cil held on this occasion, and the altercation which passed between the ministers at the board, so agitated and affected the queen's spirits, that she was immediately seized with an apoplectic disorder, from which she never recovered. In a transient interval of recollection, she delivered the treasurer's staff to the duke of Shrewsbury, and died at Kensington on Sunday, August 1, in the fiftieth year of her age, and the thirteenth of her reign.

A. D. 1714.

Anne was of the middle size, majestic and well-proportioned; her face was round, her features regular, her complexion ruddy, and her hair a dark brown. She possessed all the vir tues which could adorn the sex in private life; and, notwithstanding the violent party feuds which embittered her repose, and disturbed her reign, she was personally beloved by her people. Her abilities, however, were very unequal to her high station; and, if the military glory of the nation was carried to the highest pitch under her auspices, it was certainly not owing to her personal conduct or counsels. Yet it must be allowed that her intentions were good, and that the vices of her government were the vices of those by whom she was influenced, while her virtues were all her own.

HAD

CHAP. XX.

The Reign of George I.

AD Providence granted a longer life to Anne, and the daring and ambitious St. John continued to influence her councils, there

seems

seems reason to suppose that attempts would have been made to restore the hereditary line; but the sudden death of the queen, by destroying the hopes of the jacobites, put an end to their present machinations, and thus removed the fears and apprehensions of the whigs.

A. D.

1714.

Agreeably to the act of settlement passed in the reign of William, George I. elector of Hanover, maternally descended from Elizabeth, daughter of James I. was proclaimed king in due form the very day of Anne's decease, and the submission of the three kingdoms was as universal, as if no pretended claim to the crown had existed.

In about six weeks, the impatience of the people was gratified with the presence of their new sovereign, who landed at Greenwich, where he was received by the lords of the regency; two days after, he made his public entry into London, and was crowned on the 11th of October fol. lowing.

The hopes and fears of both parties ran high on the accession of George, but his majesty soon relieved them from this state of anxiety, by an instantaneous and total change in all the im portant offices under government. The duke of Marlborough, who had just returned from a voluntary exile, was restored to his former posts, with several new appointments; the earl of Nottingham was declared president of the council, the great seal was given to lord Cowper, the privy seal to the earl of Wharton, and the viceroyalty of Ireland to the earl of Sunderland.

At the same time, lord Townshend and Mr. Stanhope were appointed secretaries of state,

HH 3

Mr.

Mr. Pulteney secretary at war, and Mr. Walpole, who had undertaken to manage the house of commons, was made paymaster to the army. The post of secretary for Scotland was bestowed on the duke of Montrose, and the duke of Argyle was made commander in chief of the forces in that country.

Thus the whigs obtained an ascendancy, both in and out of parliament; but instead of attacking their enemies, the tories, on the ge-neral grounds of their conduct, which had been very culpable, they erected their batteries solely against the peace which they had concluded. The earl of Oxford, the duke of Ormond, the earl of Strafford, and viscount St. John, were impeached on account of the parts they had acted in this affair. Ormond and St. John fled; but though Oxford, Prior, and some others, were excepted out of the act of grace, they all escaped punishment; so fearful are persons in power of establishing a precedent, which may sometimes be turned against themselves.

The changes in the administration had been effected without any direct opposition; but when the first emotions of fear or of duty had subsided, the malcontents of the jacobite and tory factions broke out into various acts of sedition and riot in the metropolis. From London the infection gradually spread to the more distant parts of the kingdom, where insurrections became general, though fortunately without con

cert.

The commons, dreading the rising spirit of revolt, addressed his majesty to take vigorous measures for suppressing the rioters; the habeas

corpus

corpus act was suspended, and a new act was passed, by which it was decreed, that if any persons, to the number of twelve, unlawfully assembled, should continue together one hour after having been required to disperse by a justice of the peace or other officer, and had heard the proclamation against riots read in public, they should be deemed guilty of felony without benefit of clergy.

From England the prevailing discontents were speedily communicated to Scotland, where the union had hitherto remained unpopular. The English jacobites fomented this aversion; and a correspondence being established between the disaffected of both kingdoms, the chevalier de St. George was flattered with the hopes of seeing a majority in both nations declare in his favour.

The sudden death of Louis XIV. however, was no small disappointment to the Pretender. That prince had privately supplied the Chevalier with the means of fitting out a small armament in the port of Havre; but the duke of Orleans, on whom the regency of the kingdom devolved, adopted a new system of politics, and entered into the strictest alliance with the king of Great Britain.

The partisans of the Pretender, however, had gone too far to recede. The earl of Mar, assembling three hundred of his vassals, proclaimed the chevalier, and, on the 6th of September, set up his standard at Brae-Mar. Then A. D. assuming the title of lieutenant-general of the newly proclaimed sovereign's forces, he published a declaration exhorting the

1715.

people

people to arm for their lawful prince, and this was followed by a manifesto, in which the national grievances were enumerated and aggravated, and redress promised.

Meanwhile, the government of England having arrested the earls of Hume, Wigtown, and Kinnoul, lord Deskford, and Lockhart of Carnwarth, these and other suspected persons were committed prisoners to Edinburgh castle. The bridge of Stirling was secured by the king's troops, and the duke of Argyle set out to take the principal command, while the earl of Sutherland sailed for the north, to raise his vassals in defence of his liege sovereign. Other heads of clans did the same, and thus it soon became apparent that the voice of Scotland was far from being general in favour of the Pretender.

In the north of England, however, the earl of Derwentwater and Mr. Foster took the field with a body of horse, and being joined by some gentlemen from the borders, proclaimed the Chevalier in Morpeth and Alnwick. Having afterwards made an ineffectual attempt on Newcastle, the insurgents retired to Fiexham, and in their progress northwards were reinforced by a body of troops under lords Keumuir, Carnwarth, and Wigtown.

At Kelso the rebels were joined by Mackintosh with a body of highlanders, and the party, now thinking themselves strong enough to enter on action, Foster opened his commission of ge neral, and having proclaimed the Pretender, marched to Penrith. The posse comitatus of Cumberland, which had been assembled by the bishop, filed at the approach of this small army,