4 - The Haymarket Theatre: A Whig Project

Summary

Malborough’s victory at Blenheim in August 1704 was a turning point in the war. To commemorate his victory, on 18 January 1705 Anne granted Marlborough the royal estate at Woodstock; here the nation would build a great house, Blenheim Palace, which would be designed by the Whig architect John Vanbrugh.

With the sitting of Parliament on 24 October 1704 came another attempt by extreme Tories to force passage of the Occasional Conformity bill by a measure called ‘The Tack’, ‘tacking’ it to the Land Tax bill, on which appropriation of money for the war depended. With the Queen’s support, the Tack was defeated in the Lords, antagonizing the Tories. Now alienated from High-Churchmen and Tories, Marlborough and Godolphin (the Duumvirs) were moving towards alliance with the Whigs, who were their best support for the war and union with Scotland.

In the bitterly fought General Election of May–June 1705, the Ministry threw its weight against the hot-headed Tories and Tackers, and Whigs hammered at all Tories without distinction. Anne indicated she welcomed Whigs to help realise her goal of moderation. A Tory election pamphlet, The Memorial of the Church of England (July 1705), a High-Church attack charging the Duumvirs and the Duchess of Marlborough with undermining the Church by encouraging the Whigs and placing them in office, so offended Anne with its implication the Church was in danger under her Ministry that persons distributing the pamphlet were taken up and jailed.

The election brought the parties to near-parity in the Commons, with Robert Harley leading the moderate Tories. Yet political controversy was disrupting Anne’s Ministry. The Queen would have to choose between the Duumvirs and Harley. In May 1705 the Whig Junto lords, insistent on placing more Whigs in office, began pressing the Queen to advance the young Whig leader Charles Spencer, Earl of Sunderland, Marlborough’s son-in-law, as secretary of state – a move resisted by Anne, who disliked both the Junto and Sunderland. Among young Whigs who did obtain government appointments, Robert Walpole came onto the Admiralty Board on 25 June 1705. The Queen was reluctant to make more changes; she was afraid that concessions to the Whigs, whose support was necessary to carry on the war, would alienate Tories, towards whom Harley urged the Queen.