In the meantime all had been settled by hasty arrangements in London.
Owing to Newcastle's 'overwhelming affliction,' Hardwicke tells us that
he himself was compelled to step forward as a 'kind of minister _ab
aratro_,' and make the necessary arrangements. A faint offer of the
Treasury was made to the Duke of Devonshire, which he wisely declined,
and, six days after the death of Pelham, Newcastle, in spite of his
overwhelming affliction, was proclaimed his successor. We do not doubt
Newcastle's sorrow, for in his own way he loved his brother and had
divided his patrimony with him; but it is even more certain that the
Chancellor acted as his watch-dog in front of the Treasury. For the
Duke, though his timidity was a standing jest, could not bear that any
one else should obtain the rich prize which he coveted and dreaded. And,
in truth, if that was his view, no one could controvert it, for his
power in the House of Commons was obvious and undeniable. The King seems
to have made no trouble. He said that he had an open mind, and would be
guided by the opinion of the Cabinet as to the nomination of their new
chief. The suggestion shocked Hardwicke. 'To poll in a Cabinet Council
for his first minister, which should only be settled in his closet, I
could by no means digest.' So Hardwicke, with remarkable expedition,
took care that the Closet, which was the term used to denote the King's
personal apartment and so his personal authority, should pronounce in
favour of Newcastle. But the Closet was guided by the Cabinet in spite
of Hardwicke's scruples; and the Cabinet, a facile caucus, inspired by
Hardwicke himself, represented to the King as its unanimous opinion that
Newcastle should be their chief. Horace Walpole tells us that it was 'to
the astonishment of all men.' To us it seems the only natural solution.
Hardwicke had declared that a peer must be placed at the head of the
Treasury. 'That peer must be somebody of great figure and credit in the
nation, in whom the Whigs will have great confidence.' He was no doubt
painting the figure to represent Newcastle. But who else could it be?
Newcastle was the head of the Whigs, the master of Parliament, Secretary
of State for a generation, and the brother of the late First Minister.
The House of Commons, moreover, consisted mainly of his creatures. His
nomination to the premiership was easy and simple enough. But a
formidable difficulty at once presented itself. Who should lead the
House of Commons? It was not that there was a dearth of capable men; on
the contrary, there was a terrible embarrassment of riches; for there
were Fox, Pitt, and Murray, all men of the first eminence in their
lines. Murray at once let it be known that his views lay in another
direction; in any case, he was a Scotsman, which was little
recommendation, and suspected of being a Jacobite, which was less. But
Fox was on the spot, and, though distracted with anxiety for his child
Charles, who lay dangerously ill,[249] prompt, vigilant, and eager.
Within a few hours of Pelham's death he had sent three humble messages
of apology to Hardwicke, with whom he was on terms of bitter enmity,
made energetic advances to Newcastle, and had called at Pitt's London
house. Soon afterwards he was closeted with Lord Hartington. It was
obvious that no considerations of delicacy would stand in his way. But
there were strong prejudices against him. Hardwicke feared his success,
for they had quarrelled mortally. He belonged, said the Chancellor, 'to
a very narrow clique, many of them of the worst sort.' His claims rested
on his abilities, but even more on the friendship of the Duke of
Cumberland; perhaps, too, on a presumed pliability.
Pitt was absent, and had the proverbial fate of the absent; he was not
merely distant, but could not be moved. He had been nearly a year
secluded in the country out of the atmosphere of London and politics.
Horace Walpole describes him epigrammatically in a letter written on the
stirring day after Pelham's death: 'Pitt has no health, no party, and
has what in _this_ case is allowed to operate, the King's negative.' On
the other hand, the King had a prepossession for Fox; and the Cabinet,
we are told, when it recommended Newcastle, unanimously named Fox as the
proper person to be Secretary of State and manager of the House of
Commons. What wonder then that Newcastle's choice fell on Fox, who at
any rate could not be fobbed off by stories of the King's insurmountable
repugnance and who was the favourite of the King's favourite son? The
Chancellor sent his son-in-law, Lord Anson, to Fox with an olive-branch.
Lady Yarmouth acted as a friendly means of communication between Fox
and the King. Lord Hartington acted as the honest broker. Fox was given
the management of the House of Commons, with the Secretaryship of State
vacant by Newcastle's elevation. He was at once led by Hartington, like
a votive lamb, to the Chancellor, with whom a reconciliation was
concluded. Thence he was conducted to Newcastle, who received him, we
need not doubt, with his customary effusion, probably with a kiss. All
went well till the Secret Service money was mentioned. This Newcastle
said he should distribute as his brother had done, without telling
anybody anything. Then came the question of patronage. That also was to
be reserved to Newcastle alone. Lastly, there was the list of nominees
for ministerial boroughs at the approaching General Election. This
Newcastle also declined to divulge. In the evening Newcastle sent for
Hartington. He did not deny that he had broken his engagements, but
simply declared that he would not stand by them. He 'confirmed not his
promise but his breach of promise in these words: "Who desires Mr. Fox
to be answerable for anybody but himself in the House of Commons?" I
then,' continues Fox, 'was to take this great office on the footing of
being quite a cypher, and being known to have been told so.'[250]
Newcastle had always intended this and nothing else. As Hardwicke
judiciously wrote, two days before Newcastle saw Fox: 'If the power of
the Treasury, the Secret Service and the House of Commons is once well
settled in safe hands, the office of Secretary of State of the Southern
province will carry very little efficient power along with it.' Fox was
to be Secretary for the Southern province. But the Duke's plan of
campaign had the radical defect of making the post of manager
impossible. For the difference between the modern term of 'leadership'
and the denomination of 'management' was no mere verbal distinction. The
House of Commons had to be managed by acts of a kind more material than
the eloquence of a chief, or the seductive hints of whips. The leader,
in fact, combined the leadership with the office of Patronage Secretary.
'The House of Commons must have,' as Fox explained on a subsequent
occasion, 'at least one man in it who shall be the organ of His
Majesty's parliamentary wishes, and known to be able to help or hurt
people with His Majesty.'[251] The leader would not know how to talk to
his followers, when some might be hirelings and some free, without his
knowing which were which. He would not be able to promise a borough or a
place. He would be a mere speaking automaton with a wary old chief in
concealment working the machine. Fox saw that he was cheated. He himself
seems to have clung for a moment even to the shadow of office which
Newcastle had proffered. But his friends insisted on his refusal. So on
the next day or the next day but one, he wrote a curt letter, stating
that the assurances conveyed to him through Lord Hartington had been
entirely contradicted by Newcastle at their interview, and that he
preferred to remain Secretary at War. 'I remain therefore,' he wrote to
Marlborough, 'a little little man, which I think is better than a little
great man.'[252] But he soon repented, or his friends did for him.[253]
Newcastle cared little for the charge of breach of faith. He had kept
his patronage, and, as he thought, silenced Fox, who remained Secretary
at War. In a hysterical condition he hurried to kiss hands for his new
office. He flung himself at the King's feet, sobbing out 'God bless your
Majesty! God preserve your Majesty!' embracing the royal knees with such
howls of adoration that the lord-in-waiting had to beg the other
courtiers to retire and not watch 'a great man in distress;' then, in
the zeal of discretion, attempting to shut the door on the tittering
crowd, he jammed the new Minister's foot till genuine roars of physical
pain drowned the more artificial clamour.[254] Having recovered himself
after this characteristic performance, Newcastle betook himself without
delay to the choice of his heart, the man whom he had always longed for
as a colleague, even at the time when he had been seeking a successor to
Bedford, an obscure diplomatist, Sir Thomas Robinson. 'Had I,' he had
written in September 1750, 'to chuse for the King, the public, and
myself, I would prefer Sir Thomas Robinson to any man living. I know he
knows more and would be more useful to the country and me than any other
can be.' This opinion seems to have been confined to the Duke himself.
Horace Walpole writing at the moment says:--'The German Sir Thomas
Robinson was thought on for the Secretary's seals; but has just sense
enough to be unwilling to accept them under so ridiculous an
administration. This is the first act of the comedy.' But in the second
act Sir Thomas's good sense was unequal even to this strain, and he
accepted the post. Under what hallucination he laboured, or whether he
was merely beguiled by the fawning caresses of Newcastle, it is
difficult to say. The fact remains that he undertook to lead the House
of Commons, seated between Pitt and Fox, whom he knew to be malcontents,
and capable of anything. His own parliamentary powers were in the egg
(for he had never spoken), and were never destined to be hatched. At the
time of his appointment as Secretary of State he was Master of the Great
Wardrobe, a congenial post which he was destined during the next year to
resume. For in his new capacity he justified the anticipations of his
enemies, and disturbed the equanimity of his friends. Newcastle himself
had recommended the appointment to Pitt's benevolent consideration on
the very ground that he could not excite the rivalry of existing
orators. He 'had not those parliamentary talents which could give
jealousy or in that light set him above the rest of the King's
servants.' But the reality was far below these modest anticipations. Sir
Thomas was not merely ineffectual and feeble, but would attempt on
occasion agonising flights of eloquence. Posterity is spared the perusal
of these, for Parliamentary history records no word of this unhappy
leader. 'Sir Thomas,' says Lord Waldegrave, 'though a good Secretary of
State, as far as the business of his office and that which related to
foreign affairs, was ignorant even of the language of an House of
Commons controversy; and when he played the orator, which he too
frequently attempted, it was so exceedingly ridiculous that those who
loved and esteemed him could not always preserve a friendly composure of
countenance.' This partly arose from his appearance. He was a large
unwieldy man, and would in debate put his arms straight out, which made
George Selwyn compare him to a signpost.[255]
Such was Sir Thomas; who was to allay the warring elements, to appease
the Titans and the Giants, to hold the scales between Fox and Pitt. Let
us, while contemplating this grievous and pathetic spectacle, at least
take comfort that we have arrived at the priceless narrative of Lord
Waldegrave, a man not brilliant, but shrewd and honest, who guides us
past the waspish partiality of Horace Walpole, the bitterness of Glover,
and the corrupt cynicism of Dodington with a light which we feel to be
the lamp of truth. Newcastle, delighted with the consent of Sir Thomas,
and with the apparent acquiescence of Fox, hastened to complete his
arrangements with the squalid instinct of a jobber. Fox was, he thought,
muzzled; the formidable task remained of silencing Pitt. He could not
satisfy Pitt directly, for that would imply overwhelming difficulties
with the King, and perhaps with Fox; but he might give indirect
satisfaction, and detach some of Pitt's little section. In this last
attempt he succeeded. Pitt's friend Legge was made Chancellor of the
Exchequer, the King only making the same condition that he had with
regard to Pitt himself, that he was never to receive the new minister.
It is said, indeed, by Horace Walpole that his mean appearance and
uncouth dialect made him unsuitable for such audiences, and that he
would have preferred to remain Treasurer of the Navy, the lucrative post
which had so great a fascination for Bubb. George Grenville, one of the
Cobham Cousinhood, succeeded Legge in this attractive office; George
Lyttelton, another, became Cofferer, with his brother as Sub-Cofferer;
'it is a good L2200 per annum, all taxes deducted,'[256] writes George
of his new post in the fulness of his heart; and, according to Horace
Walpole, in the exuberance of his satisfaction with that office, he
vouched for Pitt's acquiescence in the new arrangements. Newcastle
himself presented these appointments to Pitt with a satisfaction not
unalloyed with melancholy presentiments. 'The appointment of Mr. Legge
was made,' he writes, 'with a view to please all our friends. We knew he
was well with the old corps, we knew he was happy in your friendship,
and in your good opinion and in that of your connection; _and you must
allow me to say, that I never could have thought one moment of removing
you, in the high light which you so justly stand, from the office you
now possess to be Chancellor of the Exchequer with another person at the
head of the Treasury_.'[257]
It is perhaps scarcely necessary to explain that the italics are not the
Duke's, but it seemed necessary to give emphasis to so daring a flight.
'These dispositions being thus made,' he continues, 'it was my first
view to show you that regard in the person of your friends, which it was
impossible to do in your own, to the degree which you might reasonably
expect. The two first vacant offices, that of Treasurer of the Navy and
Cofferer, were by my recommendation given to your two first friends, Mr.
Grenville and Sir George Lyttelton,' etc. etc. 'Legge at the Exchequer,
unsuitable for you, two of your friends as Cofferer and Treasurer';
these were the sedatives timidly launched to Pitt, gnashing his teeth
at Bath over his own impotence and the desertion of his friends. So may
a despairing traveller have attempted to assuage with a few casual
comfits the hunger of a Bengal tiger crouching for a spring.
Pitt controlled himself. We have seen his reply[258] to Newcastle's
shuffling apologies. He continued to write to Lyttelton, but with less
cordiality. To George Grenville he wrote a tepid note of congratulation.
To Temple, who had been omitted from the arrangements, he addressed
himself more cordially, and sent the portrait for which he had been
sitting to Hoare. It represents no formidable orator, but a simpering
man of the world; yet, after the fashion of mankind, who secretly
cherish the portraits least like themselves, Pitt commended the
resemblance. But he took occasion to add a phrase which reveals the full
bitterness of his heart. 'In this portrait,' he writes, 'I shall have
had the honour to present myself before you in my very person; not only
from the great likeness of the portrait, but, moreover, that I have no
right to pretend to any other existence than that of a man en peinture.'
The wrath pierces through the confused sentence like a sudden sting: it
is not often indulged, but it cannot be wholly suppressed.
Soon afterwards (May 1754) Temple and his brother George paid Pitt a
flying visit at Bath, where no doubt explanations were exchanged and
plans concerted. For, putting Pitt on one side, the Minister knew little
of human nature who could think that he would conciliate Temple by
promoting his brother George.
In June 1754, Pitt at length left Bath and arrived in London. He had
now been fourteen months absent from the metropolis. In the meantime he
had been chosen for Newcastle's borough of Aldborough at the General
Election in the previous April, a somewhat embarrassing connection under
existing circumstances; though embarrassments of this kind are apt to be
less irksome in politics than they may appear. And Pitt wrote to thank
the Duke in terms of Oriental submission. 'I thank you for writing to
tell me of the great honour you have done me at Aldborough, for which
seat I declined the offer of many others, being anxious to be known as
your servant.' With whatever grimace Pitt may have written this, it
strikes one as carrying the joke too far.[259]
But when he returned to London in June, he no longer affected to conceal
his discontent. His complaints were obvious and well founded enough. He
had not been consulted, but had only been informed. Nor was the
information calculated to gratify him. He had been told at first that
Fox, whom Bubb at this time calls Pitt's 'inveterate enemy,' had been
offered the seals; then by the next post that Fox had refused them and
that they had been accepted by Robinson. The excuse had then been
tendered that Pitt's health would not allow him to accept an office of
so much business and fatigue; to which he had replied that he himself
should be the best judge of that. He ought at least to have been offered
the Exchequer, which had been given to the underling Legge.[260] The
King in any case should have been reconciled to him. When he saw the new
minister Newcastle asked him his opinion of the arrangements. This Pitt
at first refused to give, but on being pressed declared that 'your Grace
may be surprised, but I think Mr. Fox should have been at the head of
the House of Commons.' He met Fox. They had mutual explanations, and no
doubt assurances of common vengeance to exchange. For Fox was as loud in
complaint as Pitt. 'Nothing,' he wrote, 'can be more contemptuous than
the usage I receive.'[261]
Parliament had risen, so Pitt, after settling the arrears in his office,
went back to the country. Early in September we find him at Astrop
Wells. On October 2 he called on Newcastle with reference to some
business in his office. Bubb's account of this interview is well known.
When they had settled the business which had brought Pitt, the Duke
wished to enter on affairs in North America, where things were looking
black, and Washington, then a major, had been compelled to surrender to
the French at Fort Necessity. 'Your Grace,' said Pitt, 'knows I have no
capacity for such things,' and declined to discuss them.[262] Newcastle,
who, the same day, wrote an account of the interview to Hardwicke, makes
no mention of this incident. And yet it is too good, too Pitt-like, not
to be true. We can reconcile the two statements by presuming that it was
what an opening is to a game of chess, and that Pitt, having enjoyed his
sarcasm, could not resist the appeal of military plans. 'I then
acquainted him with what was designed for North America, and also with
my Lord Granville's notions, which had not been followed. He talked up
the affair of North America very highly--that it must be supported in
all events and at all risks--that the Duke's scheme was a very good one
as far as it went--that it might do something: that it did not go near
far enough--that he could not help agreeing with my Lord Granville--that
he was for doing both, sending the regiments and raising some thousand
men in America--that we should do it once for all--that it was not to be
done by troops from Europe--that mere France would be too strong for
us--that we should have soon to countenance the Americans, &c.--that the
Duke's proposals for artillery, &c., were infinitely too short. This
discourse, joined with Lord Anson's opinion, has made me suspend at
least the stopping the orders for the raising two regiments, &c., and
for providing all the artillery promised by the Duke.'[263]
What a scene of confusion! Here are three stages revealed: the orders,
the stopping the orders, the suspending the stopping the orders! Pitt,
it is evident, though beginning with a refusal, ended by speaking with
authority.
Hardwicke, however, who had made a merit to Pitt of having sustained his
claim to be Secretary, waxed suspicious on receiving Newcastle's letter.
'I am glad,' he replies, 'your Grace has talked to Mr. Pitt upon these
measures. As he expressed himself so zealously and sanguinely for them,
I hope he will support them in Parliament, and I dare say your Grace did
not omit the opportunity of pressing that upon him. There is something
remarkable in that gentleman's taking a measure of the Duke's so
strongly to heart, and arguing even to carry it further. I think that
sett used to be against warlike measures.'[264]
Suspicion tainted every political breeze. The vigilant celibates in
Cranford did not keep a closer watch on their neighbours' proceedings
than did the public men of those days on each other. The mere fact of
Pitt's commending a project of Cumberland, his former enemy, at once
implied to Hardwicke that he was in harmony and understanding with Fox,
Cumberland's right-hand man. And indeed Bubb assures us that this was
the case. Fox and Pitt were agreed as to the division of the spoils,
when spoils there should be. Fox was to be head of the Treasury and Pitt
Secretary of State; 'but neither will assist the other.'
All this came to nothing, and therefore need not detain us now; for Pitt
was occupied with something far more vital to him than Fox, or
Newcastle, or the distant echoes of American warfare. He had come up
from Wotton, the residence of George Grenville, where in the last days
of September he had plighted his troth to Lady Hester Grenville, the
sister of the Grenvilles, and he was now hurrying back to join her at
Stowe. The engagement was in some respects remarkable. Pitt was now
forty-six and Lady Hester was thirty-three. When Pitt first went to
Stowe in 1735 she was fourteen, and in the nineteen years that had
elapsed they must have seen each other constantly. How was it then that
the cripple of forty-six suddenly flung away his crutches to throw
himself at the feet of this mature young lady? It seems inexplicable,
but love affairs are often inexplicable. And we know little or nothing
of Pitt's loves. Except the childish passage at Besancon, there is only
the statement of Horace Walpole, a spiteful gossip if ever there was
one, that Lady Archibald Hamilton had lost the affections of Frederick
Prince of Wales by giving him Pitt as a rival.[265] This lacks
confirmation and even probability. Were it true, it might be a clue to
phases of Pitt's connection with Leicester House. He seems, too, as we
have seen in a letter of Lyttelton's, to have had a tenderness for
Lyttelton's sister Molly. Then there was another Molly, Molly West, with
whom, it is said, he had been in love, the sister of his friend Gilbert,
who afterwards married Admiral Hood, Lord Bridport. Want of means, we
are told, prevented their union. But the authority for this is unknown
to us.[266]
This much at least is certain, that no man ever had a nobler or more
devoted wife. She survived him to witness the glories and almost the
death of her second son, dying in April 1808. At Orwell there is a
picture of her by Gainsborough, painted in 1747, dressed in white with
jewels, with a pleasant rather than a beautiful face. There is another
portrait at Chevening painted in 1750, which represents her with auburn
hair, a long upper lip, and a nose slightly turned up; comely and
intelligent, but no more. Mrs. Montagu rather confirms this impression:
'I believe Lady Hester Grenville is very good-humoured, which is the
principal article in the happiness of the Marriage State. Beauty soon
grows familiar to the lover,'[267] and so forth; from which we may infer
that Lady Hester was not at any rate a reigning toast. Her appearances
are rare but full of tenderness; she watched over her husband with
exquisite devotion; furthering and anticipating his wishes, which were
often fanciful and extravagant; shielding his moments of nervous
prostration with the wings of an angel. On her rested often, if not
always, the care of his affairs, often, if not always, disordered, and
all the burdens of household management. For many months she was his
sole channel of communication with the outer world. The wives of
statesmen are not invariably successful, though they are generally
devoted; but none was ever more absorbed in her high but harassing duty.
In all the bitterness of that bitter time, when her husband seemed
surrounded by implacable enmities, no one found a word to say against
her. Pitt's choice seems to have been as wise as it was deliberate.
Camelford, from whom the worst interpretation can always be obtained,
says: 'His marriage was unexpected. He was no longer young, and his
infirmities made him older than his years, when, upon a visit to Mr.
Grenville at Wotton, Lady Hester made an impression upon him that was
the more extraordinary as she was by no means new to him. The first
hints he gave of his intentions were eagerly seized by her, saying she
should be unworthy the honour he proposed to her if she could hesitate a
moment in accepting it. With a very common understanding and totally
devoid of tenderness, or of any feeling but pride and ambition, she
contrived to make herself a good wife to him by a devotion and
attachment that knew no bounds. She lived only in his glory, and that
vanity absorbed every other idea of her mind. She was his nurse, his
flatterer, his housekeeper and steward, and, though her talent was by no
means economy, yet she could submit to any privation that would gratify
his wants or his caprices. If he loved anyone it must be her who had no
love but for him, or rather for his reputation. Yet I saw no sacrifices
on his part for her ease and quiet or to the essential comforts of her
life.'
As to Lady Hester's having a 'very common understanding' and being
'totally devoid of tenderness' we need not rest on tradition, though
that is all the other way; for the superiority of her understanding and
her tenderness are amply proved by the admirable letters published from
the Pretyman Papers by Lord Ashbourne; and her devotion to her husband
is attested by Camelford himself. How he became acquainted with the
details of courtship, usually mysterious enough, and in those days more
veiled than in these, we need not trouble to inquire. When it took place
Pitt was taking time which he could ill spare to write letters of
anxious and affectionate solicitude to Camelford at Cambridge, and
receiving in return the most unbounded assurances of grateful devotion.
Pitt's love letters, alas! survive; the treasures of his wife, but the
despair of posterity. That a great genius presumably in love should send
such stilted, pompous, artificial documents as tokens of his passion to
the object of his affections is one of the mysteries of brain and heart.
They are as wretched in their way as the letters of Burns to Clarinda,
and shall not be quoted here.
Having paid his betrothed a flying visit at Stowe, the blithe bridegroom
had as usual to proceed to Bath, where he remained a fortnight inditing
these execrable epistles of rhetorical affection.