and the Earl of Strafford, had actually held its first meeting at Utrecht on 29 Jan.
A suspension of arms was agreed to in Flanders in June, and again in August, 1712; and by the end of the year the opposition to the peace in England had become powerless. But the treaty of peace still awaited its conclusion, which was delayed above all by one obstacle, the continued presence of the Pretender in France. The question of the treatment which he was to receive had been a grave difficulty, the more so that both Louis XIV and Queen Anne had a personal interest in his welfare. But for her strong aversion from the religion professed by him, there can be no doubt that her sympathy would have been much warmer now (cf. Buckingham to Middleton in Original Papers, ii. 330). For her protestant feeling was by no means growing feebler as her years increased, though she may have failed to derive comfort from the prophecy of the Bishop of Worcester (Lloyd) made to her about this time (June 1712), that four years hence there would be a war of religion, when the King of France would be a protestant and fight on their side (Swift's Letters, i. 167). She was, however, greatly pleased when Hampden's motion for a joint guarantee in the treaty of peace of the Hanoverian succession was rejected by the commons (17 June) in favour of a general expression of confidence in her fidelity to the protestant succession itself (Smollett, ii. 237). But to what extent Queen Anne showed an interest at this time in her brother's future it is impossible to determine. In the so-called ‘Minutes of the Negotiations’ of Mesnager (210–326) a long and circumstantial account is given of his endeavours, with the aid of a person ‘near the queen’ (Lady Masham), to obtain the insertion in the treaty of peace of a secret clause which should relieve King Louis from the obligation of keeping his promise to recognise the succession of the House of Hanover beyond the lifetime of Queen Anne. It is here insinuated that the queen, who before Mesnager went to Utrecht caused him to be presented with her portrait set in diamonds, favoured the scheme, but that it was frustrated by the clumsiness of the agents of St. Germains in England. The story that the Abbé Gaultier had hoped by the sheer force of his eloquence to persuade the queen to resign the crown in favour of the chevalier must be taken for what it is worth. In October 1712 Gaultier certainly informed Torcy that Bolingbroke was interested in the prince and his future, provided that the queen's rights were not prejudiced, and that he was at the same time anxious to verify a rumour as to some of the whigs having eighteen months before taken steps in the same direction (Stanhope, 536, from letters in the archives of the French foreign office). There seems, however, no doubt that at St. James's, whatever may have been the thoughts and feelings of the queen and her ministers, fear sealed their lips towards one another on the subject of the Pretender (see Somerville, 582). But the immediate difficulty had been to induce him to leave France, so that he might not have to be expelled from its soil. He had begun his journey in September 1712; but it was not till 20 Feb. 1712–13, that he actually crossed into Lorraine. About the same time Bolingbroke in a vigorous despatch insisted that an end should at last be made of delay, and on 31 March the treaties of peace and commerce between France and Great Britain, as well as the French treaties with the other members of the grand alliance except the emperor, were at last signed at Utrecht.
The support given by Queen Anne to the tory ministry had materially contributed to the conclusion of the peace. In the remaining period of her reign the person of the sovereign was more than ever prominent in the calculations of politicians; yet it cannot be said that her conduct critically affected the struggle in progress around her. She continued to fulfil the duties of the throne as she conceived them, more especially interesting herself in ecclesiastical appointments. She compensated Dr. Smalridge for his former disappointment by raising him to the see of Bristol, vacated by Dr. Robinson on his translation to London; she refused a mitre to Swift, as he professed to believe through the ill offices of his ‘mortal enemies’ Sharpe of York and the Duchess of Somerset (April 1713); but consented to Atterbury being rewarded for ‘the flame he had raised in our church’ (Burnet) by the bishopric of Rochester and the deanery of Westminster (May). But though she interested herself as before in church and state, it was well known that her bodily condition was becoming more and more infirm, so that during the last two years of her life the state of her health was the cause of repeated alarms. In the spring and summer of 1712 a marked improvement had been thought observable in her health (Wentworth Papers, 287, 292, 297); but Swift reports a passing fear concerning her already in September of that year (Letters, i. 175), and in October and December he speaks of her as more or less suffering from the gout (ib. i. 178, 209). She was still ‘lame with the gout’ in February 1712–13 (ib. i. 243, 245);
