her secretary, Mr. St. John (created about this time Viscount Bolingbroke),[17] to tell Mons. de Torcy, “That no provocations whatever should tempt her to distress her allies; but she would endeavour to bring them to reason by fair means, or leave them to their own conduct:  That if the former should be found impracticable, she would then make her own peace, and content herself with doing the office of a mediator between both parties:  but if the States should at any time come to a better mind, and suffer their ministers to act in conjunction with hers, she would assert their just interests to the utmost, and make no farther progress in any treaty with France, until those allies received all reasonable satisfaction, both as to their barrier and their trade.”  The British plenipotentiaries were directed to give the same assurances to the Dutch ministers at Utrecht, and withal to let them know, “That the Queen was determined, by their late conduct, to make peace either with or without them; but would much rather choose the former.”

[Footnote 17:  Bolingbroke had understood that he would not lose rank on his promotion, from which he concluded that the earldom of Bolingbroke, extinct in his family, would be revived in his favour.  His indignation, however, was very keen when he was created only a Viscount.  He wrote to Strafford at Utrecht, that his promotion had been a mortification to him.  “In the House of Commons,” he said, “I may say that I was at the head of business. ...  There was, therefore, nothing to flatter my ambition in removing me from thence, but giving me the title which had been many years in my family, and which reverted to the Crown about a year ago, by the death of the last of the elder house. ...  I own to you that I felt more indignation than ever in my life I had done.” (Letter to the Earl of Strafford, July 23, 1712). [T.S.]]

There was, however, one advantage which Her Majesty resolved to make by this defection of her foreigners.  She had been led, by the mistaken politics of some years past, to involve herself in several guaranties with the princes of the north, which were, in some sort, contradictory to one another; but this conduct of theirs wholly annulled all such engagements, and left her at liberty to interpose in the affairs of those parts of Europe, in such a manner as would best serve the interests of her own kingdoms, as well as that of the Protestant religion, and settle a due balance of power in the north.

The grand article for preventing the union of France and Spain, was to be executed during a cessation of arms.  But many difficulties arising about that, and some other points of great importance to the common cause, which could not easily be adjusted either between the French and British plenipotentiaries at Utrecht, or by correspondence between Mons. de Torcy and the ministry here; the Queen took the resolution of sending the Lord Viscount Bolingbroke immediately