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CHAPTER XIV

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1707, 1708

DURING the whole of the year which succeeded that in which the glorious battle of Ramillies had been fought, our army made no movement of importance, much to the disgust of very many of our officers remaining inactive in Flanders, who said that his grace the captain-general had had fighting enough, and was all for money now, and the enjoyment of his five thousand a year and his splendid palace at Woodstock, which was now being built. And his grace had sufficient occupation fighting his enemies at home this year, where it begun to be whispered that his favour was decreasing, and his duchess losing her hold on the queen, who was transferring her royal affections to the famous Mrs. Masham, and Mrs. Masham's humble servant, Mr. Harley. Against their intrigues, our duke passed a great part of his time intriguing. Mr. Harley was got out of office, and his grace, in so far, had a victory. But her Majesty, convinced against her will, was of that opinion still, of which the poet says people are when so convinced, and Mr. Harley before long had his revenge.

Meanwhile the business of fighting did not go on any way to the satisfaction of Marlborough's gallant lieutenants. During all 1707, with the French before us, we had never so much as a battle; our army in Spain was utterly routed at Almanza by the gallant Duke of Berwick; and we of Webb's, which regiment the young duke had commanded before his father's abdication, were a little proud to think that it was our colonel who had achieved this victory. 'I think if I had had Galway's place, and my Fusiliers,' says our general, we would not have laid down our arms, even to our old colonel, as Galway did; and Webb's officers swore if we had had Webb, at least we would not have been taken prisoners.' Our dear old general talked incautiously of himself and of others; a braver or a more brilliant soldier never lived than he; but he blew his honest trumpet rather more loudly than became a commander of his station, and, mighty man of valour as he was, shook his great spear, and blustered before the army too fiercely.

Mysterious Mr. Holtz went off on a secret expedition in the early part of 1708, with great elation of spirits, and a prophecy to Esmond that a wonderful something was about to take place. This secret came out on my friend's return to the army, whither he brought a most rueful and dejected countenance, and owned that the great something he had been engaged upon had failed utterly. He had been indeed with that luckless expedition of the Chevalier de St. George, who was sent by the French king with ships and an army from Dunkirk, and was to have invaded and conquered Scotland. But that ill wind which ever opposed all the projects upon which the prince ever embarked, prevented the Chevalier's invasion of Scotland, as 'tis known, and blew poor Monsieur von Holtz back into our camp again, to scheme and foretell, and to pry about as usual. The Chevalier (the King of England, as some of us held him) went from Dunkirk to the French army to make the campaign against us. The Duke of Burgundy had the command this year, having the Duke of Berry with him, and the famous Mareschal Vendosme and the Duke of Matignon to aid him in the campaign. Holtz, who knew everything that was passing in Flanders and France (and the Indies for what I know), insisted that there would be no more fighting in 1708 than there had been in the previous year, and that our commander had reasons for keeping him quiet. Indeed, Esmond's general, who was known as a grumbler, and to have a hearty mistrust of the great duke, and hundreds more officers besides, did not scruple to say that these private reasons came to the duke in the shape of crown-pieces from the French king, by whom the generalissimo was bribed to avoid a battle. There were plenty of men in our lines, quidnuncs, to whom Mr. Webb listened only too willingly, who could specify the exact sums the duke got, how much fell to Cadogan's share, and what was the precise fee given to Doctor Hare.

And the successes with which the French began the campaign of 1708, served to give strength to these reports of treason, which were in everybody's mouth. Our general allowed the enemy to get between us and Ghent, and declined to attack him, though for eight-and-forty hours the armies were in presence of each other. Ghent was

taken, and on the same day Monsieur de la Mothe summoned Bruges; and these two great cities fell into the hands of

the French without firing a shot. A few days afterwards La Mothe seized upon the fort of Plashendall and it began to be supposed that all Spanish Flanders, as well as Brabant, would fall into the hands of the French troops; when the Prince Eugene arrived from the Mozelle, and then there was no more shilly-shallying.

The Prince of Savoy always signalized his arrival at the army by a great feast (my lord duke's entertainments were both seldom and shabby) and I remember our general returning from this dinner with the two commanders-inchief; his honest head a little excited by wine, which was dealt out much more liberally by the Austrian than by the English commander :- Now,' says my general, slapping the table, with an oath, he must fight; and when he is forced to it, d- it, no man in Europe can stand up against Jack Churchill.' Within a week the battle of Oudenarde was fought, when, hate each other as they might, Esmond's general and the commander-in-chief were forced to admire each other, so splendid was the gallantry of each upon this day.

The brigade commanded by Major-General Webb gave and received about as hard knocks as any that were delivered in that action, in which Mr. Esmond had the fortune to serve at the head of his own company in his regiment, under the command of their own colonel as major-general; and it was his good luck to bring the regiment out of action as commander of it, the four senior officers above him being killed in the prodigious slaughter which happened on that day. I like to think that Jack Haythorn, who sneered at me for being a bastard and a parasite of Webb's, as he chose to call me, and with whom I had had words, shook hands with me the day before the battle begun. Three days before, poor Brace, our lieutenant-colonel, had heard of his elder brother's death, and was heir to a baronetcy in Norfolk, and four thousand a year. Fate, that had left him harmless through a dozen campaigns, seized on him just as the world was worth living for, and he went into action, knowing, as he said, that the luck was going to turn against him. The major had just joined us a creature of Lord Marlborough, put in much to the dislike of the other officers, and to be a spy upon us, as it was said. I know not whether the truth was so, nor who took the tattle of our mess to head quarters, but Webb's regiment, as its colonel, was known

And if

to be in the commander-in-chief's black books: he did not dare to break it up at home,' our gallant old chief used to say, 'he was determined to destroy it before the enemy; so that poor Major Proudfoot was put into

a post of danger.

Esmond's dear young viscount, serving as aide de camp to my lord duke, received a wound, and won an honourable name for himself in the Gazette; and Captain Esmond's name was sent in for promotion by his general, too, whose favourite he was. It made his heart beat to think that certain eyes at home, the brightest in the world, might read the page on which his humble services were recorded; but his mind was made up steadily to keep out of their dangerous influence, and to let time and absence conquer that passion he had still lurking about him. Away from Beatrix, it did not trouble him; but he knew as certain that if he returned home, his fever would break out again, and avoided Walcote as a Lincolnshire man avoids returning to his fens, where he is sure that the ague is lying in wait for him.

We of the English party in the army, who were inclined to sneer at everything that came out of Hanover, and to treat as little better than boors and savages the Elector's court and family, were yet forced to confess that, on the day of Oudenarde, the young electoral prince, then making his first campaign, conducted himself with the spirit and courage of an approved soldier. On this occasion his electoral highness had better luck than the King of England, who was with his cousins in the enemy's camp, and had to run with them at the ignominious end of the day. With the most consummate generals in the world before them, and an admirable commander on their own side, they chose to neglect the councils, and to rush into a combat with the former, which would have ended in the utter annihilation of their army but for the great skill and bravery of the Duke of Vendosme, who remedied, as far as courage and genius might, the disasters occasioned by the squabbles and follies of his kinsmen, the legitimate princes of the blood royal.

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'If the Duke of Berwick had but been in the army, the fate of the day would have been very different,' was all that poor Mr. von Holtz could say; and you would have seen that the hero of Almanza was fit to measure swords with the conqueror of Blenheim.'

The business relative to the exchange of prisoners was

always going on, and was at least that ostensible one which kept Mr. Holtz perpetually on the move between the forces of the French and the Allies. I can answer for it, that he was once very near hanged as a spy by Major-General Wayne, when he was released and sent on to head quarters by a special order of the commander-in-chief. He came and went, always favoured, wherever he was, by some high though occult protection. He carried messages between the Duke of Berwick and his uncle, our duke. He seemed to know as well what was taking place in the prince's quarter as our own: he brought the compliments of the King of England to some of our officers, the gentlemen of Webb's among the rest, for their behaviour on that great day; and after Wynendael, when our general was chafing at the neglect of our commander-in-chief, he said he knew how that action was regarded by the chiefs of the French army, and that the stand made before Wynendael wood was the passage by which the Allies entered Lille.

Ah!' says Holtz (and some folks were very willing to listen to him), if the king came by his own, how changed the conduct of affairs would be! His Majesty's very exile has this advantage, that he is enabled to read England impartially, and to judge honestly of all the eminent men. His sister is always in the hand of one greedy favourite or another, through whose eyes she sees, and to whose flattery or dependants she gives away everything. Do you suppose that his Majesty, knowing England so well as he does, would neglect such a man as General Webb?. He ought to be in the House of Peers as Lord Lydiard. The enemy and all Europe know his merit; it is that very reputation which certain great people, who hate all equality and independence, can never pardon.' It was intended that these conversations should be carried to Mr. Webb. They were welcome to him, for great as his services were, no man could value them more than John Richmond Webb did himself, and the differences between him and Marlborough being notorious, his grace's enemies in the army and at home began to court Webb, and set him up against the all-grasping domineering chief. And soon after the victory of Oudenarde, a glorious opportunity fell into General Webb's way, which that gallant warrior did not neglect, and which gave him the means of immensely increasing his reputation at home. After Oudenarde, and against the counsels of Marlborough,