by thoughts of the work before him, he still bore up. In February 1702, when he was riding at Hampton Court, his horse fell over a mole-hill, the King was thrown, and broke his collar-bone; sinking under the shock, he died on the 8th March, in his fifty-second year. As Queen Mary had had no children, the Crown, according to the settlement made by the Declaration and Bill of Rights, passed to the Princess Anne of Denmark.

6. Legislation.-Chief among the statutes of this reign stands the Bill of Rights, which, after reciting the Declaration of the Convention, declared it, with some additions, to be law. The levying of money for the use of the Crown, without grant of Parliament, the keeping of a standing army in time of peace, unless by consent of Parliament, were herein declared illegal. The right of subjects to petition, of electors freely to choose their representatives, the right of the legislature to freedom of debate, the necessity of frequent parliaments, were affirmed. The methods by which in late years the administration of justice had been tampered with, the imposition of "excessive fines," the infliction of "cruel and unusual punishments," were condemned. The power, which James II. had illegally exercised, of dispensing with laws by regal authority was abolished; and a Roman Catholic, or any one marrying a Roman Catholic, was made incapable of wearing the Crown. The Toleration Act, though not affording complete religious liberty, gave enough to satisfy the mass of the Protestant Dissenters; Roman Catholics and deniers of the Trinity were excluded from its benefits. The oaths of allegiance and supremacy were replaced by new and simpler forms, that of supremacy consisting mainly of a renunciation of the Pope's authority. The first Mutiny Act gave the sovereign a temporary power of punishing mutiny or desertion by the special jurisdiction known as martial law. Similar Acts,

limited to a year's duration, are still the only means by which the Crown can legally keep an army. These statutes were all passed in the first year of William and Mary. In 1695 the press became free; hitherto nothing could be printed without the licence of an officer appointed by the government, but now this censorship was given up, and newspapers at once. made their appearance. In the next year was passed the Act for regulating of trials in cases of treason. Hitherto the law had placed those accused of high treason at great disadvantage, and before the Revolution such trials had often been little better than judicial murders; by this statute, among other provisions for securing the accused person a fair trial, it was enacted that he should have a copy of the indictment delivered to him five days before trial, and should be allowed to make his defence by counsel. The Act of Settlement, passed in 1701, settled the Crown, in default of heirs of Anne or of William, upon the granddaughter of James I. and daughter of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, the Princess Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and her heirs, being Protestants. There were other families nearer in the order of inheritance than the House of Hanover, but they were passed over as being Roman Catholic. Some articles were inserted in the Act of Settlement, to take effect only after the succession under the new limitation to the House of Hanover. Of these, two of the most important were, that whosoever should hereafter come to the possession of the Crown, should join in communion with the established Church of England; and that the judges should hold their offices during good behaviour, not, as formerly, at the royal pleasure. In the following year a statute was passed which imposed on members of parliament, civil and military officers, ecclesiastics, lawyers and others, an oath of abjuration, by which they abjured the title of "the pretended Prince of Wales," who had been proclaimed in

France as King James III. of England, and bound themselves to maintain the settlement made of the Crown.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

ANNE.

Anne; Prince George of Denmark; the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough (1)— War of the Spanish Succession; battles of Blenheim and Ramillies; taking of Gibraltar; the Earl of Peterborough; battle of Almanza Sir Cloudesley Shovell; battles of Oudenarde and Malplaquet (2)—the Union of England and Scotland (3)-rise of the Tories; Peace of Utrecht (4)death of Anne (5)—Queen Anne's Bounty (6)—the Dissenters (7).

1. Anne, 1702-1714.-Queen Anne was a kindhearted and well-meaning woman, rather slow of understanding and obstinate, though usually allowing herself to be led by those whom she liked. Her husband, Prince George of Denmark, of whom Charles II. said that he himself "had tried him drunk and sober, but there was nothing in him," was too insignificant in character to have any influence. From girlhood Anne had been ruled by the handsome and domineering Sarah Jennings, wife of Churchill; and so close was their friendship that they corresponded with each other under the names of Mrs. Morley and Mrs. Freeman, the latter being adopted by the favourite to denote her frankness. John Churchill, created Earl, and afterwards Duke of Marlborough, who within a week of Anne's accession was made Captain-General of the forces, was the ablest man of his time as a general and statesman, though he owed his favour with Anne chiefly to his wife's influence. Over him too Lady Marlborough's power was great. She had been a court beauty of slender fortune, with

whom Churchill had made a love-match-in this overcoming the greed of money of which he was always accused and his devotion to her proved lifelong. Brave, gentle, and of imperturbable serenity of temper, noted for the care and humanity, then unusual, which he showed towards prisoners of war, he was yet not free from the political faithlessness of the age. After having at the Revolution deserted James for William, he had been disgraced for treasonable intrigues with James; nevertheless William, foreseeing that he would be the moving spirit in the next reign, had afterwards given him high command, and employed him in negotiating foreign alliances. Though his wife now sided with the Whigs, who supported the late King's war policy, Marlborough himself passed for a Tory, and thereby gained increased influence with the Queen, who loved the Church and the Tories, whom she preferred to call "the Church party." In truth he belonged to no party, his main objects being that war should be declared, and that he should command the English forces. His policy therefore ran counter to that of the Tories, who thought that England ought as much as possible to confine herself to naval warfare, and not to undertake great military operations on the Continent. A dislike of armed interference in Continental politics, inherited from the time of William, continued to be a mark of a Tory until the French Revolution of 1789, when the course of European politics was changed, and the Tories in their turn became the warlike party.

2. War of the Spanish Succession.-King William's last work, a new alliance of England, Holland, and the Emperor against Louis XIV. and his grandson, survived him. This "Grand Alliance" was joined by many of the European powers, and war with France was soon afterwards declared, the Allies supporting the claim of the Archduke Charles of Austria

to the Spanish crown. Marlborough, in command of the allied English and Dutch forces, now entered upon that course of splendid achievements which gained him the high place he holds among generals. In his first campaigns in the Netherlands he was hampered by the interference of the Dutch authorities; but in 1704, leading his army into Bavaria, he joined his forces with those of the Emperor's general, Prince Eugene of Savoy, in whom he found an able and zealous ally. On the 2nd August, 1704, he won, in concert with Eugene, the great battle of Blenheim over the allied French and Bavarians under Marshal Tallard, who was there taken prisoner. After the main body of Tallard's army was routed, about 11,000 Frenchmen were surrounded in the village of Blenheim, and constrained to lay down their arms. The wreck of the French and Bavarian army retreated across the Rhine, and the fortunes of the French in Germany were ruined. The greatness of the success was not to be measured by its military results alone. For years men had looked upon Louis XIV. as well-nigh invincible; William himself had done little more than keep him in check. It was Marlborough who first turned the tide of French success, and broke the spell of victory. Marlborough, in reward of his services, received the crown land of Woodstock, upon which was afterwards built the Palace of Blenheim. His next two campaigns were mainly carried on in the Netherlands, where, on the 12th May, 1706, he won another great battle, that of Ramillies. But meanwhile the Allied arms had been less successful in the Spanish Peninsula, though the rock and fortress of Gibraltar, valuable as the key of the Mediterranean, were taken by Admiral Sir George Rooke and the Prince of Hesse-Darmstadt, and have ever since remained in the keeping of England. Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, a clever, eccentric man, who flew about the world, seeing, it was