and then let slip observations which showed that at bottom she really believed him to be so. It was on the ground of this conviction that she corresponded with him regarding his succession to the crown, and was only compelled to give up his claim because she could not bring him to abandon his attachment to popery. Amongst those who supported the claims of the pretender were her uncle Rochester, and marshal Tallard—still prisoner of war at Nottingham, and kept there by Louis on the understanding that he was more useful there as a secret negotiator than he would be anywhere else at the head of an army. Rochester, no doubt, fostered a hope that the pretender would see the necessity of preferring the crown of England to popery, and Louis, as well as the pretender, calculated much on Rochester's services with the queen, though, like her, he was an unswerving champion for the Anglican church. Louis testified this on hearing of Rochester's death, by exclaiming, "Rochester dead! then there is not a man of probity and counsel equal to him in the world."
Tallard still remained to advocate the claims of the pretender, and St. John was in the secret and went along with it; but the unfortunate rashness of Guiscard threw the advantage into Harley's hands, and enabled that minister to influence the mind of the queen sensibly on the subject of this secret negotiation. Guiscard, who was a man of fierce passions if not of a debauched life, had, notwithstanding his being a priest, been made colonel of a regiment of French refugees, who fought and were defeated at the unlucky battle of Almanza. He claimed reward, therefore, for his military services as well as for his secret agency betwixt the courts of France and England; and when Harley cut down his salary to four hundred pounds a year from six hundred pounds, and St. John could not, or would not, help him to redress, his impetuous temper made him ready to assassinate either St. John or Harley, or both. The stabbing of Harley finished the career of Guiscard, but there remained Tallard and Gualtier. Gualtier was at once chaplain to the imperial embassy and confessor to the countess of Jersey, who was a catholic, and had thus the fullest opportunities of discussing this topic with the queen. Tallard took infinite pains to establish, by papers and facts furnished to him from St. Germains, the legitimacy of the pretender; and used to startle those who contended that he was not related to the queen at all, by asking, "Why, then, should not the queen and the chevalier St. George marry, and thus unite the claims on the throne?" The natural start of horror on such a proposition immediately revealed the secret belief in all these personages that, after all, the queen and the pretender were brother and sister.
After the disgrace of Guiscard the abbé Gualtier became the agent of Harley for carrying on the proposals for peace with France. Gualtier was a man of very infamous life, but he was a more cautious and diplomatic man than Guiscard. He and Tallard urged on the pretender's claims to the last moment. So late as May of the present year 1711, the pretender addressed a long letter to queen Anne, to be seen in the Macpherson State Papers, in which, addressing her as his sister, he appeals to her by the natural affection which he bears her, and which he protests that their common father bore her till his death, to see him righted. He reminds her of her promises which she had made to her father on this head, and argues that, as he never would relinquish his just claims, the only way to prevent the continual excitement, disquietude, and wars injurious to the realm, is to admit his claim. And he concludes thus:—"And now, madam, as you tender your own honour and happiness, and the preservation and re-establishment of an ancient royal family, the safety and welfare of a brave people, who are almost sinking under present weights, and have reason to fear far greater, who have no reason to complain of me, and whom I must still and do love as my own, I conjure you to meet me in this friendly way of composing our differences, by which only we can hope for those good effects which will make us both happy, yourself more glorious than in all the other parts of your life, and your memory dear to all posterity."
The pretender offered to give all liberty to the church and to the dissenters, but he would not abandon his own religion. On reading this letter, the disappointed queen said to the duke of Buckingham—who had married her half sister, James II.'s natural daughter Catherine, by Catherine Sedley, and who was in her confidence—"How can I serve him, my lord? You well know that a papist cannot enjoy this crown in peace. Why has the example of the father no weight with the son?" Here she acknowledged that the pretender was the son of James. But she added—"He prefers his religious errors to the throne of a great kingdom; he must thank himself, therefore, for his exclusion." Still she begged Buckingham to try further to persuade him; it was in vain, and Anne gave up the hope of his restoration, and turned her whole mind to the conclusion of a peace including the protestant succession.
Gualtier was dispatched to Versailles secretly, and, to avoid detection, without any papers, but with full instructions relating to the proposals for peace. He introduced himself to De Torcy, the prime minister of Louis, and assured him that the English government was prepared to enter into negotiations for peace independent of the Dutch, whom De Torcy had found so immovable. This was delightful news to the French minister, who was overwhelmed with the necessities of France, which were come to that pass that peace on any terms or invasion appeared inevitable. In his own memoirs De Torcy says, that "to ask a French minister then whether he wished for peace, was like asking a man suffering under a long and dangerous malady whether he wished to be better." On being convinced that Gualtier was a bonâ fide agent of the English court, the French court was thrown into the most delightful astonishment. Gualtier told De Torcy that it was not necessary to commit himself by written documents on the matter; he had only to write a simple note to lord Jersey, saying that he was glad to have heard of his lordship's health through the abbé, and had charged him with his thanks; that this would give the English ministers to understand that their proposition had been favourably entertained, and that the negotiation would be gone into in earnest. De Torcy cannot express his surprise and delight at this wonderful overture at such a juncture, when Louis and France were brought to their knees, and, with a little farther pressing, must have sued for any decent terms. "This peace," he says in his memoirs,
