary, and through villages burnt by the Pretender's order, and deep snow which Mar believed impassable, Argyle moved northwards, gradually threatening Perth. From the first James had shown but little military spirit, and now, although the clansmen offered to fight for him to the last, on the 30th of January (1716) the army was withdrawn from Perth across the frozen Tay, and marched along the coast to Montrose, whence James and Mar withdrew secretly to France, deserting their followers, who, still retiring northward, were wholly broken up as an army when Argyle reached Aberdeen on the 8th of February. Like every man that ever bore the name of Stuart, with fair abilities, James was selfish and self-seeking to the last degree. Faithless to his friends, a slave to his sensual passions, he was respectable only in a certain gift of personal bravery, in a sort of grandeur of obstinacy, and in the tenacity with which he clung to his religious creed and his hereditary rights.

Punishment of the rebels.

As is always the case on the defeat of a domestic treason, strong pressure was brought to bear upon the ministers to induce them to act leniently towards the prisoners. The seven noble prisoners—Derwentwater, Kenmure, Nithsdale, Wintoun, Widdrington, Carnwath and Nairn—were impeached by the House of Commons, all but Lord Wintoun pleaded guilty, and sentence was pronounced. Then every means was brought to bear upon the King—private petitions from the wives of the accused noblemen, supported by the influence of all the ladies of the Court; petitions of ladies to Parliament, and lastly, an address from the majority of the Lords, urging him to reprieve if possible. These efforts were so far successful that all were reprieved with the exception of Derwentwater, Kenmure, and Nithsdale. The two first were executed, the escape of the last was contrived by the skill of his wife, who conveyed a woman's dress to her husband, in which he passed safely out of his prison, personating a lady friend who had accompanied the Countess on her visit, and who remained in his place. Three other important prisoners, Mackintosh, Forster, and Lord Wintoun also made good their escape, which seems to indicate either a strong sympathy on the part of the gaolers, or perhaps a wish on the part of the Government to avoid the necessity of more executions. Of the lesser prisoners, many of the common men were executed or transported; officers who had been in the King's service were summarily shot; but a very large proportion of those captured in Scotland being brought for judgment to Carlisle, in contravention, it was asserted, of the terms of the Union, were punished lightly or released, for fear of exciting fresh national quarrels.

The Septennial Act. April 26, 1716.

It must not be supposed, however, that the excitement on the part of the Jacobites, or the fear on the part of the Hanoverians, was by any means allayed, and as by the existing Statute of 6 William and Mary, Parliament would be dissolved at the close of the year, and a new election held in the spring of 1717, there seemed great probability of a renewal of the contest, or at least of very serious riots during the election time. With this in view, the ministers proposed that the existing Parliament should be continued for a term of seven instead of three years. This, which was meant for a temporary measure, has never been repealed, and is still the law under which Parliaments are held. It has been often objected to this action of Parliament, that it was acting arbitrarily in thus increasing its own duration. "It was a direct usurpation," it has been said, "of the rights of the people, analogous to the act of the Long Parliament in declaring itself indestructible." It has been regarded rather as a party measure than as a forward step in liberal government. We must seek its vindication in the peculiar conditions of the time. It was useless to look to the constituencies for the support of the popular liberty. The return of members in the smaller boroughs was in the hands of corrupt or corruptible freemen; in the counties, of great landowners; in the larger towns, of small place-holders under Government. A general election in fact only gave fresh occasion for the exercise of the influence of the Crown and of the House of Lords—freedom and independence in the presence of these two permanent powers could be secured only by the greater permanence of the third element of the Legislature, the House of Commons. It was thus that, though no doubt in some degree a party measure for securing a more lengthened tenure of office to the Whigs, the Septennial Act received, upon good constitutional grounds, the support and approbation of the best statesmen of the time. It was upon these grounds that Lord Somers declared that the measure would be the greatest possible support to the liberty of the country, and Speaker Onslow, with a clear view of the tendency of the Act, believed that it would emancipate the House of Commons from its former dependence on the Crown and the House of Lords. It was however probably the more far-sighted only who saw the advantages to which the Septennial Act would lead. It was meant for a temporary Act, and the reasons for its necessity, as set forth in the preamble, are the expenses of frequent elections, the constant renewal of party animosities, and the probability, "at this juncture, when a restless and Popish faction are designing and endeavouring to renew" the rebellion within and invasion without, of an election being likely to prove destructive to the peace and security of the Government. At the same time it is plain that men's eyes were being opened to the threatened loss of independence of the Lower House, for a private Bill was introduced, and subsequently carried through in a modified form by Government, to forbid the holders of pensions withdrawable at will from sitting in the House.

First signs of the breaking up of the Cabinet.

No sooner was the great question which had held the Whig party together settled by the suppression of the insurrection, than certain elements of disunion which already existed in the Cabinet began to make themselves felt, and a train of circumstances began, which ended in the disruption of the ministry. The tumult of pardon and execution had scarcely subsided, when the King, to the great dislike of his ministers, giving way to those natural inclinations which were for many years to be the chief weakness of our Hanoverian Princes, insisted upon the repeal of the clause of the Act of Settlement which restrained the King from leaving England, and hurried to his hereditary dominions. Stanhope accompanied George and Stanhope go to Hanover. him as representative of the English ministry, Townshend being left at home. This separation of the ministry of itself afforded room for intrigue, and the state of affairs both at home and abroad supplied a more than usually appropriate occasion for it, for the hereditary family quarrel had already broken out between George and his eldest son. It was impossible, however, to ignore his claims to the regency during his father's absence, nor would Townshend permit them to be overlooked. The King was with difficulty persuaded to put the Government in his hands, with the inferior title of Guardian of the Realm and Lieutenant, and under considerable restrictions. The minister in England was thus at once put, in some sort, in opposition to the King, and in a position which gave great opening for the intrigues of his enemies who surrounded the King; for a clique, consisting of the King's Hanoverian courtiers, Bernsdorf, Bothmar, George's private Secretary Robethon, and Madame de Schulenberg, Duchess of Kendal, the royal mistress, were full of animosity to the minister. Like the Scotch followers of James I., they regarded England as a sort of promised land, and took umbrage at the attempts of the English ministry to check their rapacity. The mistrust thus engendered was rapidly increased by subsequent events, chiefly connected with the affairs of the Continent.

Negotiations with France.

As the King entered Hanover with Stanhope, the minister was met by the Abbé Dubois, an agent of the Regent Orleans, and negotiations began for the establishment of friendly relations with France, which mark an entire change in the politics of Europe. To complete the security of the new succession, it was regarded as necessary that the Pretender should be removed beyond the Alps, and that all hope of assistance to his cause from France should cease. Open hostilities to gain this end seemed out of the question. Austria was much irritated by the Barrier Treaty, by which the Dutch were secured a line of fortresses in the Austrian Netherlands, garrisoned by the Dutch, but paid by Austria. The Emperor, too, was naturally jealous of the increasing power of the Princes of the Empire, three of whom had acquired kingdoms; the Elector of Saxony was King of Poland, the Elector of Brandenburg King of Prussia, the Elector of Hanover King of England. The temper of Austria thus forbade all hope of re-establishing the Grand Alliance. The withdrawal of support from the Pretender had to be sought by peaceful means; and the Regent, intent on his personal aims, was willing to surrender the cause of the Stuarts, and to destroy the works at Mardyke as the price of peace with England. On these terms negotiations for a treaty, in which Holland was to share, were begun.

Danger of Hanover from Charles XII.

The German objects of the King rendered its speedy conclusion an object of the first importance. After his defeat at Pultowa, Charles XII. had withdrawn to Bender, where he had vainly attempted to rouse the Turks to assist him against the Russians. In his absence, Russia, Poland, and Denmark, the countries which in turn he had conquered, combined against his deserted country; and the King of Prussia, for his own ends no doubt, but with some appearance of keeping the balance between the parties, succeeded in neutralizing Pomerania, and in obtaining the sequestration into his own hands of the strong town of Stettin. This arrangement by no means pleased Charles, who hastened home from Bender, hoping by an alliance with England to keep his enemies at bay. The accession of the house of Hanover destroyed this hope. The Elector of Hanover had obtained from Denmark Bremen and Verden, part of the spoils of Charles, and was pledged by his own interests to oppose him. He insisted upon an English fleet being sent to the Baltic, though the question was obviously one of German interest only. Not content with opposing Sweden, George eagerly desired that the fleet should be used against Russia, for that country had invaded Mecklenburg, and intended apparently to appropriate it. Again it was evident that the question was chiefly of German interest. Townshend placed the English view of the affair before the King—it did not matter much who possessed Mecklenburg, but to attack Russia, the chief opponent of Sweden, was to leave Charles XII. free for dangerous designs in favour of the Stuarts, in which he was now almost openly engaged. Fortunately diplomacy induced the Czar to withdraw, and the question was thus solved.

But while eager for war with Sweden and Russia, George was naturally anxious for the conclusion of the peace with France, and thought himself purposely thwarted by his minister, when the peculiarities of the Dutch constitution threw delays in the way of its completion, and Townshend refused to break faith and conclude the treaty without the accession of the Dutch. The King's dislike for Dismissal of Townshend. Townshend, excited by his opposition to his German plans, was sedulously fomented both by his Hanoverian courtiers and by the Earl of Sunderland, who, thoroughly discontented with his subordinate position in the ministry as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, had joined the King at Hanover, and had entered busily into the intrigues going on there. A letter from Townshend, in which, in order to allow the longer absence of the King, he recommended that additional powers should be given to the Prince in England, brought matters to a crisis. Townshend was dismissed from his office, and offered in exchange the viceroyalty of Ireland. For the sake of the party, and upon some sort of apology from the King, Townshend accepted his new office, and the quarrel was temporarily healed.