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The legal duration of parliaments had been fixed by law to the term of three years; and as the ministers thought it unsafe to hazard a general election in the unsettled state of the country, a bill was brought in to extend the duration of parliaments to seven years; which has since remained the legal period between one general election and another, though in practice the term has seldom exceeded six years. This bill, which is called the Septennial Bill, received the high approbation of Lord Somers, the great constitutional lawyer.

The death of Louis XIV., in 1715, occasioned a long regency in France, under the Duke of Orleans, which was favourable to the continuance of peace; and the reign of George I. is unmarked by any foreign transactions of much importance. The king entered into alliance with the Regent of France, in order to oppose the ambitious designs of Cardinal Alberoni, at that time chief minister in Spain: and an English fleet, under Sir G. Byng, was sent (1718) to the Mediterranean, where it totally destroyed the Spanish fieet of twenty-seven sail of the line. An expedition under Admiral Hosier (1725) to the coast of Spanish America was less successful; but the Spaniards, on their part, failed in an attempt to recover the fortress of Gibraltar.

In England an amazing amount of distress was occasioned in the year 1720, by the failure of a scheme, which is usually known as the South Sea Bubble.

It was noticed in the reign of William III. that parliament determined to raise money on the public account by means of loans. This money had been borrowed of various mercantile companies; and a proposal was made to government by the South Sea Company, to pay off all their various debts, and thus become the sole national creditor. The government was to pay a lower rate of interest than before; and the South Sea Company was to raise the money for thus buying up the national debts, by opening a subscription to a scheme for carrying on a trade in the South Sea, of the profits of which a most extravagant notion was indulged. People came in crowds to subscribe, and many ventured all they had. The desire to obtain shares was such, that the original purchasers sold them for ten times as much as they had given. In a few months it was found

that the whole scheme was a delusion.

Thousands of fami

lies were reduced to beggary, and the trade of the country received a shock from which it did not quickly recover.

Notwithstanding the ease with which the Earl of Mar's rebellion had been put down, the Jacobites (or adherents of the Pretender) continued their machinations in his favour. In these designs Atterbury, bishop of Rochester, was supposed to be implicated; and he was, accordingly, deprived by the civil power of his see, and banished, in 1723. He was a man of much genius and learning, and had laboured to restore the convocation to its due place in the constitution; but the day of the power of that assembly had passed away. The beginning of its decline was the abandonment of the privilege of self-taxation by the Clergy in the time of Charles II.; but it survived as a body deliberating on the spiritual affairs of the Church until 1717. In that year, when it seemed likely that some difference would arise between the Upper House, or House of Bishops, and the Lower House, concerning a work of Hoadley, bishop of Bangor, it was prorogued, without being permitted to come to a decision. The Houses still meet at the commencement of every Parliament, but cannot proceed to act without the royal permission, which, for various reasons, has not been of late years accorded.

It has been already remarked that we cannot speak highly of the state of the Church generally during this reign. The bishoprics and other preferments were often regarded rather as political rewards than as offices of grave and solemn responsibility. But this statement admits some exceptions.

George had married the Princess Sophia of Zell; but his consort had long been confined at Alden, on a charge generally believed to be false. By this lady he was the father of the prince who succeeded him, and also of a daughter, married to the King of Prussia. His own court was disgraced by his connexion with a person whom he created Duchess of Kendal; nor was this the only instance of his laxity of principle in so important a part of his moral and religious duty. In 1727, the king set out on his usual visit to Hanover; but was taken ill, and died in his carriage, near Osnaburg, on the 11th of June. He was, on the whole, less unpopular with his English subjects than might have

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been expected, from his foreign origin, and his predilection for Hanover.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

GEORGE II.

Born at Hanover.

Buried in Westminster Abbey. Reigned
From A.D. 1727 to A.D. 1760.

33 years.

Archbishops of Canterbury.

William Wake, a.d. 1715-1737. | Matthew Hutton, A.D. 1757, 1758. John Potter, A.D. 1737-1747. Thomas Secker, A.D. 1758-1768. Thomas Herring,A.D. 1747—1757.

THE Prince of Wales, who succeeded his father as George II., was married to the Princess Caroline of Anspach, a lady of remarkable ability and discretion. To the time of her death (which occurred in 1737) she had considerable share in the government, especially during the king's frequent excursions to Hanover. It should also be mentioned that the Church is indebted, under God, to the discernment of Queen Caroline', for the advancement of Archbishop Secker, and of Bishop Butler, who was the author of the immortal work on "The Analogy of Natural and Revealed Religion to the Constitution and Course of Nature." At the time of the king's accession his eldest son Frederick, who then became Prince of Wales, was twenty years of age.

For a period of fifteen years, at the beginning of this reign, Sir Robert Walpole was the chief minister of the crown. He had been brought forward in the government in the late reign, and was a dexterous and successful minister. The kingdom enjoyed much tranquillity under his management of affairs, and such excitement as existed in the country found vent chiefly in parliamentary discussions on the national debt, and on the number of troops

1 The personal piety of Queen Caroline has been much questioned; and it has been doubted whether she did not value Bishop Butler rather as an able and acute reasoner, than as a man of religion. It is certain that she declined on her death-bed to receive the Holy Eucharist from the hands of the Archbishop of Canterbury; but whatever she may have been, her general measures were favourable to the Church.

maintained as a standing army in time of peace. In these trials of party strength, Walpole was opposed by Pulteney, his chief political rival, who long afterwards became minister himself, and Earl of Bath.

A dispute which arose on commercial grounds led to a declaration of war with Spain, in 1739, and eventually to the resignation of Walpole, who was created Earl of Orford on his retirement from the ministry. This war was carried on in the West Indies with little success. In the course of it Commodore Anson made his celebrated voyage round the globe; being the first Englishman who had achieved that voyage since the time of Drake.

In 1742 the country was again engaged in a continental war; in which England espoused the cause of Maria Theresa, queen of Hungary, who had been deprived of part of her dominions by the unprincipled aggressions of Frederick, king of Prussia. Frederick was supported by France, and the King of England was bound to succour the Queen of Hungary by the terms of a treaty called the Pragmatic Sanction, which guaranteed to the heirs-general of the Emperor Charles the succession to all his dominions. The king himself took the command of the troops which were sent to co-operate with the Austrians in Flanders, and gained the advantage over the French in the battle of Dettingen, 1743. In this battle the king displayed great spirit and courage. His son, the Duke of Cumberland, was defeated by the French about two years afterwards in the battle of Fontenoy. No king of England has commanded an army in person since the battle of Dettingen.

The year 1745 was remarkable also for the chief effort of the friends of the exiled family to recover the crown of England for the descendants of the Stuarts. Charles Edward, the Pretender's eldest son, a young man of prepossessing manners and person, was sent to the Highlands of Scotland; having obtained a sum of money and the promise of assistance from the King of France. He was joined by several of the Highland clans, and through the misconduct of the royalist general, was able to march to Edinburgh. The city opened her gates to him, and his father was proclaimed king. He took up his residence in Holyrood-house, the ancient palace of his ancestors; and at the battle of Preston-pans, near Edinburgh, com

pletely routed the troops sent against him under Sir John Cope. It was then resolved to march into England; and the young Chevalier de St. George (as the prince was generally called) advanced as far as Derby. Great consternation was felt in London: but division had already arisen among the Pretender's few adherents. He was joined by none of the English Jacobites; and found it necessary to give orders for a retreat to Scotland. He reached Carlisle without loss, and from thence proceeded to Glasgow. At Falkirk a gleam of success again shone upon his cause; but at the battle of Culloden, near Inverness, April 16, 1746, his army was hopelessly and completely routed. It is deeply to be lamented that this success of the lawful authority was afterwards disgraced by the most shocking cruelty. The young Chevalier had been joined by the Lords Strathallan, Lovat, Balmerino, Nairn, and others; of whom the greater number suffered on the scaffold. This severity was probably no more than was necessary; but the cruelties which were perpetrated in cold blood in the Highland valleys by the Duke of Cumberland's soldiers were disgraceful to him and to his cause.

The adventures of Charles Edward, after the battle of Culloden, remarkably resembled the perils which Charles II. encountered in his escape after the battle of Worcester, and were in the highest degree romantic and affecting. A reward of 30,000l. was set on the adventurer's head, and he was forced to assume every species of disguise. His secret was necessarily made known to many persons, but was kept with the most admirable fidelity, and he at length reached France in safety. Measures were adopted for preventing any similar revolt in the Highlands, by abolishing the power which the chieftains had possessed, of exercising a species of patriarchal sovereignty over their several clans. From this period we may consider that the hopes of the house of Stuart were completely crushed.

The outbreak of 1745 was the cause of much distress and hardship to those in Scotland who still adhered to their Bishops and episcopally ordained Clergy. Their communion had ever since the Revolution been suspected of Jacobite tendencies; and Acts had passed the Legislature on various occasions during the interval, of a discouraging character. Of the sovereigns who had suc

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