(1715-16.)
[Illustration: Drop-T]he mournful procession of Scottish nobles,
gentlemen, and brave fellows of less degree, was not the first
spectacle of the same kind witnessed by the Londoners. After the
abortive attempt at insurrection, made in 1708, the year after the
Union of England and Scotland, under the title of Great Britain,――the
castles of Stirling and Edinburgh, and all the prisons in Edinburgh,
were crammed full of nobility and gentry; ‘at first,’ says George
Lockhart of Carnwath, the gentle Jacobite, ‘no doubt, the Government
expected to have proof enough to have brought several of them to
punishment, but failing, blessed be God, in that, the next use they
made of them was to advance their politics; for no sooner did any
person who was not of their party pretend to stand a candidate, to
be chosen a Parliament Man, at the Elections which were to be next
summer, but were clapt up in prison, or threatened with it, if he did
not desist; and, by their means, they carried, generally speaking, whom
they pleased; but to return to the prisoners;――after they had been in
custody some weeks, orders came from London, to send them up thither;
which was accordingly done; being divided in three classes, and sent
up three several times, led in Triumph, under a strong Guard, and
exposed to the Raillery and Impertinence of the English mob; and now
it appeared to what a fine market Scotland had brought her Hogs, her
Nobility and Gentry being led in chains, from one end of the Island to
the other, merely on account of suspicion, and without any accusation
or proof against them.’
[Sidenote: _THE CHEVALIER IN SCOTLAND._]
This last made all the difference between the captives of 1708 and
those of 1715. Those of the former year were in time liberated, on
agreement on the part of the most influential to serve the English
Government at the Scottish elections, else, ‘I am afraid,’ says
Lockhart, ‘some heads had paid for it.’ This was the payment exacted at
the later period.
[Sidenote: _THE CHEVALIER OUT OF SCOTLAND._]
It was fatal to the political prisoners that the rebellion was
carried on after the double defeat at Sheriff Muir and Preston. The
Chevalier de St. George, otherwise James III., arrived in Scotland as
inopportunely as the chief actor in a tragedy, when the curtain is
falling. On December 22nd, 1715, he landed at Peterhead. All was lost
before he appeared. His progress was made with the saddening conviction
that nothing could be recovered. He marched with a loose array from
Peterhead to Dundee. From Dundee he went and played ‘king’ for a few
days in regal Scone, after having burnt a village or two. On January
9th, he entered Perth. A stand was to be made there, but, on that
day three weeks, the anniversary of the execution of his grandfather
Charles I., the stand was abandoned. News reached Perth that Argyle
was coming down upon them. The Jacobite army dispersed in various
directions, but chiefly scattered through the Highland fastnesses. A
faithful few accompanied James to Dundee, a fewer still to Montrose.
There was then further talk of holding out, but the unhappy prince
slipped away from the talkers, went on board the little vessel
waiting for him, and on February 9th, 1716, he was quietly dining at
Gravelines. Altogether, he was about six weeks in Scotland. It would
have been as well for him, and better for his followers, had he been at
the Antipodes. London would not then have raved so cruelly as it did
against the prisoners of Sheriff Muir and Preston.
On February 6th, 1716, when news of the dispersion from Perth had
reached London, Lady Cowper went to the play, to see ‘The Cobler of
Preston.’ It was ‘the poet’s night.’ The good news, in fact, ‘had
reached town the previous day. The good effects of the news, which not
only told of the withdrawal of the Jacobites, but that King George’s
forces had taken possession of that important city, were manifested in
the theatre; for there was not a word that was loyal but what met with
the greatest acclamations.’
[Sidenote: _COST OF LIVING IN NEWGATE._]
The prisoners claim more notice than the players. Those who were
marched to Newgate had the worst of it; but in that worst there
were degrees of difference. An Act of Parliament allowed a rent of
half-a-crown a week to be levied, for indulgence that would barely
save the lodger from lying on hard boards or harder stone. Instead of
half-crowns, pounds were exacted. For twenty guineas a prisoner might
buy the right of living in the governor’s house. When he had paid
the fee, he found he had bought the right of walking all day long in
the fetid press yard, and of eating in the pot-house rooms connected
with it. The governor argued that his house consisted of every part
of Newgate which was not really within the prison. It suited his
purpose to call the press yard external; and he derived profit from it,
accordingly.
As soon as a prisoner passed within the gates, it was quickly
ascertained if he had money in his purse; and, if this proved to be
the case, wine and brandy were called for, in his name, by a horde of
ruffians, male and female, and drunk by them, till they could drink or
call no longer. But there were other birds of prey. If the victim had
a few guineas left, after he had paid his garnish, the turnkeys would
take down various sets of fetters, handle them in his presence, affect
a shudder at their fearful weight, or praise their lightness,――one
pair being so many guineas lighter than the other. Should the novice
be reluctant, he received a taste of the quality of the ‘Condemned
Hold’ for the night. This dungeon was in the arch beneath Newgate. At
noon-day it was so dark that a candle only showed its darkness,――and a
candle, duly paid for, had usually only a lump of clay for its ‘stick.’
To escape from the horror, the victim was docile enough in the morning,
when he negotiated with the governor, over a bottle of brandy, for a
removal.
[Sidenote: _INSIDE NEWGATE._]
If this removal brought him to the comparative luxury of the press
yard, he was not necessarily privileged to partake of all its
enjoyments. On entering there, he saw, perhaps, one or two captives
studying books, a few reading newspapers, others at skittles, cards,
or toss-penny; and a numerous company in the drinking boxes or at the
windows of the different floors of the boozing kens looking into the
yard. In an instant, these left their occupations, to surround and
examine the new comer, and to exact his ‘footing,’ of a dozen of wine;
with tobacco in proportion. If he could afford it, this was the company
with which he might associate till he was hanged, or was otherwise
disposed of. ‘Lovely women’ formed part of it, and with these, marriage
might be contracted on limited liability. At ten (but later hours were
to be had, for the paying for them) the ladies and gentlemen were sent
to their respective rooms, but if they were docile and generous, the
turnkeys left their room doors unlocked, only bolting the doors at the
foot of the various staircases. In these places at night, ‘Hell let
loose’ is the only phrase that can becomingly describe the scene and
its incidents.
A man with a decent spirit might leave this stage of iniquity and
drunken despair, if he could muster 18_d._ daily, to have fellowship
with felons, in a stinking cellar on the master’s side. But this was
only to fall into a lower depth of this Hell.
[Sidenote: _VISITORS TO NEWGATE._]
When the staircase doors were unbolted in the morning (at eight
o’clock!), the prisoners were called over in the press yard, and every
one who had been drunk the night before was fined a groat. All pleaded
guilty to the soft impeachment if they possessed a groat, and the
liquor was drunk with the turnkeys, as an antepast of breakfast. One
day was not altogether like the others. Amid the despairing jollity,
a poor wretch might now and then be seen at a table, dictating his
last dying speech and confession to a friend, and sorrowfully admiring
the neatness of some of its points. Perhaps the ‘ordinary,’ as the
chaplain was then called, would venture a little of his ministry with
him, and utter the small standing joke of how ‘a passage of the Gospel’
meant, to such an offender, ‘in at one ear and out at the other.’ On
a summer’s evening, company from outside resorted to the press yard,
as some did to suburban tea-gardens, and drank and smoked, and sang
and swore with the regular inmates. On winter evenings, they resorted
to the rooms, and gave their orders from the windows to the tapsters
below. It was on one of those evenings that the prisoners in Newgate
were attracted by the sudden joyous peals ringing out from the London
steeples. Political prisoners looked sullen over their liquor, for
they knew that the side with which they sympathised had suffered some
defeat. Governor and officials looked glad, for orders had come down
to prepare for a large body of prisoners, and from Governor Pitt to
Marvel, the hangman, there was joyous expectation of a golden harvest
at hand.
‘It’s all up!’ was the prison comment, ‘from Lord Derwentwater to
George Budden, the upholsterer: they are all netted.’ The latter was
among the party who entered Newgate. The London Jacobite entered
quietly; whereas, Forster, full of pride and wrath, fumed because, he,
a member of parliament, and Jacobite General, for the nonce, had not
been taken, like Derwentwater and the other lords, to the Tower.
[Sidenote: _SORTING THE PRISONERS._]
The rebel prisoners were soon sorted. The moneyless were consigned to
the ‘Lions’ Den,’ the ‘Middle Dark’ and the ‘Common Side.’ They who had
guineas in their purses paid dearly for all they required.
The rebels had scarcely passed under the shadows of their respective
prisons, when the police messengers narrowly searched among the
crowd for traitors. A Justice of the Peace recognised a spectator
in a lay habit, who was perhaps too sympathetic in his aspect, as a
clergyman named Paul, who had preached seditious sermons in London
and the country, and who had been with the rebels at Preston. Paul’s
audacity or curiosity cost him dear. The Justice pointed him out to the
rogue-takers, and the parson was speedily hurried to the Cock-pit, and
thence was committed to Newgate.
It is related that when a handsome young prisoner, named Bottair, was
seen among the suffering crowd of captives, as they entered Newgate, a
kind-hearted ‘clerk of the prison’ cut away his tightened bonds. Young
Bottair expressed his regret. ‘The cord,’ he said, would have served to
hang me; or to show, if I escape the gallows, how I have been led, like
a dog in a string, for twice two miles together.’ The handsome lad then
dismissed the subject of himself, to think of his more destitute fellow
prisoners in other prisons. ‘I must desire you,’ he said to the clerk,
‘to make enquiry after them. They have been brought so many miles from
home, out of observance to my orders, that I hold myself obliged to see
that they do not want.’
[Sidenote: _EXTORTION._]
It was only those who had plenty of money who could procure some
lightening of their prison burthen. From twenty to twenty-five guineas
was now the fee for not being obliged to wear irons. Five pounds
weekly was the charge for lodging and being allowed to diet in the
‘Governor’s house.’ Even the brigadiers, colonels, and captains, who
had less ‘cash’ than the generals and gentlemen of wealth, had to
pay dearly for places of little ease, ‘for which they advanced more
money’ (say the papers) ‘than would almost have paid the rent of the
best house in St. James’s Square, or Piccadilly, for several years.’
Every one who wished to avoid being thrust into the horrors of the
common side, could only escape by a fee of ten guineas, and a weekly
rent, for such accommodation as was then allotted them, varying from
two shillings to two guineas, and for that, in some rooms, ten men lay
in four beds. Thousands of pounds including costly gifts――_both_ from
outside sympathisers――fell into the hands of officials. Indeed, but for
‘outsiders’ the prisoners generally would have been miserably off.
[Sidenote: _DISSENSIONS._]
While some of the Jacobite prisoners exchanged moral or philosophical
reflections, others, embittered by misfortune, fell to quarrelling.
Forster and Brigadier Mackintosh fought the battle of Preston over
and over again, in Newgate. The cause of quarrel sprang from an
incident in that unlucky town. During the contest, Forster rode up
to the barrier which Mackintosh held, and commanded him to make a
sally against the assailing force which was within gun-shot. The
Brigadier flatly refused. Forster declared that if he outlived the
day, and his king’s cause triumphed, he would have Mackintosh before
a court-martial. General and Brigadier were captured and confined
together. In the corridors, court-yard, and common-room of Newgate, the
leader and subordinate angrily discussed this incident, while eagerly
listening groups――for there was almost unlimited freedom of entrance
into the prison, in those days, visitors eating and drinking with the
captives――stood around and learned more from the wrangling chiefs than
they could from the newspapers or from any other source.
Some of the prisoners, like the aged, refined, and witty
ex-paymaster-general of the Jacobite army, found solace in writing
verses, ‘which gained applause,’ says Patten,[5] ‘from good judges of
poetry.’ Four Shaftoes, Northumberland men, two fathers and two sons,
were in Newgate. The elder, William Shaftoe, was a rich Northumbrian
squire, well-disposed to live at home at ease, but, being easily
persuaded, he joined the Rebellion at the instigation of his wife. Mr.
Justice Hall, his cousin, shared his captivity in Newgate. Patten tells
a story of the kinsmen, which, he says, ‘has something diverting in
it.’ They were walking in the press yard together when Shaftoe (who was
a Church of England man, but had been formerly a Romanist) exclaimed,
‘Cousin Jack! I am thinking upon what is told us, that God will visit
the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth
generation. I am of opinion that it is so with us, for your grandfather
and my grandfather got most of their estates as sequestrators, and now
we must lose them again for being rebels.’
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE PATTEN._]
Another captive, the Rev. Mr. Patten (to whom reference has already
been made), on finding himself in close confinement, soon turned
his thoughts upon the method for getting out of it. He found he had
leisure for reflecting on his past life. He took for especial subject
of consideration that part of his life which he had spent in promoting
the unsuccessful rebellion. He had been a fool. Could he save his neck
by becoming a knave? He thought he might, and that the attempt was
worth the making. The reverend gentleman, on the allegation of his
being troubled with scruples, petitioned the Secretary of State, Lord
Townshend, to be pleased to allow a clergyman to converse with him.
The noble lord freely granted what was asked, and in a short time the
Rev. Dr. Cannon was dispatched to the wavering Jacobite. He was, says
Patten, ‘a man of singular good temper and literature, who applied his
best endeavours to satisfy me in every Point and Query I proposed. In
which, his Learning and solid Reasoning prevailed upon me; for which
good Service, my best Wishes shall always attend him.’
[Sidenote: _HANOVERIAN PATTEN._]
Dr. Cannon’s course was made known by its results. Patten became
suddenly convinced that it was a duty incumbent upon him to make all
the reparation he could, for the injury he had done and had intended
to do to the Hanoverian cause. By being a traitor to his old comrades,
he would serve the cause against which he had been in arms, and secure
safety to himself by doing his best to destroy his former friends. ‘As
the first thing in that way,’ he tells us, ‘I became an Evidence for
the King; which I am far from being ashamed of, let what calumnies will
follow.’
His revelations were received and recorded by commissioners who had
no need to ‘bribe or brow-beat him,’ as they were accused of doing in
other cases. Patten ‘was used in the most gentleman-like manner.’ His
treachery was quickened by their politeness, and the Rev. Robert Patten
saved everything but honour.
Patten had first, however, to satisfy the Government that his testimony
was worth having. He made full confession, not only of what he knew of
others, but of his own preachings and practices. He told of his more
than ordinary activity at Penrith, where he had once been curate; how,
in obedience to orders from Forster, he had headed a troop of horse
and beset the house of his own brother-in-law, Mr. Johnston, collector
of the Salt Tax, whom he was charged to bring in prisoner, with his
books, papers, and, above all, with whatever money he had belonging to
the Government. Johnston, however, escaped, taking documents and money
with him. Patten, unwilling to return empty-handed, made prisoners of
the _posse-comitatus_ and brought them to Forster’s camp, where they
were despoiled of their arms, and then turned loose. At Preston he
acknowledged that he was constantly riding from one post to another,
giving accounts of how the battle was proceeding, and doing in fact
aide-de-camp’s work till his horse was shot under him. He thus
succeeded in being accepted as king’s evidence.
[Sidenote: _ADDISON’S SATIRE._]
Before his evidence was wanted, partisan newspapers mocked and
misrepresented the unfortunate prisoners, as was only natural in
_them_; but it is with pain that one sees Addison flinging dirt at them
and ridiculing them, in his paper, the ‘Freeholder.’ In an imaginary
diary of a Preston rebel, given in one of the numbers, the diarist is
made to state that, at a meeting of Jacobites, before the outbreak, a
resolution was passed that, as no cause existed for that outbreak, they
would rebel first and give reasons for it afterwards. All Jacobites,
it was agreed, were in want of something, and if they could overturn
the throne and King George with it, carry fire and sword into England,
as their chaplains recommended in their sermons, and divide property
amongst themselves, there would be a fair chance of happiness under a
new state of things, for the accomplishment of which they had had the
prayers of all the harlots in the kingdom!
[Sidenote: _LACK OF CHARITY._]
In similar unfairness of spirit, Jacobite squires in England were
described as maintaining that there had been neither tolerable weather
nor good laws in the country since the Revolution of 1688. Such squires
read only ‘Dyer’s Letter,’ and that rather for the style than for
news. They were heart and soul for Passive Obedience, and were ready
to knock out the brains of whoever held contrary opinions. A fling
at ‘Dyer’ was a favourite amusement with the Whig Essayist, who also
assailed the news-writer on the stage. ‘The reasons,’ says Vellum in
‘The Drummer,’ ‘why I should believe Sir George Truman is still living,
are manifold.’ One of them is, ‘because the news of his death was first
published in “Dyer’s Letter.”’
For a few days, the noblest of the prisoners were lightly held.
Their going to and fro between prison and the Secretary of State’s
office, in order to be questioned, kept the streets lined with gazers.
Soon, however, the various cases assumed more gravity. In the Tower
the captives were put under closer restraint, and the privilege of
visiting them was abolished. The wives and other relatives of the chief
prisoners endeavoured to present petitions on their behalf to the king,
but mostly in vain. The guards kept them at a distance from the royal
person. The Whigs were now thinking less of the prisoners than of
their estates. The St. James’s ‘Evening Post’ was delighted to inform
the public that all the estates and property, forfeited by rebellion,
would be ‘strictly applied to public uses.’ In some of the papers the
Jacobite ladies who were petitioning for their husbands’ or kinsmen’s
lives, were denounced as barbarous women who had driven their husbands
and relatives into rebellion. They were stigmatised as ‘tigresses,’
and it was pointed out to them that, to find themselves compelled to
seek mercy at the foot of that throne which they had sought to
overturn by fire and sword, was a retribution which they had justly
incurred. London was told to be glad at having escaped the tax which
the chiefs of the rebellion in Scotland were levying upon gentlemen
who voluntarily failed to join them, namely, 50 per cent. of their
property. ◆[Sidenote: _WHIG LIBERALITY._]◆ Whig liberality was praised
in the person of Lord Strathnaver, the Earl of Sutherland’s son. He had
promised his vassals to make good all their losses; and if the married
men fell in battle for King George, Lord Strathnaver undertook to
transfer their leases, if they held any, to their widows――gratis, and
for their lives. Many a Scottish wife in London sighed when she thought
of the pleasant alternative here suggested. With regard to the rank and
file of the Preston prisoners, who were not thought worth the expense
of bringing to London, judges left the capital to dispose of them in a
singular way. Every twentieth man taken by lot was to stand a trial,
all the rest were to be transported! This was the sternest of jokes
that the Whigs had ever had to laugh at, between the capture and trial
of the Jacobite prisoners of war in London. In the meantime, the law
myrmidons kept sharp eye and ear on London sympathisers. With respect
to these, it must be allowed that justice was very capricious. While
men were put to death for little more than wishing King George back in
Hanover, others were fined only a few marks for much worse offence.
For instance, one Thomas Smout was fined five marks ‘for speaking
traiterous and devilish words of his most excellent Majesty, namely,
devoting that sacred Majesty to the nethermost hell and protesting that
he would sooner fight for t’other King than for him.’
[Sidenote: _WHIG AND JACOBITE LADIES._]
In illustration of these times, nothing more strongly proves the
influence which women exercised in politics, especially on the Jacobite
side, than the persistence with which Addison addressed himself to them
in jest or in earnest. He insisted on the superiority of the charms
of Whig ladies, and he assured those on the Tory side that they might
improve their attractions by changing their politics. He counselled
the former to turn their fans into banners, and to make them convey
a declaration of principles by a display of loyal and significant
portraits. Such display, he thought, would lessen the Tory interest
much more than the Jacobite figures in the Oxford Almanack would
advance it. He characterised the Whig ladies as gentle creatures, but
the Jacobite women, he said, were shrews in their families and scolds
in politics. The vulgarity of the latter is offensively assumed, and
never more so than in the passage where Addison affects to counsel the
Jacobite ladies to be as gentle in their utterances as Cordelia. If
they were loud-tongued they would be taken for harlots, all of whom (he
said) were notorious Jacobites.
While Addison’s papers were being read at private breakfast tables
and in the coffee and chocolate-houses, the High Church mobs, less
loyal than the Drury Lane players, went about breaking the windows of
the meeting houses, where prayers were put up for the welfare of King
George. A diabolical attempt was made by a High Church ruffian to blow
up the people in the meeting houses in the Old Jewry, during divine
worship. Perhaps it was intended to suffocate them. Gunpowder and other
combustibles are mentioned in the reports. Their ignition filled the
place with flames, attended by a smoke and stench which nearly killed
those exposed to them. In the tumultuous rush to escape many persons
were grievously maimed; but no one was killed on the spot. The building
suffered much damage, and those who staggered from it helplessly into
the street, were speedily set upon by thieves, who carried off a great
booty in wigs, watches, and scarves.
[Sidenote: _MATTHEW PRIOR._]
About this time Mr. Matthew Prior shocked his old Jacobite friends by
taking the oaths at Hicks’s Hall, in order to prove that he was a good
Whig. Trimming Tory gentlemen who took the same oaths, on the first
day of Sessions, excused themselves for doing so, by writing pointless
epigrams to prove they had committed perjury. Jacobites, on the other
hand, greeted with hurrahs Swan, the Mayor of Newcastle-under-Line,
and two other Magistrates of that place, as they passed to Newgate in
custody, for having shown kindness to some of the destitute Preston
prisoners, as they were being escorted through that midland town.
Tories, in coffee-house debates, held Cuthbert Kynaston, M.P. for
Salop, to be a fool for having surrendered himself a prisoner. Soon
they had other things to think of. There was the fair on the hard
frozen Thames. That grand festival of the time was got up by the Whigs.
They roasted an ox whole on the ice near Whitehall, in honour of the
ninth anniversary of the birthday of Prince Frederick, and they made
night hideous with their toasts and drunken revelry.
[Sidenote: _ROYALTY ON THE ICE._]
Roasting oxen whole soon became an ordinary occurrence. The frozen-out
watermen were made glad by contributions of joints; to which were
added liberal donations from the royal family. While the ice was still
in solid block, a little procession of sedan-chairs was seen, one
bracing morning, going rapidly from St. James’s to Westminster. The
hard-trotting bearers set down their honourable load in Old Palace
Yard. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Marlborough issued from
their respective chairs. Noblemen and gentlemen had come by similar
and by other conveyances. When all were afoot they went down to the
river which they crossed on the ice to Lambeth, and then returned,
seeing ‘all the fun of the fair,’ as they walked, or sometimes, as
they tarried. The prince was unguarded, though well accompanied, and
the enthusiasm gave extraordinary warmth to the occasion. When the
king went publicly, a few days after, to stand as godfather to the
second son of the Earl of Portland, Jacobites admired his fearlessness,
and Whig ladies began to call their new-born sons by the monarch’s
Christian name.
[Sidenote: _IMPEACHMENT OF THE REBEL LORDS._]
The king’s words which announced the Chevalier’s arrival in Scotland
were still vibrating in the ears of Parliament, when Mr. Lechmere
rose in the House of Commons to take the preliminary steps for the
condemnation of ‘the seven lords.’ In other words, he moved that the
House should impeach them. The motion was grounded, not on evidence,
but on common report. The speech was an able speech, with a craftily
seeming fairness in it. The speaker maintained that the existing
rebellion was the natural consequence of long preparation, and that
those most forward in it, here, were the guilty tools of equally guilty
men who were withdrawn from the public eye, or who conspired in greater
personal safety, abroad. A portion of the press, at home, by denouncing
the old Revolution, had knowingly made way for the new. The lenity
extended to writers who encouraged treason against King George by
denying the legality of the dethronement of King James, only inspired
more venomous authors to write down the Hanoverian dynasty and the
Protestant succession.
Then, adverting to the conspirators, as Queen Anne’s Tory friends
were called, Mr. Lechmere pointed out that Ormond, for whose sake
Marlborough had been traduced, now avowed his treachery, by serving
the Pretender, and by the preparations he was carrying on for a
fresh invasion of England, and the establishment of Popery in this
country. The enemy of Townshend――Bolingbroke――was then on the point
of manifesting the principles which had made him the enemy of so
virtuous a man, by becoming one of the ministers of the Chevalier.
While the great engines were actively working from afar, the lesser
engines and more ignoble tools were, said Mr. Lechmere, as actively
carrying on their work ‘below stairs.’ By this phrase he implied
that the juries in Westminster Hall, who acquitted men charged with
sedition against the present powers, were the enemies of the reigning
House. But, he added――making reference again to the Tory ministry of
the last reign,――those conspirators made their master-stroke when they
traitorously made England a party to her own destruction, by procuring
a majority of votes in Parliament which gave sanction to a Peace,
whereby France was restored to her former power of dominating over
Europe, and the barriers which guarded the liberties of this and allied
nations were broken down. The same influences, added the speaker, had
nearly sacrificed the trade of England to the interests of France.
[Sidenote: _CHARACTER OF KING GEORGE._]
The weakest point of the speech was in the passage in which, by almost
deifying King George――especially for his alleged divine quality of
mercy――Mr. Lechmere seemed to make of the sovereign a conspirator
against himself. The monarch, he said, was of such a tender nature that
he could not find it in his heart to be severe against his enemies.
‘On the contrary, those who have shown the greatest aversion to his
government, have received the kindest invitations and enjoyed the
highest indulgences from him.’ Equally at fault was the Impeacher when
he avowed that impeachment of the seven lords was a safer process
than leaving their case to be treated in the ordinary course of law
and justice. More vindictiveness was exhibited by Mr. Lechmere when
he expressed his gladness at the thought that, if the lords were
convicted, no plea of pardon under the Great Seal could stay the
execution of a sentence which was the result of an impeachment by
the Commons. Not, of course, that the Commons would be influenced
by vindictive considerations! It was certainly not to keep them calm
and clear and justly minded that he ended by shaking the Pretender’s
declaration in their faces. That act seemed to arouse the majority
of the House to fury, as a red rag might excite the fierceness of a
sufficiently angry bull. The terms in which it was written, and the
epithets applied to those terms by Mr. Lechmere, stirred the Whig
members as the alarm stirs the war-horse to dash forward whithersoever
his rider would force him. In a burst of frenzy, the House voted,
on the motion of Mr. Lechmere, the impeachment of James, Earl of
Derwentwater and his six confederates, the Lords Kenmure, Nithsdale,
Carnwath, Widdrington, Nairn, and Wintoun, for high treason.
[Sidenote: _FROM THE TOWER TO WESTMINSTER._]
Shortly after, of all the London sights, the most interesting was the
passing to and fro of those captured Jacobite Lords, between the Tower
and Westminster, where they underwent preparatory examining by the
privy council. When they went by water, the public knew little of the
matter. It was otherwise when they were taken to Westminster in one
huge lumbering coach; especially as on their way back they stopped to
dine at the famous tavern, the _Fountain_, in the Strand. The House had
long been patronised by the Tories, so that the Jacobite lords were ‘at
home;’――and Jacobite mobs cheered them as they entered and when they
departed. The repast, however, could not have been a joyous one――seven
lords eating roast beef and drinking port, with the something more
than chance of soon dying on the scaffold! They dined, closely guarded
by twelve Warders. Before they left, they who would, might have their
snuff-boxes filled at Lillie’s, next door, and for one of the street
Jacobites to get a pinch from this supply, made him happy for a week.
[Sidenote: _THE DRUM ECCLESIASTIC._]
This indulgence brought the Lieutenant of the Tower into trouble. He
was summoned before the Peers, and was questioned as to the unseemly
dining of the rebel lords in a tavern. The perplexed officer replied
that those lords had complained of feeling faint, and he had therefore
allowed them half an hour for dinner, at the _Fountain_, under
rigorous guard; but he was peremptorily forbidden to do so on any
future occasion. ‘If their lordships require refreshment,’ said the
Chancellor, ‘they must refresh here.’
On January 30th, Addison preached a smart lay sermon in the
‘Freeholder,’ and loyal pulpits resounded the universal sameness. One
of the exceptions was at St. George’s, Southwark. This place was said
to be the mint where all the lies were coined which were afterwards
put in circulation at the Royal Exchange. It is obvious that a sermon
on the dethronement and martyrdom of a king could be made to serve two
purposes. In the Whig pulpits, the discourse illustrated the wickedness
of treason against the powers that be,――the Government of King George.
In the Tory pulpits it was well understood that the Government of that
king was daily committing High Treason against the power that ought to
be,――that of James III. Accordingly, when the Rev. Mr. Smith, Tory
curate of St. George’s, gave out his text on January 30th (1 Samuel
xii. 25), ‘If ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both
ye and your king,’――there was scarcely a person present who did not
interpret its sense as antagonistic to King George. A Whig gentleman
was there, and he began to take notes of the sermon. This disturbed
the Jacobite preacher, who probably recognised in him a Government
agent. At all events, he called upon the note-taker to desist, but
the latter showed no signs of obedience. This led to the clergyman
exclaiming, ‘Mr. Wicks, if you go on writing, I won’t preach any more!’
The imperturbable Wicks added this remark to his notes, and then the
Tory parson called at the top of his voice, ‘Take away that fellow that
writes, out of church!’
[Sidenote: _MUSCULAR CHRISTIANS._]
The muscular christians of the congregation not only flung Wicks into
the street, they hunted him home, assailed his house, and threatened
to destroy it with all his family therein. They had committed much
damage when a civil and an armed force arrived, and compelled the
assailants to raise the siege and retreat. The virtuous mob, however,
having heard that Wicks had recently buried his father, scampered to
the neighbouring churchyard and commenced digging up the grave! They
were on the point of committing still more horrible violation, when
they were put to flight by the constables and a few soldiers. Whig
writers in the papers ask, jeeringly, if the preacher objected to notes
being made of his sermon, because he was about to say ‘something
extraordinary and smutty.’
[Sidenote: _CHARLES I. KING AND SAINT._]
The full High Church flavour of this anniversary is given in the
‘Weekly Remarks,’ of which the following is a sample: ‘Last Monday
being the anniversary of the martyrdom of King Charles the First, who
now wears a crown of glory in Heaven, and is the greatest saint there
in the English calendar (the English saints would neither let him
wear his crown nor even his head on earth), the Reverend Dr. Trap,
who is lecturer of St. Martin’s, preached an excellent sermon in the
morning at St. Andrew’s, where the church was so crowded that many
could not be admitted to the audience; and in the afternoon, the very
Reverend Dr. Henry Sacheverel, rector of St. Andrew’s, preached at St
Martin’s, where there was a like concourse of people and a like elegant
sermon. Their texts followed one another. They were taken out of St.
Matthew xxiii., 31st to 36th verses. In these sermons they have shown
themselves glorious Ministers of the Gospel.’
The same Jacobite paper thinks that the death of Dr. Williams, the
eminent dissenting preacher of Hogsden, is a very ominous matter to
the Dissenters. ‘The good old cause,’ it said, ‘must be playing the
crab, and going backwards.’ The writer in the ‘Weekly Remarks’ affects
to be grieved that the doctor did not outlive the 30th of January,
to make merry with his congregation at a ‘Calves Head Feast,’ on the
anniversary of the murder of King Charles.
[Sidenote: _THE REBEL PEERS._]
But more serious scenes in the drama were now to follow. The rebel
peers were to be tried, and Lord Cowper was appointed to act as Lord
High Steward. Lord Cowper’s appointment to the office vexed both
himself and his lady, but he had to support it with dignity. The going
down to Westminster Hall was a grand sight for the Londoners. All the
Lord High Steward’s servants had new liveries. There were five coaches,
four with two, and one (in which Lord Cowper rode) with six horses――two
footmen behind each. Garter with the wand, and the Usher of the Black
Rod were in the same coach next to that of the Lord High Steward.
Eighteen ‘gentlemen’ out of livery were on horseback between these two
carriages. Although the liveries of the coachmen and footmen were new,
Lady Cowper had them made plain, expressly. ‘I think it very wrong,’
she says in her Diary, ‘to make a parade upon so dismal an occasion as
that of putting to death one’s fellow creatures.’
[Sidenote: _SOLEMN POLITENESS._]
Their lordships entered the Hall in procession from the Upper House. A
proclamation for silence hushed the remaining buzz of talk among the
excited spectators. The managers of the impeachment for the Commons
then took their places with much punctilious reverence. Next, order was
given for the prisoners to be produced, one after the other, and then
all eyes were directed towards the door from which each entered――the
centre figure of a group of officials of distinguished rank, who
held him in custody. The most remarkable official walked immediately
behind the captive, bearing the processional axe with the edge turned
away from the prisoner. This official was not the executioner, whose
presence would not have been tolerated in such an assembly, but ‘the
gentleman-jailor.’ The processional axe is not the weapon which is
publicly exhibited; it is in charge of the resident governor. As soon
as the prisoner reached his appointed place he sank on his knees, from
which position the Lord High Steward blandly begged him to arise.
Having obeyed, the poor prisoner turned to the peers and saluted them
with the lowest bow he could accomplish, in testimony of his respect.
Not to be behindhand in courtesy, the peers arose (such of them as
were covered took off their hats), and bowed in return, as if they
were quite glad to see the unhappy gentleman who was standing there
for life or death. Lest he should build too lofty hopes on that basis
of civility, or on any other token of politeness vouchsafed to him,
the Lord High Steward, almost invariably, hastened to observe to him
that he had better keep in memory that all those little attentions were
tributes to his _rank_, which he hoped the peers would never forget.
It was further intimated that they would send him to death should he
be found a traitor, with every mark of detestation that their sense of
politeness to him as a peer would permit them to show.
[Sidenote: _DERWENTWATER’S PLEA._]
The Earl of Derwentwater was the first in rank, and therefore had
the poor privilege of being the first of the seven lords who was
called upon to plead. The crimes for which he was impeached by the
Commons having been published, the prisoner was asked what answer
he had to make thereto? Was he guilty or not guilty? The reply was a
mean apology. The best thing that may be said for it is, that it was
probably the work of Lord Derwentwater’s legal advisers, and that he
was counselled to be almost abject, as the only means of rescuing at
least his life.
The sum of it amounted to this. The poor earl was quite sure that if
the ordinary course of justice had not been followed, it was because
mercy might be the more readily extended to him, if the circumstances
of his case could authorise it. He complimented the king for his royal
attribute of clemency, and the earl the more urged its exercise on
the ground that forgiveness would not encourage anyone to the future
commission of treason, upon the presumption that his offence would
necessarily be mercifully visited.――Guilty, no doubt, he had been,
but he could hardly account for having become so. Constitutionally he
was disposed to lead a quiet life. He knew nothing of any conspiracy
(!); and, if he went to the first gathering at Plainfield, in
Northumberland, he went innocently, having been told that he would find
many friends and kinsmen assembled there. He joined them, he confessed,
but it was done thoughtlessly; and, after casting in his fortunes with
the enemies of King George, he never used the arms he wore. He might
have cut his way through the king’s forces at Preston, but he had
shuddered at the bloodshed that must ensue. The spilling of blood he
was always anxious to prevent, and, in point of fact, he had yielded
at the first manifestation of opposition; but, on assurance that the
king’s mercy would be extended to him. When he was in the hands of the
king’s generals, as a hostage for the surrender at Preston, he had
urged on his friends the necessity of their honourably observing the
promise, for the keeping of which he was himself a guarantee in safe
custody. And he had told General Wills, whose prisoner he was, that
whatever might happen, he would remain with the royal army;――from which
there was no possibility of his getting away!
Every phrase in this reply to the charge fell cold on the hearts of
many hearers who were ready to sympathise with a gallant gentleman,
standing in peril of a horrible death. The half apology, half
confession; the hope of mercy, and the hint that he was not unworthy of
it, did not serve the ill-fated nobleman. The Lord High Steward asked
him to plead ‘Guilty’ or ‘Not Guilty.’ Brought to this alternative,
Lord Derwentwater answered ‘Guilty.’ He made appeal to the royal
clemency, and withdrew, so gracefully self-possessed as to give
assurance to all present that a true gentleman, having done all he
could to save his life, would now meet his fate with dignity.
[Sidenote: _WIDDRINGTON’S REPLY._]
The answer put in by Lord Widdrington, who was brought in with the same
grim ceremony as Lord Derwentwater, was even more abject than that of
the earl who had just retired. He stood aghast, as it were, at the
measure of his own guilt, ‘but he came,’ as he said, ‘unawares into
this sudden and unpremeditated action.’ He went with his kinsmen to
the assembling at Plainfield in October, 1715, without any definite
knowledge as to what was intended! When treason came of it, he took
credit to himself for having practised it with small amount of wrong
or violence to those who withstood the traitors. Moreover, as he was
the last to take up arms, he was the first to lay them down, by which
Lord Widdrington suggested that he was less of a rebel than some of his
comrades in misfortune. He added that the surrender at Preston was made
on the encouraging assurances from the general on the other side that
they would experience the royal clemency. ‘Nature must have started
at yielding themselves up,’ on other grounds. Those who were in arms
against King George at Preston might have escaped had they chosen to
spill more blood, but they preferred to yield on the happy prospects
held out to them. In the same strain the answer went on to the end,
concluding with the assertion that clemency from the throne, and the
recommendation of mercy by the parliament, would make him for ever the
most loyal of subjects to King George, and cause him to have undying
esteem and veneration for the two Houses of Lords and Commons!!!
[Sidenote: _APPEAL FOR MERCY._]
As Widdrington remained standing at the bar, he was asked if he had
anything further to say. Whereupon he replied, that he hoped for
mercy; that he had the gout in the stomach! that he had not been able
to finish his answer till that morning; that it was doubtless full of
defects; and that ‘he humbly implored their Lordships’ intercession
to his Majesty for favour and mercy’――and therewith the unhappy lord
withdrew.
Patten’s testimony of him, if it be true, would lead us to expect
this undignified bearing in the unheroic son of a most heroic race.
‘There is but a small part of that left in this lord. I could never
discover anything like boldness or bravery in him, especially after
his Majesty’s forces came before Preston.’ Patten states that Lord
Widdrington was as unfit for a general as Mr. Forster himself, over
whose easy temper he had considerable influence. The peer’s family had
been distinguished for their bravery and their loyalty to the English
Crown; but ‘yet there is little of it left in this lord,’ writes
Patten, ‘or at least he did not show it that ever we could find, unless
it consisted in his early persuasions to surrender, for he was never
seen at any barrier or in any action but where there was the least
hazard. He was wonderfully esteemed at home by all the gentlemen of the
county, and it had been happy for him, and so we thought it had been
better for us (the rebels) had he stayed at home.’
[Sidenote: _NITHSDALE’S APOLOGY._]
Lord Widdrington having been taken out, the Earl of Nithsdale was
ushered in, with the usual tedious formality. On being called on to
answer to his impeachment, he made a reply that must have caused the
audience to doubt their own accuracy of hearing. He stated, indeed,
what his two predecessors had stated, and, like them, he reiterated
the perfectly incredible assertion that till after he joined the
Jacobite forces, he had never heard of any intended invasion, or of
any projected insurrection! He acknowledged that the authorities at
Edinburgh had previously summoned him to appear and give security for
his loyalty, but then he suspected they wished to imprison him, for
which he had the greatest distaste. Nothing is more astounding than
this repeated declaration of original innocence and ignorance made by
men of such birth and quality. Once in, however, Lord Nithsdale went on
to the commission of the most abominable treason. He confessed it in
the utmost confusion, and he trusted that he was not unworthy of the
royal clemency.
[Sidenote: _CARNWATH AND KENMURE._]
It was much more dignified on the parts of the Earl of Carnwath and
Viscount Kenmure that they put in no apologetic reply, nor made any
statement to show that they were less guilty than the co-accused. They
did not even aver that they had surrendered on promise of mercy. They
simply said they were guilty of bearing arms against King George, but
that if he could find some reason to spare their lives and fortunes,
he should have no more faithful subjects than themselves. After
Widdrington’s puling excuses and his plea of gout in the stomach, the
modest, manly remarks of these two lords must have fallen agreeably on
the ears of all in the assembly who sympathised with truth and courage.
[Sidenote: _NAIRN’S EXPLANATION._]
But, after all, the most extraordinary answer to the impeachment was
that made by William, Lord Nairn. It is true, he at once pleaded
guilty, and asked for mercy; but having done so, Lord Nairn presented
a petition, which was intended as an apology, with something of a
justification. Reduced to as few words as will convey its sense, it
was to this effect: he was a Church of England Protestant, but he had
unwarily imbibed mistaken principles in his tender years, which caused
him to be in no conformity with the Revolution of 1688, ‘lying under
the less necessity, for that he had married an heiress, in whom all
Lord Nairn’s, or rather _her_ own, estate was invested.’ He had never
taken the oaths, but he had lived as loyally as if he had, till he was
_inadvertently involved_ in this rebellion by Lord Mar and his forces
surrounding his estate and occupying his house, which lay between
Perth and Dunkeld, both of which cities they had fortified. Lord Nairn
solemnly declared that, up to that moment, he was ignorant of any
movement on behalf of the Pretender, and knew nothing of the passage
of the Forth till he found himself of the party making it! He ventured
his own person therein to avoid the imputation of cowardice, but he
sent back all his dependents. As for the invasion of England, he gave a
curious reason for being innocent of having share in it, ‘having been
bred a seaman,’ he said, ‘he had no pretensions to knowledge in the
land service! For the sake of his twelve children he asked for that
mercy which at the time of his surrender he was made to believe he
might reasonably expect.’
Lord Wintoun, on his request, was allowed to defer putting in
his plea.――Six of the seven lords, however, having thus pleaded
guilty,――each urging extenuating circumstances,――they were speedily
brought again to the Hall, to hear the pronouncing of doom.
[Sidenote: _THE LORD HIGH STEWARD._]
When the condemned lords were brought to Westminster Hall to receive
sentence, the Lord High Steward addressed them in a speech which,
highly praised as it was, at the time, has a very dull and commonplace
ring about it now. He spoke of King George, of course, as the lawful
sovereign, to make war against whom, and to compass whose death, was
a compound crime to be paid for by forfeiture of life. Yet, they,
as individuals, had attempted to destroy a monarch who occupied the
throne, by virtue of rights confirmed by the legislature of King
William and Queen Anne. The rebel lords, he said, had been convicted
of ‘an open attempt to destroy the best of kings, and to rase the
foundations of a Government, the best suited of any in the world to
perfect the happiness, and to support the dignity of human nature.’
Had the wicked attempt succeeded, King George would speedily,――so Lord
Cowper inferred,――have passed from the throne to the grave; for, being
of a valiant race (which was perfectly true), neither he nor any of his
family would have condescended to save themselves by flight.
[Sidenote: _CONCLUSION._]
Earl Cowper artfully turned the silly, almost base, plea of the
lords,――that they had been drawn into rebellion without thinking of
it,――into a charge of insane eagerness to commit treason. It was not so
well to represent these rebels of quality as men more concerned to live
on in this world than to prepare for the next. It was in worse taste to
enjoin those whom he was despatching to that farther realm, to cast
off――if they were Roman Catholics――such comfort as their own Priests
could bring them, and to commit themselves to the richer solace they
might obtain from Protestant ministers! To the Protestant lords, he
exclaimed, with a ‘good God!’ to give force to his sentiment, that they
must surely be covered with confusion when they reflected that they
had entered upon this treasonable enterprise, without even stipulating
for a faint promise of toleration for the Protestant religion. At
the conclusion, the Lord High Steward said, he must sentence them in
the terms used towards the lowest-born traitors, but, that ‘the most
ignominious and painful parts’ were usually remitted to persons of
their quality! Thus, the more ignorant rank and file of the rebels
would be disembowelled before they were half hanged; but the leaders,
being ‘of quality,’ would enjoy a happy and honourable dispatch under
the edge of the axe!
[Sidenote: _LORD COWPER’S SPEECH._]
The principal actors in this tragic drama were quietly withdrawn, but
not without formal courtesy passing between them and their judges. The
audience broke up as from a popular spectacle, more or less moved. Lady
Cowper was absent, as one of the condemned, Lord Widdrington, was her
cousin. The Countess says, in her Diary, ‘that the Prince of Wales was
there, and came home much touched with compassion for them. What pity
it is that such cruelties should be necessary!’ Yet one thing gratified
her. She was delighted beyond measure that her lord’s speech, on
pronouncing sentence, was universally commended. ‘But,’ says the lady,
‘I esteem nobody’s commendation like Dr. Clarke’s, who says, “that it
is superlatively good,” and that “it is impossible to add or diminish
one letter, without hurting it.”’
[5] _History of the late Rebellion._
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