Meanwhile the Minister played into the hands of his opponents by exhibiting great irresolution. He dallied and procrastinated with urgent business. He relaxed in his attention to the Queen. At an unwary moment he even gave her personal offence, the results of which were none the less bitter for the absence of design. He showed more concern about comparatively distant perils than about those which were close at hand. At the beginning of 1714 the best informed of the Jacobites had become fully convinced that OXFORD was their enemy. They saw, to repeat the words of the Duke of BERWICK, that he had been only keeping them in play. [Sidenote: OXFORD’S CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE COURT OF HANOVER.] But at the Court of Hanover he was far from being regarded as an assured friend. Over-subtlety had been rewarded with almost universal distrust. [Sidenote: 1714, April.] When in April of that year he sent to Hanover renewed protestations of fidelity, expressed in terms of unusual energy, they were looked upon by some of the Elector’s advisers as mere professions.[37] If now read side by side with contemporary documents, drawn up by secret emissaries of the Pretender, they acquire a stamp of sincerity which it is hard to doubt. To Baron WASSENAER DUYVENWORDE Lord OXFORD wrote thus:—‘I do in the most solemn manner assure you that, next to the Queen, I am entirely and unalterably devoted to the interests of His Electoral Highness of Hanover.... I am ready to give him all the proofs of my attachment to his interest, and to set in a true light the state of this country; for it will be very unfortunate for so great a Prince to be only Prince over a party, which can never last long in England.’ He then goes on to add that the one thing which would, under existing circumstances, imperil the Hanover succession is the sending into England of any member of that family without the Queen’s consent. Such an act would, in his judgment, ‘change the dispute to the Crown and the Successor, whereas now it is between the House of Hanover and the Popish Pretender.’ [Sidenote: Oxford to Wassenaer; MS. Sloane, 4107. (B. M.)] He repeated the advice in another and not less urgent letter, after the occurrence of the visit made to the Lord Chancellor HARCOURT by the Hanoverian Resident, to ask for a writ of summons for the Duke of CAMBRIDGE. But he also advised Queen ANNE to consent to the issue of such a writ. He was opposed by a majority of his colleagues, under the leadership of BOLINGBROKE, as well as by the persistent unwillingness of the Queen herself. It is instructive to read the comments on the political situation in England at this moment, of a German diplomatist resident in London (as Minister from the Elector Palatine) who was devotedly attached to the Hanoverian succession.