(1723.)
[Illustration: Drop-T]he year 1723 found society variously agitated.
There was real terror about the Plot; but among the gayer portion
of society there was but small concern save to know whether Cuzzoni
would come out at the Opera, and whether the racing season would be
affected or not by the conspiracy. The above lady not only came out,
but the king went, attended only by a few gentlemen, to hear the Syren.
Criticism took this form of expression in the London Journals, January
19th, 1723:――
‘His Majesty was at the Theatre in the Haymarket when Signora Cotzani
(Cuzzoni) performed for the first Time, to the Surprise and Admiration
of a numerous Audience, who are ever too fond of Foreign Performers.
She has already jump’d into a handsome Carriage and an Equipage
accordingly. The Gentry seem to have so high a Taste for her fine
Parts, that she is likely to be a great Gainer by them.’
At this very time, the more serious drama was approaching its last act.
[Sidenote: _THE PLOT._]
On the 15th of January, 1723, the House of Commons resolved that a
committee, consisting of such members of the House as were also Privy
Councillors, should examine Layer and his papers, in the Tower, in
order to get to a deeper knowledge of the plot to dispose of the king,
than they yet possessed. In the subsequent report of this committee,
it was stated that the horrible and execrable design had long been
entertained by ‘persons of figure and distinction’ at home as well
as by traitors abroad. Of those at home were Lord Orrery, Lord North
and Grey, Lord Kinoul, Lord Strafford, Sir Henry Goring, and, with
these, Bishop Atterbury, Captain Kelly, Kelly _alias_ Johnson, and one
John Plunkett. Actively or passively, these were all concerned in a
conspiracy for an invasion of the kingdom by a force that was to leave
Spain under the Duke of Ormond, to be joined by a Jacobite force on
the coast and in the capital, and by their united power to destroy the
existing state of things, the royal family included.
The committee complained that Layer would give them no assistance,
but that by prevarications, contradictions, and downright lying, as
they called it, he threw every sort of obstacle in their way. This
threw them back on such papers as they had seized; but these papers,
being partly or wholly in cypher, they had first to construct a key,
and they then assumed that it solved every difficulty. They were
indeed not far wrong, as the Stuart papers have since proved; but all
the interpretations of initial letters, fictitious names, numbers
for words, things or animals for persons, whereby Atterbury, Kelly,
and Plunkett were chiefly implicated, were stoutly denied as being
applicable, and such circumstantial evidence was not only denounced by
the accused, but at a later period was derided by the great satirist of
the day.
[Sidenote: _SATIRE ON THE PLOT._]
Swift, in the sixth chapter of Gulliver’s account of Laputa, gives the
captain’s report, as it was delivered to him by a distinguished Laputan
professor, how to detect the difference between a man who intended to
murder a king, and one who only designed to burn a metropolis. The
captain explained to him the method taken in Tribnia (or Britain), in
matters of high treason. ‘I told him that in the kingdom of Tribnia,
by the natives called Langden, where I had sojourned some time in
my travels, the bulk of the people consisted in a manner wholly of
discoverers, witnesses, informers, accusers, prosecutors, evidencers,
swearers, together with their several subservient instruments, all
under the colours, the conduct, and the pay of ministers of state and
their deputies. The plots in that kingdom are usually the workmanship
of those persons who desire to raise their own characters of profound
politicians; to restore new vigour to a crazy administration; to
stifle, or divert general discontents; to fill their pockets with
forfeitures, and raise or sink the opinion of public credit as either
shall best answer their private advantage. It is first agreed and
settled among them what suspected persons shall be accused of a plot;
then effectual care is taken to secure all their letters and papers,
and put the owners in chains. ◆[Sidenote: _DECYPHERING._]◆ These
papers are delivered to a set of artists very dexterous in finding
out the mysterious meanings of words, syllables, and letters; for
instance, they can discover … a flock of geese to signify a senate;
a lame dog, an invader; the plague, a standing army; a buzzard, the
prime minister; the gout, a high priest; a gibbet, a secretary of
state; … a sieve, a court lady; a broom, a revolution; a mouse-trap, an
employment; a bottomless pit, a treasury; a sink, a court; a cap and
bells, a favourite; a broken reed, a court of justice; an empty ton, a
general; a running sore, the administration. When this method fails,
they have two others more effectual, which the learned among them call
crotchets and anagrams. First, they can decipher all initial letters
into political meanings; thus N shall signify a plot; B, a regiment
of horse; I, a fleet at sea; or, secondly, by transposing the letters
of the alphabet in any suspected paper, they can lay open the deepest
designs of a discontented party. So, for example, if I should say, ‘Our
brother Tom has got the piles,’ a skilful decipherer would discover
that the same letters which compose that sentence may be analysed into
the following words:――“Resist――a plot――is brought home――the tour;” and
that is the anagrammatic method.’
Under this rich satire there is a world of truth. But, as already said,
the committee were not far wrong in interpreting at least some of the
papers in cypher; and the legislature was not unjustified in bringing
in separate Bills of Pains and Penalties against Plunkett, Kelly
(Nonjuror, Jesuit, perhaps both), and Atterbury.
[Sidenote: _PROCEEDINGS AGAINST ATTERBURY._]
When the proceedings against Plunkett, Kelly, and Atterbury were
preliminarily begun in the Commons by motions to the effect that
a devilish conspiracy existed, the Jacobite members were boldly
outspoken. Shippen and Dr. Freind were especially so. They had, indeed,
no shadow of doubt as to the existence of the conspiracy, seeing there
had been one ‘carrying on against the present Settlement ever since the
Revolution;’ but they did not believe in any particular Plot, such as
the alleged one on which the Ministry hoped to obtain Bills of Pains
and Penalties against the above three persons. Against the first two,
the object of the Ministry was attained; and then came the stormy day,
on which the attack was opened against the Bishop of Rochester.
On March 11th, Mr. Yonge, on moving a resolution which laid the crime
of high treason on Atterbury, concluded a violently rabid speech with a
text from Acts i. 20, ‘Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man
dwell therein: and his bishoprick let another take.’ After Sir John
Cope had seconded the motion, all the Jacobites in the House, one after
the other, led by Wyndham, denounced the proceeding. Bromley, Shippen,
Hutcheson, Hungerford, Strangeways, Lutwyche, and Dr. Freind, ridiculed
the idea of prosecuting a man against whom there was no evidence that
was legal or trustworthy. The motion was carried; but the opposition
officered by the Jacobite physician was so fierce and outspoken, that
hardly unexpected consequences speedily followed.
[Sidenote: _DEBATE IN THE COMMONS._]
On March 13th, Sir Robert Walpole informed the House that the king
(empowered by the suspension of _Habeas Corpus_) had ordered Dr.
Freind to be arrested and detained on a charge of high treason, and
the minister asked the House to sanction the act. Shippen and Bromley
opposed this request and the act also, on the ground that nothing was
specified, and that Dr. Freind was committed on accusation unsupported
by oath.
Walpole, Jekyll, and others, maintained the king’s right to arrest
whom he pleased, and under any circumstances; but the former assured
many members near him, in conversation, that the information against
the Doctor was supported by oath. ‘Doctor Freind,’ said Shippen, ‘is a
prisoner for nothing more than what he has said in this House; and the
members, therefore, were deprived of the freedom of speech.’ Walpole,
of course, expressed himself amazed that anyone should for a moment
suppose that any ministry could be capable of so base a thing as to
take up any gentleman for what he said in that House, without any other
reason. Pulteney described the speeches of Freind, in defence of Kelly
and Atterbury, as excuses which one traitor made for another. To which
Shippen with great warmth declared that it was past bearing for a
member to be called a ‘traitor,’ before he was proved to be one. At the
end of it all, a majority of the House justified the king in sending
Freind to the Tower, and expressed a hope that he would keep him there.
[Sidenote: _DEBATE IN THE LORDS._]
The Doctor quietly turned his imprisonment to good purpose, by
producing his ‘De quibusdam Variolarum generibus,’ and laying down the
plan, subsequently carried out, of his famous ‘History of Physic, from
the time of Galen to the beginning of the Sixteenth Century.’
Lords Strafford, Kinnoul, North and Grey, with Atterbury, were
compromised so far as the evidence of the Captain-Lieutenant Pancier
of Cobham’s Dragoons went. He deposed that he had been told by one
Skene that the above peers were concerned in the plot. This took place
when a Committee of the House of Commons visited Layer, under sentence
of death, in the Tower. Plunkett deposed that he had heard Layer say
the same of the Earls Scarsdale, Strafford, and Cowper, Lords Craven,
Gower, Bathurst, and Bingley, all of whom were said to belong to a
seditious company called Barford’s Club. Motions to get Pancier, Skene,
and Plunkett before the House of Peers were made and lost. Lord Cowper
was the only peer who denied the alleged facts by a formal declaration;
he shocked Lord Townshend, moreover, by his ridiculing as a fiction ‘a
horrible and execrable conspiracy.’ Townshend, however, acknowledged
that the peers named were blameless as to the allegations. It was on
this occasion that the Earl of Strafford declared his feelings in a
very lofty manner. ‘I have the honour,’ he said, ‘to have more ancient
noble blood running in my veins than some others; so, I hope I may be
allowed to express more than ordinary resentments against insults
offered to the peerage.’ This vain boast was founded on the fact that
the Wentworths held land in Yorkshire in the Saxon times. But the
Barony, Viscountcy, and Earldom dated only from the reign of Charles
I., in the person of Thomas Wentworth, who was born in Chancery Lane,
in 1593. The later earl, who boasted of the antiquity and the nobility
of his blood, was once rebuked in the House of Lords by Earl Cowper.
Lord Strafford had referred to Marlborough as a general who ‘fomented
war.’ In reply, Earl Cowper remarked, ‘The noble lord does not express
himself in all the purity of the English tongue; but he has been so
long abroad, he has forgotten both the constitution and the language of
his country.’
The jokers had their fun out of this serious matter. Pasquin, in March,
sarcastically congratulated the Ministry on their vigilance and success
in detecting the horrid conspiracy; adding, ‘A great Patriot was heard
last Tuesday night to declare in a public Coffee House, that after
hearing the Report of the Commons, “_no man in his senses would doubt
there had been a_ PLOT. N.B.――He said this without any grimace!”’
[Sidenote: _CONDEMNATION OF PLUNKETT._]
Several weeks elapsed before the first of the three accused persons was
disposed of. It was not till April that the Bill against Plunkett went
through all its legal stages, whereby he was condemned to perpetual
imprisonment, with forfeiture of all his possessions, and in case of
breaking prison, followed by recapture, death, for himself and any who
might aid him.
[Sidenote: _KELLY’S TRIAL._]
Kelly was next brought from the Tower, before the Lords. Like Plunkett
he was so rigorously watched in his prison that two warders were at
his side night and day, and even the use of a knife was prohibited.
There were certain fees to be paid to the Governor for severe duties,
with which the captive would willingly have dispensed; and a rent was
required for his room, the tenancy of which was imposed on him against
his will. For these matters, however, the Government that prosecuted
him furnished him with means.
The Jacobite lawyer, Sir Constantine Phipps, fought his client’s battle
with aggravating pertinacity. He denied the legality of evidence which
consisted, as in Plunkett’s case, of copies of letters, the alleged
originals of which no one but the reporting committee had seen; and
also did he deny the validity of testimony founded on mere hearsay. Sir
Constantine, however, was sharply pulled up by the Lord Chancellor,
who informed him that their Lordships had had full satisfaction of the
truth of the extracts copied from letters, and of the hearsay evidence
on other occasions. Kelly’s friends among the peers attempted to attach
a rider to the Bill, providing that, on his giving good security he
should be permitted to reside abroad. The attempt failed. An extract
from one of the letters addressed to Kelly, and seized when in his
possession, relating to a dog brought from Paris, was supposed to have
reference to Atterbury, and to be very redolent of treason. Phipps
ridiculed this, but Lord Cartaret rose and said: ‘I have received
letters from his Majesty’s Minister in Paris, relating to Kelly’s
procuring a dog in Paris, for some person here.’
[Sidenote: _KELLY’S DEFENCE._]
Kelly delivered a remarkably able speech in his own defence. Its chief
points were a general denial of every charge――a denial that he had ever
employed one Neynoe in treasonable matters. This fellow had himself
been arrested, but was drowned in the Thames in an attempt to escape.
Kelly called on Heaven to witness that he had never been employed by
Atterbury to write letters of any sort; that he had never visited the
bishop privately, nor had ever conversed with him but in company with
other persons. As for the treasonable-looking dog, ‘He was given to
me,’ said Kelly, ‘by a surgeon in Paris;’ he added that the surgeon’s
affidavit could be procured, and, that it was trustworthy was warranted
by the surgeon being the medical attendant of the Minister himself.
‘The dog,’ said the prisoner, ‘was never intended for anybody but who
I gave him to,’ which was true enough. Kelly then complained, but
contemptuously, that creatures of the vilest condition had been hired
as witnesses, and that partly on their testimony, heard in private,
this Bill was founded. Newgate had been swept for evidence-men. A
servant of his own, discharged for grave offence, was sought out and
heard against his master. A man in Government employment, on being
tampered with, had honestly declared that he knew nothing whatever
against the prisoner, Kelly. He was, in consequence, dismissed
from his employment, but was reinstated on dishonestly offering to
bear witness against him. ‘All which,’ said the candid Jesuit in
conclusion, ‘is of a piece with an infamous offer made to myself by
one of the under-secretaries of State, who, the morning after I was
first examined, came to me with a message (as he said) from one of his
superiors, to let me know “That I had now a very good opportunity of
serving myself, and that he was sent to offer me my own conditions.”
And when I declared myself an entire stranger to the conspiracy, and
was sorry to find that noble Lord have so base an opinion of me, he
seemed to wonder that I would neglect so good an occasion of serving
myself; “especially when I might have anything I pleased to ask for.”
What authority that person had for his message, or the rest of his
after-proceedings, I will not pretend to say; but as I have been
ruined and utterly undone by them, I hope your Lordships will take my
sufferings as well as circumstances into consideration, and instead of
inflicting any further pains and penalties on me (as I really am) a
person highly injured, and not a criminal concerned in any transactions
against the government.’
[Sidenote: _SENTENCE ON KELLY._]
Of course the defence availed the speaker nothing. Like Plunkett,
Kelly was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, with forfeiture of all
property. Since their offence was precisely of the same nature as
Councillor Layer’s, it is incomprehensible that their sentences and
fates were not similar.
[Sidenote: _THE KING AT KENSINGTON._]
Among the public, a sensation was kept up. The ‘Plot’ was as much
talked of as Titus Oates’s. Arrests were made, especially of Nonjurors,
ministers, or laymen. Even young ladies could not arrive in London
from France without being subject to a summons to explain the
wherefore to some sapient Justice of the Peace. Judges were furiously
anti-Jacobite. One of these――finding a jury resolute in returning a
verdict of _not guilty_ against a respectable Pall Mall tradesman,
whom two rascally soldiers, unsuccessful in trying to extort money
from him, charged with uttering treasonable words――loaded the jurors
with obloquy, then attempted to cajole them into a loyal verdict,
and failing, ordered their names and addresses to be taken down, and
declared them too infamous to ever have the honour of serving on a jury
again. Persons who had a proper sense of allegiance quite pitied the
king, whom the temper of the times drove into taking care of himself.
Every day he walked in Kensington Gardens, alone, but before beginning
that wholesome exercise, the gardens were thoroughly gone over by
soldiers, and during the promenade, every outlet was strictly guarded.
This done, the king went alone, as he loved to do, and had the gardens
all to himself.
[Sidenote: _ARRESTS._]
Throughout the early part of the year there was an incessant
persecution of Tory printers, pamphlet-writers, and of noisy and
conspicuous Nonjurors. Thus the ‘British Journal’ tells its readers:
‘The late Duke of Buckingham’s Works, in two vols. in quarto, lately
printed by Alderman Barber, were on Sunday last seized by some of his
Majesty’s Messengers, as it is said, because in some parts of these
volumes great Reflections are cast upon the late happy Revolution.’
Later, may be gathered from the ‘Weekly Journal,’ the following
intelligence, likely to painfully stir all Tory hearts:――‘Mr. Matthias
Earbery, a Nonjuring Parson, appeared upon his recognizances, having
lately been taken up for a seditious libel; but he having in the year
1717 been outlaw’d upon an indictment found against him for a most
virulent and traitorous Libel, entitled “The History of the Clemency
of our English Monarchs,” Mr. Attorney-General moved that he might
thereupon be committed, which was order’d by the Court accordingly.
Thus, this Gentleman, regardless of the Mercy and Forbearance of the
Government to him, hath by a base Ingratitude, common to a certain set
of people, brought this upon himself, which one might think should
be a Caution to others not to abuse the great Clemency they daily
meet with.’ The same paper announces the conviction of Redmayne, the
printer, for a ‘scurrilous pamphlet,’ ‘The Advantages accruing to
England from the Hanover Succession.’ Phillips was also convicted
for printing ‘A Second Part of the “Advantages.”’ On the other hand,
persons with too much zeal for the House of Hanover, which they
demonstrated by accusing innocent persons of high treason, and broke
down in endeavouring to substantiate their accusation, were flung into
Newgate by Lord Cartaret with an alacrity which did that Secretary
great credit. One of these was Middleton, a fellow who was so steeped
in perjury that he was set in the pillory, where a mob of both Whigs
and Jacobites killed him. The inquest jury, equally united, brought
in a verdict of ‘accidental strangulation.’ This fate did not deter
others, for the remainder of the year. ‘It is reckoned,’ writes
Swift, ‘that the best trade in London this winter will be that of an
evidence.’ ◆[Sidenote: _PATTEN IN PERIL._]◆ It is curious to find drawn
to town by the atmosphere of treachery and perjury, no less a person
than that Rev. Mr. Patten, who turned King’s evidence in 1716, against
the Preston prisoners. He was taken up in Fleet Street for disorderly
conduct, in pretty disreputable company; and he came to temporary grief
through beating the constable, hectoring the justice, and maintaining,
with a modern ritualistic minister’s contempt for the law, that his
offence was cognizable only in an Ecclesiastical Court!
Previous to Atterbury’s appearance before his Judges, the papers on the
Whig side reported petty details of his life in the Tower, and of the
doings of his chaplains outside of it. In March, the ‘British Journal’
understood that ‘the Rev. Mr. Thomas Moore, Chaplain to the Bishop of
Rochester, now in custody, is charged with secreting a Duty-Bond of
Accounts, kept by William Ward, the bishop’s coachman (who is likewise
in custody), in which book the Times of the said Bishop’s coming in
and going out of Town were set down.’ In another column was given this
exquisite specimen of sermon-reporting in the first quarter of the last
century:――
[Sidenote: _A STRANGE SERMON._]
‘We hear that on Monday last, a certain Bishop’s Chaplain preach’d
a wonderful sermon not far from Somerset House. The subject was,
_Honour the King_――――. The words, _Fear God_, in the same verse, he
had no mind to trouble his Hearers with, and therefore disjoin’d
what the Holy Writer had put together. What was most remarkable in
the odd Composition of the Discourse was the Flow of uncouth Similies
and Comparisons; particularly he compar’d his Majesty’s subjects to
Monkeys pricking and playing with their Tails in China-shops, and by
their Gambols throwing down the Wares. His Majesty himself escap’d not
a Strook of his queer Wit, for he was compar’d to a Surgeon who first
gives Physick before he probes the Wound. He considered, by the By, the
wise Ends of proroguing the Convocation which, he said, are not proper
to be known at present, but would appear to be all very good, in their
Time. We hear the Congregation have desired the favour of him not to
preach there any more.’
Atterbury’s probable doom was made a subject of coarse humour after a
manner which was uproariously approved in Whig coteries. For example,
the ‘British Journal,’ March 23rd, says:――‘What will be the fate of
a certain Prelate is not yet known, but if his fears are of the same
complexion with those that influenced his Sire, he will not be hang’d,
for as ’tis story’d of _him_――he was drown’d as he resolutely cross’d
at a Ferry on Horseback, when Two Pence might have sav’d him. This
he thought a fare too much for Charon.’ At the same time, a tender
treatment was adopted towards some of the other accused persons. Lord
Orrery was said to be ill. A conference of physicians was accordingly
held (by command of the Secretary of State) at the Cockpit, on Lord
Orrery’s health; a result was come to which is indicated in the
following paragraph: ‘On Thursday evening, the Earl of Orrery was
carried privately from the Tower to Whitehall, and admitted to Bail
in a Recognizance of 200,000_l._;――himself in 100,000_l._, and his
Sureties, the Earl of Burlington and the Lord Carlton, in the rest.
His Lordship lay that night at his House in Glass-House Street, near
Piccadilly, and will, as we hear, remove, in a day or two, to his Seat
of Brittall in Buckinghamshire.’
[Sidenote: _TREATMENT OF ATTERBURY._]
On the 4th of April, Atterbury being then at dinner, in the Tower, the
room was suddenly and unceremoniously entered by Col. Williamson (the
Deputy-Lieutenant of the Tower), Mr. Serjeant (the Gentleman Porter),
and two Warders. The Colonel abruptly intimated to Atterbury that he
had come to search him. ‘Show your warrant,’ said the prelate. ‘I
have warrant by word of mouth,’ was the reply; but when the Colonel
was asked from whom he held it, he only declared, on his salvation,
that he had a verbal order from the Ministry, and would name no other
authority. The bishop appears to have been harshly treated, and he was
deprived of everything he possessed. Atterbury immediately petitioned
the House of Lords, and a motion was consequently made, that the
above-named officials should be brought to answer for their conduct
before the House. The motion was lost by fifty-six against thirty-four;
but fifteen of the minority entered a strong protest, on the ground
that the House by its decision seemed to justify the depriving an
accused person of his papers and other means of defence, and the
violence by which the illegal deprivation had been carried out.
[Sidenote: _OGLETHORPE AND ATTERBURY._]
A fair sample of the spirit of that part of the Opposition which could
not be said to be anti-Hanoverian, was afforded by Oglethorpe, a member
of the House of Commons, when, on April 6th, it was proposed that the
Bill against Atterbury should be read a third time, and passed. ‘It is
plain,’ said this gentleman, ‘the Pretender has none but a company of
silly fellows about him, and it was to be feared that if the Bishop,
who was allowed to be a man of great parts, should be banished, he
might be tempted and solicited to go to Rome, and there be in a
capacity to do more mischief by his advice than if he was suffered to
stay in England under the watchful eye of those in power.’ The Bill
passed, nevertheless.
Some days later, Atterbury addressed an earnest letter to Viscount
Townshend. He was thankful (he said) for being allowed to see
his daughter ‘any way;’ but the boon was marred by official
circumstance;――namely, the presence of an officer during the interview.
Father and child had been separated for eight months. By the passing of
the Bill against him, they might be separated for ever. The Jacobite
prelate implored for permission to talk in strict privacy, with one who
was so near and so dear to him.
A little before that letter was written, Sir John Shaw wrote to
his wife some account of what was being done in London against the
Jacobites. He tells, joyfully, how the Whigs carried a bill of Pains
and Penalties in the House against John Plunkett, and how ‘the Torryes
lay by.’ That against Kelly, _alias_ Johnston, had like success. ‘So,
he is like to be a jayl bird for the rest of his days.’ Then comes a
Whig fling at Atterbury. ‘We shall be on the Bishop on Thursday, who
probably will be banyshed.’ While the process was going on in the
Commons, Sir John wrote: ‘I count we shall be done with him to-morrow,
for we sit down sometimes at nine o’clock in the morning, and do not
raise until ten o’clock.’
[Sidenote: _IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS._]
The bishop’s trial before the Lords, if it may be so called, began
on the 9th of April. This was the day on which the Bill of Pains and
Penalties (framed against him on letters which had fallen into the
hands of ministers, or on hearsay and circumstantial evidence) was read
for the first time. The proceedings were of an extraordinary character.
The counsel for the Bill began by proposing to read extracts from
Sir Luke Schaub’s letter to Lord Cartaret (20th April, 1722), which
referred to the ‘plot in general.’ Sir Constantine Phipps, with
characteristic Jacobite energy, opposed the reading of extracts, on the
ground that the name of the informer was not given, and that the peers
ought not to be kept in the dark, on this point. The bishop and his
counsel were removed while this objection was being discussed (as they
were on every similar occasion). The House resolved that it was proper
that such extracts should be read in evidence of the plot, generally.
Thirty-one peers protested against the injustice of such a proceeding.
After Atterbury and his counsel resumed their respective places (the
former at the bar), decyphered renderings of letters in cypher, which
had been opened at the Post Office, and then sent on, were put forward
for reading. Mr. Willes, the decypherer, swore he had interpreted them
by a key. Atterbury insisted that the key should be produced. On a
division, the House decided that it was not expedient to do so; and
against the unfairness of the decision, thirty-three peers entered a
protest. The bill was read a first time, and the House adjourned.
[Sidenote: _THE WHIG PRESS AND THE BISHOP._]
[Sidenote: _STREET INCIDENTS._]
Meanwhile, the Whig press abused the bishop, discussed his guilt in
an affirmative sense, and speculated upon his being hanged or exiled.
The ‘British Journal,’ of April 13th, ridiculed Atterbury’s complaints
against the Deputy Governor of the Tower: ‘At a late rencounter between
a certain Colonel and a certain Prelate, the latter eat up his words;
had there been any harm in what he eat, he would not have run the
Hazard.’ At this same time, certain Jacobite wags had dared, like my
Lord Cowper, to intimate that there had never been any serious plot
at all. ‘A scandalous copy of verses,’ says the ‘London Journal,’
‘burlesquing the discovery of the wicked conspiracy, is being printed
and handed about Town. Strict search is being made after the contrivers
and dispersers of the same.’ Search too was being made for other
offenders. Two or three supposed Dukes of Ormond were captured in
out-of-the-way inns; and not less than three representatives of Mr.
Carte, the Nonjuror, allowed themselves to be taken on the same day by
two eager messengers; only to be dismissed by disappointed Magistrates.
A brace of these officials noisily entered the library of the learned
Royal Society, in search of the grave, but Jacobite librarian, Mr.
Thomas. The nest was warm, but the bird had flown. These were of the
smaller episodes while the bishop’s trial was in progress. Some were
serious enough. The temper of the people altered with the progress of
the day. On successive mornings, the crowd was silent as Atterbury
passed through it in his chariot, strongly guarded, from the Tower to
Westminster Hall. Generally, his friends, close packed, awaited him at
the entrance of the Hall, where, being lame with gout, he was carried
in an easy chair through the Court of Requests and the Painted Chamber,
into the House of Lords. In the evening, on the return to the Tower,
the Jacobite spirit took a rough turn, especially in Fleet Street.
That of the guards there took a rougher, which generally manifested
itself in bayonetting some over-zealous fool. But Mr. Ridout, the great
surgeon, lived in Salisbury Court, close at hand, and he profited by
such accidents.
As soon as Atterbury had taken his place at the bar of the House, on
the day for the second reading of the Bill――in support of the latter,
the examination of one Neynoe before the Privy Council was about to
be read aloud. Here, the prelate at once interfered. Neynoe had been
drowned in the Thames, in attempting to escape from the custody of a
messenger. Atterbury was ignorant as to whether Neynoe was a Jacobite
or an enemy; and he urged his right to ask (what seems a dangerous
question for himself) namely, if Neynoe had ever declared that the Earl
Marischal, under the name of Watson, was in England in the spring of
1722, and had slept several nights at the Deanery in Westminster. The
House resolved that the bishop had no right to put such a question.
[Sidenote: _OPENING OF LETTERS._]
Next, Thouvois, a post-office clerk, deposed as to the letters he had
opened and copied, before forwarding them (with no sign of violation)
to the persons to whom they were addressed. The bishop, who was often
more ready to interfere than his more wary and less impatient counsel,
here pertinaciously claimed to know if the clerk had opened these
letters, by superior authority, and if so, from whom he held the
warrant, and where was that document at the present moment. The wisdom
of a majority of the House declared itself to the effect, that to
accord the bishop’s demand would be highly inconvenient for the public
safety, and was altogether unnecessary for the prelate’s defence.
Thirty-one lords energetically protested against this conclusion.
[Sidenote: _SIR CONSTANTINE PHIPPS._]
At the re-appearance of Willes, the next witness, Atterbury showed more
than ordinary eagerness to grapple with him. Willes quietly asserted
that he had properly decyphered the arrested letters, given to him for
that purpose. ‘Pray, sir,’ said the bishop (who had failed to obtain
the production of the key), ‘will you explain to me your process of
decyphering?’ ‘No, my lord,’ was the reply, ‘I will not. It would
tend to the discovery of my art, and to instruct ill-designing men to
contrive more difficult cyphers.’ The usual majority of the House was
of the same opinion, and their lordships passed on to other matter――the
production of copies of letters written by Kelly (the Nonjuror and
sometime acting secretary to Atterbury), according to, it was said,
the bishop’s dictation or instructions. Sir Constantine Phipps here
saw his chance. He denounced altogether this course, at least till it
could be proved that the prelate had any part whatever in them. The
counsel for the Crown replied that they offered the letters written by
Kelly, not in proof of special particular action, but of a conspiracy
in general. They promised to make special and particular application
of them to the detriment of the bishop, by evidence, at a future stage
of the proceedings. Sir Constantine Phipps demonstrated that such a
course would be one of rank injustice, unless he, on the part of the
‘unfortunate prisoner at the bar,’ was allowed to rebut the application
by both evidence and argument.
On the return to the Tower in the evening, the Jacobite spirit of the
mob was adopted by some of the guard. Four of them, after Atterbury
entered his room, went and drank the ‘Pretender’s health at the
canteen, and smarted for it before the week was out.’
[Sidenote: _THE DEFENCE._]
On the 9th of May, Sir Constantine repeated his protest, whereupon he
was rather summarily bidden to go on with what he had to advance in
his ‘unhappy client’s’ behalf.
Sir Constantine remarked that his task would be all the easier, since
the counsel for the Bill allowed that they had no better reliance than
circumstantial testimony. But the liberty and property of Englishmen
were not to be, and never had been, confiscated by circumstance; and
accused men could be legally tried only by the laws that were in force
when the alleged offence was committed, and not by _ex post facto_
legislation taking form in Bills of Pains and Penalties. Moreover,
Bills of Attainder had never yet been brought against any persons but
those who had hid from, or fled from, justice. The bishop since he had
fallen under vain suspicion, had lived openly, had received company
in his own house, had gone into society, had passed to and fro in the
streets of London, and had followed a course which only the guiltless
and guileless followed. If the Bill by which Sir John Fenwick was
attainted was legal, that very circumstance proved the illegality of
this Bill against the Bishop of Rochester, for this prelate had never
been indicted, nor had ever dallied with the Government, nor promised
to make discoveries which were ever to be, but never were, made; nor
had he bribed the deponents of fatal testimony to withdraw beyond
the kingdom: all which incidents distinguished the Fenwick case. Sir
Constantine was persuaded that the truth of what he advanced would
reach their Lordships’ hearts, and that the majesty of the court would
not allow a blot to fall on the majesty of justice.
[Sidenote: _SPECIAL PLEADING._]
[Sidenote: _EVIDENCE FOR ATTERBURY._]
The punishment sought to be inflicted on his client was in severity
only next to death itself. The bishop’s generous and hospitable way
of life had eminently fitted him for the next world, but had left him
nothing for this. If he were to be driven into a foreign land, he must,
said Sir Constantine, ‘beg upon his crutches or starve.’ The evidence
against him was not good in law, and was therefore inadmissible here.
Copies of letters, but no production of originals; decyphered extracts,
but no proof of correct decyphering; much allegation, but nothing
corroborated――such was the quality of the testimony produced on the
other side, and it was simply worthless. To correspond with attainted
traitors, with treason for a subject, was a capital offence, but to
write to even guilty men on common innocent topics, as it might be
allowed the bishop had done, once or twice, addressing unfortunate
friends, was surely not an evil in a Christian prelate, and it
afforded no evidence that ‘Atterbury had any knowledge of their guilty
designs――invasion of England by foreign troops, occupation of London
and the ports, the seizure of the king and royal family, and the
bringing in the Pretender!’ As Willes had acknowledged his inability to
interpret some of the cyphers, might he not have misinterpreted those
which were supposed to attach guilt to his blameless client? To strike
down and fling to reproach and ruin a man against whom no guilt can
be proved, appeared to Sir Constantine a most grievous circumstance.
After pursuing this line of defence for many hours, the wary counsellor
concluded by saying: ‘If there be a difference between your legislative
and judicial capacity, I submit it――whether your lordships will be
pleased to give that judgment in your legislative capacity, which the
counsel for the Bill do, in my apprehension, admit you could not do in
your judicial. And, therefore, I hope your lordships will be pleased to
reject this Bill (_sic_).’
Mr. Wynne succeeded Sir Constantine; where the latter spoke for
one minute, Mr. Wynne spoke for ten. His speech was, what Serjeant
Woolrych has called it, ‘a bold and elaborate display of the criticism
of evidence,’ with an obstinate insistance on the supposed fact that
harmless terms could not possibly mean hurtful things. The speech
was altogether so able that his envious learned friends asserted he
had stolen all the ideas from the bishop when conversing with him in
the Tower; but this weak invention of the enemy has been effectually
trampled out, and will not rise again.
[Sidenote: _POPE, AS A WITNESS._]
The evidence on the bishop’s side went very briefly to show that there
was iniquity in Government offices in the concocting of testimonies;
that not only handwriting could be, and in fact was, imitated, but that
seals and impressions could be forged, and that the prelate himself
(according to the evidence of his servants) neither received traitors
in his house nor visited them at their own. The most remarkable
witness was ‘Mr. Pope,’ but there was nothing remarkable in the
poet’s testimony. He was nervous, embarrassed, and he blundered in
his phrases. Atterbury had warned Pope, in a letter from the Tower,
April 10th, to this effect: ‘I know not but I may call upon you at
my hearing, to say somewhat about the way of spending my time at the
Dean’ry, which did not seem calculated towards managing plots and
conspiracies. But of that I shall consider.’ Pope replied the same day:
his letter is warm, tender, and full of assurances of a love for his
friend which he can only show in a way which ‘needs no open warrant to
authorise it, or secret conveyance to secure it; which no bills can
preclude, and no king prevent.… You prove yourself, my lord, to know
me for the friend I am; in judging that the manner of your defence
and your reputation by it is a point of the highest concern to me.’
Pope thus described to Spence how he played his part in this Jacobite
episode: ‘Though I had but ten words to say and that on a plain point,
how the Bishop spent his time while I was with him at Bromley, I made
two or three blunders in it, and that notwithstanding the first row of
lords, which was all I could see, were mostly of my acquaintance.’
An attempt was made, through Mr. Erasmus Lewis, of the Secretary of
State’s office (a witness for the bishop), to get at one secret, the
unveiling of which would have served Atterbury materially. Mr. Lewis
was asked what he knew of the ability or habit of one Brocket, a clerk
in that office, in counterfeiting the handwriting of other people?
Two-thirds of the judicial assembly seem to have started with terror
at the audacity of the question; and they speedily resolved that ‘it
was not proper that Mr. Lewis should be examined on any thing relating
to government, which came to his knowledge by being employed in the
Secretary of State’s office.’ Notwithstanding this rebuke, Mr. Lewis
did contrive to let it be known that Brocket was a clever imitator
of handwriting; and it was proved that even from a broken seal of an
opened letter an impression could be taken, from which a new seal could
be engraved. Phipps, in his rejoinder to the prosecuting counsel, dwelt
upon these points. Wynne then took up the theme, and pursued it for
hours, ending his speech with this singular peroration: ‘I hope I may
venture to affirm that there does not now remain the least suspicion of
the charge brought against the bishop; not even the least suspicion of
a suspicion of high treason; not the probability of a probability, nor
the presumption of a presumption.’
[Sidenote: _ATTERBURY’S DEFENCE._]
Undoubtedly the most sensational incident of the whole proceeding was
when Atterbury rose on the 11th of May to speak in his own behalf.
He kept his judges gravely intent for two hours. He introduced much
matter that was little to the purpose, and all the rest was special
pleading. He dared not――at least he did not――boldly assert, ‘I am
guiltless!’ but he urged to this effect, ‘You cannot prove me guilty!’
One sample will be as good as the whole measure.――‘As to that part of
the accusation where it is said the letter to “Jackson” was a letter
to the Pretender, I have nothing to do with it. (!) He that writ that
letter, when known, will best be able, and most concerned, to disprove
it.’ The bishop added, and well might he add, ‘This objection carries
a very odd sound,’ but he maintained that it rested on reasonable
grounds. His reasoning often wandered from the mark, which does not
surprise a reader who is now aware of the bishop’s guilt. At one moment
he asserted there was no proof at all. At another, that there was only
very weak proof――nothing but the hearsay of a hearsay. He alluded to
his bodily infirmities; the insults he had received in the Tower; his
Protestant orthodoxy; the calm, unplotting tenour of his life; and
the probable ruin that revolution would bring down upon him as an
ecclesiastic and a peer of Parliament. If his judges proved severe in
their conclusions, he hoped mercy would be extended to him; but still,
naked he came into the world, and so would go out of it; and whether
the Lord gave or took away, blessed be the name of the Lord!’
[Sidenote: _REJOINDER FOR THE CROWN._]
On the 12th, Reeves and Wreag tore all the bishop’s special pleading
to tatters. The former insisted that every charge had been proved, and
that the bishop’s exalted character and holy function only aggravated
his detestable crime. As to the penalty named in the Bill, of the
intolerable pressure of which Atterbury had complained, almost in
tears, Wreag took up the complaint, and said, ‘I venture to affirm this
is the mildest punishment that ever was inflicted for such an offence.
His life is not touched, his liberty not properly affected. He is
only expelled the society, whose government he disapproved, and has
endeavoured to subvert; and is deprived of the public employment which
that government had entrusted him with. The enjoyment of his life, his
private estate, and his liberty, under any government that may be more
agreeable, is allowed him.’
[Sidenote: _WIT OF LORD BATHURST._]
The debate on the question whether the Bill should then be read a third
time and passed took place on the 15th. Willis, Bishop of Salisbury,
and Gastrell, Bishop of Chester, pressed hardly against their brother
prelate. The Duke of Argyle, the Earls of Peterborough and Cholmondely,
and Lord Findlater, were as hostile as those bishops. On the other
side, Gibson, Bishop of London, spoke in behalf of Atterbury. Earl
Poulett commented upon the extraordinary character of the proceedings,
and the Duke of Wharton, Lords Bathurst, Cowper, Strafford, Trevor, and
Gower, spoke vigorously against the Bill,――the first two especially
distinguished themselves in this way. Lord Bathurst, with vigour equal
to Wharton’s, put forth a vigorous wit of his own. In allusion to the
hostility of some of the bishops to Atterbury, Lord Bathurst remarked,
‘I can hardly account for the inveterate hatred and malice which some
persons bear the learned and ingenious Bishop of Rochester, unless it
was that they were intoxicated with the infatuation of some of the wild
Indians, who fondly believe that they inherit not only the spoils, but
even the abilities of the great enemy whom they kill,’ Nevertheless,
the Bill, by which the bishop was deprived of his estate and function,
and was doomed to perpetual banishment, with _death_ as the penalty of
returning without leave, passed the House. Forty peers in all (nearly
the whole of the minority) protested on various grounds,――irregularity,
illegality, and of conclusions unwarranted by evidence.
[Sidenote: _NEWSPAPER COMMENTS._]
Of the London street scenes enacted during the proceedings there is
this record of two (towards the close of the trial), taken from the
‘Weekly Journal’ of May 18th:――‘The bishop was remanded to the Tower
about five in the evening, attended not only by his Guards, but several
Volunteers, both Whigs and Tories, between whom, near Temple Bar,
there happened a small skirmish to the disadvantage of the latter;
and yesterday his lordship was for the last time carried up to the
House of Lords to hear the King’s Counsel’s reply to his lordship’s
defence; and, being remanded about nine, considerable numbers of both
parties above named met and engaged in a pitched battle, which lasted
with great violence for some time, but ended at last in the utter Rout
and Confusion of those who love the b――――p so well that they would
willingly introduce the Pope to defend and support him. That High
Church is no more, and it is to be hoped it will be a warning to them
how they attempt again to force Nature against Principle.’
[Sidenote: _ATTERBURY AND LAYER._]
An event occurred on the 17th of May, in the Tower, which must have
cast a heavy shadow of gloom on Atterbury and the friends who crowded
to see him before he left his native country for ever. Counsellor Layer
was led out that morning to undergo ignominious death at Tyburn. His
crime was being active in the plot of which Atterbury quietly held
the threads. But Layer was indiscreet, and was condemned by his own
acts and handwriting. Atterbury apparently lived the life of a quiet
scholar, and seems to have taken care that neither word nor handwriting
should ever be so indulged in as to expose him even to suspicion. These
men were equally guilty; but, rather than say,――the prelate deserved to
be hanged with the counsellor, it might be urged that the lawyer might,
in mercy, have been banished with the bishop. Atterbury must have felt
a pang when as good, or as bad, a gentleman as himself began the long
agony from the fortress to Tyburn Field.
[Sidenote: _LAYER ON HOLBORN HILL._]
Counsellor Layer, who had been convicted in November, 1722, was
respited from time to time. Ministers hoped to get disclosures of
importance from him, which he bravely declined to make. What promises
were held out to this obstinate Jacobite in return are not known. At
all events he made none. Some of ‘my lords’ were repeatedly with him,
to urge him to unburthen his mind, but their urging had no effect. On
the 16th of May, 1723, the evening before his execution, the Earls of
Lincoln and Scarborough, and Col. Crosby, were in deep consultation
with him, in the Tower, but Layer remained faithful to those by
whom he had been trusted. There was, indeed, another cause for the
frequent respites. Being an obstinate Jacobite, he would have been sent
sooner to Tyburn, only for the pressure of his distinguished clients’
unsettled affairs. For their sake also, it was said, he was reprieved
from time to time; and among the singular sights of the Tower in
that Jacobite time, not the least singular was that of ‘Counsellor
Layer, with a rope round his neck,’ transacting law business with the
attorneys of his clients, and arranging matters of which he was never
to see the end, yet for which he did not scruple to take the fees. But
then, wine was dear, though plentiful, in prison, and a man condemned
to death did not choose to be inhospitable to the visitors who
sympathised with, still less in this case, to the clients who employed
him. It was observed, however, that the affairs between the clients
and their counsel were never likely to come to a conclusion, and Layer
would not serve the Government by turning traitor. The impatient
authorities at once ordered Layer to ‘travel westward,’ and he rode
up Holborn Hill accordingly. But he rode up like a gentleman who had,
indeed, serious business in hand, but which must not be allowed to
disturb his gentlemanlike self-possession. The Jacobite agent made his
last appearance in public in a fine suit of black clothes full trimmed,
and his new tye wig could not have looked smarter if he had been going
to be married. Seated in a sledge drawn by five horses, he went the
weary way between the Tower and Tyburn. The dignified seriousness of
his self-possession was not mocked by the bitterest of the Whigs who
watched his passage, while many a Jacobite shed tears, yet was proud of
the calm courage with which he bore his dreadful fate. In a carriage
behind the sledge rode two reverend clergymen, Messrs. Berryman and
Hawkins――one of them a Nonjuror, of course. At Tyburn, as the two
stood up in the cart beneath the gallows, there ensued the scene not
uncommon on such occasions. The utmost liberty was given to a man,
about to die, to unburthen his soul in any way he pleased. Layer made
the most of the privilege. He said boldly, but without bluster, that
there was no king but James III.; that the so-called King George was an
usurper; that it was a glorious duty to take up arms for the rightful
sovereign; that there would be no joy in the land till that sovereign
was restored; and that, for his own part, he was glad to die for his
legitimate monarch, King James. Having said which, the Nonjuror gave
the speaker absolution, the people cheered, and the once eminent and
able barrister was soon beyond the reach of further suffering.
[Sidenote: _LAYER AT TYBURN._]
Layer kept the word he had pledged to Colonel Williamson as he was
leaving the Tower. ‘Colonel,’ he said, ‘I will die like a man.’ ‘I
hope, Mr. Layer,’ replied the Deputy-Governor, ‘you will die like a
Christian.’ The Jacobite counsellor fulfilled both hope and promise.
Only a Whig paper or two affected to sneer at the calm courage with
which he met that mortal ignominy at Tyburn.
Within a few hours of the execution, an Old Bailey bard had thrown off
and published the following ‘Sorrowful _Lamentation_ of Counsellor
Layer’s who was Condemned to die at London for High _Treason_,’ and
which is here given as a specimen of the London gutter-and-gallows
poetry in the Jacobite times:――
[Sidenote: _LAMENTATION FOR LAYER._]
Noble Hearts all around the Nation;
――That do hear my wretched Fate,
I’d have you lay by all confusion,
――Do not meddle with the State,
Let my Exit be a warning.
Now unto you both great and small,
My mirth is turned to grief and mourning,
Thus you see poor _Layer’s_ Fall.
A Counsellor I was of late,
And oft I did for Justice plead,
I lov’d both Noble, Rich, and Great,
Till I pursu’d this fatal Deed,
Who by a Woman was betray’d,
And I was apprehended soon,
And now I am arraign’d and cast,
And thus you see poor _Layer’s_ Doom.
At _Westminster_ I took my tryal,
Which lasted 16 Hours long,
While a multitude to hear it,
There into the Court did throng;
While I with Iron Fetters loaded,
For my life did stand to plead,
But no mercy is afforded,
I must suffer for the Deed.
_Christopher Layer_, come and answer,
For what unto your Charge is laid,
For listing Men for the Pretender,
As by witness here is said.
You have been a most rebellious Traytor,
Against our Sovereign Lord the King,
Answer to your Accusation,
Are you guilty of the thing?
I boldly for a while did plead,
And spoke up on my own Defence,
But yet my Case was made so plain,
Guilty was I of the offence,
At four a Clock all in the Morning,
I was then cast for my Life,
And I at Tyburn must expire,
A Grief unto my dearest Wife.
And my Children who lies weeping
For my most unhappy Fate,
I cannot expect no pity,
For the Crime that is so great,
It is best to be at Quiet,
I advise you one and all,
Lest like me it proves your Ruin,
Thus you see poor Layer’s Fall.
For sure this is the Hand of Heaven
Suffers me this Death to die,
For to finish my intention,
I could not expect; for why,
Because for men so bold attempting,
Many here before did die;
But still I could not be at Quiet,
By which I have wrought my Destiny.
I hope my fall will be a warning,
To all that see my fatal End,
My dearest Friends they do me blame,
That I the Nation should offend.
My tender Wife does lie lamenting,
My Children are ready to despair,
I hope that this will be a warning,
To all that see the fall of _Layer_.
When my Body it is Quarter’d,
And my Head expos’d on high,
I hope my fleeting Soul will dwell
With Christ for evermore on high.
Farewel my dearest Wife and Children,
To Heaven I you recommend,
Weep not for me unhappy Creature,
Think not on my fatal End.[7]
[Sidenote: _BOLINGBROKE: ATTERBURY._]
The ballad was yet being said or sung in London, when on June 1st the
metropolis was startled with the news that the ‘late Lord Bolingbroke,’
as the attainted Jacobite peer was called by the Whigs, was about to
be pardoned. ‘_About!_’ shouted a Jacobite paper, in its loudest type,
‘the pardon has already passed the seal.’ But this shout was one of
indignation, for the papers of all hues seem to have agreed that my
Lord Bolingbroke’s pardon was the consequence of services to King
George and the existing Government, with reference to the plot for
upsetting both by establishing the Pretender and a Stuart ministry in
their place.
Another incident occupied the public mind, namely, the sale of
Atterbury’s goods and chattels. Political partisans and votaries
of fashion repaired to the episcopal palace at Bromley, and to the
deanery at Westminster, as to shrines where both could indulge in
their respective sentiments. At the two sales about 5,000_l._ were
realised. ‘There was a remarkable fondness,’ says the ‘London Journal,’
sneeringly, ‘_in some sort of people_, to buy these goods almost at
any rate; but whether from a motive of superstition or party zeal we
know not; but many think both.’ It is true that numerous articles
fetched four times their value; and the Jacobite journals, as well
as the better natured of the opposite faction, acknowledged that the
purchasers naturally desired to have some remembrance of their fallen
friend.
[Sidenote: _ATTERBURY LEAVING THE TOWER._]
Jacobitism ventured to look up in public, before the bishop went into
exile. On the 10th of June, numbers of persons appeared in the streets
wearing white roses. It was like displaying a flag of defiance against
the Government. Whigs who were really loyal to ‘great Brunswick,’ and
who dearly loved a fight, fell upon the white rose wearers, and many a
head was broken in expiation of the offence.
On the 17th of the month, Atterbury received company in the Tower for
the last time. During the whole day there was no cessation of arrivals
of friends of all degrees who came to bid a last and long farewell.
On the following morning, Tuesday, June 18th, which was fixed for
the bishop’s departure, every avenue to the Tower was closed. The
authorities were in fear of a riotous demonstration. The vicinity
was densely crowded. The river was covered with boats. As Atterbury
passed the window where his old acquaintance, Dr. Freind, sat (under
arrest in the old matter of the Plot), the two were allowed to converse
together for a quarter of an hour. In a sedan chair, preceded by the
deputy-governor, and surrounded by warders, the bishop was conveyed to
the King’s Stairs. ‘He was not in a lay habit, as it was reported he
would be,’ says one paper, in censuring mood. ‘He was in a lay habit,
a suit of grey cloth,’ says another journal. A third confirms the
second, but generally adds: ‘He was waited on by two footmen, _more
episcoporum_, in purple liveries.’ Some of the spectators boasted of
the sums that had been raised for him. One sympathising lady had
subscribed 1000_l._, and the total was said to reach six times that
amount. He had many a tender greeting from sympathising women as he
passed. One of the fair enthusiasts went up to his chair and kissed
his hand. She manifested a world of affectionate tenacity, and the
ex-prelate was only just in time to discover that the pretty, tearful
_Jenny Diver_ had quietly drawn a valuable ring off his finger, with
her lips. The ring was saved, but Atterbury consigned her to the
mob who, as the papers remark, followed the usual custom, on such
occasions. They ducked her in the river. Forgiveness would have been a
more appropriate act on the prelate’s part.
[Sidenote: _ATTERBURY ON THE THAMES._]
In that same river lay an eight-oared navy barge, on board of which
he was conveyed with humane and respectful care. The deputy-governor,
and warders, with the Duke of Wharton, two of the bishop’s chaplains,
and other Jacobite friends, accompanied him. His servants, baggage,
and books, were in a barge which followed. Early in the afternoon the
oars were dipped and the barges were steered down stream. A fleet of
deeply-laden boats went in the same direction. In Long Reach lay the
‘Aldborough,’ man-of-war. As the bishop was hoisted up the side in a
cradle, Captain Laurence was at the gangway, ready to receive him. The
boats clustered densely round the ship, and Atterbury with gravity
acknowledged the sympathy. As the officials were about to leave he gave
‘a few guineas’ to the warders; justifying the ‘few’ on the ground of
the many they had received in fees and douceurs from his visitors
during his captivity. He was still in durance, for two messengers had
him in charge till he landed at Calais. There, occurred the well-known
incident. Atterbury and Bolingbroke crossed each other; and the bishop
remarked epigrammatically: ‘We are exchanged!’
[Sidenote: _POPE AND ATTERBURY._]
‘He is gone!’ wrote Pope to Blount (June 27th). ‘He carried away more
learning than is left in this nation behind, but he left us more in the
noble example of bearing calamity well. It is true, we want literature
very much; but, pray God, we do not want patience more, if these
precedents’ (Bills of Pains and Penalties) ‘prevail.’ Pope’s impatience
was at this time natural. When he took final leave of the Jacobite
prelate in the Tower, Atterbury remarked that he would allow his friend
to say that the sentence was a just one, if Pope ever found that the
bishop ‘had any concerns with that’ (the Stuart) ‘family in his exile.’
Atterbury openly and immediately took service in that very family,
where, however, he found little gratitude for his fidelity.
The Duke of Wharton, in his own barge, reached the Tower stairs at
midnight. One of his first acts, the next day, was to appoint as his
chaplain the Rev. Mr. Moore, who had been one of Atterbury’s chaplains,
and who was well-nigh as turbulent a Jacobite as Sacheverel himself.
Pope turned Bishop Atterbury to very good account, pleasurable alike to
the Jacobites who admired the prelate for his politics, if for nothing
besides, and to himself, for another reason. The poet possessed an
original portrait of the Bishop of Rochester, the work of Sir Godfrey
Kneller. There was a contemporary painter, named Worsdale, who had
also been an actor, who had moreover been satirised on the stage, and
who had kept, loved, lived on, and kicked the once celebrated and ever
unfortunate Lætitia Pilkington. Pope got Worsdale to make copies of
Kneller’s portrait of Atterbury, for three or four guineas. ‘And when,’
says Sir James Prior, in his ‘Life of Malone,’ ‘he wished to pay a
particular compliment to one of his friends, he gave him an original
picture of Atterbury.’ Of these original Knellers, Worsdale painted
several.
[Sidenote: _LAYER’S HEAD._]
Atterbury having passed away from the public gaze, there was nothing
more attractive to look at than Layer’s head, which was spiked on
Temple Bar. Whig caricaturists loved to show the hideous sight in a
ridiculous point of view. Jacobites went to the Bar as to a sanctified
shrine of martyrs. There never was a head there that did not seem
to them holy. That of Layer was blown down as Mr. Pearce, of Took’s
Court, a well-known nonjuring attorney and an agent for the nonjuring
party, was passing. He bought the head of him who had picked it up. Dr
Rawlinson, the learned Jacobite antiquary, bought it, at a high price,
from Pearce, kept the skull in his study, and was buried with it in his
hand. But there is a tradition that after the relic had been exhibited
in a tavern, it was buried beneath the kitchen of the house, and the
head of some other person was sold to Rawlinson, as that of Layer!’
Imagine,’ says a note in Nichol’s ‘Literary Anecdotes,’ ‘the venerable
antiquary and his companion waking out of their slumber! How would the
former be amazed and mortified on his perceiving he had been taking to
his bosom, not the head of the counsellor, but the worthless pate of
some strolling mendicant, some footpad, or some superannuated harlot!’
[Sidenote: _THE CO-CONSPIRATORS._]
For some time, Atterbury’s speech in the Lords was cried and sold
in the public streets; whereupon, the faithful magistracy had the
rejoinders made by the counsel for the Crown printed and sold to
counteract the effect. Atterbury’s convicted confederates, Kelly and
Plunkett, were despatched, the first to Hurst Castle; the second, to
Sandown Fort, Isle of Wight. The peers who had been arrested were now
admitted to bail, in 20,000_l._ each, themselves; and four sureties in
10,000_l._! For Lord North and Grey, the Marquis of Caermarthen, the
Earls of Lichfield and Scarsdale, and Lord Gower answered. The sureties
of the Duke of Norfolk were, first, one of the king’s ministers, the
Duke of Kingston, the Earls of Carlisle and Cardigan, and Lord Howard.
There were two gentlemen in the Tower involved in the plot, Thomas
Cochran and Captain Dennis Kelly. Bail was taken for them, the personal
at 4,000_l._, and four sureties in 2,000_l._ The Duke of Montrose,
the Marquis of Caermarthen, Earl Kinnoul, and Mr. Stewart, of Hanover
Square, became responsible for Cochran; and Earl Strafford, Lords
Arundel and Bathurst, with ‘downright Shippen,’ for the Captain, rank
Jacobites, the most of them. Dr. Mead entered into recognisances for
Dr. Freind. It was a noble feeling that prompted the Prince of Wales to
appoint Freind one of his physicians immediately after his liberation.
That the doctor accepted the appointment was bitterly commented on
by the Jacobites, who might have taken some comfort from Prince
Prettyman’s life being now in the Jacobite doctor’s hands!
[Sidenote: _ATTERBURY SERVING THE CHEVALIER._]
Quietly-minded people now looked for quiet times, and hoped that plots
and projects of war and invasion had come to an end. But the Stuart
papers show that Atterbury hoped yet to bring his king to London. In
Brussels, by aid of the Papal Nuncio and one of the Ladies Howard, then
at the head of an English nunnery in Belgium, the Jacobite ex-prelate
secretly kept up a correspondence with James.
[Sidenote: _LETTER FROM ATTERBURY._]
On October 12th, 1723, Atterbury wrote a letter to that prince, in
which was the following passage:――‘I despair not of being in some
degree useful to your service here, and shall be ready to change
my station upon any great contingency that requires it. And I hope
the present counsels and interests of foreign courts may soon
produce such a juncture as may render the activity and efforts of
your friends reasonable and successful.’ Again, in December, the
ex-bishop thus coolly writes of an invasion of England in the Jacobite
interest:――‘Providence, I hope, is now disposing everything towards
it; and, when that happens, let the alarm be given, and, taken as
loudly as it will, it will have nothing frightful in it,――nothing that
can in any way balance the advantages with which such a step will
plainly be attended.’
[7] The above has no date nor printer’s name. That it is
inserted here is owing to the kindness of a gentleman
who has contributed it from his valuable Collection of
old Ballads,――Frederic Ouvry, Esq., President of the
Society of Antiquaries.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
Transcriber’s Note:
This book was written in a period when many words had not become
standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling
variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been
left unchanged. Obsolete and alternative spellings were left unchanged.
Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
this_. Initial drop capital letters at the beginning of chapters
are indicated [Illustration: Drop-X]. Footnotes were renumbered
sequentially and were moved to the end of the chapter in which the
corresponding anchor occurs. Page headers were converted to sidenotes.
Where the text continued for more than a full page, in-line sidenotes
were used, annotated within ◆ mark-up.
Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down, or partially
printed letters and punctuation, were corrected.
The following items were changed:
line 1677 - usual for a Jabobite [Jacobite]
line 3052 - the Whig ‘Eveninig [Evening] Post,’
line 6641 - who appeared at Dumblane [Dunblane]
line 10478 - urged that the [she] would be subject