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ered the old man's chamber, and shot him through the head. He fell down dead in the arms of his wife, who died next day distracted by the horror of her husband's fate. The Laird Auchingtrincken, Macdonald's guest, who had three months before this period submitted to the government, and at this very time had a protection in his pocket, was put to death without question. A boy of eight years, who fell at Campbell's feet, imploring mercy, was stabbed to the heart by one Drummond, a subaltern officer. Eight and thirty suffered in this manner, the greatest part of whom were surprised in their beds. The design was to butcher all the males under seventy that lived in the valley; but some of the detachments did not arrive soon enough to secure the passes, so that one hundred and sixty escaped.

Campbell having perpetrated this brutal massacre, ordered all the houses to be burned, made a prey of the cattle and effects that were found in the valley, and left the helpless women and children, whose fathers he had murdered, without covering, food, or shelter, in the midst of the snow that covered the whole face of the country; at the distance of six long miles from an inhabited place, distracted with grief and horror, surrounded with the shades of night, shivering with cold, and appalled with the apprehension of death from the assassins of their friends and kinsmen, they could not endure such a complication of calamities, but generally perished in the waste before they could receive the least comfort or assistance. Such was the Massacre of Glencoe, which fixes an indelible blot on the character of King William.*

DEATH OF WILLIAM III.

Burnet.

Though his constitution was exhausted, his death seems to have been a little accelerated by an accident. Riding to Hampton-court from Kensington his horse fell under him, and he himself was thrown upon the ground with such violence, as produced a fracture in his collar bone. On the fourth day of March he was so far recovered from his lameness, that he took several turns in the gallery at Kensington; but sitting down on a couch, where he fell asleep, he was seized with a shivering, which terminated in a fever and diarrhoea. Finding his end approaching, a commission was granted for passing the malt-tax bill and the act of abjuration; but being then too weak to write his name, he, in the presence of the

Glenlyon's niece was married to one of Glencoe's sons, and great friendship existed between the families. On the evening of the night of the massacre, Glenlyon was at his nephew's house playing cards, and an appointment was made for them all to dine at old Glencoe's the next day that very night the massacre began.

Judge Talfourd, in his noble tragedy of "Glencoe," thus terribly expresses the popular execration with which the fiend-like deed of Glenlyon is invested :

"Glenlyon,

I pray you may have life stretch'd out beyond

The common span of mortals, to endure
The curse of Glencoe cleaving to your soul."

lord-keeper and the clerks of parliament, applied a stamp pre pared for the purpose. The Earl of Albemarle arriving from Holland, conferred with him in private on the posture of affairs abroad; but he received his information with great coldness, and said "Je tire vers ma fin-I draw towards my end." In the evening he thanked Dr. Bidloo for his care and tenderness, saying--"I know that you and the other learned physicians have done all th your art can do for my relief; but finding all means ineffectual, I submit." He received spiritual consolation from Archbishop Tennison, and Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury; at five o'clock on Surday morning he desired the sacrament, and went through the ceremony with a great appearance of seriousness, but could not express himself. Between seven and eight o'clock he began to rattle in his throat, when the commendatory prayer was said for him; and as it ended he expired in the arms of Mr. Sewell, one of the pages of the back-stairs, in the fifty-second year of his age. The lords Lexington and Scarborough, who were in waiting, no sooner perceived the king was dead than they ordered Ronjat to untie from his left arm a black ribbon, to which was affixed a ring containing some hair of the late Queen Mary, which he had worn as a token of regard to her memory. The body being opened and embalmed, lay in state for some time at Kensington, and on the 12th April was deposited in a vault of Henry's chapel in Westminsterabbey. Kings of England, p. 181.

PERSON AND CHARACTER.

He was of middle stature, a thin body, and by reason of an immature birth of a delicate constitution, being subject from his infancy to a cough and asthma. He had an aquiline nose, a high forehead, sparkling eyes, and a grave solemn aspect. In courage, fortitude, and equanimity, he rivalled the most eminent warriors of antiquity; and his national sagacity made amends for the defects of his education. He was temperate, just, religious, and a stranger to violent transports of passion, a good man, and an illustrious sovereign, and will ever hold a place among the greatest princes recorded in the annals of time. Spencer, p. 544.

CHRONICLE.

1689, April 11. William and Mary crowned at Westminster. December 16. The BILL OF RIGHTS passed.* 1690, July 1. The Battle of the Boyne. 1691, October 3. Treaty of Limerick. 1692, May 19. Victory of La Hogue. July 24. The Battle of Steinhurk. 1693, July 12. The Battle of Landen. A new charter

* The most important articles in the Declaration of Rights are the following:The king cannot suspend the laws, or their execution-he cannot levy money with out consent of parliament-the subjects have right to petition the crown-a standing army cannot be kept in time of peace but by consent of parliainent--elections must be free, and parliaments frequently assembled, &c. &c.

Raymond's Metrical Chronicles, p. 168.

granted to the East India Company. 1694, December 28. Queen Mary died. 1698. A fire at Whitehall destroyed the whole building with the exception of the banquetting house. Chelsea Hospital, of which Charles the Second laid the first stone 16th Feb., 1682, was partly built during this reign, but was not finished until the reign of George II.

REIGN OF ANNE.

FROM 1702 TO 1714-12 YEARS, 4 MONTHS, 24 DAYS.

THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.

John Churchill, afterwards Duke of Marlborough, was second son of Sir Winston Churchill, of Wootton-Bassett, in Wiltshire, by Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Drake, of Ashe, in the parish of Masbury, in Devonshire. He was born at Ashe, the 24th of June, 1650. He was brought young to court, and made page of honour to the Duke of York, who, discovering his martial disposition, procured for him, at the age of sixteen, an ensign's commission in the guards. He went first to Tangier, and afterwards to France, and was soon distinguished by his military genius. When the Duke of York came to the crown, he was made lieutenantgeneral, and one of the gentlemen of the bed-chamber, and sent ambassador to France, to notify that prince's accession to the throne. On the 14th of May, 1685, he was created a peer of England, by the title of Baron Churchill, of Sandridge, in Hertfordshire. He contributed greatly by his conduct to defeat the insurrection of Monmouth, in the west; but finding James wholly intent on introducing popery and despotism, he thought himself freed from all his obligations to that monarch, and joined with the Whig and Tory lords to invite the Prince of Orange to come over to their assistance. Upon his leaving King James, he was declared lieutenant-general by the Prince of Orange, and as soon as he ascended the throne he was made gentleman of the bed-chamber, and created Earl of Marlborough.

His great power and influence under Queen Anne arose in part from the intrigues of his wife, Sarah Jennings. This lady was daughter of Richard Jennings, of Sandridge, in Hertfordshire, Esq., and lady of the bed-chamber to the queen. She is described as a woman of little knowledge, but of clear apprehension and sound judgment; a warm and hearty friend, violent and sudden in her resolutions, and impetuous in her manners. She was not much addicted to flattery, nor any mean compliances, and her power over the queen appeared rather the result of a high opinion her majesty entertained of her judgment, sincerity, and frankness. › The violence of her temper brought her husband into some serious! difficulties, which made Swift remark, that the duke was indebted

to her both for his rise and downfall. Pope's character of Atossa was designed for her; when these lines were shown to her grace, as if intended for the Duchess of Buckingham, she soon stopped the reader, and called aloud, "I cannot be so imposed upon-I see plainly enough for whom they were designed," and abused Pope for the attack, though she afterwards courted his friendship. As she advanced in years her temper became more irascible. It is related, that the duke being sick, and not liking the advice of his physician, she followed him down stairs, swearing bitterly, and made an attempt to pull off his periwig. Like her husband she was extremely avaricious. Her rapacity having rendered her unpopular, she gave Hooke, the Roman historian, £5,000 to write a book in her defence, containing an account of her connexion with the queen. She died in 1744, quite worn out with age and infirmities.

The great defect of the duke's character was his avarice, and some mercenary practices in which he was detected tarnished his military glories. In 1711, it was discovered that he had received an annual present of five or six thousand pounds from Sir Solomon Medina, a Jew, concerned in the contract for furnishing the army with bread; to have been gratified by the queen with ten thousand pounds a year, on pretence of procuring intelligence; and to have pocketed a deduction of two and a half per cent. from the pay of foreign troops maintained by England. It was alleged in his justification that these sums were only the ordinary perquisites of office, which had been received by his predecessors. The Commons, however, voted his conduct unwarrantable and illegal, and the Attorney-General was directed to prosecute him. With the exception of being implicated in these practices, he was undoubtedly the greatest man of his age. He united in his own character, in an eminent degree, all the qualities which form a courtier, a soldier, and a statesman. His person was lofty and well made; his features manly, yet beautiful; his looks gracious and open; his mien great, his parts quick; his memory faithful and exact; his penetration deep; his judgment solid; his courage undaunted. He knew the art of living in a court beyond any man in it. He caressed all people with a soft and obliging deportment, and was always ready to do good offices. He was ambitious, but free from haughtiness and ostentation. As a soldier, he was a man of the strictest honour, cool, vigilant, and indefatigable: on the day of battle he gave his orders with all the clearness and composedness imaginable, leading on his troops without hurry or perturbation, and rallying those who were disordered without abusive reproofs, which damp rather than animate the soldier's courage. As a statesman, he managed a variety of business, either single or in concert with the prime minister, with great dexterity, ease, and sufficiency. In council he was never supercilious or assuming, but could bear contradiction without passion, and by cool argumentation bring others over to his own opinion. To sum up the character of this great man, King William said of

him, that he had the coolest head and the warmest heart of any man he ever knew.

This upon the whole may be considered rather a favourable view of the duke's character, and a few more particulars may be necessary to enable the reader to form a just estimate of this extraordinary man.

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Lord Chesterfield, after admitting that his manner was absolutely irresistible, either by man or woman, says, that he was eminently illiterate, wrote bad English, and spelled still worse. Dean Swift, to whom he was opposed in politics, and who pursued him with a terrible satire after his death, says he was as as covetous as hell, and as ambitious as the prince of it. In one of his Examiners (No. 17) he makes it appear that in various grants on account of Woodstock, Blenheim, the Post-office grant, and other sources, he had received £540,000 of the public money. Indeed, his avarice was insatiable. A few anecdotes mentioned in the Biographia Britannica" will illustrate this trait in his character. When he was a boy, the first thing he did was to buy a box to pur his money in. The Duchess of Cleveland, the favourite mistress of Charles II. and the most handsome woman in England, struck by his personal appearance, when an ensign in the guards, gave him £5,000, with which he had the precaution to purchase a life annuity. It is related that he long time hesitated to have a pair of wet stockings cut off his legs, though the keeping them on endangered his life. On the eve of a great battle he was heard reproaching his servant for extravagance in lighting four candles. when Prince Eugene had come to confer with him. He is justly charged with protracting the war solely to fill his pockets out the plunder of the foreign troops, and other sources of emolument. These anecdotes sufficiently illustrate his rapacious disposition. He has been accused of forming a plan to betray James II. into the hands of William, but Burnet acquits him of this imputation. Having survived the decay of his mental faculties, he died in 1722, aged seventy-three. He left no male issue.

Kings of England, p. 184.

THE VICTORIES OF MARLBOROUGH.

The war of the succession, as it was called, lasted eleven years. Its chief theatre was the Netherlands, and there most of Marlborough's victories were gained. On the 13th of August, 1704, was fought the great battle of Blenheim, on the banks of the Danube, in Germany. The emperor being hard pressed by the French and their allies, Marlborough marched to his relief. He was joined by the imperial general, Prince Eugene of Savoy; and their united force amounted to about fifty-two thousand men ; while that of the enemy, under the Elector of Bavaria and the French Marshal Tallard, counted fifty-six thousand. The battle began at one o'clock in the afternoon and lasted till night, when it terminated in the total defeat of the enemy, whose loss in killed (including those

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