(1745.)
[Sidenote: ‘_TANCRED AND SIGISMUNDA._’]
[Illustration: Drop-T]he stage took an early opportunity to put
forth utterances in behalf of ‘moral order.’ On March 18th, 1745,
Thomson, as warm a Hanoverian as could be found among Scots, produced
his tragedy――‘Tancred and Sigismunda,’ at Drury Lane. The piece was
ostentatiously patronised by Frederick, Prince of Wales, to whom the
poet subsequently dedicated it, as a liberal patron of all arts, but
particularly of dramatic art. Pitt and Lyttelton were present at a
private reading of the play, which, therefore, had a certain political
significance, and Whigs and Jacobites sat in judgment on it. Thomson’s
cunning, however, enabled him to please both parties. When _Siffredi_
(Sheridan) uttered the lines, referring to a deceased king,――
He sought alone the good of those for whom
He was entrusted with the sovereign power,
Well knowing that a people, in their rights
And industry protected, living safe
Beneath the sacred shelter of the laws,
Encouraged in their genius, arts, and labours,
And happy each as he himself deserves,
Are not ungrateful,――
the applause which followed had a divided, or a double, application;
but it was as nothing to the tumult of approbation which greeted the
passage emphasised by _Tancred_ (Garrick):――
They have great odds
Against the astonished sons of Violence
Who fight with awful justice on their side.
All Sicily will rouse, all faithful hearts
Will range themselves around Prince Manfred’s son;
For me, I here devote me to the service
Of this young Prince.
And again had thundering acclamation double-meaning when _Siffredi_
exclaimed:――
Thou art the man of all the many thousands
That toil upon the bosom of this isle,
By Heaven elected to command the rest,
To rule, protect them, and to make them happy.
When the first act ended, the factions of Jacobites and Hanoverians
were equally satisfied with their power of making political use of
passages in this play.
They found few opportunities in the second act; but both parties
clapped hands at the lines of _Osman_:――
We meet to-day with open hearts and looks;
Not gloom’d by Party scowling on each other,
But all, the children of one happy isle,
The social Sons of Liberty.
[Sidenote: _POLITICAL DRAMA._]
During the remainder of the tragedy the love-woes of _Tancred_, and
_Sigismunda_ absorbed the sympathies of the audience, though Thomson
laid a clap-trap or two, in a passage where mention was made of ‘a
faithless prince, an upstart king,’ and in an allusion to the Normans
who bravely won,
With their own swords, their seats, and still possess them,
By the same noble tenure;
but especially in denouncement of a reign which Osmond stigmatised as a
usurpation; and added――
This meteor King may blaze awhile, but soon
Must spend his idle terrors;――
which usurpation Jacobites would assign to George; while Whigs saw in
the temporary royal meteor the ‘King’ in whose name, his son, Charles
Edward, was preparing to invade Great Britain.
The Earl of Orford, the champion of Brunswick and the staunch supporter
of the Hanoverian succession, died this year. Horace Walpole says of
his father, ‘he died, foretelling a Rebellion which happened in less
than six months, and for predicting which he had been ridiculed.’ It
required no gift of prophecy to foretell an event which had been long
almost openly preparing.
Amid the growing excitement of London, there was a motion made by
Mr. Carew in the Commons, for holding new parliaments annually. He
supported the motion by a curious illustration. The king, he said, who
first introduced long parliaments (Richard II.) was dethroned and put
to death by Henry of Lancaster, who took his place and was honoured by
the people as their deliverer from slavery. Sir William Yonge replied
that annual parliaments would deprive the king of all power over them;
and deprivation of all such power cost Charles I. his head. Similar
effect would follow from like cause. Sir John Phillips, who was said
to be equally troublesome whether as patriot or placeman, was not only
for annual parliaments, but for a fresh Ministry every new session! The
motion was negatived by 145 to 112.
[Sidenote: _THE YOUNG CHEVALIER._]
After the prorogation of Parliament which followed in May, the king
went abroad. He did not return till the end of July, more than a
fortnight after the young Chevalier had sailed from Port St. Nazaire,
with a band of Scotch and Irish adventurers, who, after much peril,
arrived in the Hebrides. The Regency, in London, offered a reward of
30,000_l._ to anyone who should capture him on British ground. On the
4th of June King James III. was proclaimed, at Perth, King of Great
Britain. On the 10th a similar proclamation was made at Edinburgh.
Five days later the Highland army attacked, and in ten minutes,
utterly routed Sir John Cope, seven miles from Edinburgh, near Preston
Pans, and Gladsmuir. This victory left almost the whole of Scotland
in possession of the Jacobites,――and the road open to them to invade
England. They did not reach Carlisle till the 15th of November. On
the 24th they were in Lancaster. On the 28th they entered Manchester,
imposed a heavy requisition on the town, and were joined by some
bold spirits among the younger men. On the 1st of December, Charles
Edward entered Macclesfield. On the 4th that young prince, with 7,000
men, entered Derby, and losing heart, left it on the 6th, in retreat
northward. On the 9th they were again in Manchester. On Christmas
day, they entered Glasgow;――‘a very indifferent Christmas-box to the
inhabitants,’ according to Ray; and on the 30th of December, Carlisle,
in which a rebel garrison was stationed, surrendered at discretion to
the young Duke of Cumberland. Therewith ended the rebel invasion of
England. This succession of events greatly influenced the metropolis.
When the storm was threatening, and also when it burst, clergymen
in town, and probably in the country also, opened their Bibles,
questioning them as oracles, and interpreting the answers, according
to their respective temperaments. One good man, whose eye fell
upon the words of Jeremiah,――‘Evil appeareth out of the North, and
great destruction,’ proclaimed to his congregation that the words
had reference to the Pretender and his invasion of England. This
application of the text has been pronounced to be as absurd as that of
the ‘casting down of Mount Seir’ to the overthrow of the French.
[Sidenote: _FEELING IN LONDON._]
For what London was feeling and saying in this eventful year, 1745,
search must be made in the correspondence of the time. The letters of
Walpole, for instance, begin the year with the expression of a fear, if
Marshal Belleisle, who had been made a prisoner at Hanover, where he
was travelling without a passport, should be allowed to go at large,
on his word, in England, as it was reported he would be, that mischief
would come of it. ‘We could not have a worse inmate! ◆[Sidenote: _HOPES
AND FEARS._]◆ So ambitious and intriguing a man, who was the author
of this whole war, will be no bad general to head the Jacobites on any
insurrection.’ The marshal was, at first, kept ‘magnificently close’ at
Windsor, but as he cost the country there 100_l._ a day, he was sent to
Nottingham, to live there as he pleased, and for the Jacobites to make
what they could of him. For the moment, the Duke of Beaufort was more
dangerous than the marshal. The duke was a declared, determined and an
unwavering Jacobite, and led the party against Court and Ministry. At
the end of April there was ‘nothing new.’ In May came the honourable
catastrophe of Fontenoy, and the dishonourable sarcastic song made by
Frederick, Prince of Wales, on his brother, the Duke of Cumberland’s
glorious failure. Alluding to the duke, Walpole writes, ‘All the
letters are full of his humanity and bravery. He will be as popular
with the lower class of men as he has been for three or four years
with the low women. He will be the soldiers’ ‘_Great Sir_,’ as well as
theirs. I am really glad; it will be of great service to the family if
any one of them come to make a figure.’ Walpole saw the necessity of
having a hero opposed to the young Chevalier. One was sorely needed.
Belleisle must have enchanted the Jacobites by his publicly asserting
that this country was so ill-provided for defence, he would engage,
with five thousand scullions of the French army, to conquer England.
Walpole owned his fears. He was depressed by our disasters in Flanders,
the absence of the king from England, that of ministers from London,
‘not five thousand men in the island, and not above fourteen or
fifteen ships at home. Allelujah!’
[Sidenote: _HORACE WALPOLE’S IDEAS._]
The Ministry released Belleisle, who went _incog._ about London, and
was entertained at dinner by the Duke of Newcastle at Claremont, and
by the Duke of Grafton at Hampton Court. Walpole compares the idle
gossip about the French coming over in the interest of the Pretender,
and the neglect of all defence, with the conduct of the Londoners
on a report that the plague was in the city. ‘Everybody went to the
house where it was, to see it!’ If Count Saxe, with ten thousand men,
were to come within a day’s march of London, ‘people will be hiring
windows at Charing Cross and Cheapside to see them pass by.’ Walpole,
in truth, was as indifferent as he accused his contemporaries of
being. If anything happened to the ship, what was that to him, he was
only a passenger. He playfully described himself as learning scraps
from ‘Cato,’ in case of his having to depart in the old, high, Roman
fashion. Recollecting that he is writing on the anniversary of the
accession of the House of Brunswick, he tacks a joyous P.S. to one
of his letters, in the words, ‘Lord! ’tis the first of August, 1745,
a holiday that is going to be turned out of the almanack!’ When the
Government _did_ begin to prepare for serious contingencies, Walpole
expressed his belief of their being about as able to resist an invasion
as to make one.
[Sidenote: _DIVISIONS IN FAMILIES._]
When the young Chevalier, stealing a march upon Cope, was approaching
Edinburgh, Walpole wrote from London, that people there had nothing to
oppose, ‘scarcely fears.’ Lord Panmure, who had got his title through
the attainder of his elder brother, for the ’15 affair, and the Duke of
Athol, who owed his dukedom to the attainder of his elder brother, the
Marquis of Tullibardine (who was then with Prince Charles Edward), for
the same affair, left London, in order to raise forces in Scotland for
the defence of the Hanoverian succession. Panmure, with other Scotch
lords, raised a few men. Athol returned to London to announce his
inability to get together a force for such a purpose; and when it was
proposed to send the Duke of Argyle, Maccullummore excused himself on
the singular ground that there was a Scotch Act of Parliament against
arming without authority. There was a scene in a London house that
might furnish a subject to a painter. The young Whig Duke of Gordon, at
an interview with his Jacobite uncle, told the latter that he must go
down to Scotland and arm his men. ‘They are in arms,’ was the reply.
‘You must lead them against the rebels.’ ‘They will wait on the Prince
of Wales,’ rejoined the uncle, who alluded to the young Chevalier. The
duke flew in a passion, but the uncle pulled out a pistol, and said it
was in vain to dispute. As Walpole here drops the curtain over this
scene, we may suppose that the little domestic drama was carried no
further.
[Sidenote: _COURT AND CITY._]
As news reached town that the rebellion did not grow in the North,
and that there was no rising in England to help it, Walpole wrote,
‘Spirit seems to rise in London.’ The king, or as Walpole calls him,
‘the person most concerned,’ took events with heroic imperturbability,
or stupid indifference. Charles Edward had repealed the union between
England and Scotland. King George believed himself to be, and likely
to remain, King of Great Britain, as before. When ministers proposed
to him any measures with reference to the outbreak, his Majesty only
answered, ‘Pooh! don’t talk to me about that stuff!’ It is not,
therefore, to be wondered at that ministers did not summon Parliament.
They had nothing either to offer or to notify. The London merchants, on
the other hand, were zealous and liberal in opening subscriptions for
raising more troops.
[Sidenote: _VARYING OPINIONS._]
In this time of uncertainty, if not trouble, the professional patriot
came to the surface in the person of Alderman Heathcote. At a City
meeting, that sham Jacobite proposed to supplant a loyal address
to the king by a demand for a redress of grievances; ‘but not one
man seconded him.’ Walpole, with all his affected indifference and
pretence of indifference on the part of the public, betrays the true
temper of the metropolis, when he says, ‘We have great hopes the
Highlanders will not follow him [Charles Edward] so far [into England],
very few of them could be persuaded the last time to go to Preston.’
And something of the general uneasiness may be traced in Walpole’s
intimation to Montagu, of his dislike of becoming ‘a loyal sufferer
in a thread-bare coat, and shivering in an antechamber at Hanover, or
reduced to teach Latin and English to the young princes at Copenhagen.
Will you ever write to me in my garret at Herrenhausen?’ With all
this simulation of light-heartedness, Walpole writes seriously enough,
from Arlington Street, ‘Accounts from Scotland vary perpetually, and
at best are never very certain.... One can’t tell what assurances of
support they may have from the Jacobites in England ... but nothing
of the sort has yet appeared.... One can hardly believe that the
English are more disaffected than the Scotch, and among the latter no
persons of property have joined them.’ The temper of the Government
is also described in a few words: ‘Lord Granville and his faction
persist in persuading the king that it is an affair of no consequence;
and, for the Duke of Newcastle, he is glad when the rebels make any
progress in order to refute Lord Granville’s assertions.’ London was
as delighted as Walpole with the naval watch kept in the Channel, and
with the spirit of the English nobility adding, or promising to add,
regiments to the regular force, to which, however, they gave little or
no additional strength. He who had been laughing and calling others
laughers, confesses in September that his own apprehensions were not
so strong as they had been. ‘If we get over this I shall believe that
we never can be hurt, for we never can be more exposed to danger.
Whatever disaffection there is to the present family, it plainly does
not proceed from love to the other.’
[Sidenote: _LONDON WIT._]
This sense of security was seriously shaken when London got the news
of the victory gained by Charles Edward’s army near Preston Pans
over General Cope. It was known to ‘the Papists’ on Sunday, but the
Government received no official news till Tuesday! ‘The defeat,’ says
Walpole, ‘frightens everybody but those it rejoices.’ Then _he_, who
had alternately laughed and trembled, affected the philosopher, and
pretended that he could endure without emotion the ruin which he had
foreseen. ‘I shall suffer with fools, without having any malice to our
enemies, who act sensibly from principle and interest.’ When London
found that no advantage was taken of the victory by the victors, London
and Walpole resumed their good spirits. The latter referred to the
subjoined advertisement as a proof that there was more wit in London
than in all Scotland. ‘To all jolly Butchers.――My dear Hearts! The
Papists eat no meat on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, nor during Lent!
Your friend, John Steel.’ Such wit can hardly have alarmed the Papists,
but it may have had something to do with a report which followed,――that
they intended to rise and massacre their enemies in London. It was
taken seriously. All the Guards were ordered out, and the Tower was
closed at seven o’clock. When the murrain among the cattle broke out,
it was absurdly said that the Papists had poisoned the pools! The
Papists however did send money contributions from London to Charles
Edward. It is wonderful that the highwaymen did not intercept the
bearers, and make them deliver.
[Sidenote: _THE PARLIAMENT._]
When Parliament met in October, the attendance was thin. The Pretender
had threatened to confiscate the property of all Scotch members who
should attend, and to make it treason for English members to do so!
Yet there were Jacobites present, and they opposed the address as well
as the suspension of the Habeas Corpus. A proposal to enquire into
the causes of the progress of the Rebellion was shelved by a majority
of 194 to 112. Most of the former felt, it is said, ‘the necessity of
immediately putting an end to it, and that the fire should be quenched
before we should enquire who kindled or promoted it.’
There were many whose fears had been great because of the greatness
of the stake. These rejoiced when the Guards left London, roaring as
they marched from the parade that they would neither give nor receive
quarter. Walpole affirmed that the army adored the duke who was to be
their commander. On the other hand, ‘the Calligulisms’ of the Prince
of Wales brought on him a general contempt. The working men were,
almost without exception, loyal. When there was an idea of the king
going to the encampment at Finchley, the weavers offered him a guard
of a thousand men. It was in the caricature of the march to Finchley
that Hogarth exhibited the baser side of his character. The wrath of
the king at the painter’s insult to the defenders of their country
was well-founded. The popular feeling was not with the artist. When
the prisoners captured in the ‘Soleil’ were brought to London, it was
difficult to save them from being cruelly handled. ◆[Sidenote: _THE
RADCLIFFES._]◆ Among them was Mr. Radcliffe who had been condemned
to death with his brother, Lord Derwentwater, in 1716, and Mr.
Radcliffe’s son, who was at first suspected of being Charles Edward’s
brother, Henry. This suspicion very nearly cost the young captive
his life, more than once, on the road. ‘He said that he had heard of
English mobs, but could not conceive they were so dreadful; and wished
he had been shot at the battle of Dettingen, where he had been engaged.
The father, whom they call Lord Derwentwater, said, on entering the
Tower, that he had never expected to arrive there alive. For the young
man, he must only be treated as a French captive; for the father it is
sufficient to produce him at the Old Bailey, and prove that he is the
individual person condemned for the last Rebellion; and so to Tyburn.’
Walpole reflected the general feeling of the metropolis which had been
kept so long in a state of suspense, sometimes concealing it under
indifference, at others not caring to conceal its own fears.
Noblemen’s servants were not rendered particularly cheerful in October,
by a report that they were to be made to serve as soldiers, receiving
their pay both as warriors and flunkeys. The soldiery were so ill off,
that civilians bestirred themselves for their relief. The Quakers
contributed ten thousand woollen waistcoats to keep them warm. The
Corporation of London gave them as many blankets and watchcoats. King
George, when everything else had been provided, paid for their shoes
out of his privy purse!
[Sidenote: _THE LONDON JACOBITES._]
There was a desire to bring the matter to a conclusion as cheaply
as possible. The ‘Craftsman’ recommended that the Pretender should
be ‘cut off,’ if that end could be compassed. A hope was expressed
that the nation would not be taxed for encountering a ‘ragged,
hungry rabble of Yahoos of Scotch Highlanders,’ with the cost of an
expedition against an Alexander. There would be no use, it was said,
in constructing an apparatus fit for hunting a lion,――for the catching
of a rat. The rats were, nevertheless, troublesome, if not formidable.
The London Jacobites were ostentatiously ecstatic when news reached
town of the defeat of Cope. King George’s proclamation had ordered an
observation of silence on public affairs. When the removal of notorious
Papists from the city had been contemplated, ‘What will you get,’
loudly asked the Jacobites of the Romish Church, ‘by driving us ten
miles out of town? We shall then form a camp, and you will find us a
much more formidable body than we now appear to be while dispersed
among you.’ Remove the Papists! why, the Duke of Newcastle had shown so
little disposition that way, that his French cook still ruled supreme
in the kitchen of his mansion in Lincoln’s Inn Fields! There were
others like the duke; and, what trust could be placed in a militia
formed out of servants of noblemen whose lackeys went to mass in the
private chapels of the Ambassadors? Yet, something must be done. It was
in vain that proclamations, signed ‘James III.’ and ‘Charles Edward,’
were burnt at the Royal Exchange, by the common hangman, in presence of
the sheriffs. New documents were circulated as widely as ever. If they
were not cried in the street, there were other ways of bringing them
before the public. In the dusk of the evening, a baker would rest with
his basket, or a street porter with his burthen, against a wall. Inside
the basket, as inside the porter’s burthen, there was a little boy who
had all the necessary contrivances to enable him to paste a Jacobite
paper on the wall. In the morning, London was found to be covered with
treasonable documents, and for some time, magistrates were driven
almost mad in trying to account for the appearance of papers which
seemed to have got on the walls by inexplicable and undiscoverable
means.
[Sidenote: _THE VENETIAN AMBASSADOR._]
On Sunday, October 6th, half of riotous London followed the Foot Guards
to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and applauded them as they entered the old
abandoned play-house, which was converted by them into a barrack. A
couple of days later all uproarious London was on the river, or in
the streets, to witness the grand entry of the Venetian Ambassador.
His Excellency and suite came in state barges from Greenwich to the
Tower, and he passed in greater state still of coach and cavalry, from
the Tower to his noble residence in _Thrift_ Street, Soho, as Frith
Street was once called. The greetings which welcomed him on the part of
those who hailed in his person an ally of King George, were as nothing
compared with the unceasing thunder of hurrah-ing which saluted him as
he rode, next day, in greatest state of all, to have audience of the
sovereign. When his wife, as soon as she was installed in her house, in
Soho, gave a masquerade which made everybody forget the perils of the
time, there may have been people who distrusted her Popish principles,
but no one doubted her taste, or objected to her politics.
[Sidenote: _MONARCH AND MINISTERS._]
Yet was there every now and then a cry of alarm. Messengers had seized
a waggon load of cutlasses, and they were slow to believe that the
weapons were not ordered by Pope and Pretender for the slaughter of
Church-and-King men. They proved to have come to London in due course
of trade. Persons who believed, nevertheless, in the existence of a
conspiracy were gratified by the seizure of some Irish priests who
indulged in the utterance of seditious words in public places. Zealots,
of Jacobite proclivities, even had the assurance to contradict loyal
preachers in their own pulpits, but afterwards found themselves in
durance for their boldness. One day, Sir Robert Ladbroke astounded the
Duke of Newcastle by rushing in to his office and announcing that he
had had anonymous warning to leave his house, as Jacobite insurgents
meant on a certain night to set fire to the city. Everywhere guards
were doubled, and there was much fear. The king showed none. He stood
for a couple of hours on the terrace at St. James’s, overlooking the
park, to witness the manœuvres and the ‘march past’ of six regiments of
trained bands, and he had an air as if he and danger were strangers.
Moreover the Londoners were in a fever of delight with the other
king,――the king of the city. On Lord Mayor’s day, Sir Richard Hoare
was resolved that if he was to be the last Protestant Lord Mayor of
London, people should remember him. On October 29th (old Lord Mayor’s
day), he went from Guildhall to the Court of Exchequer, in the grandest
coach ever seen, and he was accompanied by ‘a large body of associated
gentlemen out of Fleet Street, completely clothed,’ as one, indeed,
might expect they would be!
[Sidenote: _NEWS IN PRIVATE LETTERS._]
From the ‘Letters of the First Earl of Malmesbury, his Family and
Friends,’ it is to be gathered that the Londoners were kept in
ignorance of Sir John Cope’s defeat, till private letters arrived
by which the whole disgrace was revealed. Lord Shaftesbury writes
that Pitt’s respectful motion to advise the king to recall the
troops (chiefly cavalry) from Flanders, and use them in suppressing
the rebellion, was lost, or ‘eluded,’ by putting the previous
question――ayes 136, noes 148; in which division young Horace Walpole
was in the minority, and old Horace Walpole on the other side; ‘not
a Tory on either side speaking. I leave you to reflect on this
proceeding, though I think a very little reflection will suffice.’
People who had letters from the north ran with them from house to
house, some, even, to St. James’s, to impart their contents, and small
regard was had to any of the newspapers. But individuals could be as
untrustworthy as the papers. Old Lord Aylesbury was conspicuous as a
‘terror-raiser.’ He says ‘the Papists poisoned his grandfather, and
made a fool of his father, and that he believed all the Jacobites would
turn to Popery very easily, if it was to prevail.’ The old lord was to
be seen daily going to Court, ‘to show his public attachment to the
Revolution of 1688.’
[Sidenote: _THE LONDON TRAINBANDS._]
With respect to the king reviewing the Trainbands from the garden
wall of St. James’s, recorded in a preceding page, Lord Shaftesbury
writes, Oct. 26th, 1745: ‘This morning the Trainbands were reviewed
by his Majesty. By what I saw of them myself, I can venture to affirm
that, notwithstanding their deficiency in smartness, from want of an
uniform, which may possibly expose them to the ridicule of some of
our very fine gentlemen, they would make an honourable and effective
stand, if needful, for their religion and liberties. They are really,
upon the whole, good troops.’ The Rev. William Harris gives a fuller
account of the same incident to his brother: ‘I was to-day accidentally
in St. James’s Park, when the City Militia were reviewed by the King,
who stood on the terrace in his own garden, attended by the Duke,
Lord Stair, Dukes of Dorset, Newcastle, Bolton, and several others of
the nobility. It was a most tedious affair, I make no doubt, to his
Majesty; for the London men made but a shabby appearance, and there
could be no great entertainment in seeing them. Their officers were
well enough, and to these, as they made their salute, passing by under
the terrace, his Majesty returned everyone the compliment by pulling
off his hat. There were no less than six regiments, and I suppose it
might be near two hours before they all had gone in review before his
Majesty.’
[Sidenote: _SCENES AT COURT._]
Conflicting reports flew about, but the discouragement was not very
profound, and the birthday drawing-room, on the 30th of October, was
as gay and brilliant as if there were no rebellion afoot. The reverend
writer of the letter quoted above was present, and he describes to
Mrs. Harris the silks of the princesses, the brocades and damasks of
the ladies, and the blaze of Lady Cardigan, who excelled as to jewels,
having on a magnificent solitaire, and her stomacher all over diamonds.
There, too, fluttered the Prince of Wales in light blue velvet and
silver; the Duke of Cumberland strolled about with a little more gold
lace than usual on his scarlet uniform; and Lord Kildare outdid all
other fine and loyal gentlemen present, ‘in a light blue silk coat,
embroidered all over with gold and silver, in a very curious manner,
turned up with white satin, embroidered as the other; the waistcoat
the same as his sleeves.’ But the grandest and quaintest figure there
was the Venetian ambassadress, who had gone in state from Frith
Street, Soho, to the intense delight of the ‘mob.’ This lady ‘drew
most people’s attention by somewhat of singularity both in her air and
dress, which was pink, all flounced from top to bottom, with fringe of
silver interspersed. She looks extremely young, has the French sort of
behaviour, and was much taken notice of and spoke to by all the Royal
Family in the Circle.’ The most soberly-dressed man there was the king
himself. He wore a deep blue cloth coat and waistcoat trimmed with
silver, and was as good humoured and gracious as if Johnny Cope was
carrying all before him in the north.
[Sidenote: _THE KING’S SPEECH TO THE GUARDS._]
The regiments which arrived in London, in November, from Fontenoy, kept
the metropolis in some commotion, till they were pushed forward, after
brief rest, to the midland counties. While they were receiving tents
and arms at the Tower, the Duke of Cumberland had his headquarters at
St. James’s, whence orders were issued (says Mr. Maclachlan――‘Order
Book of the Duke of Cumberland’) of the most minute character and
detail.
The king has been accused of indifference to passing events, and of
having only reluctantly allowed the Duke of Cumberland, who served so
nobly with him at Dettingen, to command the army against the young
Chevalier. Perhaps, what seemed indifference was confidence in the
result. There is evidence, however, that he was not without anxiety
at this critical juncture. In Hamilton’s ‘History of the Grenadier
Guards,’ there is the following description of a scene at St. James’s,
quoted from Wraxall. The incident described is said to have occurred at
the military levee held by the king, previous to the Guards marching to
the north: ‘When the officers of the Guards were assembled, the king
is said to have addressed them as follows: “Gentlemen, you cannot be
ignorant of the present precarious situation of our country, and though
I have had so many recent instances of your exertions, the necessities
of the times and the knowledge I have of your hearts, induce me to
demand your service again; so all of you that are willing to meet the
rebels hold up your right hand; all those who may, from particular
reasons, find it inconvenient, hold up your left.” In an instant, all
the right hands in the room were held up, which so affected the king,
that in attempting to thank the company, his feelings overpowered him;
he burst into tears and retired.’
[Sidenote: _ASPECTS OF SOCIETY._]
While this scene was being acted at St. James’s, Mrs. Elizabeth
Montagu, then residing in Dover Street, wrote to Dr. Freind: ‘People
of the greatest rank here have been endeavouring to make the utmost
advantage of the unhappy state of their country, and have _sold_ the
assistance it was their duty to _give_. Self-interest has taken such
firm possession of every breast, that not any threatening calamity can
banish it in the smallest instance. There is no view of the affair
more melancholy than this.... Everything is turned to a job, and money
given for the general good is converted too much to private uses....
There were some exceptions. Almost all our nobility,’ she writes, ‘are
gone to the army, so that many of the great families are in tears, and
indeed it makes the town appear melancholy and dismal.’ There were
exceptions in this case. ‘Let it be said, to the honour of our sex,
there are no dramas, no operas, and plays are unfrequented; and there
is not a woman in England, except Lady Brown, that has a song or tune
in her head; but indeed her ladyship is very unhappy at the suspension
of operas.’ On the night this letter was written, Mrs. Clive’s Portia,
at Drury Lane, was unattractive, in spite of her imitations of eminent
lawyers, in the trial scene; and Mrs. Pritchard’s Lappet was equally
unavailing to bring the public to witness ‘The Miser,’ at Covent
Garden. But Rich’s three nights of the ‘Beggars’ Opera,’ for the
benefit of the patriotic fund, produced happy results. From Mrs. Cibber
down to the candle-snuffers, all sacrificed their pay with alacrity.
[Sidenote: _FRENCH NEWS OF LONDON._]
As correct news of the condition of London in the latter half of
the year, it was stated in the French papers that insurrectionary
undertakings prevailed; that the principal shops were closed; that
suspected peers were under arrest; that an attempt had been made to
murder the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that the Tower had been
captured by a Jacobite mob, who had liberated nearly three hundred
prisoners! Every _quidnunc_ in Paris turned to the article ‘London’
in the ‘Gazette de France,’ to read with avidity of the closing of
great firms, the breaking of the chief banks, and the bewilderment of
the king on his reaching the capital from Hanover. The ‘Gazette’ had
no doubt of the crowning of James Stuart in Westminster Abbey during
the Christmas holidays; and, perhaps, hoped for the appearance of ‘the
Elector of Hanover’ on Tower Hill!
[Sidenote: _ANXIETY AND CONFIDENCE._]
On Friday, the 5th December 1745, it is undeniable that London was
shaken into terror and consternation by the news of the arrival of
Charles Edward on the Wednesday at Derby. It was long remembered as
‘Black Friday.’ ‘Many of the inhabitants,’ says the Chevalier de
Johnstone, in his ‘Memoirs of the Rebellion,’ ‘fled to the country
with their most precious effects, and all the shops were shut. People
thronged to the Bank to get payment of its notes; and it only escaped
bankruptcy by a stratagem. Payment was not indeed refused; but as they
who came first were entitled to priority of payment, the bank took care
to be continually surrounded by agents with notes, who were paid in
sixpences in order to gain time. Those agents went out at one door with
the specie they had received, and brought it back by another; so that
the _bonâ fide_ holders of notes could never get near enough to present
them, and the bank by this artifice preserved its credit, and literally
faced its creditors.’
This, of course, was imaginary. The metropolis recovered its
tranquility. The king, on his side, regained his equanimity. At a
levee, held in December, his Majesty and Lord Derby disputed pretty
loudly as to the numbers of the rebels. ‘Sir,’ said Lord Derby, who had
just arrived from Lancashire, whoever tells you the rebels are fewer
than 10,000 deceives you;’ which was, as Mr. Harris writes, thought to
be a pretty strong expression for his Lordship to use to the king. At a
court held a day or two later, Sir Harry Liddel, just from the north,
was asked by his Majesty what Sir Harry held the rebel force to be? He
answered about 7,000, to which estimate the king seemed to assent; but
this did not prevent the whole Court and City from falling into the
utmost panic again before the end of December. The alternation of hope
and fear however passed suddenly into confidence, when, as the year
ended, news reached the London coffee-houses that young Cumberland was
likely to turn the tide of rebel success. Carlisle was evidently on the
point of surrendering, and this important event took place at the close
of the year 1745.
Down to that close, traitors were as closely looked for in London as
rebels were now pursued in their retreat. Whether through delicacy or
ignorance, the style in which a successful ‘take’ of traitors was made
was comically mysterious. For example, in this month of December, the
papers announced that ‘A Musician who resided some years in London as a
foreign Nobleman, and an Irish Comedian who has acted five years on the
English Stage, were committed to the Marshalsea for High Treason.’
[Sidenote: _JOHNSON AND LORD GOWER._]
In this eventful year, Jacobite Johnson was quietly engaged on his
Dictionary. Aloof from the fray, he could not forbear flinging a stone
on an ex-Jacobite who had ratted. When he came to the word ‘renegade,’
he remembered Lord Gower’s abandonment of the old Jacobite interest,
for place at Court; and his prejudice prompted him to make Lord Gower
infamous for ever, by adding his name to the vocabulary of slang. ‘When
I came to the word _renegade_,’ he said to Boswell, ‘after telling
that it meant “one who deserts to the enemy; a revolter,” I added,
“sometimes we say a GOWER.” Thus it went to the press; but the printer
had more wit than I, and struck it out.’ Another distinguished man
was looking on events with an indifference which seems affectation.
◆[Sidenote: _BOLINGBROKE._]◆ ‘I expect no good news,’ writes
Bolingbroke to Marchmont, in September, ‘and am therefore contented to
have none. I wait with much resignation to know to what Lion’s paw we
are to fall.’
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