But a schism within its own body was gradually undermining the ministry. Harley, undecided upon all points, and strongly bound by old ties to the Low Church and dissenting interest, could not throw himself heartily into the vigorous policy of Bolingbroke; he was, moreover, jealous of the ever-increasing importance of his energetic colleague. The Schism Act, a measure conceived in the most exclusive High Church spirit, brought their rivalry to a crisis. It enacted that no person should keep a public or private school, or act as tutor, unless a member of the Church of England, and licensed by his Bishop, thus in fact throwing the whole education of the country into the hands of the Church. Harley, bred a dissenter, and always relying much on the support of the Nonconformist bodies, could not give it his hearty support. With his usual indecision, he played fast and loose with the Bill. But he had lost the ear of the Queen, Bolingbroke and Mrs. Masham had supplanted him, and the favourite so played upon the Queen's High Church propensities, that, after a hot altercation in the Council before the eyes of the Queen, she was induced to dismiss the Lord Treasurer. [Sidenote: The Queen's death.] In the dismissal of his dilatory rival Bolingbroke saw the removal of the last obstacle to the completion of his schemes, and he was preparing to form a ministry wholly in the Jacobite interest, when the Queen's sudden illness upset all his plans. Had the matter come to the decision of arms, Marlborough, who had just returned from abroad, might, after the treatment he had received at the hand of the Tories, have been trusted to do his best for the Whigs. But, fortunately, the question was destined to meet with a peaceful solution. The Duke of Shrewsbury, in his time the leader of the Whigs of the Revolution, and subsequently guilty of treacherous correspondence with the Stuarts, continued his vacillating policy. The part he had taken in 1708, in persuading the Queen to rid herself of the Whigs, had given him the confidence of the Tory party. But he had never ceased to regret the one false step of his life, and was firmly attached to the Hanoverian succession. His position in the ministry enabled him for the time to become really master of the situation, and to thwart all the schemes of Bolingbroke. With this end in view he arranged a plan with the Dukes of Argyle and Somerset. As the Council was sitting to consider what steps to take in consequence of the Queen's illness, the two Dukes suddenly made their appearance, claimed their right as Privy Councillors, were by Shrewsbury's advice admitted, and at once proposed that the Queen, who had for the moment recovered consciousness, should be requested, in view of the coming crisis, to make the Duke of Shrewsbury Lord Treasurer. A deputation, of which the Duke was himself a member, went to her bedside, and persuaded her to give him the White Staff. Vigorous measures were at once taken. Troops