‘Some people,’ wrote Baron von STEINGHENGS to Count von der SCHULENBERG, on the 12th of May, ‘have been at work for a whole year to deprive the Lord Treasurer of the conduct of public affairs. I have been aware, almost from the beginning, of the different channels which have been made use of to carry this point. But I should never have expected that they would fire the mine before the end of this session, and I am much mistaken if the authors have not reason one day to regret their over-haste. For I do not know my man, if he does not cut out a good deal of work for them, particularly if a certain intrigue which is on the tapis succeeds. As for the rest, you may rely upon his sentiments; and he never succeeded in persuading those who doubted them more than by his declaration made in a full House on the 16th of last month on the question of danger to the Protestant succession, having in it given much greater hold upon himself than there was any need for, if he was not acting in good faith.... The party of the Hanoverian Tories has visibly been strengthened by it.’ [Sidenote: Von Steinghengs to Count von der Schulenberg, May 1⁄12 1714 (in Kemble’s _State Papers_, p. 493).] And to this the writer adds, in a postscript, ‘It is of extreme importance both for the Whigs and for the House of Hanover to take steps to keep him there, and to engage him by some sort of political confidence to be assured of his fortunes under that House.’ In another letter to the same correspondent, Baron von STEINGHENGS notes a fact which by many of our historians has been too much neglected. [Sidenote: Same to same, June 14 (Kemble, p. 507).] ‘To make the English Ministry,’ he wrote, ‘alone responsible ... for the exorbitant power which the Peace of Utrecht has given to France is ... to ignore entirely the incredible obstacles which the enemies of that Ministry threw, both at home and abroad, in the way of making the Peace such as it might have been.’ But although ‘the mine was fired’ before the end of May, July had nearly ended before the effectual explosion came. [Sidenote: OXFORD’S DISMISSAL AND THE QUEEN’S DEATH. 1714, July 27, August 1.] BOLINGBROKE’S triumph lasted exactly four days. ‘The Earl of OXFORD was removed on Tuesday. The Queen died on Sunday. What a world is this! And how does Fortune banter us!... I have lost all by the death of the Queen, but my spirit.’ Such were the words in which BOLINGBROKE announced to SWIFT his victory,—and its futility. In a few more days the spirit vanished, like the triumph. The victor was a fugitive. BOLINGBROKE’S hatred to OXFORD lasted to the close of his life. He survived his old comrade twenty-seven years. The final year of that long period brought no relenting thought, no spark of charitable feeling. [Sidenote: DID OXFORD CONSPIRE TO BRING BACK THE PRETENDER?]