d had settled the civil list
upon the queen for her life. When the bill received the royal assent,
she assured them that one hundred thousand pounds of this revenue should
be applied to the public service of the current year; at the same time
she passed another bill for receiving and examining the public accounts.
A commission for this purpose was granted in the preceding reign,
but had been for some years discontinued; and indeed always proved
ineffectual to detect and punish those individuals who shamefully
pillaged their country. The villany was so complicated, the vice so
general, and the delinquents so powerfully screened by artifice and
interest, as to elude all inquiry. On the twenty-fourth day of March the
oath of abjuration was taken by the speaker and members, according to an
act for the further security of her majesty's person, and the succession
of the crown in the protestant line, and for extinguishing the hopes
of the pretended prince of Wales. The queen's inclination to the
tories plainly appeared in her choice of ministers. Doctor John Sharp,
archbishop of York, became her ghostly director and counsellor in
all ecclesiastical affairs; the earl of Rochester was continued
lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and enjoyed a great share of her majesty's
confidence; the privy-seal was intrusted to the marquis of Normandy; the
earl of Nottingham and sir Charles Hedges were appointed secretaries
of state; the earl of Abingdon, viscount Weymouth, lord Dartmouth,
sir Christopher Musgrave, Grenville, Howe, Gower, and Harcourt, were
admitted as members of the privy-council, together with sir Edward
Seymour, now declared comptroller of the household. The lord Godolphin
declined accepting the office of lord high-treasurer, until he was
over-ruled by the persuasions of Marlborough, to whose eldest daughter
his son was married. This nobleman refused to command the forces abroad,
unless the treasury should be put into the hands of Godolphin, on whose
punctuality in point of remittances he knew he could depend. George,
prince of Denmark, was invested with the title of generalissimo of all
the queen's forces by sea and land; and afterwards created lord high
admiral, the earl of Pembroke having been dismissed from this office
with the offer of a large pension, which he generously refused. Prince
George, as admiral, was assisted by a council, consisting of sir George
Rooke, sir David Mitch el, George Churchill, and Richard Hill. Though