(1716.)
[Illustration: Drop-T]he Prince, after hearing the sentences
pronounced, went home much touched by compassion. The Princess was more
active in her pity. She had a great mind to save Lord Carnwath. ‘She
has desired me,’ writes Lady Cowper, ‘to get Sir David Hamilton to go
and speak to him, _to lay some foundation_ with the king, to save him;
but he will persist in saying that he knows nothing. ’Tis a thousand
pities. He is a man of good understanding, and not above thirty. He has
had his education at Oxford,’――the Whig lady adds, by way of fling at
the Tory university――‘as one might judge from his actions.’
Lord Carnwath, however, wrote a letter which Hamilton carried to court,
and which Lady Cowper delivered to the Princess of Wales. She took the
letter, and was much moved in reading it, and wept, and said, ‘He must
say more to save himself. Bid Sir David Hamilton go to him again, and
beg of him, for God’s sake, to save himself by confessing. There is no
other way,’ said Caroline Dorothea, ‘and I will give him my honour to
save him, if he will confess; but he must not think to impose on people
by professing to know nothing, when his mother goes about talking as
violently for Jacobitism as ever, and says that her son falls in a
glorious cause.’
The simple comment of Lady Cowper when the persons arrested endeavoured
to shift their responsibility――fathers on sons, and sons on
fathers――has at least the merit of common sense. Alluding particularly
to those who pleaded that they were drawn into treason unconsciously,
she says in her Diary: ‘They all pretend to know nothing, and would
have people believe this affair was never concerted; and nobody knows
how he came into the Rebellion. God help them! ’tis a wrong way to
mercy to come with a lie in their mouth.’
[Sidenote: _CARNWATH’S CONFESSION._]
Lord Carnwath’s confession, if it may be called so, related how he
went to Lorraine where he had an interview with the Chevalier. He had
persuaded the Prince, he said, to make sure of friends in England
and to appear in person in Scotland. The Chevalier waited for an
expression, which he might take for one of encouragement, from the
Parliament in London. Some of his followers afterwards told Carnwath,
that, if the Parliament here expressed no desire for a Restoration, the
Jacobite scheme would be to engage the King of Sweden to go to Scotland
and establish James on the Scottish throne.
[Sidenote: _THE KING AND LADY NITHSDALE._]
Applications for mercy troubled the king. He especially wished to
avoid having petitions thrust upon him by persons deeply interested
in their object. King as he was, his wish was compelled to give way to
circumstances. Lord Nithsdale had prepared such a petition; and his
noble wife undertook to put it into the king’s hands, though she had
no hope that it would be followed by the slightest favour. ‘The first
day,’ says the noble lady, in her letter to her sister Lady Traquair,
‘I heard that the King was to go to the Drawing Room. I dressed myself
in black, as if I had been in mourning, and sent for Mrs. Morgan,
because, as I did not know his Majesty personally, I might have
mistaken some other person for him. She stayed by me and told me when
he was coming. I had also another lady with me, and we three remained
in a room between the King’s apartments and the Drawing Room, so that
he was obliged to go through it; and, as there were three windows in
it, we sat in the middle one, that I might have time enough to meet
him before he could pass. I threw myself at his feet, and told him, in
French, that I was the unfortunate Countess of Nithsdale, that he might
not pretend to be ignorant of my person. But, perceiving that he wanted
to go off without receiving my petition, I caught hold of the skirt
of his coat, that he might stop and hear me. He endeavoured to escape
out of my hands, but I kept such strong hold that he dragged me upon
my knees, from the middle of the room to the very door of the Drawing
Room. At last, one of the blue-ribands who attended his Majesty, took
me round the waist, while another wrested the coat out of my hands.
The petition, which I had endeavoured to thrust into his pocket,
fell down in the scuffle, and I almost fainted away through grief and
disappointment.’
[Sidenote: _THE KING AND LADY DERWENTWATER._]
The Countess of Derwentwater fared no better, even under more
favourable opportunity. Her husband was a grandson of Charles II.;
his mother, Lady Mary Tudor, being the daughter of that religious and
gracious king, and Mary Davies. There were then two dukes at the Court
of George I.――the Dukes of Richmond and St. Albans――who were sons of
Charles II. Richmond’s mother was Louise de Querouaille. St. Albans
was the son of Nell Gwynne. These two dukes undertook to present the
Countess of Derwentwater to the king. If the sovereign sanctioned
such presentation, it should have been followed by his granting, if
not a full pardon, at least some gracious favour on behalf of the
prisoner under sentence. The countess was accompanied by the Duchesses
of Cleveland and Bolton and a group of other ladies of high rank.
The two dukes presented the young countess to the king, in the royal
bedchamber. She prayed for the pardon of her husband with passionate
earnestness. The king listened civilly, and quite as civilly dismissed
her, in tears and despair.
[Sidenote: _SCENE AT COURT._]
Lady Cowper furnishes two scenes in connection with the attempts to
save the condemned lords, which admirably illustrate the time and
its character――‘1716. Feb. 21.’ ‘The ladies of the condemned lords
brought their petitions to the House of Lords, to solicit the King
for a Reprieve. The Duke of St. Albans was the man chosen to deliver
it, but the Prince advised him not to do so without the King’s leave.
The Archbishop of Canterbury (Wake) opposed the Court strenuously in
rejecting the petition. Everybody in a consternation. ’Tis a trap
laid to undo the Ministry.’ The Archbishop’s mercy-fit did not last
long. Lady Cowper went to him on the following morning, by order of
the Princess, to talk with him. She wrung from him a humiliating
concession: ‘He says, he’s far from flying in the King’s Face, after
all the obligations he has received from him, and that he thought
himself in the right way of serving him; but, if the King was not of
the same opinion, he would stay at home, which was all he could do.’
On the evening of the day on which the ladies of the condemned
lords took their petition to the House of Peers, the Duchess of
Bolton――(Henrietta Crofts, a natural daughter of the Duke of Monmouth,
by the daughter of Sir Robert Needham, though Lady Cowper demurred to
the parentage)――went to Court. ‘The Duchess,’ says Lady Cowper, ‘went
with the ladies to make them believe she was one of the Royal family;
though that won’t do. It’s too plainly writ in her Face that she’s
Penn’s Daughter, the quaking preacher. The Princess chid her and she
made all the excuses she could. She said, Lady Derwentwater came crying
to her when the Duke was not at Home, and persuaded her to go and plead
for her Lord.’
[Sidenote: _THE CONDEMNED LORDS._]
Lady Cowper describes Lord Nottingham as ‘behaving sadly’ in the
discussion on the matter of the sentenced peers. But, my lord did
nothing sadder than express a hope that the king would reprieve the
illustrious criminals whether they confessed or not. The Duke of
Bolton, by command of the House, presented to the king the address of
the peers, beseeching him to reprieve such of the lords as deserved it,
and for as long a time as he should think fit. To this address, his
angry Majesty very civilly replied――‘I shall always do what I think
most for the Honour of my Government, and the safety of my Kingdom.’ To
the record of which circumstance Lady Cowper adds, ‘The Lords that had
gone astray the Day before plainly showed by their Looks that they felt
they had played the Fool.’
The king was angry, inasmuch as the lords, by addressing him, implied
that he required to be moved to clemency. He told Mademoiselle von der
Schulenburg ‘that he should be ashamed to show himself after this.’
Forthwith Lords Derwentwater, Kenmure, Nithsdale, Widdrington, Nairn,
and Carnwath were ordered for execution.
On the Sunday before the appointed day, the High Church clergy took
care to manifest their opinions, perhaps to exhibit their charitable
feelings, by asking their congregations to join with them in prayers
for the condemned lords. The scene that ensued was solemn and
impressive, scarcely marred by the angry flinging-out of church of
some exasperated Whig hastening home to write to the papers. Pray for
lords like these, was the cry. ‘Are their souls dearer to God than the
souls of thieves and murderers who die monthly at the common place
of execution?’ On the other hand, there were Tory partizans among the
lower classes who thought practice might as well follow praying. They
made a feeble attempt on the Sunday night to pull down the scaffold
which was erected in readiness for the tragedy on Tower Hill. The
sight of a solitary soldier made them desist. As anyone caught would
certainly have been hanged, and as anyone who tarried might have
been shot, the Jacobite sympathisers cleared away from the hill with
remarkable alacrity.
[Sidenote: _LADY NITHSDALE._]
On the evening before the execution a little drama was being performed,
the success of which is altogether inexplicable. Lady Nithsdale,
accompanied by Mrs. Mills, in whose house she lodged, and by a Mrs.
Morgan, _alias_ Hilton, went in a hackney-coach to the Tower. The last
two went in the character of friends of Lord Nithsdale, introduced by
the wife to take their last farewell. They were really two confederates
suddenly secured to further the plan for my lord’s escape. To keep them
from reflection, Lady Nithsdale talked incessantly as they proceeded on
their way. ◆[Sidenote: _CHANGES OF DRESS._]◆ Mrs. Mills, who was ‘in
the family way,’ and of the figure as well as height of Lord Nithsdale,
wore clothes which she was to give up to the prisoner, dressed in which
he was to attempt to make his escape! The tall and slender Morgan wore,
under her riding hood, a second hood and other clothes in which Mrs.
Mills was to be attired, after giving up her own dress to my lord. ‘The
poor guard were not so strictly on the watch as they had been,’ wrote
the countess, in after years, to her sister. They seem really to have
been rather confederates than guards. The only restraint was that the
supposed lady-friends should be introduced one at a time. Mrs. Morgan
was the first to be taken in. During the brief time she was in Lord
Nithsdale’s room, she divested herself of the garments in which Mrs.
Mills (after the latter lady should have given up her own for Lord
Nithsdale’s use) was to leave the Tower. Mrs. Morgan was then conducted
to the gate by the countess who, feigning to be anxious for the arrival
of her maid, Evans, implored Mrs. Morgan to send her forthwith. Mrs.
Morgan having been thus got rid of, Lady Nithsdale took Mrs. Mills by
the hand and led her, with her face buried in her handkerchief, as it
had been all the time she had been waiting, to the chamber in which the
earl stood, the passive, yet hopeful object of the countess’s devotion.
Mrs. Mills stripped to the extent that was necessary, and my lord put
on the cast-off garments, his wife having pinned her own petticoats
about him. She also painted his eyebrows to match those of Mrs. Mills,
and distributed white and rouge over his face and chin, the better to
give him the appearance of a woman and to conceal that of an unshaven
man. Mrs. Mills then put on the dress which Mrs. Morgan had brought in
for her under _her_ clothes, and Lady Nithsdale led her out, as she had
done the other lady, but with no feigned weeping in her handkerchief,
as when she passed in――imploring her to hasten, for her life, the
coming of the tardy Evans. Guards, their wives and daughters, looked
sympathisingly as they passed, and the sentinel officiously opened the
door; but for whom he and the rest took this second departing lady, in
a new costume, is beyond all conjecture.
[Sidenote: _ESCAPE OF LORD NITHSDALE._]
The countess having now passed out the two ladies whom she had brought
in with her, returned to the earl’s cell, to further prepare for his
escape in the guise of the weeping woman, Mrs. Mills. When all was
ready, save the half-ashamed, but not too reluctant earl himself, and
the time was ‘’twixt the gloaming an’ the murk,’ the dusk before the
lamps were lit, Lady Nithsdale led her lord over the threshhold. He
buried his face in his handkerchief as Mrs. Mills had done. His lady
kept him close before her, that the guard might not observe his gait,
and went on imploring him as my dear Mrs. Betty, ‘for the love of God,
to go and hasten the company of her maid, Mrs. Evans.’ At the foot of
the stairs appeared the faithful Evans herself. She took the supposed
woman by the arm and went away with him out of the Tower.
Thus, the countess had brought in two ladies and had passed out
_three_; and no guard or gatekeeper seems to have been at all awake to
a fact so suspicious.
[Sidenote: _LADY NITHSDALE._]
Lady Nithsdale returned to her lord’s empty room in the same feigned
fear of being too late to go to Court with a petition for the earl’s
life, in consequence of the dilatoriness of her maid who had come and
had just gone away with the supposed Mrs. Betty, who was despatched
on a mission to find the provoking Abigail, and send her to dress her
mistress, at once. The rest of the scene in Lord Nithsdale’s apartment
may be best told in Lady Nithsdale’s own words:――‘When I was in the
room, I talked to him as if he had been really present, and answered my
own questions in my lord’s voice, as nearly as I could imitate it. I
walked up and down, as if we were conversing together, till I thought
they had enough time to clear themselves of the guards. I then thought
proper to make off also. I opened the door and stood half in it, that
those in the outward chamber might hear what I said; but held it so
close that they could not look in. I bid my lord a formal farewell
for that night, and added that something more than usual must have
happened to make Evans negligent on this important occasion, who had
always been so punctual in the smallest trifles, that I saw no other
remedy than to go in person; that if the Tower were still open when I
finished my business, I would return that night; but that he might be
assured that I would be with him as early in the morning as I could
gain admittance into the Tower; and I flattered myself that I should
bring favourable news. Then, before I shut the door I pulled through
the string of the latch, so that it could only be opened on the inside.
I then shut it with some degree of force, that I might be sure of
its being well shut. I said to the servant, as I passed by, who was
ignorant of the whole transaction, that he need not carry in candles to
his master, till my lord sent for him, as he desired to finish some
prayers first. I then went down-stairs and called a coach, as there
were several on the stand. I drove home to my lodgings, where poor Mrs.
Mackenzie had been waiting to carry the petition, in case my attempt
had failed.’ Her first words were: ‘There is no need of a petition!
My Lord is safe and out of the Tower, though I know not where he is.’
The countess, restless in her joy, went in a chair to her friend, the
Duchess of Buccleuch, who, friend as she was to the sentenced earl and
to his countess, was ‘seeing company’ on the eve of the execution. Lady
Nithsdale did not enter the mansion. She went, in a second chair, to
another friend and confidant, the Duchess of Montrose. The countess was
so excited by the strange success of the night, that the duchess was
frightened, and scarcely crediting the extraordinary story, thought
that the poor lady’s troubles had driven her out of herself. Her Grace,
however, cautioned her to secrecy, and even to flight.
[Sidenote: _VISITING FRIENDS._]
But the countess was bent upon joining, that very night, the husband
whom she had restored to liberty and life. The faithful Evans, who
had both courage and discretion (qualities which were utterly wanting
in the husband of Mrs. Mills, whose timidity and confusion made him a
burthen instead of a help), had safely led her master to a friend’s
house, whence she had as discreetly and secretly removed him to
another. This fact accomplished, she met her mistress at a trysting
place, and conducted her to the earl. The temporary asylum was
‘opposite to the guard-house.’ The poor and honest woman who owned it,
knew nothing and asked nothing about what must have seemed not above
suspicion. When the gentleman’s wife arrived, she was shown up to a
very small room with a very small bed in it. To be heard walking up
and down was, the fugitives thought, a thing to be avoided. They threw
themselves on the bed, and there consumed the wine and bread which had
been brought up by the mistress of the house.
[Sidenote: _THE EVE OF EXECUTION._]
While these incidents were making the night memorable in one part
of London, a circumstance of another character, yet not altogether
unconnected with the adventures of the Nithsdales, was taking place at
Court.
The Princess of Wales had a curiosity to see one of ‘the Pretender’s
Cross-Bows.’ This was the name given to the gags which had been
discovered among the spoils of the war. These iron instruments were a
devilish invention, and it is said that they were made by the hundred
weight. The sharp, straight part of the gag passed over the tongue
into the throat, the semi-circular portion pressed against the cheeks.
Any attempt to speak would cause both tongue and cheeks to be cut.
The instrument of torture was shown to the Princess and her ladies,
by Countess Cowper, giving rise to great unanimity of comment. When
this grim pastime was over, other occupation was taken up, not by,
but in presence of, the noble and illustrious ladies. ‘We sat up till
past two,’ says the countess, ‘to do a pleasing office, which was
to reprieve four of the Lords in the Tower.’ It was resolved that
only Lords Derwentwater and Kenmure should die. Lords Widdrington,
Nairn, Carnwath, and _Nithsdale_ were reprieved. When this resolution
was being made, the last-named lord and his lady were lying on the
little bed in the little room near the guard-house, unconscious that a
reprieve deferred the execution of himself and three other lords to the
14th of March.
[Sidenote: _THE PRESS, ON THE TRIALS._]
How did, what is now called the Fourth Estate, deal with the trial, the
criminals, and the penalty?
The newspaper press neither reported the proceedings, nor made any
comments on the judgment delivered. The simple facts that the Jacobite
lords had pleaded _guilty_, that they had been sentenced, and that
the Prince was present when the lords were condemned, were chronicled
in few words. On February 21st the public were told that ‘the dead
warrants had come,’ and that the master carpenter of the Tower had
marked out the ground on ‘Great Tower Hill,’ for the scaffold. The
‘London Gazette’ despatched the lords in three lines. ‘Whitehall,
Feb. 25th. Yesterday, James, late Earl of Derwentwater, and William,
late Viscount Kenmure, condemned for High Treason, were beheaded on
Tower Hill.’ The ‘Flying Post’ went into details, nine lines long, in
which it was said that the lords, ‘being conveyed from the Tower to
the Transport Office on Tower Hill, were beheaded in sight of many
thousands of spectators, without the least disturbance or disorder; and
we hear that the other four are reprieved till the 14th of March next.
The Earl of Derwentwater’s corpse was taken down from the scaffold
into a Hackney Coach, and that of Viscount Kenmure into a hearse.’ A
paragraph, as brief as it is interesting, is appended to the above
details. It runs thus: ‘P.S. We hear that the Earl of Nithsdale made
his escape from the Tower, on Thursday night, at seven o’clock, in
woman’s apparel.’ The ‘Daily Courant’ tells of the execution and the
escape, in four lines. When the news of Lord Nithsdale’s escape reached
Lady Cowper, at Court, she rejoiced at it, declaring that she was never
better pleased with anything in her life, and that everybody else was
as pleased as she was. ‘I hope he’ll get clear off!’ she exclaimed,
when the report of the escape was confirmed. ◆[Sidenote: _THE KING, ON
THE ESCAPE._]◆ King George himself good-naturedly remarked, on the same
report being made to him,――‘It was the very best thing a man in Lord
Nithsdale’s condition could have done!’――Lord Campbell calls this, ‘a
quaint saying,’ and takes the trouble to tell posterity, ‘I have often
been tickled by it!’――After all, there is some doubt as to the truth
of this story. Lady Nithsdale says, in her letter to her sister, Lady
Traquair: ‘Her Grace of Montrose said she would go to Court to see how
the news of my Lord’s escape was received. When the news was brought to
the King, he flew into an excess of passion, and said he was betrayed,
for it could not have been done without some confederacy. He instantly
despatched two persons to the Tower, to see that the other prisoners
were well-secured.’
[Sidenote: _LORD DERWENTWATER._]
The Earl of Derwentwater, after all hope of mercy had left him,
repudiated the principles he had affected while he was seeking for
mercy. He had called the judgment of the Lords a ‘just judgment,’ and
he acknowledged a difficulty in advancing anything that could extenuate
his guilt. When the hour of execution was approaching, he expressed
a desire that the inscription on his coffin-plate should intimate
that he had died in the cause of his lawful and legitimate sovereign.
With this desire the prudent undertaker declined to comply. On the
scaffold, where the earl did not allow his sensible terror of death
to mar his manly dignity, he read a paper, in which he denied the
guilt he had formerly admitted, and also the authority of the peers
who had pronounced a judgment which he had acknowledged to be just! He
protested that the only lawful king was King James; and he asserted
that the country would not be free from disturbances and distractions
till that most praiseworthy king should be restored. Yet, he remarked
that he himself would have lived in peace, if King George had only
granted him his life! That Lord Derwentwater should have been allowed
to read such a paper to a multitude witnessing his execution, is a
proof of the indifference of the Government to the consequences of such
an appeal. As far as the author of it was concerned, it was in bad
taste. In every other respect, the unfortunate earl met his fate with
becomingness. At a single stroke of the axe, he passed from life unto
death; but the plaintive spirit of his last words lives in that stanza
of ‘Lord Derwentwater’s Last Good Night,’ in which, referring to his
countess, he says,――
Farewell, farewell, my lady dear,
Ill, Ill, thou counseled’st me,
I never more may see the babe,
That smiles upon thy knee.
[Sidenote: _LORD KENMURE._]
Viscount Kenmure――‘the bravest Lord that ever Galloway saw’――was
beheaded as soon as the body of Lord Derwentwater had been removed.
He too had confessed his guilt, and, in return for the mercy which
he prayed for, had promised to show himself the most dutiful of the
subjects of King George. On the night before his execution, he wrote
to a friend in quite a different spirit. He disavowed all he had said
to the Lords. He now knew no king but the one to whom he offered the
devotion of a dying man――King James III.! On the scaffold――whither
he was accompanied by his eldest son!――he did not follow Lord
Derwentwater’s example of making a public profession of his principles,
but Lord Kenmure prayed audibly for King James, for whose sake he
sacrificed his life. That life perished under two blows of the axe. The
unfortunate lord did full justice to the bard who said that there never
was a coward of Kenmure’s blood, nor yet of Gordon’s line. He left,
weeping for him, the widow who had counselled him neither to go into,
nor to refrain from going into, the struggle that ended so fatally for
him and her. That she approved what her lord had resolved is suggested
in the Jacobite song, which says:――
His lady’s cheek was red, Willie,
His lady’s cheek was red,
When she his steely jupes put on,
Which smell’d o’ deadly feud.
Lady Kenmure, however, was a woman of good sense. She had friends
around her in London, and it will be presently seen how she turned them
to account.
[Sidenote: _TAKING THE OATHS._]
Terrified by these examples, many people took the oaths, who had
hitherto been sullenly neutral. The more prominent of these were
laughed at by the Whig press. ‘Some few days past,’ said the ‘Flying
Post,’ ‘one Linnet, curate to the famous Whitechapel Doctor (Welton),
after much consideration, deliberation, and premeditation, but at
last without any hesitation, took the oaths of allegiance, supremacy,
and abjuration, without any mental reservation, before some of his
Majesty’s Justices of the Peace for the County of Middlesex.’ Poor
Linnet, however, was unable to digest the oath of abjuration which he
had taken. This inability and the above critical sarcasm killed the
ex-Jacobite in a few days. The reverend gentleman was taken suddenly
ill at a house in Mansel Street, where he was used to visit, and where
he died (say the press-reporters of that day, with a brevity and
lucidity that are not without their merits), ‘of a Twisting of the
Guts.’ Other Jacobite parsons who declined to take the oath which had
choked Linnet, found safety in withdrawing within the fortifications of
the Mint, in Southwark. There they had sanctuary, and might drink to
what king they pleased as long as they could pay for the liquor, share
it with their landlord, and pay their rent in advance.
Lady Cowper, in her Diary, protests that Linnet took the oaths which
secured him in his preferment, much against his will; ‘and they choked
him, for he actually died the next day of no other disease but swearing
to the Government.’
[Sidenote: _THE DERWENTWATER LIGHTS._]
That day was the last Tuesday in February, when London, just after
dark, was attracted by strange flashes of light in the North West. The
light was diversely compared to the dawn of day, to that of the moon
breaking through the clouds; and a newspaper philosopher cheerfully
described it as ‘darting many streams towards all parts of the sky,
which looked like smoak.’ Its progress was towards the South-East,
and it died out at the witching hour of night. Superstition sharpened
or deceived the eyes of beholders in all parts of the country. The
London Jacobites hailed this Aurora as a message from Heaven to cheer
them after the depression caused by the execution of the sentence on
the Jacobite leaders. The London Whigs did not know what to make of
it, but men of both parties, whose eyes were made the fools of other
senses, agreed in seeing in the field of the sky armies fiercely
engaged, giants flying through ether with bright flaming swords, and
fire-breathing dragons flaring from swift and wrathful comets. They
swore they heard the report of guns; they were quite sure they smelt
powder. What one man said he saw, another assented to, and proceeded to
see something more monstrous. Whatever din of battle was heard by one
group, a thousand echoes of it were heard by another. The journals were
not nice in calling such people by rude names. ◆[Sidenote: _SCIENTIFIC
EXPLANATIONS._]◆ The scientific critics saw nothing but what was
natural, and they schooled the Londoners in this wise:――‘The Sun having
been hot for two days past, and particularly that afternoon, by which
vapours were exhaled both from the Earth and Water, and the sulphurous
Particles mixed with them, taking fire, might occasion that Light, and
some coruscations, as is very common upon marshes in fenny places, in
Spring and Summer nights.’ The explainer spoke with more confidence as
to the intentions of Providence. The Jacobites had taken courage at the
eclipse of the preceding year. To them it was a sign that the temporary
adumbration of the Sun of Stuart would be followed by triumphant
effulgency. The Sun of Stuart had proved to be only a mock Sun.
_Argal_――‘they have,’ writes the philosophic critic, ‘all the reason in
the world to believe that this last prodigy, if they will have it so
called, portends a due chastisement for their obstinacy in carrying out
designs against their King, their Country, and the Protestant Religion.’
Nobody looked on that northern aurora in the way prescribed. Sentiment
connected it with an individual. The aurora might not be an omen of
good for a party, yet it might be a symbol of grief for an individual,
and an assurance that Heaven had taken to its glory what men had
destroyed. The sentiment has not quite gone out, even now, in the
vicinity of Dilston. The aurora is still popularly called there the
‘_Earl of Derwentwater’s Lights_!’
[Sidenote: _LADY COWPER, ON THE AURORA._]
Lady Cowper describes the spectacle more simply than scientifically.
‘First appeared a black cloud, from whence smoke and light issued
forth at once, on every side, and then the cloud opened and there was
a great body of pale fire, that rolled up and down and sent forth all
sorts of colours――like the rainbow on every side; but this did not last
above two or three minutes. After that it was like pale elementary
fire, issuing out on all sides of the Horizon, but most especially at
the North and North-West, where it fixed at last. The Motion of it
was extremely swift and rapid, like Clouds in their swiftest Rack.
Sometimes it discontinued for a While; at other Times it was but as
Streaks of Light in the Sky, but moving always with great Swiftness.
About one o’Clock this Phenomenon was so strong that the whole Face of
the Heavens was entirely covered with it, moving as swiftly as before,
but extremely low. It lasted till past four, but decreased till it was
quite gone. At one, the Light was so great that I could, out of my
Window, see People walking across Lincoln’s Inn Fields, though there
was no Moon. Both Parties turned it on their Enemies. The Whigs said
it was God’s Judgment on the horrid Rebellion, and the Tories said it
came for the Whigs taking off the two Lords that were executed. I could
hardly make my Chairmen come home with me, they were so frightened, and
I was forced to let my glass down and preach to them as I went along,
to comfort them! I am sure anybody that had overheard the Dialogue,
would have laughed heartily. All the People were drawn out into the
Streets, which were so full One could hardly pass, and all frightened
to Death.’
The Rev. Dr. Clarke lost no time in explaining the phenomenon to the
Chancellor’s wife; and in a few hours the public were informed that
if they wished to know all about it, they had only to repair, on
subsequent Friday nights, to hear the Rev. Mr. Whiston lecture on the
subject, at Button’s coffee-house; admission one shilling.
[Sidenote: _REVELRY._]
While terror affected some persons, others were given up to gaiety.
The Duke of Montague showed his bad taste and lack of feeling by
giving (almost while the tragedy on Tower Hill was a-doing) a ball and
masquerade of the most splendid description to ‘three hundred people
of quality.’ The guests were the duke’s confederates in bad taste and
over-affected loyalty.
The king and court were present and were witnesses of the
demonstration; but while they savoured the incense, M. d’Herville,
who had come over, Ambassador Extraordinary from France, to notify
the death of Louis XIV., glided among the gay throng, and whispered
to some of the masks whom he recognised, that London must not suppose
that all was over. ‘The Chevalier’s retreat from Perth,’ said the
Envoy, ‘is all a feint. It was concocted in France, only to prolong
the time till the Regent of France can succour him openly!’ The next
day, this whispered secret found loud and angry, or joyful expression,
in London, according to the political feeling of the reporter. A few
days later, the public had to speak on a subject of much more peaceful
tendency. Sir Isaac Newton, accompanied by Dr. Clarke, had gone to
St. James’s, and was received graciously by the Princess, in her own
apartment, where Sir Isaac explained to her Highness and her ladies his
system of philosophy. The Princess took great interest in the venerable
octogenarian; and it was at her request that he drew up his ‘Abstract
of a Treatise on Ancient Chronology.’
[Sidenote: _ADDISON, ON THE PRINCESS OF WALES._]
On the 1st of March, the spirit of loyalty was further developed. It
was the birthday of the Princess of Wales, and Addison seized the
opportunity to overwhelm that lady with the most fulsome praise,――in
the current number of the ‘Freeholder.’ According to the writer, she
was the most beautiful, most religious, and most virtuous lady of her
time. Her mirth was without levity, her wit without ill-nature; and
then, as if the writer was mocking himself as well as the subject of
his praise――the Princess’s delicacy was said to be on a par with her
husband’s virtue――a touch of satire which happened to be perfectly
true. On that day, too, church steeples rang peals of congratulations.
‘It was observable,’ said the Whig papers, ‘that the High-Church
Wardens were very sparing of their bells; though they need not spare
their ropes for the use of their friends, since there’s enough to be
had for _their_ service elsewhere.’
Lord Lumley, Master of the Horse, and eldest son of the Earl of
Scarborough, distinguished himself by his loyal liberality. In front
of his house, in Gerrard Street, Soho, as soon as night set in, an
enormous bonfire of faggots was kindled. Three barrels of ale and beer
were broached in the street, and thirst with means to quench it caused
Jacobites to pass for Whigs, or to fraternise with them in drinking
the health of the Princess. From the windows of the houses of the Earl
of Manchester and of other peers, and from those of the house of the
Ambassador from Morocco, gazed spectators of various hue and quality.
The street was a highly fashionable street; but perhaps a little
descending from its highest quality, as Lord Manchester’s house is
occasionally described, for the benefit of enquirers, as ‘next to the
Soup Shop.’
[Sidenote: _NITHSDALE IN DISGUISE._]
While Soho was thus indulging in gaiety, a coach-and-six set off from
the door of the Venetian Ambassador in Leicester Fields. It was on
its way to Dover to meet his Excellency’s brother, who was expected
to arrive at that port. Among the servants in the Ambassador’s livery
was one who was not in the Ambassador’s service. This was the Earl of
Nithsdale. After a sojourn of several days in the little room where he
and his wife had found refuge, a more secure asylum was procured for
him in the above Envoy’s house. Within the coach rode one Michel, one
of his Excellency’s upper servants, but the Ambassador was doubtless
in the secret. On arriving at Dover, Mr. Michel and the livery servant
went on board a boat, hired by the former for Calais. The wind was so
fair, the tide so favourable, and the passage was made so swiftly,
that the captain remarked――things could not have been better if his
passengers had been flying for their lives. The passengers on landing
set forward together for Rome, where Michel became the confidential
servant of the Earl. Soon, all London was certain of the fact that Lord
Nithsdale had escaped to the continent.
[Sidenote: LADY NITHSDALE IN DRURY LANE.]
Shortly after, the Duchess of Buccleuch, from a house in Drury Lane,
received a note from Lady Nithsdale, who would not write till she was
assured of the earl’s safety. In her note, and in a private interview
with the duchess, she stated that it was natural her lord’s escape
should be attributed to her. It was flattering to her to be supposed
worthy of the merit of such a deed; but that a mere supposition ought
not to render her liable to punishment for an imaginary offence.
She was desirous to obtain permission to live in freedom; and the
Solicitor-General went so far as to state that as the countess had so
much respect for Government as not to appear in public, it would be
cruel to make further search for her. The Government, however, was
less generous, and intimated that, if she publicly appeared in either
England or Scotland, she would not remain unmolested.
At the same time, more comic scenes in this drama were being acted by
Sir Robert Walpole and Colonel Cecil. That agent of the Chevalier was
not aware he was playing the part of dupe. He was a simple, unlearned,
honest fellow who had got it into his head that Walpole intended
to restore the Stuarts, and that nothing better was to be done,
meanwhile, than to let the minister know how the subordinate agents
were proceeding, in order to bring about the same end. Walpole had the
colonel to his house, pumped him dry, and then left him undisturbed
till the springs were flowing again. _Then_, the poor Jacobite tool
(applied to Hanoverian purposes) might be seen going down to Walpole’s
house, crammed with intelligence which he was about to reveal where,
for Jacobite objects, it should never be known.
[Sidenote: _COMIC AND SERIO-COMIC INCIDENTS._]
Next came the serio-comic incidents. Influential men in London were
applied to with more or less earnestness, to intercede for the lives of
some of the doomed men. These applications had their grimly-grotesque
aspects. Lady Cowper gives in her Diary a remarkable instance, which
admirably illustrates this fact. A Mr. Collingwood, taken in the
North, lay in a Liverpool dungeon, under sentence to be hanged. ‘Mrs.
Collingwood,’ writes Lady Cowper, ‘wrote to a friend in town to try
to get her husband’s life granted to her. The friend’s answer was as
follows: “I think you are mad when you talk of saving your husband’s
life. Don’t you know you will have £500 a year jointure if he’s hanged,
and that you won’t have a groat if he’s saved? Consider, and let me
have your answer, for I shall do nothing in it till then.” The answer
did not come time enough,’ adds the diarist, ‘and so he was hanged!’
[Sidenote: _TO THE PLANTATIONS._]
It was impossible to kill all the captives. Accordingly, persons
remaining in London or in country gaols were induced to petition for
banishment. They were then made over as presents to trading courtiers.
The courtiers might sell to them their pardons. Such prisoners as
could purchase them might be seen viewing the Lions of London before
they returned home. Others came up from country prisons to look at the
capital whither they had hoped to carry and there to crown their king.
Prisoners who were unable to buy their pardons of courtiers who had
them to sell, and that, at very high rates, were simply sent off to the
Plantations. The veriest Whigs who saw a group of these unfortunates on
their way to the river, must have covered their eyes for shame.
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