as sincerely as I shall do for his pardon at my last hour, that Mr. and Mrs. Morley may see their errors as to this notion before it is too late.’ The queen had read the word notion as nation (Coxe, ii. 152).) Explanation and (after a week's delay) a kind of apology from the queen followed; but though a letter from Marlborough respectfully represented the absolute necessity of employing the whigs if the war was to be vigorously carried on, the queen still held out against the appointment of Sunderland. She stated that she was still ‘always ready to be easy with Mrs. Freeman,’ but in truth a cloud had already settled upon the relation between them. These doings belong to the months from August to October (Coxe, ii. 138–158). On 20 Oct. the duchess had surpassed her previous efforts by a letter in which Mrs. Morley was desired to reflect ‘whether you have never heard that the greatest misfortunes that ever has happened to any of your family, has not been occasioned by having ill advice, and an obstinacy in their tempers’ (Private Correspondence, i. 152). But it was not till after an interview with Marlborough, who had returned to London on 18 Nov., that the queen at last gave way. On 3 Dec., the day fixed for the meeting of parliament, Sunderland was at last appointed secretary of state, Sir Charles Hedges being removed to make room for him. Some minor offices and peerages, or promotions in the peerage, were soon bestowed upon whigs; but the downfall of the high tories was most significantly marked by the removal from the privy council of Buckingham, Nottingham, and Rochester, together with Lords Jersey and Gower, and Sir George Rooke. The disgrace of the first two of these showed the excellence of the queen's memory; her relations with Rochester are more doubtful, but it is certain that he was hated by the duchess. Marlborough and Godolphin still seemed without rivals in the royal confidence. But though the relations of the queen to them and even to the duchess seemed unchanged—it was on 17 Dec. that a further favour was bestowed upon the house of Churchill by the extension of its ducal honours to the female line—Anne was not to forget that her ‘obstinacy’ had been overcome and her personal wishes affronted.
The year 1707, which added no military or naval glories to those of its predecessor, witnessed the accomplishment of the one great act of domestic statesmanship for which Queen Anne's reign is memorable. Her own concern with the act of union was mainly formal, and, as has been seen, Stuart though she was, but little love was lost between her and her Scottish subjects. Yet she was not wanting in a sense of what becomes a monarch in the great moments of a nation's life; and her royal assent to the act was given, on 6 March 1707, in a speech of excellent taste and feeling (Burton, Reign of Queen Anne, i. 350. The speech is cited by Stanhope, 279–80). As late as 27 May, Secretary Boyle writes to Lord Manchester that ‘the queen does not remove to Windsor till next month, having more business than is usual at this time upon the account of the union’ (Court and Society, iii. 223; for a narrative of the events in Scotland which preceded the union and proved its necessity see Burton, Reign of Queen Anne, iii. chap. vii.).
The strife of parties, which had fortunately not prevented the consummation of the union, was inevitably fed by the failure of the military operations of 1707. In this year (April) Marlborough indeed achieved a notable diplomatic success by securing, in the famous interview at Altranstedt, the neutrality of the dangerous hero, Charles XII of Sweden. But in Flanders the general's designs were again impeded by his Dutch allies, and frustrated by bad weather, while the south-west of Germany was falling back into French hands before the elector of Hanover had by Queen Anne's wish assumed the command. (His letter to the queen on this occasion, dated 26 Oct., is in Original Papers, ii. 95.) But the great reverse of Almanza had taken place at a much earlier date (25 April).
In the summer of 1707 the crisis in Queen Anne's personal relations began to announce itself to those most interested in their continuance. Marlborough, though aware of the ill feeling which existed between Harley and the whigs, had been slow to suspect him of any endeavour to insinuate himself into the queen's personal confidence by the arts of flattery and intrigue. The duke's own relations with the whig chiefs were by no means easy, and he had offended Halifax, who had been sent as envoy to Hanover, by thwarting his desire to be appointed a plenipotentiary for the peace negotiations which had been in prospect after the campaign of 1706. The queen was growing weary of the obligation of adapting her will to the counsel of her ministers. Her high-church opinions were her own, and she had always considered ecclesiastical appointments to be not merely nominally within her own bestowal. Her wish (ultimately baffled) to appoint instead of Dr. Potter (afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury) the high-church candidate, Dr. Smalridge, to the vacant chair of divinity at
