CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



except the possession of Gibraltar and Minorca, 

 the island of St Christopher, and the French 

 colony of Acadie or Nova Scotia. At the same 

 time the French king acknowledged Anne as 

 Queen of Great Britain, guaranteed the succession 

 of the House of Hanover, and engaged to make the 

 Pretender withdraw from the French dominions. 

 For the gratification of their High Church sup- 

 porters, the ministers obtained an act for prevent- 

 ing Dissenters from keeping schools, and another 

 for establishing church-patronage in Scotland, the 

 former of which was repealed in the following 

 reign. 



It is believed that Queen Anne and her Tory 

 ministers were in secret willing to promote the 

 restoration of the main line of the Stuart family, 

 and Harley and St John, who, from friends, had 

 become bitter rivals, are now known to have 

 intrigued for that purpose. But before any plan 

 could be formed, the queen fell ill, and died 

 (August I, 1714), not, however, before she had 

 shattered the hopes of Bolingbroke and the 

 friends of the Pretender by giving up the Treas- 

 urer's staff to the Duke of Shrewsbury, who had 

 taken a leading part in calling over the Prince of 

 Orange. The Electress Sophia being recently 

 dead, her son, George Louis, then Elector of 

 Brunswick-Liineburg, was proclaimed under the 

 title of GEORGE I. 



The reign of Queen Anne is not more distin- 

 guished by the wonderful series of victories gained 

 by Marlborough, than by the brilliant list of literary 

 men who then flourished. Alexander Pope stands 

 unrivalled in polished verse on moral subjects. 

 Jonathan Swift is a miscellaneous writer of singu- 

 lar vigour, and an extraordinary but ungenial kind 

 of humour. Joseph Addison wrote on familiar 

 life, and on moral and critical subjects, with a 

 degree of elegance before unknown. Sir Richard 

 Steele was a lively writer of miscellaneous essays. 

 This last author, with assistance from Addison 

 and others, set on foot the Toiler, Spectator, and 

 Guardian, the earliest examples of small periodical 

 papers in England, and which continue to this day 

 to be regarded as standard works. Cibber, Con- 

 greve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar were writers of 

 sparkling but essentially immoral comedy. In 

 graver literature, this age is not less eminent. Dr 

 Berkeley shines as a metaphysician ; Drs Sher- 

 lock, Atterbury, and Clarke as divines ; and 

 Bentley as a critic of the Roman classics. 



ACCESSION OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER 

 REBELLION OF 1715-16. 



Although the new sovereign allowed six weeks 

 to elapse before he came to this country, there was 

 no demonstration on the part of the Jacobites 

 against him. He was fifty-four years of age, 

 honest, well intentioned, and steadfast in his 

 political principles. He was totally ignorant of 

 the English language, and was passionately 

 attached to his native dominions. He imprisoned 

 his wife on a mere suspicion of her fidelity, while 

 his own private life was far from reputable. 

 Knowing well that the Whigs were his only true 

 friends, he at once called them into the adminis- 

 tration. A committee of the House of Commons 

 was appointed to prepare articles of impeachment 

 against Oxford, Bolingbroke, the Duke of Ormond, 

 and the Earl of Strafford. Bolingbroke, perceiv- 



158 



ing his life to be in danger, fled to the continent ; 

 and his attainder was in consequence moved and 

 carried by his rival Walpole. Ormond suffered a 

 similar fate. Oxford, after a protracted trial, was 

 only acquitted in consequence of a difference be- 

 tween the Lords and Commons. 



During the first year of King George, the Tories 

 kept up very threatening popular disturbances in 

 favour of High Church principles ; but the Whigs, 

 gaining a majority in the new House of Commons, 

 were able to check this a little by the celebrated 

 enactment called the Riot Act, which permits 

 military force to be used in dispersing a crowd, 

 after a certain space of time has been allowed. 



The more extreme Tories now resolved to 

 attempt bringing in the Pretender by force of arms. 

 The Earl of Mar, who had been a Secretary of 

 State in the late administration, raised his standard 

 in Braemar (September 6), without any commis- 

 sion from the Pretender, and was soon joined by 

 Highland clans to the amount of 10,000 men, 

 who rendered him master of all Scotland north 

 of the Forth. There, however, he permitted 

 himself to be cooped up by the Duke of Argyll, 

 who, with a far less numerous force, had posted 

 himself at Stirling. Mar expected support from 

 an invasion of England by the Duke of Ormond, 

 and a rising of the people of that country. But 

 the duke completely failed in his design, and no 

 rising took place, except in Northumberland, 

 where Mr Foster, one of the members of parlia- 

 ment for the county, and the Earl of Derwentwater, 

 with some other noblemen, appeared in arms, but 

 unsupported by any considerable portion of the 

 people. The government, although ill provided 

 with troops, sent such a force against Mr Foster 

 as obliged him, although reinforced by a detach- 

 ment from Mar's army, to retire into the town of 

 Preston, in Lancashire, where, after an obstinate 

 defence, the whole party (November 13) sur- 

 rendered to General Carpenter. On the same 

 day, the Earl of Mar encountered the Duke of 

 Argyll at Sheriffmuir, near Dunblane. The battle 

 was a drawn one, but, as Mar was unable to make 

 any further movement, it was practically a victory 

 for the royal troops. The Pretender himself 

 landed in Scotland later in the year, but find- 

 ing that he could do nothing, sailed back in 

 February 1716, with Mar, to France. For this 

 unhappy appearance in arms, the Earl of Der- 

 wentwater, Viscount Kenmure, and about twenty 

 inferior persons, were executed ; and forty Scottish 

 families of the first rank lost their estates. 



CHARACTER OF THE GOVERNMENT UNDER 

 GEORGE I. 



From the Peace of Utrecht, Britain remained 

 free from foreign war for nearly thirty years, 

 excepting that, in 1719, the ministry was called on 

 to interfere for the repression of an attempt on the 

 part of Spain to regain her Italian territories. A 

 Scotchman, named Law, who had become Con- 

 troller-general of France, and amused that country 

 with financial schemes, which at first promised to 

 enrich, but finally almost ruined the country, was 

 the means, in 1720, of inspiriting the British people 

 with a similar visionary project, called the South 

 Sea Scheme, This might be described as a joint- 

 stock company, professedly trading in the South 

 Seas, but chiefly engaged in a scheme for buying 



