When George I. died there was so little interest or affection exhibited
by his son and successor, that Sir Robert Walpole, on announcing to
George II. that by the demise of his father he had succeeded to regal
honors, was saluted with a volley of oaths, and "Dat is one big lie."
No pretence even was made of sorrow. Greorge Augustus had hated George
Lewis during life, and at the first council, when the will of the late
King was produced by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the new monarch
simply took it up and walked out of the room with the document, which
was never seen again. Thackeray, who pictures George II. as "a dull,
little man, of low tastes," says that he "made away with his father's
will under the astonished nose of the Archbishop of Canterbury." A
duplicate of this will having been deposited with the Duke of Brunswick,
a large sum of money was paid to that Prince nominally as a subsidy by
the English Government for the maintenance of troops, but really as a
bribe for surrendering the document. A legacy having been left by this
will to Lady Walsingham, threats were held out in 1733 by her then
husband, Lord Chesterfield, and L20,000 was paid in compromise.
The eldest son of George II. was Frederick, born in 1706, and who up to
1728 resided permanently in Hanover. Lord Hervey tells us that the
King hated his son Frederick, and that the Queen Caroline, his mother,
abhorred him. To Lord Hervey the Queen says: "My dear Lord, I will give
it you under my hand, if you are in any fear of my relapsing, that my
dear first-born is the greatest ass, and the greatest liar, and the
greatest _canaille_ and the greatest beast in the whole world; and that
I most heartily wish he were out of it." This is a tolerably strong
description of the father of George HI. from the lips of his own mother.
Along with this description of Frederick by the Queen, take Thackeray's
character of George II.'s worthy father of worthy son: "Here was one
who had neither dignity, learning, morals, nor wit--who tainted a great
society by a bad example; who in youth, manhood, old age, was gross,
low, and sensual."
In 1705, when only Electoral Prince of Hanover, George had married
Caroline, daughter of the Margrave of Anspach, a woman of more than
average ability. Thackeray describes Caroline in high terms of praise,
but Lord Chesterfield says that "she valued herself upon her skill in
simulation and dissimulation.... Cunning and perfidy were the means
she made use of in business." The Prince of Anspach is alleged by the
_Whimperer_ to have raised some difficulties as to the marriage, on
account of George I. being disposed to deny the legitimacy of his son,
and it is further pretended that George I. had actually to make distinct
acknowledgment of his son to King William III. before the arrangements
for the Act of Settlement were consented to by that King. It is quite
clear from the diary of Lady Cowper, that the old King's feeling towards
George II. was always one of the most bitter hatred.
The influence exercised by Queen Caroline over George II. was purely
political; and Lord Hervey declares that "wherever the interest of
Germany and the honor of the Empire were concerned, her thoughts and
reasonings were as German and Imperial as if England had been out of the
question."
A strange story is told of Sir Robert Walpole and Caroline. Sir Robert,
when intriguing for office under George I., with Townshend, Devonshire,
and others, objected to their plans being communicated to the Prince of
Wales, saying,
"The fat b------h, his wife, would betray the secret and spoil the
project." This courtly speech being made known by some kind friend to
the Princess Caroline, considerable hostility was naturally exhibited.
Sir Robert Walpole, who held the doctrine that every person was
purchasable, the only question being one of price, managed to purchase
peace with Caroline when Queen. When the ministry suspended, "Walpole
not fairly out, Compton not fairly in," Sir Robert assured the Queen
that he would secure her an annuity of L100,000 in the event of the
King's death, Sir Spencer Compton, who was then looked to as likely
to be in power, having only offered L60,000. The Queen sent back word,
"Tell Sir Robert the fat b------h has forgiven him," and thenceforth
they were political allies until the Queen's death in 1737.
The domestic relations of George II. were marvellous. We pass with
little notice Lady Suffolk, lady-in-waiting to the Queen and mistress to
the King, who was sold by her husband for a pension of L12,000 a year,
paid by the British tax-payers, and who was coarsely insulted by
both their Majesties. It is needless to dwell on the confidential
communications, in which "that strutting little sultan George II.," as
Thackeray calls him, solicited favors from his wife for his mistress,
the Countess of Walmoden; but to use the words of the cultured
_Edinburgh Review_, the Queen's "actual intercession to secure for the
King the favors of the Duchess of Modena precludes the idea that these
sentiments were as revolting to the royal Philaminte as they would
nowadays be to a scavenger's daughter. Nor was the Queen the only
lady of the Royal Family who talked openly on these matters. When Lady
Suffolk was waning at court, the Princess Royal could find nothing
better to say than this: 'I wish with all my heart that he (i. e., the
King) would take somebody else, that Mamma might be relieved from the
_ennui_ of seeing him forever in her room.'"
Lady Cowper in her diary tells us that George II., when Prince of Wales,
intrigued with Lady Walpole, not only with the knowledge of the Princess
Caroline, but also with connivance of the Prime Minister himself. Lord
Hervey adds that Caroline used to sneer at Sir Robert Walpole, asking
how the poor man--"_avec ce gros corps, ces jambes enflees et ce villain
ventre_"--could possibly believe that any woman could love him for
himself. And that Sir Robert retaliated, when Caroline afterwards
complained to him of the King's cross temper, by telling her very coolly
that "it was impossible it could be otherwise, since the King had tasted
better things," and ended by advising her to bring pretty Lady
Tankerville _en rapport_ with the King.
In 1727 an Act was passed, directed against workmen in the woollen
trade, rendering combination for the purpose of raising wages unlawful.
Some years afterwards, this Act was extended to other trades, and the
whole tendency of the Septennial Parliament legislation manifests a most
unfortunate desire on the part of the Legislature to coerce and keep in
subjection the artisan classes.
In February, 1728, the celebrated "Beggar's Opera," by Gay, was put on
the stage at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre, and, being supposed to
contain some satirical reflections on court-corruption, provoked much
displeasure on the part of Royalty. The Duchess of Queensborough,
who patronized Gay, being forbidden to attend court, wrote thus: "The
Duchess of Queensborough is surprised and well pleased that the King
has given her so agreeable a command as forbidding her the court.... She
hopes that, by so unprecedented an order as this, the King will see as
few as she wishes at his court, particularly such as dare speak or think
truth."
In 1729, L115,000 was voted by Parliament for the payment of the King's
debts. This vote seems to have been obtained under false pretences,
to benefit the King, whose "cardinal passion," says Phillimore, "was
avarice."
The _Craftsman_ during the first decade of the reign, fiercely assailed
the Whig ministry for "a wasteful expenditure of money in foreign
subsidies and bribes;" and in his place in the House of Commons William
Pitt, "the great Commoner," in the strongest language attacked the
system of foreign bribery by which home corruption was supplemented.
The rapidly increasing expenditure needed every day increased taxation,
and a caricature published in 1732 marks the public feeling. A monster
(Excise), in the form of a many-headed dragon, is drawing the minister
(Sir Robert Walpole) in his coach, and pouring into his lap, in the
shape of gold, what it has eaten up in the forms of mutton, hams, cups,
glasses, mugs, pipes, etc.
"See this dragon Excise
Has ten thousand eyes,
And five thousand mouths to devour us;
A sting and sharp claws,
With wide gaping jaws,
And a belly as big as a store-house."
Beginning with wines and liquors,--
"Grant these, and the glutton
Will roar out for mutton,
Your beef, bread, and bacon to boot;
Your goose, pig, and pullet,
He'll thrust down his gullet,
Whilst the laborer munches a root."
In 1730 Mr. Sandys introduced a Bill to disable pensioners from sitting
in Parliament. George II. vigorously opposed this measure, which was
defeated. In the King's private notes to Lord Townshend, Mr. Sandys'
proposed act is termed a "villanous measure," which should be "torn to
pieces in every particular."
It was in 1732 that the Earl of Aylesford, a Tory peer, declared that
standing armies in time of peace were "against the very words of the
_Petition of Rights_," and that "all the confusions and disorders
which have been brought upon this kingdom for many years, have been all
brought upon it by means of standing armies." In 1733 Earl Strafford
affirmed that "a standing army" was "always inconsistent with the
liberties of the people;" and urged that "where the people have any
regard for their liberties, they ought never to keep up a greater number
of regular forces than are absolutely necessary for the security of the
Government." Sir John Barnard declared that the army ought not to be
used on political questions. He said: "In a free country, if a
tumult happens from a just cause of complaint, the people ought to be
satisfied; their grievances ought to be redressed; they ought not
surely to be immediately knocked on the head because they may happen to
complain in an irregular way." Mr. Pulteney urged that a standing
army is "a body of men distinct from the body of the people; they are
governed by different laws; blind obedience and an entire submission
to the orders of their commanding officer is their only principle. The
nations around us are already enslaved by those very means; by means of
their standing armies they have every one lost their liberties; it is
indeed impossible that the liberties of the people can be preserved in a
country where a numerous standing army is kept up."
In 1735 sixteen Scottish peers were elected to sit in the House of
Lords, and in a petition to Parliament it was alleged, that the whole
of this list of sixteen peers was elected by bribery and corruption.
The petition positively asserted "that the list of sixteen peers for
Scotland had been formed by persons high in trust under the crown,
previous to the election itself, The peers were solicited to vote for
this list without the liberty of making any alteration, and endeavors
were used to engage peers to vote for this list by promise of pensions
and offices, civil and military, to themselves and their relations,
and by actual promise and offers of sums of money. Several had received
money, and releases of debts owing to the crown were granted to those
who voted for this list. To render this transaction more infamous, a
battalion of troops occupied the Abbey-Court of Edinburgh, and
continued there during the whole time of the election, while there was
a considerable body lying within a mile of the city ready to advance
on the signal." This petition, notwithstanding the gravity of its
allegations, was quietly suppressed.
Lady Sundon, Woman of the Bedchamber and Mistress of the Robes to Queen
Caroline, received from Lord Pom-fret jewelry of L1,400 value, for
obtaining him the appointment of Master of the Horse.
With a Civil List of L800,000 a year, George II. was continually in
debt, but an obedient Ministry and a corrupt Parliament never hesitated
to discharge his Majesty's obligations out of the pockets of the
unrepresented people. Lord Carteret, in 1733, speaking of a Bill before
the House for granting the King half a million out of the Sinking Fund,
said: "This Fund, my Lords, has been clandestinely defrauded of several
small sums at different times, which indeed together amount to a pretty
large sum; but by this Bill it is to be openly and avowedly plundered of
L500,000 at once."
On the 27th of April, 1736, Prince Frederick was married to the Princess
Augusta, of Saxe Gotha, whom King George II. afterwards described as
"_cette diablesse Madame la Princesse_." In August of the same year,
a sharp open quarrel took place between the Prince of Wales and his
parents, which, after some resumptions of pretended friendliness, ended,
on September 10, 1737, in the former being ordered by the King to quit
St. James's palace, where he was residing. On the 22d of the preceding
February, Pulteney had moved for an allowance of L100,000 a year to
Prince Frederick. George II. refused to consent, on the ground that the
responsibility to provide for the Prince of Wales rested with himself,
and that "it would be highly indecorous to interfere between father and
son." On the Prince of Wales taking up his residence at Norfolk House,
"the King issued an order that no persons who paid their court to the
Prince and Princess should be admitted to his presence." An official
intimation of this was given to foreign ambassadors.
On the 20th of November, 1737, Queen Caroline died, never having spoken
to her son since the quarrel. "She was," says Walpole, "implacable in
hatred even to her dying moments. She absolutely refused to pardon,
or even to see, her son." The death-bed scene is thus spoken of by
Thackeray: "There never was such a ghastly farce;" and as sketched by
Lord Hervey, it is a monstrous mixture of religion, disgusting comedy,
and brutishness. "We are shocked in the very chamber of death by the
intrusion of egotism, vanity, buffoonery, and inhumanity. The King is
at one moment dissolved in a mawkish tenderness, at another sunk into
brutal apathy. He is at one moment all tears for the loss of one
who united the softness and amiability of one sex to the courage and
firmness of the other; at another all fury because the object of his
regrets cannot swallow, or cannot change her posture, or cannot animate
the glassy fixedness of her eyes; at one moment he begins an elaborate
panegyric on her virtues, then breaks off into an enumeration of his
own, by which he implies that her heart has been enthralled, and her
intelligence awed. He then breaks off into a stupid story about a storm,
for which his daughter laughs at him, and then while he is weeping
over his consort's death-bed, she advises him to marry again; and we
are--what the Queen was not--startled by the strange reply, 'Non, faurai
des maitresses,' with the faintly moaned out rejoinder, 'Cela, n'empeche
pas.'" So does the Edinburgh reviewer, following Lord Hervey, paint the
dying scene of the Queen of our second George.
After the death of the Queen, the influence of the King's mistresses
became supreme, and Sir R. Walpole, who, in losing Queen Caroline had
lost his greatest hold over George, paid court to Lady Walmoden, in
order to maintain his weakened influence. In the private letters of the
Pelham family, who succeeded to power soon after Walpole's fall, we find
frequent mention of the Countess of Yarmouth as a power to be gained, a
person to stand well with. "I read," says Thackeray, "that Lady Yarmouth
(my most religious and gracious King's favorite) sold a bishopric to a
clergyman for L5,000. (He betted her L5,000 that he would not be made a
bishop, and he lost, and paid her.) Was he the only prelate of his time
led up by such hands for consecration? As I peep into George H.'s St.
James's, I see crowds of cassocks rustling up the back-stairs of the
ladies of the Court; stealthy clergy slipping purses into their laps;
that godless old Bang yawning under his canopy in his Chapel Royal, as
the chaplain before him is discoursing."
On the 23d of May, 1738, George William Frederick, son of Frederick, and
afterwards George III., was born.
In 1739 Lady Walmoden, who had up to this year remained in Hanover, was
brought to England, and formally installed at the English Court. In this
year we bound ourselves by treaty to pay 250,000 dollars per annum
for three years to the Danish Government. "The secret motive of this
treaty," says Mahon, "as of too many others, was not English, but
Hanoverian; and regarded the possession of a petty castle and lordship
called Steinhorst. This castle had been bought from Holstein by George
H. as Elector of Hanover, but the Danes claiming the sovereignty,
a skirmish ensued.... The well-timed treaty of subsidy calmed their
resentment, and obtained the cession of their claim." Many urged, as
in truth it was, that Steinhorst was bought with British money, and
Bolingbroke expressed his fear "that we shall throw the small remainder
of our wealth where we have thrown so much already, into the German
Gulf, which cries Give! Give! and is never satisfied."
On the 19th of May, 1739, in accordance with the wish of the King,
war was declared with Spain, nominally on the question of the right of
search, but when peace was declared at Aix-la-Chapelle, this subject was
never mentioned. According to Dr. Colquhoun, this war cost the country,
L46,418,680.
George II. was, despite the provisions of the Act of Settlement,
continually in Hanover. From 1729 to 1731, again in 1735 and 1736, and
eight times between 1740 and 1755. In 1745 he wished to go, but was not
allowed.
On the 2d of October, 1741 (the Pelham family having managed to acquire
power by dint, as Lord Macaulay puts it, of more than suspected treason
to their leader and colleague), the Duke of Newcastle, then Prime
Minister, wrote his brother, Henry Pelham, as follows: "I must freely
own to you, that I think the King's unjustifiable partiality for
Hanover, to which he makes all other views and considerations
subservient, has manifested itself so much that no man can continue in
the active part of the administration with honor." The Duke goes on to
describe the King's policy as "both dishonorable and fatal;" and Henry
Pelham, on the 8th of October, writes him back that "a partiality
to Hanover is general, is what all men of business have found great
obstructions from, ever since this family have been upon the throne."
Yet these are amongst the most prominent of the public defenders of the
House of Brunswick, and a family which reaped great place and profit
from the connection.
Of the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Macaulay says: "No man was so
unmercifully satirized. But in truth he was himself a satire ready made.
All that the art of the satirist does for other men, nature had done for
him. Whatever was absurd about him stood out with grotesque prominence
from the rest of the character. He was a living, moving, talking
caricature. His gait was a shuffling trot, his utterance a rapid
stutter; he was always in a hurry; he was never in time; he abounded in
fulsome caresses and in hysterical tears. His oratory resembled that of
Justice Shallow. It was nonsense, effervescent with animal spirits
and impertinence. Of his ignorance many anecdotes remain, some well
authenticated, some probably invented at coffee-houses, but all
exquisitely characteristic. 'Oh, yes, yes, to be sure! Annapolis must be
defended; troops must be sent to Annapolis. Pray, where is Annapolis?'
'Cape Breton an island! Wonderful! show it me in the map. So it is, sure
enough. My dear sir, you always bring us good news. I must go and tell
the King that Cape Breton is an island.' And this man was, during near
thirty years, Secretary of State, and during near ten years First Lord
of the Treasury! His large fortune, his strong hereditary connection,
his great Parliamentary interest, will not alone explain this
extraordinary fact. His success is a signal instance of what may be
effected by a man who devotes his whole heart and soul without reserve
to one object. He was eaten up by ambition. His love of influence and
authority resembled the avarice of the old usurer in the 'Fortunes
of Nigel.' It was so intense a passion that it supplied the place of
talents, that it inspired even fatuity with cunning. 'Have no money
dealings with my father,' says Martha to Lord Glenvarloch, 'for, dotard
as he is, he will make an ass of you.' It was as dangerous to have
any political connection with Newcastle as to buy and sell with old
Trapbois. He was greedy after power with a greediness all his own. He
was jealous of all colleagues, and even of his own brother. Under
the disguise of levity, he was false beyond all example of political
falsehood. All the able men of his time ridiculed him as a dunce, a
driveller, a child who never knew his own mind for an hour together; and
he overreached them all round."
In 1742, under the opposition of Pulteney, the Tories called upon
Paxton, the Solicitor to the Treasury, and Scrope, the Secretary to the
Treasury, to account for the specific sum of L1,147,211, which it
was proved they had received from the minister. No account was ever
furnished. George Vaughan, a confidant of Sir Robert Walpole, was
examined before the Commons as to a practice charged upon that minister,
of obliging the possessor of a place or office to pay a certain sum
out of the profits of it to some person or persons recommended by the
minister. Vaughan, who does not appear to have ventured any direct
denial, managed to avoid giving a categorical reply, and to get excused
from answering on the ground that he might criminate himself. Agitation
was commenced for the revival of Triennial Parliaments, for the renewal
of the clause of the Act of Settlement, by which pensioners and placemen
were excluded from the House of Commons, and for the abolition of
standing armies in time of peace. The Whigs, however, successfully
crushed out the whole of this agitation. Strong language was heard in
the House of Commons, where Sir James Dashwood said that "it was no
wonder that the people were then unwilling to support the Government,
when a weak, narrow-minded prince occupied the throne."
A very amusing squib appeared in 1742, when Sir Robert Walpole's power
was giving way, partly under the bold attacks of the Tories, led
by Cotton and Shippen; partly before the malcontent Whigs under the
guidance of Carteret and Pulteney; partly before the rising power of the
young England party led by William Pitt; and somewhat from the jealousy,
if not treachery, of his colleague, the Duke of Newcastle. The squib
pictures the King's embarrassment and anger at being forced to dismiss
Walpole, and to Carteret, whom he has charged to form a ministry:--
"Quoth the King:
'My good lord, perhaps you've been told
That I used to abuse you a little of old,
But now bring whom you will, and eke turn away,
Let but me and my money at Walmoden stay."
Lord Carteret, explaining to the King whom he shall keep of the old
ministry, includes the Duke of Newcastle:--
"Though Newcastle's false, as he's silly I know,
By betraying old Robin to me long ago,
As well as all those who employed him before,
Yet I leave him in place, but I leave him no power.
"For granting his heart is as black as his hat,
With no more truth in this than there's sense beneath that,
Yet, as he's a coward, he'll shake when I frown;
You called him a rascal, I'll use him like one.
"For your foreign affairs, howe'er they turn out,
At least I'll take care you shall make a great rout;
Then cock your great hat, strut, bounce, and look bluff,
For, though kick'd and cuff'd here, you shall there kick and cuff
"That Walpole did nothing they all used to say,
So I'll do enough, but I'll make the dogs pay;
Great-fleets I'll provide, and great armies engage,
Whate'er debts we make, or whate'er wars we wage!
"With cordials like these the monarch's new guest
Reviv'd his sunk spirits, and gladdened his breast;
Till in rapture he cried, 'My dear Lord, you shall do
Whatever you will--give me troops to review.'"
In 1743, King George II. actually tried to engage this country, by a
private agreement, to pay L300,000 a year to the Queen of Hungary, "as
long as war should continue, or the necessity of her affairs should
require." #The King, being in Hanover, sent over the treaty to England,
with a warrant directing the Lords Justices to "ratify and confirm it,"
which, however, they refused to do. On hearing that the Lord Chancellor
refused to sanction the arrangement, King George H. threatened, through
Earl Granvillie, to affix the Great Seal with his own hand. Ultimately
the L300,000 per annum was agreed to be paid so long as the war lasted,
but this sum was in more than one instance exceeded.
Although George II. had induced the country to vote such large sums to
Maria Therese, the Empress-Queen, he nevertheless abandoned her in a
most cowardly manner when he thought his Hanoverian dominions in danger,
and actually treated with France without the knowledge or consent of his
ministry. A rhyming squib, in which the King is termed the "Balancing
Captain," from which we present the following extracts, will serve to
show the feeling widely manifested in England at that time:--
"I'll tell you a story as strange as 'tis new,
Which all who're concerned will allow to be true,
Of a Balancing Captain, well known hereabouts,
Returned home (God save him) a mere king of clouts.
"This Captain he takes in a _gold_ ballasted ship,
Each summer to _terra damnosa_ a trip,
For which he begs, borrows, scrapes all he can get,
And runs his poor _owners_ most vilely in debt.
"The last time he set out for this blessed place,
He met them, and told them a most piteous case,
Of a sister of his, who, though bred up at court,
Was ready to perish for want of support.
"This _Hung'ry_ sister he then did pretend,
Would be to his owners a notable friend,
If they would at that critical juncture supply her;
They did--but, alas! all the fat's in the fire!"
The ballad then suggests that the King, having got all the money
possible, made a peace with the enemies of the Queen of Hungary,
described in the ballad as the sister:--
"He then turns his sister adrift, and declares
Her most mortal foes were her father's right heirs:
'G--d z--ds!' cries the world, 'such a step was ne'er taken!'
'Oh, oh!' says Moll Bluff, 'I have saved my own bacon.
"'Let France damn the Germans, and undamn the Dutch,
And Spain on old England pish ever so much;
Let Russia bang Sweden, or Sweden bang that,
I care not, by _Robert, one kick of my hat!_
"'Or should my chous'd owners begin to look sour,
I'll trust to _mate_ Bob to exert his old power,
_Regit animos dictis_, or _numis_ with ease
So, spite of your growling, I'll act as I please!'"
The British Nation, described as the owners, are cautioned to look into
the accounts of their Captain, who is bringing them to insolvency:--
"This secret, however, must out on the day
When he meets his poor owners to ask for his pay;
And I fear, when they come to adjust the account,
A zero for balance will prove their amount."
The final result of all these subsidy votes was to increase our
national debt, up to the signing of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, to
L76,000,000; while the seven years' war, which came later, brought the
debt to L133,000,000, not including in this the capitalized value of the
terminable annuities.
On November 22d, 1743, a caricature was published, which had a wide
sale, and which represented the King as a fat Hanoverian white horse
riding to death a nearly starved British lion.
In 1744, L200,000 was voted, which King George and Lord Carteret, who
was called by William Pitt, his "Hanoverian troop minister," had agreed
to give the King of Sardinia. L40,000 was also voted for a payment made
by the King to the Duke of Arenberg. This payment was denounced by Mr.
Lyttelton as a dangerous misapplication of public money.
The votes for foreign subsidies alone, in 1744, were L691,426, while
the Hanoverian soldiers cost us L393,773. The King actually tried in
addition, in the month of August, to get a further subsidy for his
friend, the Elector of Saxony, and another for the King of Poland, and
this when Englishmen and Irishmen were lacking bread. Nor was even a
pretence made in some instances of earning the money. L150,000 was paid
this year to keep Prince Charles in Alsace, and the moment Austria got
the money, Prince Charles was withdrawn, and Henry Pelham, writing to
the Duke of Newcastle, says, "The same will be the case with every sum
of money we advance. The allies will take it, and then act as suits
their convenience and security." In the four years from 1744 to 1747,
both included, we paid L4,342,683 for foreign troops and subsidies,
not including the Dutch and Hessians, whom we hired to put down the
rebellion of 1745. In the case of the whole of this war, in which we
subsidized all our allies except the Dutch, it is clear that the direct
and sole blame rests upon the King, who cared nothing for English
interests in the matter. When firmly remonstrated with by Lord
Chancellor Hardwicke, his reply was what the Duke of Newcastle describes
as "almost sullen silence."
For the rebellion of 1745--which came so near being successful, and
which would have thoroughly succeeded had the Pretender's son possessed
any sort of ability as a leader--there is little room to spare here.
The attempt to suppress it in its early stages is thus described in a
Jacobite ballad:--
"Horse, foot, and dragoons, from lost Flanders they call,
With Hessians and Danes, and the devil and all;
And hunters and rangers led by Oglethorpe;
And the Church, at the bum of the Bishop of York.
And pray, who so fit to lead forth this parade,
As the babe of Tangier, my old grandmother Wade?
Whose cunning's so quick, but whose motion's so slow,
That the rebels marched on, while he stuck in the snow."
The hideously disgusting cruelties and horrible excesses committed by
the infamous Duke of Cumberland, and the Hessians and Hanoverians under
his command, in suppressing the rebellion after the battle of Culloden,
are, alas! too well known. Duncan Forbes, Lord President of the Court of
Session, and a warm supporter of the Brunswicks, remonstrating with the
Duke as to the latter's disregard of the laws of the country, his Royal
Highness of Cumberland replied with an oath: "The laws of my country,
my lord; I'll make a brigade give laws." Scotland has many reasons
for loving the House of Brunswick. Lord Waldegrave, who strove hard to
whitewash the Duke of Cumberland, says that "Frederick Prince of Wales
gave too much credit to the most malignant and groundless accusations,
by showing favor to every man who aspersed his brother's character."
In 1747, L456,733 was voted by Parliament for the payment of the King's
debts.
In 1748, considerable difficulty arose in consequence of the King's
intrigues to obtain, at the expense of England, the Bishopric of
Osnaburg as a princely establishment for his favorite son, the Duke
of Cumberland, that pious prince, much esteemed in Scotland as "the
butcher." The most open hostility subsisted between the Duke of
Cumberland and Prince Frederick, and pamphleteering attacks on the
former, for his brutality and excesses, were supposed to be encouraged
by the Leicester House party.
Amongst the curious scandals of 1749, it is stated that the King--being
present at a masked ball, at which Elizabeth Chudleigh, afterwards
Duchess of Kingston, figured as "La Belle Sauvage" in a close-fitting
dress of flesh-colored silk, requested permission to place his hand
on Miss Chudleigh's breast. The latter replied that she would put the
King's hand on a still softer place, and immediately raised it to his
own royal forehead.
On the 20th March, 1751, Frederick, Prince of Wales, died. The King, who
received the news while playing cards with his mistress, Lady Yarmouth,
and who had not spoken to his son for years, merely said, "Freddy
is dead." On this subject Thackeray preserves for us the following
epitaph:--
"Here lies Fred,
Who was alive, and is dead.
Had it been his father,
I had much rather.
Had it been his brother,
Still better than another.
Had it been his sister,
No one would have missed her.
Had it been the whole generation,
Still better for the nation.
But since 'tis only Fred,
Who was alive, and is dead,
There's no more to be said."
In 1755 there was the second war, estimated to have cost L111,271,996.
In this George II. pursued exactly the opposite course of policy to that
taken by him in the previous one. The war during the years following
1739 was for the humiliation of the King of Prussia; the policy in the
last war was to prevent his humiliation. Mr. Baxter estimates the debt
(exclusive of annuities) at L133,000,000; Dr. Colquhoun, adding the
value of the annuities, makes it L146,682,843 at the conclusion of this
war.
Towards the close of the reign of George II., who died on October 25th,
1760, his Royal Highness the Duke of Cumberland, by an exhibition of
great strategy, combined with much discretionary valor, succeeded
in making peace on terms which ensured the repose of himself and his
Hanoverian forces during the remainder of the war. At home his Royal
Highness was much attacked, some venturing to describe his personal
conduct as cowardly, and his generalship as contemptible. It is
a sufficient refutation of such a calumny to say that the Duke of
Cumberland was as brave a soldier and as able a general as our present
Commander-in-Chief, his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge.
Lord Waldegrave, who wrote in favor of George II., admits that the King
"is accused by his ministers of being hasty and passionate when any
measure is proposed which; he does not approve of." That "too great
attention to money seems to be his capital failing." And that "his
political courage seems somewhat problematical." Philli-more says: "In
public life he was altogether indifferent to the welfare of England,
except as it affected his Electorate's or his own. Always purchasing
concubines, he was always governed by his wife. In private life he was
a gross lover, an unreasonable master, a coarsely unfaithful husband, an
unnatural parent, and a selfish man."
No more fitting conclusion can be found to this chapter than the
following pregnant words from the pen of Lord Macaulay: "At the close of
the reign of George II. the feeling of aversion with which the House of
Brunswick had long been regarded by half the nation had died away;
but no feeling of affection to that house had yet sprung up. There
was little, indeed, in the old King's character to inspire esteem or
tenderness. He was not our countryman. He never set foot on our soil
till he was more than thirty years old. His speech belayed his foreign
origin and breeding. His love for his native land, though the most
amiable part of his character, was not likely to endear him to his
British subjects. He was never so happy as when he could exchange St.
James's for Heranhausen. Year after year our fleets were employed to
convoy him to the Continent, and the interests of his kingdom were as
nothing to him when compared with the interests of his Electorate. As to
the rest, he had neither the qualities which make dulness respectable,
nor the qualities which make libertinism attractive. He had been a bad
son and a worse father, an unfaithful husband and an ungraceful lover.
Not one magnanimous or humane action is recorded of him; but many
instances of meanness, and of a harshness which, but for the strong
constitutional restraints under which he was placed, might have made the
misery of his people."