never came to her at the time she appointed; that he often came drunk; lastly, to crown all; that he behaved himself towards her with bad manners, indecency, and disrespect."
Bolingbroke was now prime minister, and he hastened to arrange his cabinet entirely on Jacobite principles. So far as he was concerned, the country was to be handed over to the pretender and popery on the queen's death. He would not run the risk of a new antagonist in the shape of a lord treasurer, but put the treasury in commission, with Sir William Wyndham at its head. The privy seal was given to Atterbury; Bromley was continued as the other secretary of state; and the earl of Mar, the rankest of Jacobites, was made secretary of state for Scotland. Ormonde, long engaged in the pretender's plot, was made commander-in-chief—a most significant appointment; Buckingham was made lord president, and Harcourt lord chancellor. As for the inferior posts, he found great difficulty in filling them up. "The sterility of good men," wrote Erasmus Lewis to Swift, "is incredible." Good men, according to the unprincipled Bolingbroke's notions, were not to be found in a hurry. There were plenty of candidates ready, but it may give an impressive notion of the state of that party, that there was scarcely a man beyond those already appointed that Bolingbroke could trust. The cabinet never was completed. What his own notions of moral or political honesty were, may be imagined from the fact that he did not hesitate to attempt a coalition with the whigs. He gave a dinner-party at his house in Golden Square to Stanhope, Walpole, Craggs, general Cadogan, and other leaders; but though Walpole, when minister himself, boasted that every man had his price, Bolingbroke had not yet discovered Walpole's price nor that of his colleagues. They to a man demanded, as a sine quâ non, that the pretender should be compelled to remove to Rome, or to some place much farther off than Lorraine, and Bolingbroke assured them that the queen would never consent to such a banishment of her brother. Nothing but the lowest opinion of men's principles could have led Bolingbroke to expect any other result from these whig leaders. Perhaps he only meant to sound their real views; perhaps only to divert public attention from his real designs, which the very names of his coadjutors in the ministry must have made patent enough to all men of any penetration. The very same day that he thus gave this whig dinner he assured Gualtier that his sentiments towards the king were just the same as ever, provided his majesty took such measures as would suit the people of England. Time only was wanting for this traitor-minister to betray the country to its old despotisms and troubles, but such time was not in the plans of Providence. The end of Anne was approaching faster than was visible to human eyes; but the shrewd and selfish Marlborough had a pretty strong instinct of it, and was drawing nearer and nearer to the scene of action, ready to secure himself whichever way the balance inclined. He was at Ostend, prepared to pass over at an hour's notice, and to the last moment keeping up his correspondence with the two courts of Hanover and Bar-le-duc. Both despised and suspected him, but feared him at the same time. Such was still his influence, especially with the army, that whichever party he adopted was considered pretty sure to succeed. That it was likely to succeed was equally certain before Marlborough did adopt it. Lockhart of Carnwath, one of the most active and sagacious Jacobites, and likely to be in the secrets of the Jacobite party, says that the pretender, to test the sincerity of Marlborough, asked the loan of one hundred thousand pounds from him, as a proof of his fidelity. He did not abide the test, but soon after offered twenty thousand pounds to the electoral prince, to enable him to come over to England. The moment that he was prepared, with his deep-rooted love of money, to do that, it might be certainly pronounced that he was confident of the success of the Hanoverians.
The agitation which the queen underwent on the night of the 27th, when she dismissed Oxford after a long and fierce altercation, produced a marked change in her health. The council was only terminated, having sate to consider who should be admitted into the new ministry, by the queen falling into a swoon. Being got to bed, she passed the night, not in sleep, but in weeping. The next day another council was held, but was again broken up by the illness of the queen, and was prorogued to the 29th of July. To Dr. Arbuthnot, her physician, Anne declared that the disputes of her ministers had killed her; that she should never survive it. Lady Masham, struck by the queen's heavy and silent manner, apprehended the worst. On the 29th, as the hour for the meeting of the council approached, Mrs. Danvers, an old and attached lady of the household, found, to her astonishment, the queen standing before the clock in the presence-chamber, gazing fixedly upon it. Alarmed at the appearance of the queen, Mrs. Danvers asked "whether her majesty saw anything unusual there in the clock?" Without answering the queen turned her eyes with such ghastly expression upon her, that the alarmed Mrs. Danvers called aloud for assistance, saying afterwards that "she saw death in that look." The queen was got to bed, when she was found by her summoned physicians in a high fever. The imposthume in her leg had been checked, and the gouty humour had flown to her brain. The next day she had an apoplectic attack; and the rumour of her approaching end getting out, the funds rose, but fell again on her being cupped, and to a degree recovering. This was a certain indication, whatever might be the personal regard for Anne, that her late policy had endangered the throne and the constitution, and that a little more of life to her might have been death to the liberties and religion of the nation. Bolingbroke and his Jacobite colleagues were thunderstruck by this sudden crisis. They assembled in council at Kensington, in a room not far from that of the dying queen, but they were so stupefied by the blow that they could do nothing. On the other hand, the whigs had been quite alert. Stanhope had made preparations to seize the Tower, to secure the persons of the ministers and the leading Jacobites, if necessary, on the demise of the queen; to obtain possession of the outports, and proclaim the king. A proof of this concert was immediately given by the dukes of Argyll and Somerset, who belonged to the privy council, but, of course, had not been summoned, suddenly entering the council chamber, stating that, hearing of the queen's critical position, they had hastened, though not summoned, to offer their assistance. No sooner had they said this, than the duke of Shrewsbury rose and thanked them for their courtesy. It was evident
