Bill of Pains and Penalties against Bishop Atterbury-Projected
Assassination of Sir Robert Walpole-Revival of the Order of the
Bath-Instance of George the First's good-humoured Presence of
Mind.
As this trifling work is a miscellany of detached recollections,
I will, ere I quit the article of George I., mention two subjects
of very unequal import, which belong peculiarly to his reign.
The first was the deprivation of Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester.
Nothing more offensive to men of priestly principles could easily
have happened: yet, as in a country of which the constitution was
founded on rational and liberal grounds, and where thinking men
had so recently exerted themselves to explode the prejudices
attached to the persons of Kings and churchmen, it was impossible
to defend the Bishop's treason but by denying it; or to condemn
his condemnation, but by supposing illegalities in the process:
both were vehemently urged by his faction, as his innocence was
pleaded by himself. That punishment and expulsion from his
country may stagger the virtue even of a good man, and exasperate
him against his country, is perhaps natural, and humanity ought
to Pity it. But whatever were the prepossessions of his friends
in his favour, charity must now believe that Atterbury was always
an ambitious, turbulent priest, attached to the House of Stuart,
and consequently no friend to the civil and religious liberties
of his country; or it must be acknowledged, that the
disappointment of his ambition by the Queen's death, and the
proscription of his ministerial associates, had driven on
attempts to restore the expelled family in hopes of realizing his
aspiring views. His letters published by Nichols breathe the
impetuous spirit of his youth. His exclamation on the Queen's
death, when he offered to proclaim the Pretender at Charing Cross
in pontificalibus, and swore, on not being supported, that there
was the best cause in England lost for want of spirit, is now
believed also. His papers, deposited with King James's in the
Scottish College at Paris, proclaimed in what sentiments he died;
and the facsimiles of his letters published by Sir David
Dalrymple leave no doubt of his having in his exile entered into
the service of the Pretender. Culpable -is he was, who but must
lament that so classic a mind had only assumed so elegant and
amiable a semblance as he adopted after the disappointment of his
prospects and hopes? His letter in defence of the authenticity of
Lord Clarendon's History, is one of the most beautiful and
touching specimens of eloquence in our language.
It was not to load the character of the bishop, nor to affect
candour by applauding his talents, that I introduced mention of
him, much less to impute to him -,my consciousnesses of the
intended crime that I am going to relate. The person against
whom the blow was supposed to be meditated never, in the most
distant manner, suspected the bishop of being privy to the
plot-No: animosity of parties, and malevolence to the champions
of the House of Brunswick, no doubt suggested to some blind
zealots the perpetration of a crime which would necessarily have
injured the bishop's cause, and could by no means have prevented
his disgrace.
Mr. Johnstone, an ancient gentleman, who had been secretary of
state for Scotland, his country, in the reign of King William,
was a zealous friend of my father, Sir Robert, and who, in that
period of assassination plots, had imbibed such a tincture of
suspicion that he was continually notifying similar machinations
to my father, and warning him. to be on his guard against them.
Sir Robert, intrepid and unsuspicious, (97) used to rally his
good monitor; and, when serious, told him that his life was too
constantly exposed to his enemies to make it of any use to be
watchful on any particular occasion; nor, though Johnstone often
hurried to him with intelligence of such designs, did he ever see
reason, but once, to believe in the soundness of the information.
That once arrived thus: a day or two before the bill of pains and
penalties was to pass the House of Commons against the Bishop of
Rochester, Mr. Johnstone advertised Sir Robert to be circumspect,
for three or four persons meditated to assassinate him as he
should leave the house at night. Sir Robert laughed, and forgot
the notice. The morning after the debate, Johnstone came to Sir
Robert with a kind of good-natured insult, telling him, that
though he had scoffed his advice, he had for once followed it,
and by so doing preserved his life. Sir Robert understood not
what he meant, and protested he had not given more credit than
usual. to his warning. "Yes," said Johnstone, "but you did; for
you did not come from the House last night in your own chariot."
Walpole affirmed that he did; but his friend persisting in his
asseveration, Sir Robert called one of the footmen, who replied,
"I did call up your honour's carriage; but Colonel Churchill
being with you, and his chariot driving up first, your honour
stepped into that, and your own came home empty."
Johnstone, triumphing on his own veracity, and pushing the
examination farther, Sir Robert's coachman recollected that, as
he left Palace-yard, three men, much muffled, had looked into the
empty chariot. The mystery was never farther cleared up; and my
father frequently said it was the only instance of the kind in
which he had ever seen any appearance of a real design.
The second subject that I promised to mention, and it shall be
very briefly, was the revival of the Order of the Bath. It was
the measure of Sir Robert Walpole, and was an artful bank of
thirty-six ribands to supply a fund of favours in lieu of places.
He meant, too, to stave off the demand for garters, and intended
that the red should be a step to the blue, and accordingly took
one of the former himself. He offered the new order to old
Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, for her grandson the duke, and for
the Duke of Bedford, who had married one of her grand-daughters.
(98) She haughtily replied, they should take nothing but the
garter. "Madam," said Sir Robert coolly, "they who take the bath
will the sooner have the garter." The next year he took the
latter himself with the Duke of Richmond, both having been
previously installed knights of the revived institution.
Before I quit King George I. I will relate a story, very
expressive of his good-humoured presence of mind.
On one of his journeys to Hanover his coach broke. At a distance
in view was the chateau of a considerable German nobleman. The
king sent to borrow assistance. The possessor came, conveyed the
king to his house, and begged the honour of his Majesty's
accepting a dinner while his carriage was repairing; and, while
the dinner was preparing, begged leave to amuse his Majesty with
a collection of pictures which he had formed in several tours to
Italy. But what did the king see in one of the rooms but an
unknown portrait of a person in the robes and with the regalia of
the sovereigns of Great Britain! George asked whom it
represented. The nobleman replied, with much diffident but
decent respect, that in various journeys to Rome he had been
acquainted with the Chevalier de St. George. who had done him the
honour of sending him that picture. "Upon my word," said the king
instantly, "it is very like to the family." It was impossible to
remove the embarrassment of the proprietor with more good
breeding.
(97) At the time of the Preston rebellion, a Jacobite, who
sometimes furnished Sir Robert with intelligence, sitting alone
with him one night, suddenly putting his hand into his bosom and
rising, said, "Why do not I kill you now?" Walpole starting up,
replied, "Because I am a younger man and a stronger." They sat
down again, and discussed the person's information But Sir Robert
afterwards had reasons for thinking that the spy had no intention
of assassination, but had hoped, by intimidating, to extort money
from him. Yet if no real attempt was made on his life, it was
not from want of suggestions to it: one of the weekly journals
pointed out Sir Robert's frequent passing a Putney bridge late at
night, attended but by one or two servants, on his way to New
Park, as a proper place; and after Sir Robert's death, the second
Earl of Egmont told me, that he was once at a consultation of the
Opposition, in which it was proposed to have Sir Robert murdered
by a mob, of which the earl had declared his abhorrence. Such an
attempt was actually made in 1733, at the time of the famous
excise bill. As the minister descended the stairs of the House
of commons on the night he carried the bill, he was guarded on
one side by his second son Edward, and on the other by General
Charles Churchill; but the crowd behind endeavoured to throw him
down, as he was a bulky man, and trample him to death; and that
not succeeding, they tried to strangle him by pulling his red
cloak tight-but fortunately the strings broke by the violence of
the tug.
(98) Wriothesly, Duke of Bedford, had married Lady Anne Egerton,
only daughter of Scroop, Duke of Bridgewater, by Lady Elizabeth
Churchill, daughter of John, Duke of Marlborough. See VOL. I. 8.