(1728 to 1732.)
[Illustration: Drop-T]he Court of George II. opened the new year with
a reckless gaiety that reminds one of Whitehall in the time of Charles
II., as described by Evelyn. Twelfth Night was especially dissipated
in its character. There was a ball at St. James’s, and there were
numerous gaming tables for those who did not dance. The king and queen
lost 500 guineas at Ombre; the Earl of Sunderland, more than twice as
much. General Wade lost 800 guineas, and Lord Finch half that sum. The
winners were Lord William Manners, of 1,200 guineas; the Duchess of
Dorset, of 900 guineas; the Earl of Chesterfield, of 550 guineas. The
play was frantically pursued, and a madder scene could not have been
exhibited by the Stuarts themselves. ◆[Sidenote: _MIST’S JOURNAL._]◆
Mist’s Jacobite Journal referred sarcastically to the brilliant
dissipation. On the wit and repartee which duly distinguished a royal
masquerade at the opera-house, Mist made a remark by which he contrived
to hit the Parliament. ‘They may be looked upon,’ he said, ‘as a
Prologue to the Top Parts that are expected to be soon acted in another
place.’ The death of an honest Scotch baronet, named Wallace, gave
Mist another opportunity which he did not let slip. ‘Sir Thomas’ was
declared to be ‘a lineal descendant of the famous Sir William Wallace
of Eldersly, called the Restorer of the Liberties of Scotland, in whose
days our distressed country wanted not a worthy patriot to assert her
rights.’ On the anniversary of Queen Anne’s birthday, Mist eulogised
her as ‘that great and good Queen,’ praised the lovers of Justice,
Religion, and Liberty who kept the day; and added that she was the
zealous defender of all three, ‘and therefore dear to the memory of all
such whose hearts are _entirely English_.’ For less than this, men had
stood in the pillory. Edmund Curll, the publisher, was standing there
at this very time for nothing worse than publishing a ‘Memoir of John
Ker of Kersland.’ The times and the manners thereof were, the first,
miserable; the second, horrible. Robbery and murder were accounted for
‘by the general poverty and corruption of the times, and the prevalency
of some powerful examples.’ In June, the ‘wasp sting’ takes this form:
‘There is no record of any robberies this week;――_we mean, in the
street_.’
But for Mist, the general London public would have been ignorant of the
movements of illustrious Jacobites, abroad. In that paper, they read
of the huntings of the Chevalier de St. George and his boy, Charles
Edward. Lord North and Grey, now a ‘Lieutenant-General in the army of
England,’ and the Duke of Wharton, Colonel of the Spanish regiment,
‘Hibernia,’ with other honest gentlemen of the same principles, were
helping to make Rouen one of the gayest of residences. At a later
period, when Wolfe became the printer of this Jacobite ‘Weekly,’ and
changed its name to ‘Fog’s Journal,’ _canards_ were plentiful. The Duke
of Wharton is described as having opened a school in Rouen, with a
Newgate bird for an usher; Mist is said to have set up a hackney coach
in the same city; and all three are congratulated on being able to earn
a decent livelihood!
[Sidenote: _LOCKHART OF CARNWATH._]
A much more honourable Jacobite than any of the above, was this year
pardoned, namely, Lockhart of Carnwath; but, he was required by the
English Government to pass through London, and present himself to
the king. His return from exile was permitted only in case of his
obedience. On the other hand, Lockhart stipulated that he should be
asked no questions, and that he should be at full liberty to proceed
home, unmolested. Sir Robert Walpole agreed to these terms. Lockhart
left Rotterdam in May, and arrived safely in London.
[Sidenote: _GEORGE II. AND LOCKHART._]
King George seems to have had a curiosity to see a man who had been
plotting to set another in his place. ‘It was the more remarkable,’
says Lockhart, ‘in that he could not be persuaded or prevailed on to
extend it’ (his gracious disposition) ‘to others, particularly my Lady
Southesk, whose case was more favourable than mine; and so, to gratify
him by my appearing in his Court, I was obliged to come to London. This
was what did not go well down with me, and what I would gladly have
avoided, but there was no eviting it; and as others, whose sincere
attachment to the king’ (James III.) ‘had often preceded me on such
like occasions, I was under a necessity of bowing my knee to Baal, now
that I was in the house of Rimmon.’
Lockhart was kept waiting more than a fortnight for the interview.
During the whole of that time, he was ordered to keep himself shut
up in his house. Imagining he was to be put off, he boldly wrote to
Walpole that he might be sent back to Rotterdam. ‘Whereupon, he sent
for me next day, and introduced me to King George in his closet. After
a little speech of thanks, he told me with some heat in his looks that
I had been long in a bad way, and he’d judge, how far I deserved the
favour he had now shown me, by my future conduct. I made a bow and went
off and determined never to trust to his mercy, which did not seem to
abound.’
Lockhart, however, did trust to King George’s mercy, and to his honour.
He appeared in public, and was much questioned by Tories in private,
or at dinners and assemblies, as to the affairs of the so-called James
III. He told them just as much as he pleased to tell them. They knew
too much, he said, already; but they evidently thought the Jacobite
cause in a better condition than it really was. Lockhart adds the
strange fact that all the members of the Government received him with
great――Sir Robert Walpole with particularly great――civility. ‘Several
insinuations were made that if I would enter into the service and
measures of the Government I should be made very welcome. But I told
them that I was heartily weary of dabbling in politics, and wanted only
to retire and live privately at home.’
[Sidenote: _THE JACOBITE CAUSE._]
Lockhart lingered in London, only to hear how well-informed the
Government had been of his proceedings; they had read his letters, knew
his cyphers, employed his own agents, and had a spy at the Chevalier’s
side who enjoyed his confidence and betrayed it, for filthy lucre!
Lockhart suspected Inverness, but _he_ was doubtless not the _only_
agent. The old Jacobite began to despair of the cause. Above a dozen
years had elapsed since the outbreak of 1715, and while much had been
done, the activity had been employed on doing nothing. There was now no
party, and of course, no projects. Lockhart’s visit to London, where he
associated with Whigs and Tories, taught him a sad truth to which he
gives melancholy expression. ‘The old race drops off by degrees, and
a new one sprouts up, that, having no particular bias to the king, as
knowing little more of him than what the public newspapers bear, enter
on the stage with a perfect indifference, at least coolness, towards
him and his cause, which consequently must daily languish and, in
process of time, be totally forgot. In which melancholy situation of
the king’s affairs. I leave them in the year 1728.’
[Sidenote: _CHARACTER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS._]
George Lockhart admired neither the English people nor their
representatives in the House of Commons. Both he considered equally
ignorant of the nature of true liberty and the principle of honest
government. Speaking at one time of the members in Parliament
assembled, he observes,――‘Though all of them are vested with equal
powers, a very few, of the most active and pragmatical, by persuading
the rest that nothing is done without them, do lead them by the nose
and make mere tools of them, to serve their own ends. And this, I
suppose, is owing to the manner and way of electing the members; for,
being entirely in the hands of the populace, they, for the most part,
choose those who pay best; so that many are elected who very seldom
attend the House, give themselves no trouble in business and have no
design in being chosen, even at a great expense, but to have the honour
of being called Parliament men. On the other hand, a great many are
likewise elected who have no concern for the interest of their country,
and, being either poor or avaricious, aim at nothing but enriching
themselves; and hence it is that no assembly under Heaven produces so
many fools and knaves. The House of Commons is represented as a wise
and august Assembly; what it was long ago I shall not say, but in
our days, it is full of disorder and confusion. The members that are
capable and mindful of business are few in number, and the rest mind
nothing at all. When there is a party job to be done, they’ll attend,
and make a hideous noise, like Bedlamites; but if the House is to enter
on business, such as the giving of money or making of public laws, they
converse so loud with one another in private knots, that nobody can
know what is doing, except a very few who, for that purpose, sit near
the clerks’ table; or they leave the House and the Men of Business, as
they call them, to mind such matters.’
[Sidenote: _THE KING AND QUEEN._]
In 1728, royalty continued to exhibit itself in a manner which, now,
seems rather unedifying. On Sundays and Thursdays, in the summer, the
city sent curious multitudes to Hampton Court, to see their Majesties
dine in public. The sight-seers went freely into the gallery, where
a strong barrier divided them from the royalties at table. On all
occasions, the pressure against this barrier was immense; on one, it
gave way, when scores of ladies and gentlemen were sent sprawling at
the foot of the king’s table. Away went perukes and hats; for which
there was a furious scramble, with much misappropriation, more or
less accidental. While it lasted, king and queen held their sides and
laughed aloud, regardless of etiquette, or indeed, of becomingness; but
there was provocation to hilarity, when the worshippers were rolling
and screaming at the feet of the national idols.
One of the latter showed how little he was prejudiced against Jacobites
when they had qualities which outweighed their political defects.
Dr. Freind, the Jacobite physician, whom the Prince of Wales had
taken to St. James’s from the Tower, was, on the Prince’s accession
to the throne, appointed physician to the queen. The doctor did not
escape sneers and inuendoes from his old friends. ‘Dr. John Freind,’
writes Mr. Morrice (June, 1728), ‘is a very assiduous courtier, and
must grow so more and more every day, since his _quondam_ friends and
acquaintances shun and despise him; and whenever he happens to fall in
the way of them, he looks methinks very silly.’ ◆[Sidenote: _ATTERBURY
WEARY OF EXILE._]◆ Atterbury in exile, on hearing of Freind’s death,
in 1728, remarked: ‘I dare say, notwithstanding his station at Court,
he died with the same political opinions with which I left him.’ There
was a talk in London of Atterbury himself being at least weary of
exile. His later letters show some longing to die in his native land;
and Walpole seems to have been aware of the fact. In October 1728,
Atterbury’s son-in-law, Morrice, wrote to the bishop,――‘I was assured
near two months ago, that Sir Robert Walpole had given out that you
had entirely shaken off the affair of a certain person,――were grown
perfectly weary of that drooping cause, and had made some steps, by
means of the Ambassador at Paris, towards not being left out of the
General Act of Grace which, it is every now and then talked, will pass
the next Parliament; and that you desired above all things to come
home, and end your days in your own country.’ The next Parliament,
however, was not disposed to lenity.
In the king’s speech, on opening the Session in January, 1729, there
was no reference to the Pretender. The king, however, attributed
certain delays at the Courts of Vienna and Madrid to ‘hopes given from
hence of creating discontents and division’ among his subjects; but if
this hope encouraged these foreign Courts, ‘I am persuaded,’ said the
king, ‘that your known affection for me, and a just regard for your own
honour, and the interest and security of the nation, will determine
you effectually to discourage the unnatural and injurious practices
of some few who suggest the means of distressing their country, and
afterwards clamour at the inconveniences which they themselves have
occasioned.’ In the usual reply, the Lords lamented that the lenity
of the constitution was daily abused, and that the basest and meanest
of mankind ‘escape the infamous punishment due by the laws of the
land to such crimes.’ The Commons, after some debate, employed terms
equally strong. ◆[Sidenote: _THE PRINCE OF WALES AT CHURCH._]◆ The
Heir Apparent used the opportunity to illustrate his fidelity to the
Protestant succession. Prince Frederick, to convince all good people of
his Protestant orthodoxy, went a round of the London churches. He was
accompanied by a group of young lords and gentlemen of good character,
and, at this time, his reputation did not suffer by his being judged
according to the company he kept. On the occasion of his dissipated
church-going, the prince and his noble followers took the Sacrament in
public: the doors of the church, whichever it might be, were set wide
open, and the church itself was packed by a mob of street Whigs and
Tories, who made their own comments on the spectacle, which was not
so edifying and impressive as it was intended to be. Fog’s Jacobite
paper hinted that a family not a hundred miles from St. James’s was
split up with petty domestic quarrelling. The family, indeed, dined
together twice a week in public; but people were reminded that outward
appearances were exceedingly deceptive,――and sacramental partakings (it
was said) proved nothing.
[Sidenote: _THE MORALS AND MANNERS OF THE TIME._]
The papers of the year bear witness to the wickedness and barbarity of
all classes of people, of both sexes. Half the highwaymen and footpads
were members of his Majesty’s own guards. There was not a street or
suburb of London that was free from their violence and villany. Small
offences being as much a hanging matter as the most horrible crimes,
lawless men found it as cheap to be murderers as petty-larcenists; and
all looked to Tyburn as the last scene, in which they must necessarily
figure. Three or four of these fellows, behind old Buckingham House,
stopped the carriage of the Bishop of Ossory, who was on his way to
Chelsea with his son. They took from the prelate’s finger his episcopal
ring (of great value), and from his hand what seemed to be a pocket
book, but which was a Book of Common Prayer. When the highwayman who
held it saw that it was a Prayer Book, he handed it back to the bishop.
‘Had you not better keep it?’ said the prelate. ‘Thank you, no!’
rejoined the Pimlico Macheath, ‘we have no occasion for it at present,
whatever may be the case at some time hereafter.’ The time alluded
to was the hour of ‘hanging Wednesday,’ at Tyburn, when each patient
was provided with a Prayer Book, which he often flung at someone in
the crowd of spectators before he was pinioned. There was always a
great variety of company at the triple tree in Tyburn field, built to
accommodate a score. At a push a couple of dozen could be disposed
of on a very busy hanging morning. The sufferers ranged,――from the
most brutal murderers, men and women, down to timid pickpockets and
shy shoplifters, boys and girls, to all of whom the bloody code of
the time awarded the same measure of vengeance. The London mob were
almost satiated with Tyburn holidays. It was an agreeable change for
them to witness the public military funeral of old Mary Davis, who had
served, both as sutler and soldier, in our wars in Flanders. In her
later years, Mary kept a tavern in King Street, Westminster, bearing
the curious sign of ‘Man’s worst ills.’ The crowd there, and about St.
Margaret’s, where she was buried, was as great as at their Majesties’
coronation.
[Sidenote: _ATTERBURY, ON MIST._]
The press prosecutions of this year were few. A vendor of some reprints
of former very offensive numbers of Mist’s Journal lost his liberty
for a while; and a poor servant girl, for delivering to a caller (who
may have been a police agent) an obnoxious pamphlet, was sentenced to
imprisonment in Bridewell, there to receive ‘the correction of the
house,’――which meant a severe whipping.
No better proof of Atterbury’s sympathy with Mist and the enemies
of the established Government can be given than in the following
passage, from a letter written at Montpellier, in March, 1729-30. It is
addressed to Sempill, who was a favoured resident at the Chevalier’s
Court, but really a spy in the service of the Court in London.――‘I
shall be concerned if so honest a man as Mr. Mist should have any just
cause of uneasiness. His sufferings, that were intended to distress and
disgrace him, ought to render him in the eyes of those for whom he
suffered, more valuable; and I hope it will prove so that others may
not be discouraged.’
[Sidenote: _THOMSON’S ‘SOPHONISBA.’_]
During the next ten years Jacobitisin in the capital made no
manifestation, but the Whig poets were rather ostentatious in their
loyalty; and the royal family patronised them accordingly. For
instance, on the last day of February, 1730, Thomson produced at Drury
Lane his tragedy, illustrating the virtue of patriotism, namely,
‘Sophonisba.’ The queen herself had attended the full-dress rehearsals,
at which crowded audiences were not so much delighted as they were told
they ought to be. However, the notice the queen condescended to take
of this essay to keep alive the virtue of patriotism, led the author
to dedicate it to Caroline. In that dedication the poet informed both
Whigs and Jacobites that the queen ‘commands the hearts of a people
more powerful at sea than Carthage, more flourishing in commerce than
those first merchants, more secure against conquest, and under a
monarchy more free than a commonwealth itself.’ In the prologue it was
said of Britain,――
When freedom is the cause, ’tis her’s to fight,
And her’s, when freedom is the theme, to write.
In the play Mrs. Oldfield splendidly illustrated the spirit of
patriotism, in the part of the heroine. Cibber acted the subordinate
part of _Scipio_, in which he suffered at the hands of the Jacobites.
These had not forgotten the offence in his ‘Nonjuror;’ and joining,
hilariously savage with the critics who laughed at Cibber in tragedy,
they hissed him off the stage and out of the part on the second night.
Williams, a moderately good player, succeeded him as _Scipio_, and
he, on the third night, looked so like the ultra-Whig actor, that
the Jacobite spectators received him with groans and hisses, which,
however, speedily turned to laughter and applause.
[Sidenote: _CIBBER MADE POET LAUREATE._]
But Colley had his reward. The zeal he had displayed against Jacks
and Nonjurors, by producing his famous comedy, now obtained its
recompense, and his sufferings their consolation. In 1730, Cibber was
appointed to the office of Laureate, with its annual butt of sack, or
the equivalent, 50_l._ Every Jacobite who could pen a line, printed it
against the laurelled minstrel. Apollo himself was pressed into the
Nonjuring faction:――
‘Well,’ said Apollo, ‘still ’tis mine,
To give the real laurel,
For that, my Pope, my son Divine,
Of rivals end the quarrel.
But, guessing who should have the luck
To be the Birth-day fibber,
I thought of Dennis, Tibbald, Duck,
But never dreamed of Cibber.’
The year was one fruitful in plays; but it was observed that when nuts
are plentiful, they are generally of poor quality; so it was with the
plays of 1730. They are all clean forgotten, including ‘Sophonisba’
itself,――the epilogue to which tragedy had this advice to ladies who
patronised foreign productions:――
To foreign looms no longer owe your charms,
Nor make their trade more fatal than their arms,
Each British dame who courts her country’s praise,
By quitting these outlandish modes, might raise
(Not from yon powder’d band, so thin, so spruce)
Ten able-bodied men, for public use.
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE HEARNE._]
There was much meanness in the ill feeling of the Jacobites at even
the little mischances that happened to the royal family. On a dark
evening in November, the king and queen were returning from Kew to St.
James’s, their footmen and grooms carrying torches. A storm of wind
blew out the torches, and at Parson’s Green the carriage and its royal
freight was overturned. Lord Peterborough’s people came to the rescue,
with flambeaux, and the royal pair went on to town with nothing worse
than an assortment of bruises. Such accidents were kindly attributed to
the drunkenness of servants, but that bitter Jacobite Hearne thought
that the mistress, if not the master, could be as drunk as they. Here
is a sample of both thought and expression.――‘The present Duchess
of Brunswick, commonly called Queen Caroline,’ says Hearne, in his
‘Reliquiæ,’ ‘is a very proud woman, and pretends to great subtlety and
cunning. She drinks so hard that her spirits are continually inflamed,
and she is often drunk. The last summer, she went away from Orkney
House, near Maidenhead (at which she had dined), so drunk that she was
sick in the coach all her journey, as she went along;――a thing much
noted.’
[Sidenote: _A JACOBITE THREAT._]
The Tories, on their side, were savagely mauled by the Whig press.
The old Jacobite fire of Earbery was thereby inflamed, especially by
the attacks on the old Tories in the ‘Craftsman.’ The former Stuart
champion, who, in 1717, fled the country to avoid the consequences of
publishing his ‘History of the Clemency of our English Monarchs,’ but
whose sentence of outlawry was reversed in 1725, gave the ‘Craftsman’
warning, in the following advertisement, which was in the ‘Evening
Post,’ of September 26, 1730,――‘Whereas the “Craftsman” has, for some
time past, openly declared himself to be a root and branch man, and
has made several unjust and scandalous reflections upon the family of
the Stuarts, not sparing even King Charles I., this is to give notice,
that if he reflects further upon any ONE of that line, I shall shake
his rotten Commonwealth principles into atoms. _Matthias Earbery._’ The
writer kept his word in his ‘Occasional Historian.’
To decline to take the oath of abjuration was still a very serious
matter, involving not merely temporary loss, but life-long professional
ruin. Pope had a nephew, Robert Rackett, whose position affords a
striking illustration of these Jacobite times. The story is thus
told by Pope himself, in a letter to Lord Oxford, Nov. 16, 1730: ‘It
happens that a nephew of mine, who, for his parents’ sins and not
his own, was born a papist, is just coming, after nine or ten years’
study and hard service under an attorney, to practise in the law.
Upon this depends his whole well-being and fortune in the world, and
the hopes of his parents in his education, all which must inevitably
be frustrated by the severity of a late opinion of the judges, who,
for the major part, have agreed to admit no attorney to be sworn the
usual oath which qualifies them to practise, unless they also give
them the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. ◆[Sidenote: _DIFFICULTIES
IN PROFESSIONAL LIFE._]◆ This has been occasioned solely by the care
they take to enforce an Act of Parliament, in the last session but
one, against fraudulent practices of attornies, and to prevent men
not duly qualified as attornies from practising as such. It is very
evident that the intent of the Act is in no way levelled at papists,
nor in any way demands their being excluded from practising more than
they were formerly. Therefore, I hope the favour of a judge may be
procured, so far as to admit him to take the usual attorney’s oath,
without requiring the religious one.’ Pope hopes one of the judges will
be good-natured enough to do this, and he suggests Judge Price for Lord
Oxford’s manipulation. ‘In one word the poor lad will be utterly undone
in this case, if this contrivance cannot be obtained in his behalf.’
Lord Oxford applied, not to Price, but to ‘Baron C.’ (Carter or Comyns,
as Mr. Elwin suggests). This judge, says Pope (Dec. 1730), ‘showed him
what possible regard he could, and lamented his inability to admit any
in that circumstance, as it really is a case of compassion.’ Ultimately
the obstacle seems to have been surmounted. Within a few months of
half a century later, Pope’s nephew died in Devonshire Street, London,
where he had ‘clerks’ in his employment. ‘He had, therefore,’ says Mr.
Elwin in a note to the letter from which the above extract is taken,
‘managed to make his way in some line of business.’
[Sidenote: _DEATH OF DEFOE._]
In the year 1731 died a popular and political writer, in the
announcement of whose death neither his popular works nor his
provocating agency in the service of Government is referred to. The
event is thus recorded in Read’s ‘Weekly,’ for May 1st, 1731: ‘A few
days ago died Mr. Defoe Sen., a person well known for his numerous
and various writings. He had a great natural genius and understood
very well the Trade and Interest of this Kingdom. His Knowledge of
Men, especially of those in High Life, with whom he was formerly very
conversant, had weakened his Attachment to any Party, but in the Main,
he was in the Interest of Civil and Religious Liberty, in behalf of
which he appeared on several remarkable Occasions.’
[Sidenote: ‘_FALL OF MORTIMER._‘]
In the month of July the Government began to look sharply after
political offences on the stage. At the Haymarket Theatre, an
historical tragedy, called ‘The Fall of Mortimer,’ was announced; and,
in the announcement the Ministry saw an attack on Walpole, and probably
on the queen. The grand jury of the County of Middlesex delivered a
long ‘presentment’ to the Court of King’s Bench, in which the new
play was described as ‘a false, infamous, scandalous, seditious, and
treasonable libel, written, acted, printed, and published against the
peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his crown and dignity.’ It is
not clear that the play was ever more than rehearsed. On the night it
was to have been regularly acted, a body of messengers and constables
rushed through the stage door in order to make capture of the players.
These were attired, and ready for the curtain to go up; Mullart, as
_Mortimer_, stood plumed and gallant at the centre of the stage. At
the first alarm, however, he and his mates took to flight, decked out
as they were, and succeeded in escaping. This play, which some thirty
years later was again turned to political purpose, grew out of the
brief fragment and the sketched-out plot of a play designed by Ben
Jonson. In the few lines he wrote, there are the following against
upstarts and courtiers. These were held to be adverse to Walpole’s
peace as well as the king’s. For example:――
Mortimer
Is a great Lord of late, and a new thing!
* * * * *
At what a divers price do divers men
Act the same things. Another might have had
Perhaps the hurdle, or at least the axe,
For what I have this crownet, robes, and wax.
There is a fate that flies with towering spirits
Home to the mark, and never checks at conscience.
* * * * * We
That draw the subtle and more pleasing air
In that sublimed region of a Court,
Know all is good we make so, and go on,
Secured by the prosperity of our crimes.
This matter passed over. A press war sprang up in another direction.
[Sidenote: _DUELS AND SERMONS._]
Lord Hervey published a pamphlet called, ‘Sedition and Defamation
Displayed.’ An anonymous author speedily followed it up by ‘a Proper
Reply to a late scandalous libel, called “Sedition and Defamation
displayed.”’ Hervey challenged William Pulteney, the reputed author
of the Proper Reply. The parties fought in the new walk in the upper
part of St. James’s Park. Their respective friends, Sir John Rushout
and Henry Fox looked on, while the adversaries made passes at each
other; but, when they closed, the seconds rushed in, parted, and
disarmed them. A little plaister was all the remedy required to cover
all the damage done by a few scratches on Lord Hervey’s person.
Pulteney’s name, however, was struck out of the Council Book, and he
was ignominiously put out of the commission of the peace.
The royal family proceeded to show that there was no prejudice on
their part against the noble art of printing. A printing press and
cases were put up at St. James’s House (as the old palace used to be
called), and the noble art of printing was exhibited before their
majesties. The future victor of Culloden, the Duke of Cumberland,
worked at one of the cases. He set up in type a little book, of which
he was the author, called ‘The Laws of Dodge Hare.’ The duke, at this
time, also took lessons in ivory-turning, which was considered to be
a ‘most healthful exercise.’ Generally on Sunday, while the king and
queen were in the Chapel Royal, one of the Bishop of London’s chaplains
preached to the young Duke and the Princesses Mary and Louisa in his
royal highness’s apartment! As his royal highness had recently stood
godfather, in person, to the son and heir of Lord Archibald Hamilton,
he was supposed to be of importance enough to be thus preached to. The
young princesses were thrown in to make up a juvenile congregation.
Very much seems to have been made of the young duke this year, as if he
had a mission to perform. A little establishment was set up for him,
and he became a ‘personage.’ The papers solemnly proclaimed how the
Duke of Cumberland appeared in public, for the first time, with his own
coach and livery servants. He paid a visit to Sir Robert Walpole, in
Arlington Street, and went afterwards to Major Foubert’s Riding House
(on the site of what is now called Major Foubert’s Passage, Regent
Street), and there received his first lesson in riding.
The only manifestation of party feeling this year was made by the
citizens of London. A subscription had been entered into for the
casting of a statue of William III. When it was executed, the city,
influenced by Jacobite feeling, refused to receive it. Bristol was more
loyal. The citizens there bought the effigy that London despised, and
William soon stood erect in the midst of Queen Square.
[Sidenote: _YOUNG LORD DERWENTWATER._]
Among the miscellaneous chronicling of the year, there is one made by
most of the Saturday papers to this effect: ‘Yesterday, Friday, August
19th, the Lord Derwentwater arrived at his house in Poland Street, from
France.’ This was John, the late earl’s only son. He came to London
to consult Chiselden, the great physician. He was hopelessly ill of
dropsy; and a double sympathy attracted crowds of Jacobites to resort
to Poland Street to manifest their respect for the suffering son of
one of the martyrs to the cause of the Stuarts.
[Sidenote: _A STANDING ARMY._]
When in 1732 the National Defences became a serious matter for
consideration, the Jacobites affected to think that an army of 12,000
men would suffice for the protection of the realm. The Whigs insisted
that at least 17,000 would be required for its defence. The London
Whig papers asserted that 4,000 men would have all their work to do in
keeping Scotland quiet. The fortified towns of England would require
2,000 men. The remainder would not be sufficiently strong in numbers,
for sudden emergencies, if the total was only to be 12,000. Such
insufficiencies would leave many places without defence. This would
encourage Risings. Open insurrection would lead to foreign invasion,
with the Pretender at the head of it. The wind that would bring over
his hostile fleet would shut up our own in our harbours. Why had
Jacobitism increased tenfold in the last four years of Queen Anne?
Because the High Priests had been unmuzzled, and the necessary forces
had been disbanded. The Preston Rebellion, as the outbreak of 1715 was
contemptuously called, would never have happened at all if we had had
17,000 men under arms. As it was, it was crushed not by the bravery or
ability of our troops and officers, but by the incapacity and timidity
of the rebels themselves. So ran Whig comments in Parliament.
Unless the Government in London were sure that there were as many
majorities in all Corporations against the Chevalier’s pretensions as
there were ‘in certain places against King William’s statue,’ the
administration was conjured to keep up the numbers of the army. While
the Jacobites had hopes, England must entertain fears. Had Louis XIV.
lived a few months longer, a French army would have been in full march
to seat the Chevalier on a throne at Westminster. The Regent, Duke
of Orleans, did not help the Pretender, simply because he needed our
alliance against Spain which refused to recognise his Regency.
[Sidenote: _THE DUKE’S GRENADIERS._]
At home there was a seeming fixed determination that the Duke of
Cumberland _should_ be a soldier, and be trained to the ability
necessary to meet future emergencies. The youthful prince had military
inclinations. That military spirit was stimulated by the formation of
a company of youthful grenadiers out of a dozen sons of persons of
quality. Their dress resembled the uniform of the 2nd Foot Guards. ‘His
Royal Highness the Duke,’ say the journals of the day, ‘diverts himself
with acting as corporal, choosing to rise regularly in Preferment. The
number being but twelve, is to be increased.’ Fog’s Jacobite journal
says maliciously,――‘increased in case of War.’
Observance of the solemn anniversary of the 30th of January used to be
considered as a protest that all parties might make against ‘the sin of
rebellion.’ However this may be, reverence for the Royal Martyr seems
to have suffered some diminution in the year 1732.
[Sidenote: _GENERAL ROGUERY._]
When Dr. Hare, Bishop of Chichester, preached before the House
of Lords, in the Abbey, on the 30th of January, the only peers
present were the Lord Chancellor, Lord Onslow, and the Bishops of
Peterborough, Lincoln, Lichfield and Coventry, St. David’s, and
Rochester. The sermon was thoroughly political. The text was from
Proverbs xxiv. 21, ‘My son, fear thou the Lord and the king: and meddle
not with them that are given to change.’ The sermon was described
as ‘most extraordinary; the preacher vindicated the King’s honour
and sincerity in his concessions to the Parliament;’ and he insisted
strongly on the uses of ‘keeping up the day.’
Later, the Jacobites found some little satisfaction in the smart
reprimand delivered by the Speaker of the House of Commons to Sir John
Eyles, for directing the secretary of the Commissioners for the sale
of forfeited estates to set his name to an order for the disposal of
the Earl of Derwentwater’s estates, in the sale of which, great frauds
were discovered. But where was fraud not found at that time? From the
benches of Parliament to the council-room of the Charity Commissioners,
rogues abounded; the country was sold by the Senate, and the poor were
plundered by their trustees. Yet, these things caused less emotion in
the London coffee-houses than the report which came of the death of
Bishop Atterbury at Paris, in February. The event was simply recorded
in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ in these uncompromising words:――
[Sidenote: _DEATH OF ATTERBURY._]
‘_February 15, 1732._――The Revd. Dr. Francis Atterbury, late Bishop of
Rochester, died at Paris, justly esteemed for his great learning and
polite conversation.’ In what sense the Jacobites esteemed him may be
seen in an expression in one of Salkeld’s letters, wherein the writer
laments the loss of ‘that anchor of our hopes, that pillar of our
cause.’
Pope, in a letter to Lord Oxford, referred to Atterbury’s death in
these terms: ‘The trouble which I have received from abroad, on the
news of the death of that much-injured man, could only be mitigated by
the reflection your Lordship suggests to me――his own happiness, and
return into his best country, where only honesty and virtue were sure
of their reward.’ Pope could not have thought the ex-bishop innocent
of the treason, of which he was undoubtedly guilty; for the poet had
knowledge of the treachery before the Jacobite prelate’s death. Samuel
Wesley must have known it too, but he ignored all but his patron’s
virtues in a very long elegy on Atterbury’s decease, written in very
strong language, of which these lines are a sample:――
Should miscreants base their impious malice shed,
To insult the great, the venerable, dead;
Let truth resistless blast their guilty eyes!
――which is a sort of malediction that is now quite discarded by moral
and by fashionable poets.
The ‘Craftsman’ of May 6th announces the arrival of Mr. Morrice, the
High Bailiff of Westminster, at Deal. On landing he was taken into
custody and sent up prisoner to London, where, after being rigorously
examined by one of the Secretaries of State, he was admitted to bail.
The corpse of the ex-bishop was arrested as it came up the river. It
was taken to the Custom House, where, the coffin being examined for
papers, and nothing compromising being found, the body, according
to the facetious ‘Craftsman,’ was discharged without bail. Great
opposition was made to a request for burial in the Abbey; and when this
was granted, the ‘Craftsman’ was ‘not certain as to the usual Church
ceremony being read over the corpse.’
[Sidenote: _BURIAL OF ATTERBURY._]
The public were, at all events, kept in the dark, lest Jacobite mobs
should make riotous demonstrations at the ceremony. ‘On Friday, May
12th,’ says Sylvanus Urban, ‘the Corpse of Bishop Atterbury was
privately interred in his Vault in Westminster Abbey. On the Urn which
contained his Bowels, &c., was inscribed: “In hac Urnâ depositi sunt
cineres Francisci Atterburi Episcopi Roffensis.” Among his papers
brought over by Mr. Morrice was “Harmonia Evangelica,” in a new and
clearer Method than any yet publish’d. ’Tis also said he translated
Virgil’s “Georgics,” which he sent to a friend with the following Lines
prefix’d,
Haec ego lusi
Ad Sequanæ ripas, Tamesino a flumine longe
Jam senior, fractusque, sed ipsa morte meorum
Quos colui, patriæque memor, neque degener usquam.’
They who were of the prelate’s way of thinking made him, in one sense,
speak, or be felt, even in his grave. The body of the Jacobite Bishop
of Rochester had scarcely been deposited at the west end of the south
aisle of Westminster Abbey, of which he had been the Dean, when
copies of an epigrammatic epitaph were circulating from hand to hand,
and were being read with hilarity or censure in the various London
coffee-houses and taverns. It ran to another tune than that made upon
him by Prior, namely:――
His foes, when dead great Atterbury lay,
Shrunk at his corse, and trembled at his clay.
Ten thousand dangers to their eyes appear,
Great as their guilt and certain as their fear!
T’ insult a deathless corse, alas! is vain;
Well for themselves, and well employ’d their pain,
Could they secure him,――not to rise again!
The printsellers reaped a harvest by selling the Bishop’s portrait.
The most popular was sold by Cholmondely in Holborn, but he was had up
before the Secretary of State, and was terrified by that official into
suppressing the sale.
[Sidenote: _AT SCARBOROUGH._]
All London, that is, what Chesterfield called ‘the Quality,’ went
seaward in August. The cream of them settled on the Scarborough sands.
‘Bathing in the sea,’ says Chesterfield, ‘is become the general
practice of both sexes.’ He gives an amusing account of how ‘the
Quality’ from London looked, at Scarborough, and he jokes, in his
peculiar fashion, upon plots, Jacobites, and ministers. He writes
to the Countess of Suffolk: ‘The ladies here are innumerable, and I
really believe they all come for their healths, for they look very
ill. The men of pleasure are Lord Carmichael, Colonel Ligonier, and
the celebrated Tom Paget, who attend upon the Duke of Argyle all day,
and dance with the pretty ladies at night. Here are, besides, hundreds
of Yorkshire beaux, who play the inferior parts and, as it were, only
tumble, while those three dance upon the high ropes of gallantry.
The grave people are mostly malignants or, in ministerial language,
“notorious Jacobites,” such as Lord Stair, Marchmont, Anglesea,
and myself, not to mention many of the House of Commons of equal
disaffection. Moreover, Pulteney and Lord Cartaret are expected here
soon; so that if the Ministry do not make a plot of this meeting, it is
plain they do not want one for this year.’
[Sidenote: _NOTORIOUS JACOBITES._]
Chesterfield was branded as a ‘notorious Jacobite,’ because he had
opposed Walpole’s famous Excise Bill, this year. As a consequence, he
was deprived of his staff of office as Lord Steward of the Household.
While Chesterfield was writing so airily to Lady Suffolk, the king was
laying out 3,000_l._ in repairing the Palace of Holyrood. A dozen years
later, when ‘news frae Moidart’ reached the London Jacobites, they
laughed at the idea of the ‘Duke of Brunswick’ having made Holyrood
suitable for the reception of Charles Edward, Prince of Wales.
In the meantime a voice here and there from the metropolitan pulpits
ventured to hope the king would be kept by divine guidance, in a safe
groove. The future hero of Culloden was taking lessons in philosophy
from Whiston, and in mathematics from Hawksbee; and, at a funeral more
public than Atterbury’s, the Jacobites assembled in Poland Street, to
pay a last mark of respect to the ‘Earl of Derwentwater,’ the patient
whom great Cheselden could not save, and whose [Sidenote: _THE EARL OF
DERWENTWATER._]
corpse was carried to Brussels to be deposited by the side of that of
his mother, Anne Webb. The so-called ‘Earl’ John, son of the attainted
and beheaded peer, as a sick man, was left unmolested, though he called
himself by a title unrecognised by the Government.
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