Note 342 — Chapter XVI · ON THE STATE OF THE CONSTITUTION IN THE REIGNS OF ANNE, GEORGE I., AND GEORGE II.
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"Lord Bolingbroke used to say that the restraining orders to the Duke of Ormond were proposed in the cabinet council, in the queen's presence, by the Earl of Oxford, who had not communicated his intention to the rest of the ministers; and that Lord Bolingbroke was on the point of giving his opinion against it, when the queen, without suffering the matter to be debated, directed these orders to be sent, and broke up the council. This story was told by the late Lord Bolingbroke to my father." Note by Lord Hardwicke on Burnet (Oxf. edit. vi. 119). The noble annotator has given us the same anecdote in the Hardwicke State Papers, ii. 482; but with this variance, that Lord Bolingbroke there ascribes the orders to the queen herself, though he conjectured them to have proceeded from Lord Oxford.