Meanwhile the insolence of the duchess of Marlborough
had lost her the queen's friendsliip, which was secretly
transferred to Abigail Hillf afterwards lady Masham, This
person, a poor relation of the duchess, who had procured
her a situation in the household, was devoted to the inte-
rests of Robert Harley, the secretary of state, whose in-
trigues so alarmed Marlborough and Godolphin, that, by
threatening to resign their places, they forced the queen to
dismiss him. Henry St, John\ the secretary at war, and
others of his party resigned their offices, and the ministry
now became exclusively Whig, a. d. 1708. In the same
year, Lewis XIV. was induced by the discontented state of
Scotland to send the Pretender thither with a fleet, 5000

* The right of appeal to the English house of lords purified the
administration of justice, which family influence had hitherto per-
verted.
' By opening the trade with England and her colonies. The way
in which the Scotch colony in the isthmus of Darien had been sacri-
ficed by William III. to the jealousy of England and Holland, had
roused the Scotch to make the Act of Security, a. d. 1704 ; which
provided that, unless conditions should be established to secure the
religion, trade, and independence of the nation, a Protestant, but not
the mine person who ihcUl succeed to the crown of England, should be
elected as sovereign on the queen's death.
^ Son of James II., by Arabella Churchill, Marlborough's sister.
His opponent, Ruvigny, like himself, was an exile, having been
obliged to leave France at the revocation of the edict of Nantes.
7 Neither Harley nor St. John were at that time true Tories. Both
had a puritanic education.
o 5



"298 HISTORY OP ENGLAND.
