agree to unite with England. The Scotch people did not like to give up their independence; but their Parliament was bribed, it is said, to consent, and Scotland and England became one nation with a common flag and a common Parliament. The terms were that Scotland was to keep her own Established Church—the Presbyterian—and her own peculiar laws and courts. She was to send forty-five members to the House of Commons and sixteen elected peers to the House of Lords. Trade was to be free at home and abroad between the two peoples, and Scotland was to get a sum of money to make her coinage as good as that of England. The Union proved a great boon to both nations, although, for many years, the Scotch and English did not understand each other, and this led occasionally to bitter feelings.
5. Party Struggles.—While England and Scotland were settling their difficulties, the war against France was going on. In 1708, Marlborough defeated the French at Oudenarde and Lille; but the Allies lost ground in Spain after Peterborough was recalled. France was now greatly exhausted, and Louis again offered fair terms of peace, which the Allies would not accept, because Louis would not agree to help to drive his grandson out of Spain. The war again went on, and France at a great sacrifice put another large army in the field. In 1709, the Allies under Marlborough once more met the French and defeated them, this time at Malplaquet, in the north of France. The loss was very heavy on both sides; but the Allies suffered more than the French, and gained little by their victory.
The English had now become tired of the war, and they began to think that it was carried on to please Marlborough and the Whigs. What the people thought was shown very clearly when the Whig Government impeached Dr. Sacheverell for preaching a foolish sermon on ‘‘Divine Right” and the sin of resisting a rightful king. Had the Whigs been wise they would have paid no attention to Sacheverell; but they thought his sermon was an open attack on the right of Parliament to choose the sovereign, and so had Sacheverell tried before the Lords, who ordered his sermon to be burnt, and condemned him to cease preaching for three years. This made him a popular hero, and great crowds after the trial cheered him, rang the bells, and lit bonfires, to show their approval of his conduct, and their dislike of the Whigs.
