"LOST FOR WANT OF SPIRIT."
[Sidenote: 1714--The Duke of Ormond]
When Bolingbroke found himself in full power he began at once to open the
way for some attempt at the restoration of the Stuart dynasty. He put
influential Jacobites into important offices in England and Scotland; he
made the Duke of Ormond Warden of the Cinque Ports, that authority
covering exactly the stretch of coast at some point of which it might be
expected that James Stuart would land if he were to make an attempt for
the crown at all. Ormond was a weak and vain man, but he was a man of
personal integrity. He had been sent out to Flanders to succeed the
greatest commander of the age as captain-general of the allied armies
there, and he had naturally played a poor and even ridiculous part. The
Jacobites in England still, however, held him in much honor, identified
his name, no one exactly knew why, with the cause of High-Church, and
elected him the hero and the leader of the movement for the restoration
of the exiled family. Bolingbroke committed Scotland to the care of the
Earl of Mar, a Jacobite, a personal friend of James Stuart, and a votary
of High-Church. It can hardly be supposed that in making such an
appointment Bolingbroke had not in his mind the possibility of a rising
of the Highland clans against the Hanoverian succession. But it is none
the less evident that Bolingbroke was as usual thinking far more of
himself than of his party, and that his preparations were made not so
much with a view to restoring the Stuarts as with the object of securing
himself against any chance that might befall.
{40}
Had Bolingbroke been resolved in his heart to bring back the Stuarts, had
he been ready, as many other men were, to risk all in that cause, to
stand or fall by it, he might, so far as one can see, have been
successful. It is not too much to say that on the whole the majority of
the English people were in favor of the Stuarts. Certainly the majority
would have preferred a Stuart to the dreaded and disliked German prince
from Herrenhausen. For many years the birthday of the Stuart prince had
been celebrated as openly and as enthusiastically in English cities as if
it were the birthday of the reigning sovereign. James's adherents were
everywhere--in the court, in the camp, on the bench, in Parliament, in
the drawing-rooms, the coffee-houses, and the streets. Bolingbroke had
only to present him at a critical moment, and say "Here is your king,"
and James Stuart would have been king. Such a crisis came in France in
our own days. There was a moment, after the fall of the Second Empire,
when the Count de Chambord had only to present himself in Versailles in
order to be accepted as King of France, not King of the French. But the
Count de Chambord put away his chance deliberately; he would not consent
to give up the white flag of legitimacy and accept the tricolor. He
acted on principle, knowing the forfeit of his decision. The chances of
James Stuart were frittered away in half-heartedness, insincerity, and
folly. While Bolingbroke and his confederates were caballing and
counselling, and paltering and drinking, the Whig statesmen were maturing
their plans, and when the moment came for action it found them ready to
act.
[Sidenote: 1714--The Council at Kensington]
The success was accomplished by a _coupe d'état_ on Friday, July 30,
1714. The Queen was suddenly stricken with apoplexy. A Privy Council
was to meet that morning at Kensington Palace. The Privy Council meeting
was composed then, according to the principle which prevails still, only
of such councillors as had received a special summons. In truth, the
meeting of the Privy Council {41} in Anne's time was like a Cabinet
meeting of our days, and was intended by those who convened it to be just
as strictly composed of official members. But, on the other hand, there
was no law or rule forbidding any member of the Privy Council, whether
summoned or not, to present himself at the meeting. Bolingbroke was in
his place, and so was the Duke of Ormond, and so were other Jacobite
peers. The Duke of Shrewsbury had taken his seat, as he was entitled to
do, being one of the highest officers of State. Shrewsbury was known to
be a loyal adherent of the Act of Settlement and the Hanoverian
Succession. He was a remarkable man with a remarkable history. His
father was the unfortunate Shrewsbury who was killed in a duel by the
Duke of Buckingham. The duel arose out of the duke's open intrigue with
the Countess of Shrewsbury, and the story went at the time that the lady
herself, dressed as a page, held her lover's horse while he fought with
and killed her husband. Charles Talbot, the son, was brought up a
Catholic, but in his twentieth year accepted the arguments of Tillotson
and became a Protestant. He was Lord Chamberlain to James the Second,
but lost all faith in James, and went over to Holland to assist William
of Nassau with counsel and with money. When William became King of
England he made Lord Shrewsbury a Privy Councillor and Secretary of
State, created him first marquis and afterwards duke, and called him, in
tribute to his great popularity, the King of Hearts. He was for a short
time British Ambassador at the Court of France, and then Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland. He had flickered a little between the Whigs and the Tories
at different periods of his career, and in 1710 he actually joined the
Tory party. But it was well known to every one that if any question
should arise between the House of Hanover and the Stuarts, he would stand
firmly by the appointed succession. He was a man of undoubted integrity
and great political sagacity; he had a handsome face, although he had
lost one of his eyes by an accident when riding, and {42} he had a
stately presence. His gifts and graces were said to have so much
attracted the admiration of Queen Mary that if she had outlived the King
she would probably have married Shrewsbury. The condition of the
political world around him had impressed him with so little reverence for
courts and cabinets, that he used to say if he had a son he would rather
bring him up a cobbler than a courtier, and a hangman than a statesman.
Bolingbroke once kindly said of him, "I never knew a man so formed to
please, and to gain upon the affections while challenging the esteem."
[Sidenote: 1714--The Dukes of Somerset and Argyll]
Before there was time to get to any of the business of the council the
doors were opened, and the Duke of Argyll and the Duke of Somerset
entered the room. The Duke of Argyll, soldier, statesman, orator, shrewd
self-seeker, represented the Whigs of Scotland; the honest, proud,
pompous Duke of Somerset those of England. The two intruders, as they
were assuredly regarded by the majority of those present, announced that
they had heard the news of the Queen's danger, and that they felt
themselves bound to hasten to the meeting of the council, although not
summoned thither, in order that they might be able to afford advice and
assistance.
The Duke of Somerset was in many respects the most powerful nobleman in
England. But all his rank, his dignity, and his influence, could not
protect him against the ridicule and contempt which his feeble character,
his extravagant pride, and his grotesquely haughty demeanor, invariably
brought upon him. He was probably the most ridiculous man of his time;
he had the pomp of an Eastern pasha without the grave dignity which
Eastern manners confer. He was like the pasha of a burlesque or an
_opéra bouffe_. His servants had to obey him by signs; he disdained to
give orders by voice. His first wife was Elizabeth Percy, the virgin
widow of Lord Ogle and Tom Thynne of Longleat, the beloved of Charles
John Königsmark, the "Carrots" of Dean Swift. While she was Duchess of
Somerset and Queen Anne's close friend, Swift, who {43} hated her, hinted
pretty broadly that she was privy to Königsmark's plot to murder Tom
Thynne, and the Duchess revenged herself by keeping the Dean out of the
bishopric of Hereford. When she died, Somerset married Lady Charlotte
Finch, one of the "Black Funereal Finches," celebrated by Sir Charles
Hanbury Williams. Once, when she tapped him on the shoulder with a fan,
he rebuked her angrily: "My first wife was a Percy, and she never took
such a liberty." When he had occasion to travel, all the roads on or
near which he had to pass were scoured by a vanguard of outriders, whose
business it was to protect him, not merely from obstruction and delay,
but from the gaze of the vulgar herd who might be anxious to feast their
eyes upon his gracious person. The statesmen of his own time, while they
made use of him, seem to have vied with each other in protestations of
their contempt for his abilities and his character. Swift declared that
Somerset had not "a grain of sense of any kind." Marlborough several
times professed an utter contempt for Somerset's abilities or discretion,
and was indignant at the idea that he ever could have made use of such a
man in any work requiring confidence or judgment. Yet Somerset,
ridiculous as he was, came to be a personage of importance in the crisis
now impending over England. He was, at all events, a man whose word
could be trusted, and who, when he promised to take a certain course,
would be sure to follow it. That very pride which made him habitually
ridiculous raised him on great occasions above any suspicion of mercenary
or personal views in politics. One of his contemporaries describes him
as "so humorsome, proud, and capricious, that he was rather a ministry
spoiler than a ministry maker." In the present condition of things,
however, he could be made use of for the purpose of making one ministry
after spoiling another. When he carried his great personal influence
over to the side of the Hanoverian accession, and joined with Argyll and
with Shrewsbury, it must have been evident, to men like Bolingbroke at
least, that the enterprises of the Jacobites {44} would require rare
good-fortune and marvellous energy to bring them to any success.
[Sidenote: 1714--The coup d'état]
Poetry and romance have shown to the world the most favorable side of the
character of John Campbell, Duke of Argyll, who was then at least as
powerful in Scotland as the Duke of Somerset in England. Pope describes
him as
Argyll, the State's whole thunder born to wield,
And shake alike the senate and the field.
Scott has drawn a charming picture of him in the "Heart of Mid-Lothian"
as the patriotic Scotchman, whose heart must "be cold as death can make
it when it does not warm to the tartan"--the kind and generous protector
of Jeanie Deans. Argyll was a man of many gifts. He was a soldier, a
statesman, and an orator. He had charged at Ramilies and Oudenarde, had
rallied a shrinking column at Malplaquet, and served in the sieges of
Ostend and Lille and Ghent. His eloquence in the House of Lords is said
to have combined the freshness of youth, the strength of manhood, and the
wisdom of old age. Lord Hervey, who is not given to praise, admits that
Argyll was "gallant, and a good officer, with very good parts, and much
more reading and knowledge than generally falls to the share of a man
educated a soldier, and born to so great a title and fortune." But
Hervey also says that Argyll was "haughty, passionate, and peremptory,"
and it cannot be doubted that he was capable of almost any political
tergiversation, or even treachery, which could have served his purpose;
and his purpose was always his own personal interest. He changed his
opinions with the most unscrupulous promptitude; he gave an opinion one
way and acted another way without hesitation, and without a blush. He
was always equal to the emergency; he had the full courage of his
non-convictions. He was the grandson of that Argyll whose last sleep
before his execution is the subject of Mr. Ward's well-known painting;
his great-grandfather, too, gave up his life on the scaffold. He did not
want any of the courage of his ancestors; but he was {45} likely to take
care that his advancement should not be to the block or the gallows. At
such a moment as this which we are now describing his adhesion and his
action were of inestimable value to the Hanoverian cause.
When these two great peers entered the council-chamber a moment of
perplexity and confusion followed. Bolingbroke and Ormond had probably
not even yet a full understanding of the meaning of this dramatic
performance, and what consequences it was likely to insure. While they
sat silent, according to some accounts, the Duke of Shrewsbury arose, and
gravely thanking the Whig peers for their courtesy in attending the
council, accepted their co-operation in the name of all the others
present. They took their places at the council-table, and St. John and
Ormond must have begun to feel that all was over. The intrusion of the
Whig peers was a daring and a significant step in itself, but when the
Duke of Shrewsbury welcomed their appearance and accepted their
co-operation, it was clear to the Jacobites that all was part of a
prearranged scheme, to which resistance would now be in vain. The new
visitors to the council called for the reports of the royal physician,
and having received and read them, suggested that the Duke of Shrewsbury
should be recommended to the Queen as Lord High Treasurer. St. John did
not venture to resist the proposal; he could only sit with as much
appearance of composure as he was enabled to maintain, and accept the
suggestion of his enemies. A deputation of the peers, with the Duke of
Shrewsbury among them, at once sought and obtained an interview with the
dying Queen. She gave the Lord High Treasurer's staff into Shrewsbury's
hand, and bade him, it is said, in that voice of singular sweetness and
melody which was almost her only charm, to use it for the good of her
people.
The office of Lord High Treasurer is now always put into what is called
commission; its functions are managed by several ministers, of whom the
First Lord of the Treasury is one, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer
{46} another. In all recent times the First Lord of the Treasury has
usually been Prime-minister, and his office therefore corresponds fairly
enough with that which was called the office of Lord High Treasurer in
earlier days. It was clear that when the Duke of Shrewsbury became Lord
High Treasurer at such a junction he would stand firmly by the Protestant
succession, and would oppose any kind of scheming in the cause of the
exiled Stuarts.
[Sidenote: 1714--Whigs in possession]
Some writers near to that time, and Mr. Lecky among more recent
historians, are of opinion that it was not either of the intruding dukes
who proposed that Shrewsbury should be appointed Treasurer. Mr. Lecky is
even of opinion that it may have been Bolingbroke himself who made the
suggestion. That seems to us extremely probable. All accounts agree in
confirming the idea that Bolingbroke was taken utterly by surprise when
the great Whig dukes entered the council-chamber. The moment he saw that
Shrewsbury welcomed them he probably made up his mind to the fact that an
entirely new condition of things had arisen, and that all his previous
calculations were upset. He was not a man to remain long dumfounded by
any change in the state of affairs. It would have been quite consistent
with his character and his general course of action if, when he saw the
meaning of the crisis, he had at once resolved to make the best of it and
to try to keep himself still at the head of affairs. In that spirit
nothing is more likely than that he should have pushed himself to the
front once more, and proposed, as Lord High Treasurer, the man whom, but
for the sudden and overwhelming pressure brought to bear upon him, he
would have tried to keep out of all influence and power at such a moment.
The appointment of the Duke of Shrewsbury settled the question. The
crisis was virtually over. The Whig statesmen at once sent out summonses
to all the members of the Privy Council living anywhere near London.
That same afternoon another meeting of the council was held. Somers
himself, the great Whig leader whose {47} services had made the party
illustrious in former reigns, and whose fame sheds a lustre on them even
to this hour--Somers, aged, infirm, decaying as he was in body and in
mind--hastened to attend the summons, and to lend his strength and his
authority to the measures on which his colleagues had determined. The
council ordered the concentration of several regiments in and near
London. They recalled troops from Ostend, and sent a fleet to sea.
General Stanhope, a soldier and statesman of whom we shall hear more, was
prepared, if necessary, to take possession of the Tower and clap the
leading Jacobites into it, to obtain possession of all the outports, and,
in short, to act as military dictator, authorized to anticipate
revolution and to keep the succession safe. In a word, the fate of the
Stuarts was sealed. Bolingbroke was checkmated; the Chevalier de St.
George would have put to sea in vain. Marlborough was on his way to
England, and there was nothing to do but to wait till the breath was out
of Queen Anne's body, and proclaim George the Elector King of England.
The time of waiting was not long. Anne sank into death on August 1,
1714, and the heralds proclaimed that "the high and mighty Prince George,
Elector of Brunswick and Luneburg, is, by the death of Queen Anne of
blessed memory, become our lawful and rightful liege lord, King of Great
Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith." This "King of
France" was lucky enough not to come to his throne until the conclusion
of a long war against the King of France who lived in Versailles. The
"Defender of the Faith" was just now making convenient arrangements that
his mistresses should follow him as speedily as possible when he should
have to take his unwilling way to his new dominions.
On August 3d Bolingbroke wrote a letter to Dean Swift, in which he says,
"The Earl of Oxford was removed on Tuesday; the Queen died on Sunday.
What a world this is, and how does fortune banter us!" In other {48}
words, Bolingbroke tells Swift that full success seemed within his grasp
on Tuesday, and was suddenly torn away from him on Sunday. But the most
characteristic part of the letter is a passage which throws a very blaze
of light over the unconquerable levity of the man. "I have lost all by
the death of the Queen but my spirit; and, I protest to you, I feel that
increase upon me. The Whigs are a pack of Jacobites; that shall be the
cry in a month, if you please." No sooner is one web of intrigue swept
away than Bolingbroke sets to work to weave a new one on a different
plan. Nothing can subdue those high animal spirits; nothing can physic
that selfishness; nothing can fix that levity to a recognition of the
realities of things. Bolingbroke has not a word now about the cause of
the Stuarts; for the moment he cannot think of that. His new scheme is
to make out that his enemies were, after all, the true Jacobites; he will
checkmate them that way--"in a month, if you please." On the very same
day Mr. John Barber, the printer of some of Swift's pamphlets, afterwards
an Alderman and Lord Mayor, writes to Swift and tells him, speaking of
Bolingbroke, that "when my lord gave me the letter" (to be enclosed to
Swift) "he said he hoped you would come up and help to save the
constitution, which, with a little good management, might be kept in Tory
hands." The chill, clear common-sense of Swift's answer might have
impressed even Bolingbroke, but did not.
[Sidenote: 1714--Simon Harcourt]
One among the Tories, indeed, would have had the courage to forestall the
Whigs and their proclamation. This one man was a priest, and not a
soldier. Atterbury, the eloquent Bishop of Rochester, came to
Bolingbroke, and urged him to proclaim King James at Charing Cross,
offering himself to head a procession in his lawn sleeves if Bolingbroke
would only act on his advice. But for the moment Bolingbroke could only
complain of fortune's banter, and plan out new intrigues for the
restoration, not of the Stuarts, but of the Tory party--that is to say,
of {49} himself. His refusal wrung from Atterbury the declaration that
the best cause in England was lost for want of spirit.
Parliament assembled, and on August 5th the Commons were summoned to the
Bar of the House of Lords, and the Lord Chancellor made a speech in the
name of the Lords of the Regency. He told the Lords and Commons that the
Privy Council appointed by George, Elector of Hanover, had proclaimed
that prince as the lawful and rightful sovereign of these realms. Both
Houses agreed to send addresses to the King, expressing their duty and
affection, and the House of Commons passed a bill granting to his Majesty
the same civil list as that which Queen Anne had enjoyed, but with
additional clauses for the payment of arrears due to the Hanoverian
troops who had been in the service of Great Britain. The Lord
Chancellor, who had just addressed the House of Lords and the Commoners
standing at the Bar, was himself a remarkable illustration of the
politics and the principles of that age. Simon Harcourt had been Lord
Chancellor in the later years of Queen Anne's life. His appointment
ended with her death, but he was re-appointed by the Lords of the Regency
in the name of the new sovereign, and he was again sworn in as Lord
Chancellor on August 3, 1714, "in Court at his house aforesaid, Lincoln's
Inn Fields, _Anno Primo, Georgii Regis_." He was one of the Lords
Justices by virtue of his office, and as such had already taken the oath
of allegiance to the new sovereign, and of abjuration to James. Lord
Harcourt had been throughout his whole career not only a very devoted
Tory, but in later years a positive Jacobite. He was a highly
accomplished speaker, a man of great culture, and a lawyer of
considerable, if not pre-eminent, attainments. He was still
comparatively young for a public man of such position. Born in 1660, he
entered Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1675, was admitted to the Inner
Temple in 1676, and called to the Bar in 1683. He became member of
Parliament for Abingdon in 1690, and soon rose to great distinction in
the {50} House of Commons as well as at the Bar. He conducted the
impeachment of the great Lord Somers, and was knighted and made
Solicitor-General by Anne in 1702. He became Attorney-General shortly
after. He conducted, in 1703, the prosecution of Defoe for his famous
satirical tract, "The Shortest Way with the Dissenters." Harcourt threw
himself into the prosecution with the fervor and the bitterness of a
sectary and a partisan. He made a most vehement and envenomed speech
against Defoe; he endeavored to stir up every religious prejudice and
passion in favor of the prosecution. Coke had scarcely shown more of the
animosity of a partisan in prosecuting Raleigh than Simon Harcourt did in
prosecuting Defoe. In 1709-10 Harcourt was the leading counsel for
Sacheverell, and received the Great Seal in 1710, becoming, as the phrase
then was, "Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of Great Britain." A whole
year, wanting only a few days, passed before he was raised to the peerage
as Lord Harcourt. He acted as Speaker of the House of Lords before he
became a peer and a member of the House, and even had on one occasion to
express on behalf of the Peers their thanks to Lord Peterborough for his
services in Spain. In 1713 he became Lord Chancellor of England. During
all this time he had been a most devoted adherent of the Stuarts, and
during the later period he was an open and avowed Jacobite. He had
opposed strongly the oaths of abjuration which now, as Lord Chief
Justice, he had both taken and administered. Almost his first
conspicuous act as a member of Parliament was to protest against the Bill
which required the oath Of abjuration of James and his descendants, and
he maintained consistently the same principles and the same policy till
the death of Queen Anne. There can be no doubt that if just then any
movement had been made on behalf of the Stuarts, with the slightest
chance of success, Lord Chancellor Harcourt would have thrown himself
into it heart and soul. Nevertheless, he took the oath of allegiance and
the oath of abjuration; he professed to be a loyal subject of the King,
{51} whose person and principles he despised and detested, and he swore
to abjure forever all adhesion to that dynasty which with all his heart
he would have striven, if he could, to restore to the throne of England.
Lord Campbell, in his "Lives of the Lord Chancellors," says of Harcourt,
"I do not consider his efforts to restore the exiled Stuarts morally
inconsistent with the engagements into which he had entered to the
existing Government; and although there were loud complaints against him
for at last sending in his adhesion to the House of Hanover, it should be
recollected that the cause of the Stuarts had then become desperate, and
that instead of betraying he did everything in his power to screen his
old associates." The cause of the Stuarts had not become, even then, so
utterly desperate as to prevent many brave men from laying down their
lives for it. Thirty years had to pass away before the last blow was
struck for that cause of the Stuarts which Harcourt by solemn oath
abjured forever. Such credit as he is entitled to have, because he
protected rather than betrayed his old associates, we are free to give
him, and it stands a significant illustration of the political morality
of the time that such comparative credit is all that his enthusiastic
biographer ventures to claim for him.
[Sidenote: 1714--Lords and Commons]
The House of Lords had then two hundred and seven members, many of whom,
being Catholics, were not permitted to take any part in public business.
That number of Peers is about in just proportion to the population of
England as it was then when compared with the Peers and the population of
England at present. In the House of Commons there were at the same time
five hundred and fifty-eight members. England sent in five hundred and
thirteen, and Scotland, which had lately accepted the union, returned
forty-five. It need hardly be said that at that time Ireland had her own
Parliament, and sent no members to Westminster. A great number of the
county family names in the House of Commons were just the same as those
which we see at present. The Stanhopes, the Lowthers, the Lawsons, the
Herberts, the Harcourts, {52} the Cowpers, the Fitzwilliams, the Cecils,
the Grevilles; all these, and many others, were represented in Parliament
then as they are represented in Parliament now. Then, as more lately,
the small boroughs had the credit of returning, mostly of course through
family influence, men of eminence other than political, who happened to
sit in the House of Commons. Steele sat for Stockbridge, in "Southampton
County," as Hampshire was then always called, Addison for Malmesbury,
Prior for East Grinstead. There were no reports of the debates, nor
printed lists of the divisions. Questions of foreign policy were
sometimes discussed with doors strictly closed against all strangers,
just as similar questions are occasionally, and not infrequently,
discussed in the Senate of the United States at present. The pamphlet
supplied in some measure the place of the newspaper report and the
newspaper leading article. Some twelve years later than this the
brilliant pen of Bolingbroke, who, if he had lived at a period nearer to
our own, might have been an unrivalled writer of leading articles, was
able to obtain for the series of pamphlets called "The Craftsman" a
circulation greater than that ever enjoyed by the _Spectator_. Pulteney
co-operated with him for a time in the work. Steele, as we have said,
had been expelled from the House of Commons for his pamphlet "The
Crisis." The caricature which played so important a part in political
controversy all through the reigns of the Georges had just come into
recognized existence. Countless caricatures of Bolingbroke, of Walpole,
of Shrewsbury, of Marlborough, began to fly about London. Scurrilous
ballads were of course in great demand, nor was the supply inadequate to
the demand.
[Sidenote: 1714--Malbrouck de Retour]
One of the most successful of these compositions described the return of
the Duke of Marlborough to London. On the very day of the Queen's death
Marlborough landed at Dover. He came quickly on to London, and there,
according to the descriptions given by his admirers, he was received like
a restored sovereign returning to his throne. A procession of two
hundred gentlemen on {53} horseback met him on the road to London, and
the procession was joined shortly after by a long train of carriages. As
he entered London the enthusiasm deepened with every foot of the way; the
streets were lined with crowds of applauding admirers. Marlborough's
carriage broke down near Temple Bar, and he had to exchange it for
another. The little incident was only a new cause for demonstrations of
enthusiasm. It was a fresh delight to see the hero more nearly than he
could be seen through his carriage-windows. It was something to have
delayed him for a moment, and to have compelled him to stand among the
crowd of those who were pressing round to express their homage. This was
the Whig description. According to Tory accounts Marlborough was more
hissed than huzzaed, and at Temple Bar the hissing was loudest. The work
of the historian would be comparatively easy if eye-witnesses could only
agree as to any, even the most important, facts.
Enthusiastic Whig pamphleteers called upon their countrymen to love and
honor their invincible hero, and declared that the wretch would be
esteemed a disgrace to humanity, and should be transmitted to posterity
with infamy, who would dare to use his tongue or pen against him. Such
wretches, however, were found, and did not seem in the least to dread the
infamy which was promised them. The scurrilous ballad of which we have
already spoken was by one Ned Ward, a publican and rhymester, and it
pictured the entry of the duke in verses after the fashion of Hudibras.
It depicted the procession as made up of
Frightful troops of thin-jawed zealots,
Curs'd enemies to kings and prelates;
and declared that those "champions of religious errors" made London seem
As if the prince of terrors
Was coming with his dismal train
To plague the city once again.
The memory of what the Plague had done in London was still green enough
to give bitter force to this allusion.
{54}
Marlborough could have afforded to despise what Hotspur calls the
"metre-ballad-mongers," but his pride received a check and chill not
easily to be got over. When fairly rid of his enthusiastic followers and
admirers he went to the House of Lords almost at once, and took the
oaths; but he did not remain there. In truth, he soon found himself
bitterly disappointed; not with the people--they could not have been more
enthusiastic than they were--but with the new ruling power. Immediately
after the death of the Queen, and even before the proclamation of the new
sovereign had taken place, the Hanoverian resident in London handed to
the Privy Council a letter from George, in George's own handwriting,
naming the men who were to act in combination with the seven great
officers of State as lords justices. The power to make this nomination
was provided for George by the Regency Act. This document contained the
names of eighteen of the principal Whig peers; the Duke of Shrewsbury,
the Duke of Somerset, and the Duke of Argyll were among them; so, too,
were Lords Cowper, Halifax, and Townshend. It was noted with wonder that
the illustrious name of Somers did not appear on the list, nor did that
of Marlborough, nor that of Marlborough's son-in-law, Lord Sunderland.
It is likely that the omission of these names was only made in the first
instance because George and his advisers were somewhat afraid of his
getting into the hands of a sort of dictatorship--a dictatorship in
commission, as it might be called, made up of three or four influential
men. The King afterwards hastened to show every attention to Marlborough
and Somers and Sunderland, and he soon restored Marlborough to all his
public offices. But George seems to have had a profound and a very
well-justified distrust of Marlborough. Though he honored him with marks
of respect and attention, though he restored him to the great position he
had held in the State, yet the King never allowed Marlborough to suppose
that he really had regained his former influence in court and political
life. Marlborough was shelved, and he already knew it, and bitterly
complained of it.
{55}