Marlborough: His Life and Times, Volume I (Winston Churchill's Marlborough Collection Book 1) by Winston S. Churchill

Author:Winston S. Churchill
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9780795329890
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 2014-03-06T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

MARLBOROUGH AND WILLIAM

1688–1690

The Prince of Orange had now become the effective military ruler of his new country; but there was no lawful Government of any kind. The Convention Parliament—assembled on the authority of the revolutionary junta—dived lustily into academic disputes, and the differences between the Whigs and the Tories, temporarily merged in their common danger, soon reappeared. Was the throne vacant? Could the throne ever be vacant? Was there a contract between the King and the people which James had broken? Had he abdicated by flight, or merely deserted? Could he be deposed by Parliament? Arising from all this, should William become Regent, governing in the name of the absent James? Should Mary become Queen in her own right? Had she not, in view of the virtual demise of the Crown, in fact already become Queen? Or should William be made sole King; or should William and Mary reign jointly; and if Mary died, should Anne forthwith succeed, or should William continue to reign alone as long as he lived? Both Houses, both parties, and the Church applied themselves to these lively topics with zest and without haste.

William’s aim from the first was to obtain the crown of England for himself alone. Until James’s flight he would have been content with any solution which brought England into the coalition against France; but thenceforward he saw no obstacle to his full ambition. Years before Burnet had earned William’s gratitude by inducing Mary to promise, should she succeed her father, that they should be joint-sovereigns. The Stadtholder now flew higher still. He intimated first that he would not be Regent, governing in the name and against the will of a dethroned sovereign with whom he would certainly be at war. “He had not,” he said, “come over to establish a Commonwealth or be a Duke of Venice.”223 Rather than that he would return to Holland. Mary’s rights were espoused by Danby, who had been disappointed that William had not landed in Yorkshire, and that his own share in the event had not been larger. He proposed that Mary should be Queen. William disposed of this idea by putting it about that he would not be “his wife’s gentleman-usher.” Through Bentinck, his Dutch confidant, he bid high for the sole kingship, with his wife but a consort. Burnet was staggered by this ingratitude to Mary. The idea of supplanting her in her lawful and prior rights caused widespread anger. William’s appetite found its only prominent supporter in Halifax. It was, in fact, the first shock to his popularity in England.

Churchill steered a middle course, at once independent and judicious, through these controversies. Like most of the Tories, he could not vote directly for the dethronement of James; but neither would he actively support the Tory proposal for a regency to which William objected so strongly. He stayed away from the critical division on January 29, and a regency was voted down by fifty-one to forty-nine. He voted later that James had “deserted”

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