Excerpt from Report on the Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Portland, K. G., Preserved at Welbeck Abbey, Vol. 7: Presented to Both Houses of Parliament by Command of His Majesty The letters begin in the summer of 1710, and the first great political event noticed is the fall of the Whigs, and Robert Harley's advent to power; news so welcome at Oxford, that Stratford feared excess of joy might make vacancies amongst the headships (p. The only drawback, to the minds of the ardent Tories at Christ Church, was that Lord Chancellor Cowper was appointed Lord Lieutenant of the county of Hertford, which made them fear that the Queen meant to allow him to retain the Chancellorship, especially if Sir Simon Harcourt should refuse it. Dr. Stratford shrewdly suspected, however, that Harcourt's coy ness was only meant to raise the terms (pp. 11, 13) and perhaps it was so, for shortly afterwards he took the Great Seal. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.