marriage which took place privately in the apartments of Dr. Arbuthnot, one of the physicians of the Household. Her Majesty on that occasion called for a "round sum" out of the Privý Purse, which was supposed to be her present to the rising favourite.

This incident brought some others to the Duchess's mind. "I remembered," she says, "that a long while before this being with the Queen, to whom I had gone very privately by a secret passage, on a sudden this woman, not knowing I was there, came in with the boldest and gayest air imaginable, but upon sight of me stopped, and immediately changing her manner and making a most solemn courtesy asked: 'Did your Majesty ring?'"

The Duchess, thus roused to suspicion, sharply taxed Abigail with deceit and ingratitude, and addressed her Royal Mistress in strains of resentful expostulation. By these as might be expected the breach was only widened. The Queen, without making any change in the offices held by the Duchess, accorded to her less and less of her company and confidence, and in reply to her numerous letters at a rather later period, directly charged her (to use Her Majesty's own words) with "inveteracy against poor Masham" and with "having nothing so much at heart as the ruin of your cousin."

It was no mere question of Court honours or of feminine wrangles. Besides being cousin to the Jennings, Mrs. Masham had another cousinhood in a different direction, but as near, to Harley. With that statesman, still a Minister, she was in constant and familiar communication. The belief was strong that whatever influence she might gain over her Royal Mistress would be exerted in pursuance of his counsels and in promo

tion of his power. It was on Church matters above all that Godolphin and the Marlboroughs, Duke and Duchess, mistrusted the insinuations of Harley. "For my part," says Her Grace, "the word Church had never any charm for me in the mouths of those who made the most noise with it." But even in the palmiest days of her Court favour she could not on this one point overrule the Queen. Her Majesty on this point regarded some of her Ministers as wholly latitudinarian, and rather inclined to the Tories, "whom," continues the Duchess," she usually called by the agreeable name of the Church party." It is certainly true that Anne had no penetrating genius of her own to guide her. She may well have been mistaken in any particular cases. But she deserves this praise, that she conscientiously felt, which some of her advisers did not, the solemn responsibility of ecclesiastical appoint✦ ments, and was unwilling to make them on mere party or political grounds such as Godolphin urged.

Acting on these views, the Queen during many weeks resisted or evaded a pressing recommendation of Marlborough to name Dr. Potter Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford. There was no doubt as to Dr. Potter's character and learning, but the Queen was not fully satisfied of his Church principles, and would greatly have preferred Dr. Smalridge. "The consequence is," Marlborough wrote at last, "that if Dr. Potter has not the Professor's place I will never more meddle with anything that may concern Oxford."9 It was owing perhaps to this portentous threat that Anne finally yielded.

• Conduct of the Duchess of Marlborough, p. 134.

To the Duchess, June 23, 1707.

At nearly the same time there arose another and more important occasion. Two Sees, Exeter and Chester, had to be filled from the decease of Bishop Trelawney and Bishop Stratford. The Queen apprehending some proposal which she would find distasteful, resolved to anticipate it by a decision of her own. Without consulting any of her Ministers she offered the vacant dignities to Dr. Blackall and Sir William Dawes. It is not denied that these Divines were, as Burnet says, 66 men of value and worth," but it is alleged, and with truth, that they held High Church and Tory opinions.

Godolphin and the Marlboroughs were, and with good reason, much offended. They addressed some warm remonstrances to the Queen, who however could not recede from the promises already made. They thought that Her Majesty had acted at the secret instigation of Harley, and Godolphin writing to the latter taxed him with this in angry terms. But as against this we have not only Harley's solemn denial but the Queen's own Royal words. Thus did she express herself to Marlborough who was still abroad: "I believe you have been told as I have that these two persons were recommended to me by Mr. Harley, which is so far from being true that he knew nothing of it till it was the talk of the town. I do assure you these men were my own choice. They are certainly very fit for the station I design them; and indeed I think myself obliged to fill the Bishops' Bench with those that will be a credit to it and to the Church, and not always to take the recommendations of 29 (the Whig Junto)."

The persons to whom in this cypher the Queen referred, that is the heads of the Whig party then in

alliance with the Ministers, showed themselves far more incensed on this occasion than even the Ministers themselves. They declared that they must withdraw their support from the Government, unless on Church appointments the Queen were effectually coerced. It was in vain that at a meeting of their principal men in the House of Commons the Dukes of Somerset and Devonshire appeared in the name of the Queen to say that although she had engaged herself so far in relation to those two Bishoprics, and was bound to fulfil her promises, yet for the future she was resolved to give the gentlemen present full satisfaction. They were only half appeased when, a third Bishopric becoming opportunely vacant, the Queen seized the opportunity of preferring Dr. Trimnell, a Divine of thorough Whig principles and a former tutor of Lord Sunderland. Their chiefs still violently urged that Harley was at the bottom of some dark intrigue which he carried on with the aid of Abigail, and they insisted that this favorite of a favorite should no longer be permitted to hold the Secretary's Seals.

Finding that they could not immediately prevail in this favorite object, the Whig chiefs directed their wrath against Godolphin and Marlborough, who they said were but half-hearted in the cause. They threatened to strike a blow more especially at the Duke, through the sides of his brother George. This brother, a sailor in profession and an Admiral in rank, was a leading member of Prince George's Council, and as such took a principal part in the direction of sea-affairs. Now, as it chanced, there were at this time some naval miscarriages to be complained of from the failure of cruisers and convoys in divers places and the consequent loss of several merchant-ships. But above all

there was the loss of several men-of-war.

Five line of

battle ships had been ordered to the coast of Portugal as a convoy to a great fleet of merchantmen. Against these the French had combined a squadron from Dunkirk and another from Brest under Du Gué Trouin and the Chevalier de Forbin, two of their best commanders, and making fourteen sail in all. The Admiralty, it was alleged, had received but had neglected a warning of this intended junction. Off the Lizard then the English ships found themselves assailed by well-nigh threefold numbers, and in spite of their gallant defence were overpowered. Three of them were taken, and one blown up, so that only one escaped. But they had fought so long that the merchantmen were enabled meanwhile to make press of sail and to reach Lisbon in safety without being pursued.

To arraign Admiral Churchill as the main cause of these mischances to attack him on that account in Parliament, was naturally very tempting to the friends of Somers. For Churchill was still, as Marlborough was once, a zealous Tory; and he had been always what Marlborough was never, indiscreet and hot-headed, loving to revile the Whigs even when he could not counteract them. Nay it was commonly alleged that in his politics he was not only Tory but had a Jacobite leaning, and that for the succession to the throne he looked to St. Germains.

Marlborough who was still upon the Continent did his best by letter to appease the Whigs. But he found all that he could urge very coldly received. Sunderland his own son-in-law answered him in reproachful terms. Halifax vouchsafed no reply at all to his protestations. Then brooding over "the contempt of Lord Halifax," for so he called it, the Duke's spirit