The Evolution of an Empire: A Brief Historical Sketch of England Part 8

What the "_Magna Charta_" and "_Pet.i.tion of Right_" had a.s.serted in a general way, was now by the "_Bill of Rights_,"

established by specific enactments, which one after another declared what the King should and what he should not do. One of these Acts touched the very central nerve of English freedom.

If _religion_ and _money_ are the two important factors in the life of a nation, it is _money_ upon which its life from day to day depends! A Government can exist without money about as long as a man without air! So the act which gave to the House of Commons exclusive power to grant supplies, and also to determine to what use they shall be applied, transferred the real authority to the people, whose will the Commons express.

The struggle between the Crown and Parliament ends with this, and the theory of Pym is vindicated. The Sovereign and the House of Lords from that time could no more take money from the Treasury of England, than from that of France. Henceforth there can be no differences between King and people. _They must be friends._ A Ministry which forfeits the friends.h.i.+p of the Commons, cannot stand an hour, and supplies will stop until they are again in accord. In other words, the Government of England had become a Government _of the people_.

William regarded these enactments as evidence of a lack of confidence in him. Conscious of his own magnanimous aims, of his power and his purpose to serve England as she had not been served before, he felt hurt and wounded at fetters which had not been placed upon such Kings as Charles I. and his sons. We wonder that a man so exalted and so superior, did not see that it was for future England that these laws were framed, for a time when perhaps a Prince not generous, and n.o.ble, and pure should be upon the throne.

William was silent, grave, cold, reserved almost to sternness. He had none of the qualities which awaken personal enthusiasm. He was one of those great leaders who are wors.h.i.+pped from afar. Besides, it is not an easy task to rule another's household. Benefits however great, reforms however wise, are sure to be considered an impertinence by some. Then-- there might be another "Restoration," and wary ambitious n.o.bles were cautiously making a record which would not unfit them for its benefits when it came. He lived in an atmosphere of conspiracy, suspicion, and loyalty grudgingly bestowed. But these were only the surface currents.

Anglo-Saxon England recognized in this foreign King, a man with the same race instincts, the same ideals of integrity, honor, justice and personal liberty, as her own; qualities possessed by few of her native sovereigns since the good King Alfred.

The expensive wars carried on against James and his confederate, Louis XIV., compelled loans which were the beginning of the National Debt.

That and the establis.h.i.+ng of the Bank of England, form part of the history of this reign.

In 1702 William died, and Mary having also died a few years earlier, the succession pa.s.sed to her sister Anne, who was to be the last Sovereign of the House of Stuart.

CHAPTER XI.

[Sidenote: Anne, Queen of England.]

William's policy had not been bounded by his Island Kingdom. It included the cause of Protestant Europe. An apparently invincible King sat on the throne of France, gradually drawing all adjacent Kingdoms into his dominion. When in defiance of past pledges he placed his grandson upon the vacant throne of Spain, and declared that the Pyrenees should exist no more, even Catholic Austria revolted, and beginning to fear Louis more than Protestantism, new combinations were formed, England still holding aloof, and striving to keep out of the Alliance. But that all-absorbing King had long ago fixed his eye upon England as his future prey, and when he refused to recognize Anne as lawful Queen and declared his intention of placing the "Pretender"

(illegitimate son of James) upon the throne, there could be no more hesitation. This Jupiter who had removed the Pyrenees, might wipe out the English Channel too! Hitherto the name Whig had stood for the adherents to the war policy, and Tory for its opponents. Now, all was changed. Even the stupid Anne and her Tory friends saw that William's policy must be her policy if she would keep her Kingdom.

[Sidenote: Marlborough.]

Fortunate was it for England, and for Europe at this time that a "Marlborough" had climbed to distinction by a slender, and not too reputable ladder. This man, John Churchill, who a few years ago had been unknown, without training, almost without education, was by pure genius fitted to become, upon the death of William, the guiding spirit of the Grand Alliance.

He had none of the qualities possessed by William, and all the qualities that leader had not. He had no moral grandeur, no stern adherence to principles. Whig and Tory were alike to him, and he followed whichever seemed to lead to success, and to the richest rewards. He was perfectly sordid in his aims, invincible in his good nature, with a careless, easy _bonhomie_ which captured the hearts of Europeans, who called him "the handsome Englishman." As adroit in managing men as armies, as wise in planning political moves as campaigns, using tact and diplomacy as effectually as artillery, he a.s.sumed the whole direction of the European war; managed every negotiation, planned every battle, and achieved its great and overwhelming success.

[Sidenote: "Battle of Blenheim, 1704."]

"Blenheim" turned the tide of French victory, and broke the spell of Louis' invincibility. The loss at that battle was something more than men and fortresses. It was _prestige_, and that self-confidence which had made the great King believe that nothing could resist his purposes. It was a new sensation for him to bend his neck, and to say that he acknowledged Anne Queen of England.

Marlborough received as his reward the splendid estate upon which was built the palace of "Blenheim." Then, when in the suns.h.i.+ne of peace England needed him no more, Anne quarrelled with his wife, her adored friend, and cast him aside as a rusty sword no longer of use. But for years Europe heard the song "Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre," and his awe-inspiring name was used to frighten children in France and in England.

His pa.s.sionate love for his wife, Sarah Churchill, ran like a golden thread of romance through Marlborough's stormy career. On the eve of battle, and in the first flush of victory, he must first and last write her; and he would more willingly meet 20,000 Frenchmen than his wife's displeasure! Indeed Sarah seems to have waged her own battles very successfully with her tongue, and also to have had her own diplomatic triumphs. Through Anne's infatuation for her, she was virtually ruler while the friends.h.i.+p lasted. But to acquire ascendancy over Anne was not much of an achievement.

It is said that there was but one duller person than the Queen in her Kingdom, and that was the royal Consort, George, Prince of Denmark.

Happy was it for England that of the seventeen children born into this royal household, not one survived. The succession, in the absence of Anne's heirs, was pledged to George, Elector of Hanover, a remote descendant of James I.

It was during Anne's reign that English literature a.s.sumed a new character. The stately and cla.s.sic form being set aside for a style more familiar, and which concerned itself with the affairs of everyday life. Letters showed with a mild splendor, while Steele, Sterne, Swift, Defoe and Fielding were writing, and Addison's "Spectator" was on every breakfast-table.

[Sidenote: Anne died, 1714.]

In the year 1714 Anne died, and George I, of the House of Hanover, was King of England,--an England which, thanks to the great soldier and Duke, would never more be molested by the intriguing designs of a French King, and which held in her hand Gibraltar, the key to the Mediterranean.

[Sidenote: House of Hanover, 1714. George I.]

King George I. was a German grandson of Elizabeth, sister of Charles I.

Deeply attached to his own Hanover, this stupid old man came slowly and reluctantly to a.s.sume his new honors. He could not speak English; and as he smoked his long pipe, his homesick soul was soothed by the ladies of his Court, who cut caricature figures out of paper for his amus.e.m.e.nt, while Robert Walpole relieved him of affairs of State. As ignorant of the politics of England as of its language, Walpole selected the King's Ministers and determined the policy of his Government; establis.h.i.+ng a precedent which has always been followed.

Since that time it has been the duty of the Prime Minister to form the Ministry; and no sovereign since Anne has ever appeared at a Cabinet Council, nor has refused a.s.sent to a single Act of Parliament.

[Sidenote: Whig rule.]

Such a King was merely a symbol of Protestantism and of Const.i.tutional Government. But this stream of royal dulness which set in from Hanover in 1714, came as a great blessing at the time. It enabled England to be ruled for thirty years by the party which had since the usurpation of James I. stood for the rights of the people. Walpole created a Whig Government. The Whigs had never wavered from certain principles upon which they had risen to power. There must be no tampering with justice, nor with the freedom of the press, nor any attempt to rule independently of Parliament. Thirty years of rule under these principles converted them into an integral part of the national life.

The habit of loyalty to them was so established by this long Government of the Whig party, that Englishmen forgot such things could be, that it was possible to infringe upon the sacred liberties of the people.

However much "Whig" and "Tory" have seemed to change since we first hear of them in the time of James I., they have in fact remained essentially the same; the Whigs always tending to limit the power of the crown, and the Tories to limit that of the people. At the time of Walpole the Tories had been the supporters of the Pretender and of the High Church party, the Whigs of the policy of William and Protestantism. Their predecessors were the "Cavaliers" and "Roundheads," and their successors to-day are found in the "Liberals"

and "Conservatives."

[Sidenote: South-Sea Bubble, 1720.]

There was at last peace abroad and prosperity at home. The latter was interrupted for a time in 1720 by the speculative madness created by the "South-Sea Bubble." Men were almost crazed by the rise in the value of shares from 100 pounds to 1,000 pounds; and then plunged into despair and ruin when they suddenly dropped to nothing. The suffering caused by this wreck of fortunes was great. But industries revived, and prosperity and wealth returned with little to disturb them again until the death of George I. in 1727; when another George came over from Hanover to occupy the English throne.

[Sidenote: Death of George, 1727.]

George II. had one advantage over his father. He did speak the English language. Nor was he content to smoke his pipe and entrust his Kingdom to his Ministers, which was a doubtful advantage for the nation. But his clever wife, Queen Caroline, believed thoroughly in Walpole, and when she was controlled by the Minister, and then in turn herself controlled the policy of the King, that simple gentleman supposed that he,--George II.,--was ruling his own Kingdom. His small, narrow mind was incapable of statesmans.h.i.+p; but he was a good soldier. Methodical, stubborn and pa.s.sionate, he was a King who needed to be carefully watched, and adroitly managed, to keep him from doing harm.

[Sidenote: The "Young Pretender." Culloden Moor, 1746.]

There was a young "Pretender" in these days (Charles Edward Stuart), who was conspiring with Louis XV., as his father had done with Louis XIV., to get to the English throne. We see him flitting about Europe from time to time, landing here and there on the British Coast--until when finally defeated at "Culloden Moor," 1746, this wraith of the House of Stuart disappears--dying obscurely in Rome; and "Wha'll be King but Charlie," and "Over the Water to Charlie," linger only as the echo of a lost cause.

[Sidenote: "Seven Years' War."]

There was a time of despondency when England seemed to be annexed to Hanover, following her fortunes, and sharing her misfortunes in the "seven years' war" over the Austrian succession, as if the Great Kingdom were a mere dependency to the little Electorate; and all to please the stubborn King. Desiring peace above all things England was no sooner freed from one entanglement, than she was plunged into another.

In India, the English "Merchant Company," chartered by Elizabeth in 1600, had expanded to a power. One of the native Princes, jealous of these foreign intruders in Bengal, and roused, it was said, by the French to expel them, committed that deed at which the world has shuddered ever since. One hundred and fifty settlers and traders, were thrust into an air-tight dungeon--an Indian midsummer. Maddened with heat and with thirst, most of them died before morning, trampling upon each other in frantic efforts to get air and water. This is the story of the "Black Hole of Calcutta;" which led to the victories of Clive, and the establishment of English Empire in India, 1757.

[Sidenote: British Dominion in India, 1757. Battle of Quebec, 1760.]

Two years later a quarrel over the boundaries of their American colonies brought the French and English into direct conflict. Gen.

Wolfe, the English Commander, was killed at the moment of victory in scaling the walls of Quebec. Montcalm, the French commander, being saved the humiliation of seeing the loss of Canada (1760), by sharing the same fate.

The dream of French Empire in America was at an end; and with the cession of Florida by Spain, England was mistress of the eastern half of the Continent from Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. So since the days of Elizabeth, and from seed dropped by her hand, an Eastern and a Western Empire had been added to that island Kingdom, whose highest dream had been to get back some of her lost provinces in France. Instead of that it was to be her destiny to girdle the Earth, so that the Sun in its entire course should never cease to s.h.i.+ne upon British Dominions.

[Sidenote: John Wesley.]

Side by side with the aspiration which uplifts a nation, there is always a tendency toward degradation, which can only be arrested by the infusion of a higher spiritual life. Strong alcoholic liquors had taken the place of beer in England (to avoid the excessive tax imposed upon it) and the grossest intemperance prevailed in the early part of this reign. John Wesley introduced a regenerative force when he went about among the people preaching "Methodism," a pure and simple religion. Not since Augustine had the hearts of men been so touched, and a new life and new spirit came into being, better than all the prosperity and territorial expansion of the time.

Walpole had pa.s.sed from view long before the stirring changes we have alluded to. A new hand was guiding the affairs of State; the hand of William Pitt.