HARLEY’S wound was so severe that for several days there was a belief that it would prove mortal. It entailed a lingering illness.[36] Before his recovery, his assailant died in prison. The coroner’s inquest ascribed GUISCARD’S death to bruises received from one of the messengers who strove to bind him, but SWIFT tells us that he died of the sword-wounds. [Sidenote: _Journal to Stella_, pp. 202–214.] That keen observer had seen, long before this attempted assassination, the latent personal jealousies between HARLEY and ST. JOHN. [Sidenote: HARLEY BECOMES LORD HIGH TREASURER.] He had recognised in those jealousies the gravest peril of HARLEY’S government. GUISCARD’S crime had now made HARLEY the most popular man in the country, and it had doubled his favour with the Queen. On his recovery, he received the congratulations of the House of Commons, expressed with more than usual emphasis. [Sidenote: _Journals of H. of Commons_, 1711. 27 April.] By the Queen he was raised to the peerage (24 May, 1711) as Earl of OXFORD and Earl MORTIMER. Five days afterwards (29 May) he was made Lord High Treasurer. [Sidenote: _Council Register_, Anne, vol. v, p. 249.] His elevation intensified the jealousy of ST. JOHN into something which already closely resembled hatred, although years were to elapse before the mask could be quite thrown aside. It is amusing to read the philosophical reflection with which the Secretary sent the news to Lord OSSORY:—‘Our friend Mr. HARLEY is now Earl of OXFORD and High Treasurer. This great advancement is what the labour he has gone through, the danger he has run, and the services he has performed, seem to deserve. [Sidenote: St. John to Lord Ossory; 1711, 12 June (_Corresp._ i, 148).] But he stands on slippery ground, and envy is always near the great to fling up their heels on the least trip which they make.’ The Earl of OXFORD had not long obtained the Treasurer’s staff before he received some characteristic exhortations from the Jacobite section of his Tory supporters of the use which he ought to make of it. ATTERBURY came to him, on the part of some of the Treasurer’s ‘particular friends,’ to acquaint him how uneasy they were that he had neither dissolved the Parliament, nor removed from office nearly so many Whigs as those particular friends wished to see removed. ‘I know very well,’ replied the Earl, ‘the men from whom that message comes, and I am also very sensible of the difficulties I have to struggle with. If, in addition, I must communicate all my measures, it will be necessary for me to assure Her Majesty that I can no longer do her any service.’ [Sidenote: OXFORD AND THE OCTOBER CLUB.]