THE QUEEN AND WALPOLE.
George the First was buried at Herrenhausen in accordance with his
expressed wish. His funeral did not take place until some three months
after his death, and the new King was represented at it by his uncle
the Duke of York. His decision not to go to Hanover for his father’s
obsequies gave rise to much satisfaction in England, and this combined
with his summary dismissal of the Hanoverian favourites was quoted as a
proof of his English predilections.
The court mourning came to an end soon after the funeral, and
preparations were pushed forward with all speed for the coronation.
George the Second determined that it should be a pageant from which
no splendid detail was missing. The King and Queen ordered robes of
extraordinary richness, but Caroline was badly off for jewels. Queen
Anne had possessed a great number of beautiful gems, but Schulemburg,
Kielmansegge, and the other German favourites had so despoiled Anne’s
jewel-chest, that nothing was left for the new Queen but a solitary
pearl necklace. Caroline, however, rose to the occasion and gathered
together for the coronation not only all her personal jewels which
went to make her crown, but many more. When the great day arrived she
appeared, we are told, wearing “on her head and shoulders all the
pearls she could borrow from ladies of quality from one end of the
town, and on her petticoat all the diamonds she could hire of the Jews
and jewellers at the other”.
The coronation of King George the Second and Queen Caroline took
place on October 11th, 1727, with all the solemnity suitable for the
occasion, and more than the usual magnificence. The day was gloriously
fine, and multitudes of people lined the gaily decorated streets.
Caroline was the first Queen Consort to be crowned at Westminster Abbey
since Anne of Denmark, consort of James the First, from whose daughter
Elizabeth the House of Hanover derived its title to the British Crown.
The coincidence was hailed as a propitious omen. The Queens-Consort
subsequent to Anne of Denmark had been Roman Catholics, and Anne and
Mary the Second were Queens-Regnant. Caroline was determined that she
would not be relegated to the background, and, so far as circumstances
permitted, the ceremonial at this coronation followed more closely
that of William and Mary than of James the First and Anne of Denmark.
Yet Mary was a Queen-Regnant who placed all her power in her husband’s
hands; Caroline was a Queen-Consort who took all her power from her
husband’s hands. No two women could be more unlike.
On the day of the coronation the King and Queen set out from St.
James’s Palace before nine o’clock in the morning. The King went to
Westminster Hall direct. The Queen, who put on everything new for the
occasion “even to her shift,” was carried down through St. James’s
Park in her chair to Black Rod’s Room in the House of Lords. There she
was vested in her state robes, and waited until the officials came to
escort her to Westminster Hall. She took her place there by the King’s
side at the upper end of the hall, seated like him in a chair of state
under a golden canopy; the Queen’s chair was to the left of the King’s.
The ceremony of presenting the sword and spurs was then gone through,
and the Dean and Canons of Westminster arrived from the Abbey bearing
the Bible and part of the regalia. The King’s regalia was St. Edward’s
crown, borne upon a cushion of cloth of gold, the orb with the cross,
the sceptre with the dove, the sceptre with the cross, and St. Edward’s
staff. The Queen’s regalia consisted of her crown, her sceptre with
the cross, and the ivory rod with the dove. All these were severally
presented to their Majesties, and then delivered to the lords who were
commissioned to bear them.
At noon a procession on foot was formed from Westminster Hall to the
Abbey. A way had been raised for the purpose, floored with boards,
covered with blue cloth, and railed on either side. The procession was
headed by a military band, and began with the King’s herbwoman and her
maids who strewed flowers and sweet herbs. It was composed in order of
precedence from the smallest officials (even the organ blower was not
forgotten) up to the great officers of state. The peers and peeresses
wearing their robes of state and carrying their coronets in their hands
walked in this procession in order mete, from the barons and baronesses
up to the dukes and duchesses. The Lord Privy Seal, the Archbishop of
York and the Lord High Chancellor followed. Then, after an interval of
a few paces came the Queen, preceded by her crown which was borne by
the Duke of St. Albans. The Queen was supported on either side by the
Bishops of Winchester and London, and she majestically walked alone “in
her royal robes of purple velvet, richly furred with ermine, having a
circle of gold set with large jewels upon her Majesty’s head, going
under a canopy borne by the Barons of the Cinque Ports, forty gentlemen
pensioners going on the outsides of the canopy, and the Serjeants of
arms attending”.[7] The Queen’s train was borne by the Princess Royal
and the Princesses Amelia and Caroline, who were vested in purple robes
of state, with circles on their heads; their coronets were borne behind
them by three peers. The princesses were followed by the four ladies of
the Queen’s Household, the Duchess of Dorset, the Countess of Sussex,
Mrs. Herbert and Mrs. Howard. Immediately after the Queen’s procession
came the Bishop of Coventry bearing the Holy Bible on a velvet cushion.
Then, under a canopy of cloth of gold, walked “His Sacred Majesty, King
George II., in his royal robes of crimson velvet, furred with ermine
and bordered with gold lace, wearing on his head a cap of estate of
crimson velvet, adorned with large jewels, and turned up with ermine”.
The King was supported on either side by bishops, and his train was
borne by four eldest sons of noblemen and the Master of the Robes, and
he was followed by a numerous and splendid company of officials. At the
great west door of the Abbey the procession was met by the Archbishop
of Canterbury, the Dean of Westminster and other ecclesiastical
dignitaries. It moved slowly up the nave to the singing of an anthem.
The King and Queen seated themselves on chairs of state, facing the
altar, and the coronation service, which is really an interpolation
in the office of Holy Communion, began. The Archbishop proceeded with
the Communion service until the Nicene Creed, after which a special
sermon was preached by the Bishop of Oxford. The sermon over, the King
subscribed the Declaration against Transubstantiation and took the
Coronation Oath.
The King then approached the altar, and knelt to be crowned. He was
anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury upon his head, his breast, and
the palms of his hands. He was presented with the spurs, girt with the
sword, and vested with the armills and the imperial pall; the orb with
the cross was placed in his left hand, and the ring was put upon the
fourth finger of his right hand. The Archbishop also delivered to the
kneeling King the sceptre with the cross, and the rod with the dove,
and, assisted by the other bishops present, “put the crown reverently
upon His Majesty’s head, at which sight all the spectators repeated
their loud shouts, the trumpets sounded, and upon a signal given the
great guns in the Park and the Tower were fired. The peers then put
on their coronets.” When the shouts ceased the Archbishop proceeded
with the divine office. He delivered the Bible to the King and read
the benedictions. “His Majesty was thereupon pleased to kiss the
Archbishops and Bishops as they knelt before him one after another.”
Then the _Te Deum_ was sung and the King was lifted upon his throne
and the peers did their homage. During this ceremony medals of gold
were given to the peers and peeresses, and medals of silver were thrown
among the congregation.
[Illustration: THE CORONATION BANQUET OF GEORGE II. AND QUEEN CAROLINE.]
The Queen now advanced for her coronation. “Her Majesty, supported by
the Bishops of London and Winchester, knelt at the steps of the altar,
and, being anointed with the holy oil on the head and breasts, and
receiving the ring, the Archbishop reverently set the crown upon her
Majesty’s head, whereupon the three princesses and the peeresses put on
their coronets, and her Majesty having received the sceptre with the
cross and the ivory rod with the dove, was conducted to her throne.”
The King and Queen then made their oblations and received the Holy
Communion.
When the long service was over their Majesties proceeded to St.
Edward’s Chapel, where the King was arrayed in a vesture of purple
velvet, but the Queen retained her robes of state. Their Majesties,
wearing their crowns, then returned on foot to Westminster Hall, and
the long train of peers and peeresses, all wearing their coronets,
followed.
In Westminster Hall the King and Queen took their seats on a daïs at a
high table across the upper end of the hall; the three princesses sat
at one end of this table. The nobility and other persons of quality
bidden to the feast seated themselves at tables running down the hall,
and the coronation banquet began. After the first course had been
served, the King’s Champion, who enjoyed that office by virtue of
being Lord of the Manor of Scrivelsby in Lincolnshire, entered. He was
completely armed in a suit of white armour and was mounted on a “goodly
white horse richly caparisoned”. The Champion carried a gauntlet in his
right hand, and his helmet was adorned with a plume of feathers--red,
white, and blue. Approaching their Majesties’ table the Champion
proclaimed his challenge in a loud voice:--
“_If any person of what degree soever, high or low, shall deny or
gainsay Our Sovereign Lord King George II., King of Great Britain,
France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc., and next heir to Our
Sovereign Lord King George I., the last King deceased, to be the Right
Heir to the Imperial Crown of this Realm of Great Britain, or that he
ought not to enjoy the same; here is his Champion who saith that he
lyeth and is a false Traytor, being ready in person to combat with him
and in this quarrel will adventure his life against him on what day
soever he shall be appointed._”
Then the Champion cast down his gauntlet, which, when it had lain
some few minutes, was picked up by a herald and re-delivered to him.
The Champion went through this performance three times, and after
the third he made a low obeisance to the King. Whereupon the cup
bearer brought to the King a gold bowl of wine with a cover, and his
Majesty drank to the Champion and sent him the bowl by the cup bearer.
The Champion, still on horseback, put on his gauntlet, received the
bowl and drank from it, and after making a second reverence to their
Majesties, departed from the hall, taking with him the bowl and cover
as his fee. As soon as the Champion had gone out, the heralds, after
three obeisances to the King, proclaimed his style as follows in Latin,
French and English:
“_Of the Most High, Most Mighty and Most Excellent Monarch George II.,
by the Grace of God King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender
of the Faith._”
These ceremonies over the King and Queen proceeded with their dinner.
“The whole solemnity,” we read, “was performed with the greatest
splendour and magnificence, and without any disorder; and what was most
admired in the hall were the chandeliers, branches and sconces, in
which were near two thousand wax candles, which being lighted at once,
yielded an exceeding fine prospect.” Their Majesties did not leave
Westminster Hall until eight o’clock in the evening, when they returned
to St. James’s Palace to rest after their labours. But their loyal
subjects prolonged the rejoicings far into the night with bonfires,
illuminations, ringing of bells, and other demonstrations of joy.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who was present at the coronation, wrote
a lively account of the scene, though she was more concerned with
the deportment of her friends and acquaintances than with details of
the ceremonial. She comments on the “great variety of airs” of those
present. “Some languished and others strutted,” she writes, “but a
visible satisfaction was diffused over every countenance as soon as the
coronet was clapped on the head. But she that drew the greater number
of eyes was indisputably Lady Orkney. She exposed behind a mixture of
fat and wrinkles, and before a very considerable protuberance which
preceded her. Add to this the inestimable roll of her eyes, and her
grey hairs, which by good fortune stood directly upright, and ’tis
impossible to imagine a more delightful spectacle. She had embellished
all this with considerable magnificence, which made her look as big
again as usual; and I should have thought her one of the largest
things of God’s making, if my Lady St. John had not displayed all her
charms in honour of the day. The poor Duchess of Montrose crept along
with a dozen black snakes playing round her face, and my Lady Portland,
who has fallen away since her dismissal from Court,[8] represented very
finely an Egyptian mummy embroidered over with hieroglyphics.”[9]
The magnificence of the coronation was the talk of the town for a
long time. As London was very full of persons of quality who had come
from far and near to attend it, the theatre of Drury Lane seized the
opportunity to give a highly ornate performance of _King Henry the
Eighth_, with the coronation of Anne Boleyn at the end of the play, a
scene on which £1,000 (an unheard of sum to spend upon mounting a scene
in those days) was expended. The scene at Drury Lane rivalled in mock
splendour the ceremonial at the Abbey. All the town flocked to see it,
both those who had been present at the real coronation and those who
had not. The King and Queen and the young princesses came more than
once, and graciously expressed their approval. “The Coronation” was
repeated in the provinces for a year or two later.
The City of London was not backward in showing its loyalty to George
the Second; an address was presented to the King, and the Lord Mayor’s
Show was conducted on a scale of unprecedented splendour. The King and
Queen attended in state the banquet at the Guildhall, and some idea of
the entertainment may be gathered from the fact that two hundred and
seventy-nine dishes adorned the feast, and the cost amounted to £5,000.
When the excitement and loyal emotions called forth by the coronation
had subsided the English people were better able to take the measure
of their second King from Hanover. The process of disillusion soon set
in. George the Second had even fewer good qualities than his father. On
the battlefield, like all princes of his house, he had shown physical
courage, though he had no claim to generalship. He had a certain
shrewdness and a vein of caution which kept him from committing any
flagrant errors, however foolishly he might talk. But this was the
most that could be said in his favour. He was vain and pompous, mean,
spiteful and avaricious. All he cared for, it was said, was “money
and Hanover”. He neither spoke nor acted like a King, and his small
mind was incapable of rising to the height of his position. If he were
straightforward it was because he was too stupid to dissemble, and if
he seldom lied it was because it involved too great a strain upon his
narrow imagination. On the surface it would be impossible to imagine
two persons more unsympathetic than the King and Queen, yet the fact
remains that they were devoted to one another. George knew that
his consort was absolutely loyal to his interests, and in the great
loneliness that surrounds a throne he could appreciate the benefit
of having one disinterested person whom he could trust and in whom
he could confide. In his heart of hearts he knew that his Queen was
infinitely his superior, though he would never admit it to himself, to
her, or least of all to the world. Yet in public affairs she swayed him
as she would.
From the time that Caroline became Queen, until her death, she governed
England with Walpole; she did not merely reign but she ruled, and
though she was only Queen Consort, admitted by the English Constitution
to no share in affairs of state, yet practically she was Queen Regnant,
and a more powerful one than any England had known except Elizabeth.
Caroline regarded Elizabeth as her great exemplar, and resembled her
in many ways--in her love of dominion, her jealousy of any rival near
her throne, her diplomatic abilities, her breadth of view in matters of
religion, her contempt for trivialities, and her superiority to mere
convention. She differed from Elizabeth in that she had a good heart,
and though she loved to rule, she was neither tyrannical nor despotic.
Elizabeth exercised her power directly, appropriating even the credit
due to her Ministers; Caroline’s power was indirect and found its way
through tortuous channels. The extent of her power, though suspected,
was never fully realised during her lifetime, except by a few persons
such as Lord Hervey, who came into daily contact with her, and of
course Walpole. Caroline had to be careful not to arouse the King’s
jealousy, for, like many weak men, he loved the outward semblance of
authority, and this the Queen was more than ready to yield him. The
King could have all the show provided she had the substance.
The Queen and Walpole soon came to an understanding, and in the
governing of the King and the kingdom they worked in accord. The Prime
Minister discussed fully with her affairs of state, and together they
planned what should be done. When everything was settled between them,
Caroline undertook to bring the King round to their way of thinking.
This process generally took place in private, but sometimes, if the
matter were urgent, Caroline and Walpole would play into each other’s
hands in another way. The Prime Minister would have a conference with
the Queen over-night, and the next morning, when he was summoned by
the King, Caroline would, as if by accident, enter the royal closet.
She would make a deep obeisance and humbly offer to withdraw. The King
would tell her to stay; she would take a chair, occupy herself with
knotting or something of the kind, and apparently take no interest
in the conversation. The King would ask her opinion. “I understand
nothing of politics, your Majesty knows all,” she would modestly
answer. Delighted with this tribute to his powers George would press
for an answer to his question, and then the game of hoodwink would
begin. From certain secret signs agreed upon between her and Walpole,
the Queen spoke or was silent, gave a qualified opinion or expressed
herself plainly. It was all so well managed that neither the King nor
other ministers present, if there were any, noticed the least thing.
Walpole played with his hat, fidgeted with his sword, took snuff,
pulled out his pocket handkerchief or plaited his shirt frill: each
detail of this dumb show had its secret meaning. This farce was played
not once but many times, over and over again, and though the means
were sorry enough, the end was the good of the nation. The personal
rule of the monarch as it had existed in the days of the Stuarts was
gone for ever; still the King was a force to be reckoned with, and,
in foreign politics especially, Walpole would have found the choleric
little George a terrible stumbling-block in his path had it not been
that the Queen bent him to her will. The King would often announce his
intention of doing something incredibly foolish, she would apparently
agree with him, yet before long she would bring him round to her point
of view, though it was in flat contradiction to his first declaration.
When the King set his face against a certain plan of the Prime
Minister’s or a certain appointment, Walpole would leave the matter
in the Queen’s hands, and by and by the King would suggest to him the
very policy or appointment he had opposed, as though it were an idea of
his own. Caroline talked her sentiments into her husband’s mind and he
reproduced them as faithfully as words talked into a phonograph.
In public the Queen was always obedient, and her manner to the King was
submission itself. “She managed this deified image,” says Lord Hervey,
“as the heathen priests used to do the oracles of old, when, kneeling
and prostrate before the altars of a pageant god, they received with
the greatest devotion and reverence those directions in public which
they had before instilled and regulated in private. And as these idols
consequently were only propitious to the favourites of the augurers, so
nobody who had not tampered with our chief _priestess_ ever received
a favourable answer from our god; storms and thunder greeted every
votary that entered the temple without her protection; calms and
sunshine those who obtained it.” The most farcical thing about it was
that the little domestic tyrant took all this homage as his due, and
to hear him talk his courtiers might think that he was as despotic as
the Cæsars and as autocratic as the Tsar. On one occasion his mind ran
back over English history (with which, by the way, he was imperfectly
acquainted), and he recalled his predecessors on the throne and
contrasted them unfavourably with himself. To quote the same authority:
“Charles I.,” he said, “was governed by his wife; Charles II. by his
mistresses; James II. by his priests; William III. by his men; and
Queen Anne by her women-favourites. His father, he added, had been
by anyone that could get at him. And at the end of this compendious
history of our great and wise monarchs, with a significant, satisfied,
triumphant air, he turned about smiling to one of his auditors, and
asked him--‘And who do they say governs now?’”
The courtier, we may be sure, was too discreet to say, but ill-affected
persons blurted out the truth, and the disaffected journals, from the
_Craftsman_ downwards, railed at Walpole for having bought the Queen,
and at the King for being governed by her. This was repeated over and
over again in ribald verse of which the following will serve as a
specimen:--
You may strut, dapper George, but ’twill all be in vain;
We know ’tis Queen Caroline, not you, that reign--
You govern no more than Don Philip of Spain.
Then if you would have us fall down and adore you,
Lock up your fat spouse, as your dad did before you.
The Queen and Walpole were always striving to keep these lampoons
away from the King, but some one about the court, probably in the
apartments of Mrs. Howard, told him of the existence of this one, and
he was exceedingly annoyed. He asked Lord Scarborough if he had seen
it. Scarborough admitted that he had. George then asked him who had
shown it to him, but he said he had pledged his honour not to tell.
The King flew into a passion, and said: “Had I been Lord Scarborough
in this situation and you King, the man would have shot me, or I him,
who had dared to affront me, in the person of my master, by showing me
such insolent nonsense”. Scarborough replied that he had not said it
was a _man_ who had shown it to him, which made the King, who regarded
this as a pitiful evasion, angrier than ever. By way of showing his
independence the King for some time after was more than usually testy
with the Queen, contradicting her flatly before all the court whenever
she ventured an opinion, snubbing her unmercifully, pooh-poohing her
wishes, and generally treating her with almost brutal rudeness. The
Queen received this with meekness, and abased herself before the King
more than ever. But all the while her power increased.
Soon after the coronation the country was plunged into a general
election. The Jacobites came off very badly at the polls, and the
Tories little better. Even with the aid of the malcontent Whigs,
the Opposition made a poor muster in point of numbers, and when the
new Parliament met in January, 1728, the Ministerial majority was
even greater than in the last reign. Walpole had won all along the
line. The result no doubt was largely due to the way in which the
Government had bought owners of pocket boroughs, and to the wholesale
bribery wherewith its agents seduced the voters; under such a system
of corruption it was impossible for the voice of the nation to make
itself effectually heard. Even many of those members of Parliament who
were returned to the House of Commons in opposition to Walpole were
eventually bought by him. “Every man has his price” was his cynical
maxim, and he acted upon it so thoroughly that his name became a
byword for corruption. True, the standard of political morality was
not high in those days, the party in power, whether Whig or Tory,
frequently abused the public trust and misused the public money. But
it remained for Walpole to bring organised corruption to such a pitch
that it paralysed popular government, and placed the balance of power,
neither in the Sovereign, nor in the people, but in the hands of a
Whig oligarchy. Such an oligarchy was at this period synonymous with
Walpole himself, for the great Minister brooked no rivals in the King’s
(or rather in the Queen’s) councils. “Sir Robert,” said the shrewd
old Sarah of Marlborough, “likes none but fools and such as have lost
all credit.” His earlier Administrations had included a few strong
men, but one by one they had to go, unable to work with so jealous and
domineering a chief. By bribery Walpole also reduced Parliament to such
a condition of impotence that it was hardly more to be reckoned with
than the King. The Prime Minister had really no one to consider but the
Queen, with whom he had a perfect understanding.
[Illustration: SIR ROBERT WALPOLE.
_From the Painting by J. B. Van Loo in the National Portrait Gallery._]
Thus did Caroline and Walpole rule England. The means whereby they
ruled were tainted at the source; the end may, or may not, have
justified the means, but at this distance of time, when the fierce
controversies which gathered around Walpole’s policy have passed into
history, it must be admitted that the results were good. England was
sick unto death of internal and external strife, what she needed was a
strong hand at the helm and a settled government, and under Caroline
and Walpole she secured both, and ten years of peace abroad and
plenty at home in addition. This long peace enabled England to recover
herself within her borders; British credit, which had sunk to zero,
rose higher than it had been for years, trade and commerce increased,
land went up in value, wheat became cheaper, and everywhere signs of
prosperity were manifest. By degrees, and it was here that Caroline’s
tact came in, the different classes of the community were reconciled
to the Hanoverian dynasty; the Church and the country squires held
out the longest, but though they retained a tender sentiment for the
exiled Stuarts they came in some vague way to connect their material
prosperity with the maintenance of the Hanoverian _régime_. This result
was not achieved without some loss, chiefly to be found in the lowering
of the old ideals. The clergy, from causes on which we shall dwell
more fully later, became indifferent, and the Church sank into apathy;
the country gentry lost, together with their old passionate loyalty to
the King, some of their sense of personal responsibility towards their
poorer neighbours, and took a lower view of their duties to the State.
Much of the grossness and selfishness which disfigured the eighteenth
century was due to an excess of material prosperity, and a consequent
lowering of ideals in our national life.
Very soon the King, who when Prince of Wales had always posed as
English in all his sentiments, began his father’s game of sacrificing
English interests to those of Hanover. So subservient was the new
House of Commons, and so unscrupulous were Walpole’s tactics, that
only eighty-four members were found to vote against a proposal to pay
£280,000 to maintain Hessian troops for the benefit of Hanover; and the
subsidy of £25,000 a year for four years to the Duke of Wolfenbüttel,
in return for his promise to furnish troops for a similar purpose, was
passed with very little opposition. The maintenance of the Hessian
troops was part of the price Walpole had to pay the King for preferring
him to Compton, and the Duke of Wolfenbüttel’s subsidy was hush-money
pure and simple, paid for his handing over the late King’s will.
Though the Opposition was weak in numbers, and suffered from a lack
of cohesion in its different groups, it was strong in the quality of
its individual members. Pulteney headed the opposition to Walpole in
the House of Commons, more especially that part of it which included
the malcontent Whigs and the more moderate Tories who supported the
Hanoverian succession. It was Bolingbroke who built up this party,
and he invented for it the name of “Patriots”. Carteret, and later
Chesterfield, were among its leading lights, but Pulteney was the
chief. This remarkable man was in the prime of life, and endowed with
natural and acquired advantages. He was of good birth, and the owner
of great wealth; he had a handsome person, a dignified manner and a
cultured mind. His wit and scholarship almost rivalled Bolingbroke’s,
and as an orator he had few equals, and no superior, in his generation.
Pulteney’s abilities as a statesman were of the highest order; he had
been a colleague of Walpole in earlier days, and stood by him in many
a hard fought fight. He had therefore the strongest claims for place.
But Walpole, jealous of Pulteney’s powers, passed him over for Cabinet
office and offered him a minor post in the Government, and a peerage.
The latter was refused, the former accepted for a time, but Pulteney
soon resigned and went into active opposition. He joined forces with
Bolingbroke, and the first fruit of their union was the _Craftsman_,
a journal which fiercely attacked Walpole and his policy, the second
was the formation of the Patriots’ party. Bolingbroke, though still
excluded from the House of Lords, was able through the medium of the
_Craftsman_ to address himself to the wider constituency of the nation.
His articles against his lifelong enemy were masterpieces of damaging
criticism and polished invective. Besides Bolingbroke, the ablest
political writers of the day contributed to the _Craftsman_.
The most remarkable feature of the Opposition was the fact that it
included men who, though differing widely among themselves, were united
in common hatred of Walpole. There became practically only two parties
in the State, those who were for Walpole and those who were against
him; and the differences between malcontent Whig and Tory, Jacobite and
Hanoverian, sank into comparative insignificance. Thus Pulteney and
Carteret were staunch Hanoverians and Whigs, Barnard was a Hanoverian
Tory, Wyndham a Tory with Jacobite leanings, and Shippen a Jacobite
out and out; Bolingbroke stood among these parties, partaking a little
of them all, and concentrating into himself the essence of their hatred
of Walpole.
No English Minister has ever been hated more than Walpole and none has
had abler foes. The combination of two such master-minds as Bolingbroke
and Pulteney would, under ordinary circumstances, have broken down any
Minister. But the circumstances were not ordinary, and no statesman was
more successful than Walpole in overcoming his enemies. His success
was largely due to the steady support he received from the Queen. To
her wise counsels was also something due. Walpole now refrained from
violent measures against his political opponents, even under intense
provocation. Hitherto in English politics the party in power had
consistently persecuted the party in the minority. But now a new era
set in; it was possible to oppose a powerful Minister and yet not be
sent to the Tower or impeached as a traitor. This more generous policy
may be directly traced to Queen Caroline, for Walpole in George the
First’s reign had been anything but conciliatory, and no Minister
had urged more fiercely than he the impeachment, the exile, and even
the death of his political opponents. It was he who had clamoured
for the execution of the Jacobite peers. But Caroline now exercised
a restraining hand. During her ten years of queenship great freedom
of speech was allowed in Parliament and outside it, and the widest
liberty was given to the press. Impeachment, fining and imprisonment
of politicians in opposition to the Government were things unheard of,
and Caroline was careful to conciliate, or to endeavour to conciliate,
such members of the Opposition as were loyal, or professed themselves
to be loyal, to the Hanoverian dynasty. She remained on good terms
with John, Duke of Argyll, who had been the King’s favourite when
he was Prince of Wales, but who had now gone into the cold shade of
Opposition, and resigned all his offices about the court. She even
received Pulteney much against Walpole’s wish, and she had a smile and
a gracious word for many of the Patriots when they came her way, always
excepting Bolingbroke, whom she never would admit to the least atom of
her favour. In Caroline’s wise policy may be seen the germs of that
strict impartiality which the Sovereign ought to show towards prominent
statesmen, whether they are in office or in opposition. This has now
become almost an unwritten law of the English Constitution.
In a far lesser degree Caroline’s influence may also be traced in the
way in which Walpole, though possessing the power to force through
Parliament any measure he would, refrained from running counter to the
popular will, when that will was unmistakably declared. True, here his
own inherent statesmanship came in, and counselled moderation. But
Caroline also had theories about the popular will and civil liberty
which she had acquired in her youth from Sophie Charlotte of Prussia,
the “Republican Queen,” and this at least may be claimed for her,
that she taught Walpole the art of making his concessions gracefully.
Her love of liberty in matters of religion showed itself in the zeal
with which she urged indulgence to Protestant dissenters; the time
was not supposed to be ripe for the repeal of the penal laws against
them, but annual Acts of Indemnity were passed which practically
gave them the relief they desired, and drew the fangs of the Test
and Corporation Acts. Caroline’s power was most noticeable in the
dispensing of patronage; it is not too much to say that in all the
ten years she was Queen no important appointment, either in Church or
State, was made without her having some voice in it. In this transition
period the judicious distribution of patronage influenced largely the
future of the nation, and the Queen, who saw further ahead than most
of her contemporaries, was fully conscious of its importance. Thus
this princess, who little more than a decade before was a stranger to
the English laws and constitution, was able to shape and guide the
destinies of England.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER II:
[7] “A particular account of the solemnities used at the Coronation
of His Sacred Majesty King George II. and of his Royal Consort Queen
Caroline on Wednesday the 11th October, 1727,” London, 1760. From the
pamphlet the other particulars of the coronation are taken.
[8] She had been appointed governess to the three eldest princesses by
George I., but was dismissed by Queen Caroline.
[9] Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s _Letters and Works_. Edited by Lord
Wharncliffe.