Different motives have been ascribed for the origin of this proceeding. The Queen’s private feelings were vehemently opposed to such a measure. Nothing could offend her more than any great degree of respect offered to her successor; and her good wishes were with sufficient reason supposed really to centre in another quarter. The kindly-tempered Anne had never forgotten that she had involuntarily injured her brother. The Hanoverian succession could not, therefore, be secured with any hope of pleasing her; and it was supposed rather to be a snare to her ministry, who, if they promoted it, would incur for ever the royal displeasure. The Duchess of Marlborough, observing in which direction her mistress’s affections lay, nevertheless had repeatedly urged her to invite over the Electress, or, at any rate, the young Prince of Hanover, afterwards George the First, in order that he might live in this country as her son; but to this proposal her Majesty never would listen for an instant.[56] The party who brought this measure into parliament, headed by Lord Rochester and Lord Nottingham, neither expected, nor even wished, it was said, to carry their motion, but either to embroil the Whigs with the Queen, or to draw the enmity of the bulk of the nation upon that party for opposing the scheme; for the Electress, although a Lutheran, was regarded as the protectress of the Protestant church; and the safety of the church was at that time dearer to the populace of England than any other political consideration whatsoever. The stratagem, for such it must be considered, failed entirely. It did more, it raised the Whigs to a height, which, but for the infatuation of their enemies, they would never, during the reign of Anne, have attained. Notwithstanding that, in voting against the invitation to the Electress, they departed from their principles, the Whigs, upon the plea that the measure was “neither safe nor reasonable,” contrived to keep their credit with the nation. They were split, nevertheless, into factions, upon this delicate subject; but those who were termed “Court Whigs” were zealous in their opposition to the proposed invitation.[57]