tween them ana the emperor,* yet he at length succeeded, though with very great difficulty, in appeasing, for the time, the jealousies between them and the cabinet of Vienna, and also in obtaining a public renewal of the alliance for the prosecution of the war. The publication of this treaty diffused the utmost satisfaction among the ministers of the allied powers assembled at the Hague; and this was further increased by the breaking off, at the same time, of a negotiation which had been pending for some months between Marlborough and the Elector of Bavaria, for a separate treaty with that prince, who had become disgusted with the French alliance. But all Marlborough's efforts failed to accomplish any adjustment of the disputed matter of the barrier, on which the Dutch were so obstinately set; and, finding them equally unreasonable and intractable on that subject, he deemed himself fortunate when he obtained the adjourning of the question, by the consent of all concerned, till the conclusion of a general peace. After the adjustment of this delicate and perilous negotiation, Marlborough returned to England, where he was received with transports of exultation by all classes. He was conducted in one of the royal 58. His return to England, and splendid reception there. carriages, amid a splendid procession of all the nobility of the kingdom, to Temple Bar, where he was received by the city authorities, who feasted him in the most magnificent manner at Vintners' Hall. Thanks were voted to him by both houses of Parliament; and when he took his seat in the House of Peers, the lord-keeper addressed him in these just and appropriate terms: "What your grace has performed in this last * "My inclinations will lead me to stay as little as possible at the Hague, though the pensionary tells me I must stay to finish the succession treaty and their barrier, which, should I stay the whole winter, I am very confident would not be brought to perfection; for they are of so many minds, and are all so very extravagant about their barrier, that I despair of doing any thing good till they are more reasonable, which they will not be till they see that they have it not in their power to dispose of the whole Low Countries at their will and pleasure, in which the French flatter them."-Marlborough to Godolphin, Oct. 29, 1706. COXE, iii., 79. campaign has far exceeded all hopes, even of such as were most affectionate and partial to their country's interest and glory. The advantages you have gained against the enemy are of such a nature, so conspicuous in themselves, so undoubtedly owing to your courage and conduct, so sensibly and universally beneficial to the whole confederacy, that to at tempt to adorn them with the coloring of words would be vain and inexcusable. Therefore I decline it, the rather because I should certainly offend that great modesty which alone can and does add luster to your actions, and which in your grace's example has successfully withstood as great trials as that virtue has met with in any instance whatsoever." The House of Commons passed a similar resolution; and the better to testify the national gratitude, an annuity of £5000 a year, charged upon the Post-office, was settled upon the duke and duchess, and their descendants male or female; and his dukedom, which stood limited to heirs-male, was extended also to heirs-female, "in order," as it was finely expressed, "that England might never be without a title which might recall the remembrance of so much glory." Jealousy against him arises among both the Whigs and Tories, but he prevails at court. So much glory, however, produced its usual effect in engen50. dering jealousy in little minds. The Whigs had grown envious of that illustrious pillar of their party; they were tired of hearing him called the just. Both Godolphin and Marlborough became the objects of excessive jealousy to their own party; and this, combined with the rancor of the Tories, who could never forgive his desertion of his early patron the Duke of York, had wellnigh proved fatal to him when at the very zenith of his usefulness and popularity. Intrigue was rife at St. James's. Parties were strangely intermixed and disjointed. Some of the moderate Tories were in power; many ambitious Whigs were out of it. Neither party stood on great public principles a sure sign of instability in the national councils, and tending to the ultimate neglect of the national interests. Harley's intrigues had become serious, and the prime minister, Godolphin, had threatened to resign. In this alarming juncture of domestic affairs, the presence of Marlborough produced its usual pacifying and benign influence. In a long interview which he had with the queen on his first private audience, he settled all differences; Godolphin was persuaded to withdraw his resignation; the cabinet was reconstructed on a new and harmonious basis; Harley and Bolingbroke were the only Tories of any note who remained in power; and these new perils to the prosecution of the war and the cause of European independence were removed. Great error quent policy Marlborough's services to England, and the interests of European freedom in this campaign, recall one 60. mournful feeling to the British annalist. All that in the subsehe had won for his country-all that Wellington, of England. with still greater difficulty, and amid yet brighter glories, regained for it, has been lost. It has been lost, too, not by the enemies of the nation, but by itself; not by an opposite faction, but by the very party over whom his own great exploits had shed such imperishable luster; not amid national humiliation, but at the height of national glory; not in faithfully defending, but in basely partitioning an ally. Antwerp, the first fruits of Ramillies-Antwerp, the last reward of Waterloo-Antwerp, to hold which against England Napoleon lost his crown, has been abandoned to France.* An English fleet has combined with a French army to tear from Holland the barrier of Dutch independence, and the key to the Low Countries. The barrier so passionately sought by the Dutch has been wrested from them, and wrested from them by British hands; a revolutionary power has been placed on the throne of Belgium, the theater of Ramillies and Malplaquet, of Oudenarde and Waterloo. Flanders, instead of the outwork of Europe against France, has become the outwork of France against Europe. The tricolor flag waves in sight of Bergen-op-Zoom; within a month after the first European * "If I could have made up my mind to give up Antwerp, I might have concluded peace at Chatillon."-Napoleon in LAS CASES. war, the whole coast from Bayonne to the Texel will be arrayed against Britain! Such is the way in which empires are ruined by the blindness of faction. It is in moments of domestic convulsion that irrevocable and fatal mistakes in policy are committed by nations, for it is then that the national are absorbed in the social passions, and durable public interests forgotten in passing party contentions. CHAPTER IV. CAMPAIGNS OF 1707 AND 1708.-BATTLE OF OUDENARDE, CAPTURE OF LILLE, AND RECOVERY OF GHENT. 1. experienced by France in the preceding campaign. THE campaign of 1707 opened under auspices very different to the allies from any which had preceded it: Great disasters Blenheim had saved Germany, Ramillies had delivered Brabant. The power of the Grand Monarque no longer made Europe tremble. The immense advantage which he had gained in the outset of the contest, by the declaration of the governor of Flanders for the cause of the Bourbons, and the consequent transference of the Flemish fortresses into his hands, had been lost. It was more than lost-it had been won to the enemy. Brussels, Antwerp, Menin, Ath, Ostend, Ghent, Dendermonde, Louvain, now acknowledged the Archduke Charles for their sovereign; the states of Brabant had sent in their adhesion to the Grand Alliance. Italy had been lost as rapidly as it had been won ; the stroke of Marlborough at Ramillies had been re-echoed at Turin; and Eugene had expelled the French arms from Piedmont as effectually as Marlborough had from Flanders. Reduced on all sides to his own resources, wakened from his dream of foreign conquests, Louis XIV. now sought only to defend his own frontier; and the arms which had formerly reached the gates of Amsterdam, and recently carried terror into the center of Germany, were now reduced to a painful lefensive on the Scheldt and the Rhine. 2. Appearance of of Sweden in These great advantages would, in all probability, notwithstanding the usual supineness and divisions of the allied powers, have insured them the most signal success in the next campaign, had not their atten- Germany. tion been, early in spring, arrested, and their efforts paralyzed, by a new and formidable actor on the theater of affairs. This was no less a man than CHARLES XII., KING OF SWEDEN, who, after having defeated the coalition of the northern sovereigns formed for his destruction, dictated peace to Denmark at Copenhagen, dethroned the King of Poland, and wellnigh overturned the empire of Russia, had now planted his victorious standards in the center of Germany, and at the head of an army fifty thousand strong, and hitherto invincible, had stationed himself at Dresden. There he had become the arbiter of Europe, and in a position to threaten the destruction of either of the parties engaged in the contest on the Rhine against whom he chose to direct his hostility. 3. This extraordinary man approached closer than any warrior of modern times to the great men of antiquity. More nearly than even Napoleon, he realized the His character. heroes of Plutarch. A Stoic in pacific, he was a Cæsar in military life. He had all their virtues, and a considerable share of their barbarism. Achilles did not surpass him in the thirst for warlike renown, nor Hannibal in the perseverance of his character and the fruitfulness of his resources; like Alexander, he would have wept because a world did not remain to conquer. Almost unconquerable by fatigue, resolute in determination, and a lion in heart, he knew no fear but that of his glory being tarnished. Endowed by nature with a dauntless soul, a constitution of iron, he was capable of undergoing a greater amount of exertion than any of his soldiers. At the siege of Stralsund, when some of his officers were sinking under the exhaustion of protracted watching, he desired them to retire to rest, and himself took their place. Outstripping his followers in speed, at one time he rode across Germany, almost alone, in an incredibly short space of time, |