ARLINGTON STREET, _Aug._ 1, 1746.
I am this moment come from the conclusion of the greatest and most
melancholy scene I ever yet saw! You will easily guess it was the Trials
of the rebel Lords. As it was the most interesting sight, it was the
most solemn and fine: a coronation is a puppet-show, and all the
splendour of it idle; but this sight at once feasted one's eyes and
engaged all one's passions. It began last Monday; three parts of
Westminster Hall were inclosed with galleries, and hung with scarlet;
and the whole ceremony was conducted with the most awful solemnity and
decency, except in the one point of leaving the prisoners at the bar,
amidst the idle curiosity of some crowd, and even with the witnesses
who had sworn against them, while the Lords adjourned to their own House
to consult. No part of the royal family was there, which was a proper
regard to the unhappy men, who were become their victims. One hundred
and thirty-nine Lords were present, and made a noble sight on their
benches _frequent and full_! The Chancellor [Hardwicke] was Lord High
Steward; but though a most comely personage with a fine voice, his
behaviour was mean, curiously searching for occasion to bow to the
minister [Mr. Pelham] that is no peer, and consequently applying to the
other ministers, in a manner, for their orders; and not even ready at
the ceremonial. To the prisoners he was peevish; and instead of keeping
up to the humane dignity of the law of England, whose character it is to
point out favour to the criminal, he crossed them, and almost scolded at
any offer they made towards defence. I had armed myself with all the
resolution I could, with the thought of their crimes and of the danger
past, and was assisted by the sight of the Marquis of Lothian in weepers
for his son who fell at Culloden--but the first appearance of the
prisoners shocked me! their behaviour melted me! Lord Kilmarnock and
Lord Cromartie are both past forty, but look younger. Lord Kilmarnock is
tall and slender, with an extreme fine person: his behaviour a most just
mixture between dignity and submission; if in anything to be
reprehended, a little affected, and his hair too exactly dressed for a
man in his situation; but when I say it is not to find fault with him,
but to show how little fault there was to be found. Lord Cromartie is
an indifferent figure, appeared much dejected, and rather sullen: he
dropped a few tears the first day, and swooned as soon as he got back to
his cell. For Lord Balmerino, he is the most natural brave old fellow I
ever saw: the highest intrepidity, even to indifference. At the bar he
behaved like a soldier and a man; at the intervals of form, with
carelessness and humour. He pressed extremely to have his wife, his
pretty Peggy, with him in the Tower. Lady Cromartie only sees her
husband through the grate, not choosing to be shut up with him, as she
thinks she can serve him better by her intercession without: she is big
with child and very handsome: so are their daughters. When they were to
be brought from the Tower in separate coaches, there was some dispute in
which the axe must go--old Balmerino cried, "Come, come, put it with
me." At the bar, he plays with his fingers upon the axe, while he talks
with the gentleman-gaoler; and one day somebody coming up to listen, he
took the blade and held it like a fan between their faces. During the
trial, a little boy was near him, but not tall enough to see; he made
room for the child and placed him near himself.
When the trial began, the two Earls pleaded guilty; Balmerino not
guilty, saying he could prove his not being at the taking of the castle
of Carlisle, as was laid in the indictment. Then the King's counsel
opened, and Serjeant Skinner pronounced the most absurd speech
imaginable; and mentioned the Duke of Perth, "who," said he, "I see by
the papers is dead." Then some witnesses were examined, whom afterwards
the old hero shook cordially by the hand. The Lords withdrew to their
House, and returning, demanded of the judges, whether one point not
being proved, though all the rest were, the indictment was false? to
which they unanimously answered in the negative. Then the Lord High
Steward asked the Peers severally, whether Lord Balmerino was guilty!
All said, "guilty upon honour," and then adjourned, the prisoner having
begged pardon for giving them so much trouble. While the Lords were
withdrawn, the Solicitor-General Murray (brother of the Pretender's
minister) officiously and insolently went up to Lord Balmerino, and
asked him, how he could give the Lords so much trouble, when his
solicitor had informed him that his plea could be of no use to him?
Balmerino asked the bystanders who this person was? and being told he
said, "Oh, Mr. Murray! I am extremely glad to see you; I have been with
several of your relations; the good lady, your mother, was of great use
to us at Perth." Are not you charmed with this speech? how just it was!
As he went away, he said, "They call me Jacobite; I am no more a
Jacobite than any that tried me: but if the Great Mogul had set up his
standard, I should have followed it, for I could not starve." The worst
of his case is, that after the battle of Dumblain, having a company in
the Duke of Argyll's regiment, he deserted with it to the rebels, and
has since been pardoned. Lord Kilmarnock is a Presbyterian, with four
earldoms in him, but so poor since Lord Wilmington's stopping a pension
that my father had given him, that he often wanted a dinner. Lord
Cromartie was receiver of the rents of the King's second son in
Scotland, which, it was understood, he should not account for; and by
that means had six-hundred a-year from the Government: Lord Elibank, a
very prating, impertinent Jacobite, was bound for him in nine thousand
pounds, for which the Duke is determined to sue him.
When the Peers were going to vote, Lord Foley withdrew, as too well a
wisher; Lord Moray, as nephew of Lord Balmerino--and Lord Stair,--as, I
believe, uncle to his great-grandfather. Lord Windsor, very affectedly,
said, "I am sorry I must say, _guilty upon my honour_." Lord Stamford
would not answer to the name of _Henry_, having been christened
_Harry_--what a great way of thinking on such an occasion! I was
diverted too with old Norsa, the father of my brother's concubine, an
old Jew that kept a tavern; my brother [Orford], as Auditor of the
Exchequer, has a gallery along one whole side of the court; I said, "I
really feel for the prisoners!" old Issachar replied, "Feel for them!
pray, if they had succeeded, what would have become of _all us_?" When
my Lady Townsend heard her husband vote, she said, "I always knew _my_
Lord was _guilty_, but I never thought he would own it _upon his
honour_." Lord Balmerino said, that one of his reasons for pleading _not
guilty_, was that so many ladies might not be disappointed of their
show.
On Wednesday they were again brought to Westminster Hall, to receive
sentence; and being asked what they had to say, Lord Kilmarnock, with a
very fine voice, read a very fine speech, confessing the extent of his
crime, but offering his principles as some alleviation, having his
eldest son (his second unluckily with him), in the Duke's army,
_fighting for the liberties of his country at Culloden, where his
unhappy father was in arms to destroy them_. He insisted much on his
tenderness to the English prisoners, which some deny, and say that he
was the man who proposed their being put to death, when General
Stapleton urged that _he_ was come to fight, but not to butcher; and
that if they acted any such barbarity, he would leave them with all his
men. He very artfully mentioned Van Hoey's letter, and said how much he
would scorn to owe his life to such intercession.[1] Lord Cromartie
spoke much shorter, and so low, that he was not heard but by those who
sat very near him; but they prefer his speech to the other. He mentioned
his misfortune in having drawn in his eldest son, who is prisoner with
him; and concluded with saying, "If no part of this bitter cup must pass
from me, not mine, O God, but thy will be done!" If he had pleaded _not
guilty_, there was ready to be produced against him a paper signed with
his own hand, for putting the English prisoners to death.
[Footnote 1: In a subsequent letter Walpole attributes Lord Kilmarnock's
complicity in the rebellion partly to the influence of his mother, the
Countess of Errol, and partly to his extreme poverty. He says: "I don't
know whether I told you that the man at the tennis-court protests that
he has known him dine with the man that sells pamphlets at Storey's
Gate; 'and,' says he, 'he would often have been glad if I would have
taken him home to dinner.' He was certainly so poor, that in one of his
wife's intercepted letters she tells him she has plagued their steward
for a fortnight for money, and can get but three shillings." One cannot
help remembering, _Ibit eo quo vis qui zonam perdidit_. And afterwards,
in relating his execution, he mentions a report that the Duke of
Cumberland charging him (certainly on misinformation) with having
promoted the adoption of "a resolution taken the day before the battle
of Culloden" to put the English prisoners to death, "decided this
unhappy man's fate" by preventing his obtaining a pardon.]
Lord Leicester went up to the Duke of Newcastle, and said, "I never
heard so great an orator as Lord Kilmarnock? if I was your grace I would
pardon him, and make him _paymaster_."[1]
[Footnote 1: "_I would make him paymaster._" The paymaster at this time
was Mr. Pitt.]
That morning a paper had been sent to the lieutenant of the Tower for
the prisoners; he gave it to Lord Cornwallis, the governor, who carried
it to the House of Lords. It was a plea for the prisoners, objecting
that the late act for regulating the trials of rebels did not take place
till after their crime was committed. The Lords very tenderly and
rightly sent this plea to them, of which, as you have seen, the two
Earls did not make use; but old Balmerino did, and demanded council on
it. The High Steward, almost in a passion, told him, that when he had
been offered council, he did not accept it. Do but think on the ridicule
of sending them the plea, and then denying them council on it! The Duke
of Newcastle, who never let slip an opportunity of being absurd, took it
up as a ministerial point, in defence of his creature the Chancellor
[Hardwicke]; but Lord Granville moved, according to order, to adjourn to
debate in the chamber of Parliament, where the Duke of Bedford and many
others spoke warmly for their having council; and it was granted. I said
_their_, because the plea would have saved them all, and affected nine
rebels who had been hanged that very morning; particularly one Morgan, a
poetical lawyer. Lord Balmerino asked for Forester and Wilbraham; the
latter a very able lawyer in the House of Commons, who, the Chancellor
said privately, he was sure would as soon be hanged as plead such a
cause. But he came as council to-day (the third day), when Lord
Balmerino gave up his plea as invalid, and submitted, without any
speech. The High Steward [Hardwicke] then made his, very long and very
poor, with only one or two good passages; and then pronounced sentence!
Great intercession is made for the two Earls: Duke Hamilton, who has
never been at Court, designs to kiss the King's hand, and ask Lord
Kilmarnock's life. The King is much inclined to some mercy; but the
Duke, who has not so much of Caesar after a victory, as in gaining it,
is for the utmost severity. It was lately proposed in the city to
present him with the freedom of some company; one of the aldermen said
aloud, "Then let it be of the _Butchers_!"[1] The Scotch and his Royal
Highness are not at all guarded in their expressions of each other. When
he went to Edinburgh, in his pursuit of the rebels, they would not
admit his guards, alleging that it was contrary to their privileges; but
they rode in, sword in hand; and the Duke, very justly incensed, refused
to see any of the magistrates. He came with the utmost expedition to
town, in order for Flanders; but found that the Court of Vienna had
already sent Prince Charles thither, without the least notification, at
which both King and Duke are greatly offended. When the latter waited on
his brother, the Prince carried him into a room that hangs over the wall
of St. James's Park, and stood there with his arm about his neck, to
charm the gazing mob.
[Footnote 1: "The Duke," says Sir Walter Scott, "was received with all
the honours due to conquest; and all the incorporated bodies of the
capital, from the Guild brethren to the Butchers, desired the acceptance
of the freedom of their craft, or corporation." Billy the Butcher was
one of his by-names.]
Murray, the Pretender's secretary, has made ample confessions: the Earl
of Traquair, and Mr. Barry, a physician, are apprehended, and more
warrants are out; so much for rebels! Your friend, Lord Sandwich, is
instantly going ambassador to Holland, to pray the Dutch to build more
ships. I have received yours of July 19th, but you see have no more room
left, only to say, that I conceive a good idea of my eagle, though the
seal is a bad one. Adieu!
P.S.--I have not room to say anything to the Tesi till next post; but,
unless she will sing gratis, would advise her to drop this thought.
_THE BATTLE OF RANCOUX._