Accession of Anne to the throne—That event considered by the Whigs as
unpropitious—Coronation of the Queen—Dislike of Anne to the
Whigs—Efforts of Lady Marlborough—Dismissal of Somers and
Halifax—1702.
Queen Anne was not tantalised by suspense concerning the result of her
predecessor’s illness. Particulars were hourly sent by Lord and Lady
Jersey to Lady Marlborough, of the King’s state, as “his breath grew
shorter and shorter;” an attention which, instead of gratifying the
Countess, “filled her,” as she declares, “with horror.”[357] The
courtiers, who had been weeping at the bedside of the late monarch,
hastened to depart from Kensington, and to remove into the more genial
atmosphere of St. James’s palace, where they offered their
congratulations to the new sovereign in crowds.[358] The Queen was
proclaimed in the courtyard of St. James’s, on the day of the King’s
death, March the eighth, 1702, at five o’clock in the afternoon, both
Houses of Parliament attending the ceremony.[359] A solemn mourning was
ordered, and the members of the privy council were enjoined to hang
their coaches with mourning, and to put their servants in black
liveries; the Queen wearing purple—at that time royal mourning. Two days
after the King’s death, her Majesty went to the House of Lords, attended
by Lady Marlborough, and preceded by the Earl of Marlborough, carrying
before her the sword of state. She addressed both Houses in the usual
mode, and inspired admiration and confidence by the dignity,
self-possession, and graciousness of her manner. “Her speeches were
delivered,” says Bishop Burnet, “with great weight and authority, and
with a softness of voice, and sweetness in the pronunciation, that added
much life to all that she spoke.” Yet she offended the partisans of the
late King, by saying “that her heart was entirely English;”[360]—which
appeared to challenge an invidious comparison with one whose affections,
it was well known, had often reverted to the kingdom which he had
quitted.[361] The speculations which were set afloat concerning the fate
of parties, and the opinions which her Majesty’s political appointments
would display, may readily be imagined. By a proclamation issued,
however, immediately after her accession, the Queen signified that all
persons at present in authority should continue to hold their places,
until her Majesty’s further pleasure should be made known.[362]
Notwithstanding the known influence, and the avowed opinions, of Lady
Marlborough, the Whigs regarded the accession of Queen Anne as
unpropitious. The principles of the adverse party had been instilled
into her mind at a very early age, by Compton, Bishop of London. She
owed the Tories many obligations; in particular, the settlement of her
annuity, which they had secured, in opposition to the wishes of William
and Mary. Her mother’s family were devoted loyalists, or, rather, when
times changed and appellations were changed also, zealous Tories.
The capacity of Queen Anne was limited, her notions were contracted, her
prejudices consequently strong.[363] Any opinions imbibed could with
difficulty, therefore, be eradicated from a mind which could view only
one side of the question; and early prepossessions seldom lose their
hold over our feelings, even when our judgment strives to dispel their
influence. Easy, and regardless of forms in private, Anne, when seated
on her throne, was jealous of her prerogative, retaining that attribute
of the Stuarts, whether it were implanted by others, or the result of a
disposition naturally tenacious of certain rights. Her heart had never
been wholly weaned from her father during his lifetime, nor from those
sentiments which James had inculcated both by precept and example; and,
in the Whigs, she saw only a party who were anxious to curb the power,
and to abridge the independence of the crown, upon a plan equally
systematic and dangerous.[364]
Before any political changes were adopted, the funeral of King William
took place. After several deliberations in council, it had been agreed
to perform his obsequies privately. The royal corpse was carried from
Kensington in an open chariot, during the night of Sunday, the 12th of
April, to the chapel of Henry the Seventh at Westminster. The pall was
borne by six Dukes. Prince George was chief mourner, supported by two
Dukes, and followed by sixteen of the first Earls in England, as
assistants, among whom was the Earl of Marlborough. A long train of
carriages closed the procession. Amidst the solemn service, and the
swelling anthem, the body of William was interred in the same vault with
Charles the Second, and with his late consort, Queen Mary.[365]
On the twenty-third of April the coronation of Queen Anne took place.
Her Majesty was carried in a low open chair to Westminster Abbey, from
the Hall. The ceremonies were those anciently prescribed, and the Queen
made the responses with her usual clear articulation and accurate
pronunciation.[366] When the Holy Bible was opened, she vouchsafed to
kiss the bishops;[367] and the ceremonials of the day concluded with a
banquet, during which Prince George sat by her side. The Queen, who had
remained at the Duke of Gloucester’s apartments in St. James’s till her
own rooms were hung with black, now went to Kensington at night, and
remained at St. James’s during the day.[368] The Countess of Marlborough
was, on all occasions, her constant attendant.
The change from royal robes to suits of mourning; from festive halls,
and the shouts of the people, to the now deserted apartments of her son,
or her own sombre, though stately chambers, would have grated upon a
more sensitive disposition than that which Anne possessed. Perhaps the
coronation of her father, when the crown tottered upon his head; perhaps
the half rebuke of her sister, upon a similar occasion, occurred with
bitterness to one who was now nearly the last of her family, with the
exception of her maternal uncle, and of her attainted nephew. At the
coronation of Mary, Anne, observing the Queen to be heated with the
weight of the royal robes, and tired with the solemnity, said to her in
a low voice, “Madam, I pity your fatigue.” “A crown, sister,” returned
Mary, quickly, “is not so heavy as it seems to be, or as you think it;”
the words being eagerly caught by the curious attendants around.[369]
Whilst the public were amused with the pageantry of this imposing
ceremony, busy cabals occupied the private hours of the Queen, and
within her palace, a contemporary writer has not hesitated to affirm,
there was a very busy market of all the offices of government. “For,”
says Cunningham, “the Queen’s own relations being kept at a distance,
all things were managed by the sole authority of one woman, to whom
there was no access but by the golden road; and it was to no purpose for
the Earl of Rochester to set forth his own duty, affection, and the
rights of consanguinity.”[370]
This “woman,” it needs scarcely to be stated, was the Countess of
Marlborough, whose frank avowal of her exertions to form the Queen’s
household, at this period, in her Conduct, was not necessary to
establish that which all the world knew. With respect to the grave
charge preferred against her by Mr. Cunningham, the consideration of her
imputed corruption must be hereafter discussed.
The elevation of her royal mistress to the throne brought the Countess,
as she observes, “into a new scene of life, and into a sort of
consideration with all those whose attention, either from curiosity or
ambition, was turned to politics and the court.”[371] Hitherto, whilst
her personal influence over the Princess had furnished many a topic for
the gossip of the day, it had produced no apparent effect upon the
affairs of the nation, the Princess herself never having been allowed
any means of interference in politics, or power in public appointments.
But now the Countess began to be regarded as one who possessed a great
extent of patronage,—that curse and temptation, as it often proves; in
short, as one, “without whose approbation neither places, pensions, nor
honours were conferred by the crown.”[372] The intimate friendship with
which she was honoured by the Queen favoured this supposition.
Yet the Countess’s ascendency over her Majesty, great as it was, proved
not sufficiently strong to overcome those obstinate, though it must be
acknowledged, honest prejudices by which the Queen was governed. Queen
Anne had, as the Duchess observes, “been taught to look upon all Whigs,
not only as republicans who hated the very shadow of legal authority,
but as implacable enemies to the Church of England.” Prince George
carried this dislike of the popular party even to a greater length; and,
having received many indignities from a Whig ministry in the former
reign, he threw into the scale against them all his resentments. Even
Lord Marlborough and Lord Godolphin, though open to conviction, and
having (so says the Duchess) “the real interest of the nation at heart,”
were, from education and early associations, partially Tories, and of
“the persuasion that the high church party were the best friends to the
constitution, both of Church and State; nor were they perfectly
undeceived,” remarks the gifted instrument of the conversion of these
great men, “but by experience.”[373]
The Countess of Marlborough had, therefore, almost invincible obstacles
to encounter, before she could hope to compass that which she avowedly
had at heart, the establishment of the Whig party in the royal councils.
But to so determined a spirit as hers, impediments based upon the wills
and opinions of those whom she was wont to govern, only heightened her
ardour in the cause which she espoused. From natural disposition, an
enemy to all false pretensions, and to everything that resembled
hypocrisy or cant, the clamorous zeal for religion boasted by the Tories
was peculiarly disgusting to her frank temper. She detected, through the
outcry raised against the Whigs, the workings of self-interest, not the
fervour of attachment to the sacred Liturgy, and to the purified
ordinances which had been so lately rescued from impending destruction.
The plea set forth for “safety of the church” she regarded merely as a
plausible means of working upon weak minds, and blinding others to the
selfish motives of personal ambition. For many years a secure looker-on,
almost in a private station, Lady Marlborough had probably seen
sufficient of the leaders of both parties to be fully aware that men of
all political opinions are actuated by mixed motives, and that whilst we
witness many transactions which are of “good report,” we must not seek
for “whatsoever is honest, whatsoever is pure,” from the principal
actors in a political faction. It was Lady Marlborough’s lot chiefly to
observe the higher orders of society, whose immediate interests were
affected by the success of those opinions which they maintained, and she
could not, from experience, be aware that it is the middling classes who
really and earnestly cherish certain notions, in the importance of which
to the public good they firmly believe. Public opinion is composed of
more extended tributes than those which the Countess of Marlborough took
into account. There can be little doubt, from the manifestations which
popular feeling continually displayed during the reign of Queen Anne,
that the pervading sentiments of the people were in accordance with
those of the high church party, whose intolerance and perversion of
terms she justly reprobates. “The _word_ church,” observes the Duchess,
fearless of the calumnies which attached a want of religion to her other
failings, “had never a charm for _me_, in the mouths of those who made
the most noise with it; for I could not perceive that they gave any
other distinguishing proof of their regard for the _thing_, than a
frequent use of the _word_, like a spell to enchant weak minds; and a
persecuting zeal against Dissenters, and against more real friends of
the church, who would not admit that _persecution_ was agreeable to its
doctrine.” And after this strong passage she adds, “And as to state
affairs, many of these churchmen seemed to me to have no fixed
principles at all, having endeavoured, during the last reign, to
undermine that very government which they had contributed to
establish.”[374]
Such persons as those to whom the Duchess here alludes, have been well
described by a later writer, of sound discernment, as exhibiting “in
their conversation the idiom of a party;” and suspecting “the sincerity
of those whose higher breeding and more correct habits discover a better
taste.”[375]
Notwithstanding Lady Marlborough’s efforts, the Queen continued to be
extremely reluctant to show any favour to the party which her favourite
espoused. Lord Marlborough and Lord Godolphin, being thought to stand on
neutral ground, were, in a degree, claimed by both Whigs and Tories; but
it was owing to the zeal and perseverance of Lady Marlborough that any
professed Whigs were retained in office. The Earl of Marlborough was,
indeed, obliged to be absent for a fortnight, whilst all the cabals
called into play, on the forming of a new cabinet, were in
activity.[376] By the Queen’s command, in his capacity of commander of
the English forces, and plenipotentiary, he was sent to the Dutch
states, with a letter of condolence to them on the death of William.
Whilst at the Hague, the Earl was appointed by the States, general of
their forces, with a salary of ten thousand pounds a year;[377] and on
the fifth of April he returned to take the chief direction of affairs,
and to receive new honours from the hand of his gracious sovereign.
Although reported to have been “more ambitious of gain than of power,”
the Earl and Countess must have experienced considerable disappointment
when the formation of the new cabinet was completed. Lord Somers, who at
this time was a deferential votary of the powerful Countess, and Lord
Halifax, who came into public life under Lord Godolphin’s auspices, were
both dismissed the council. In order to comprehend the state of parties,
and to understand in which direction the weight of talent and influence
was likely to preponderate in those unsettled times, some reference must
here be made to the preceding reign; and a short account of the
principal actors in the scenes of those factious days may not prove
uninteresting.
Lord Somers, whom Horace Walpole describes as “one of those divine men,
who, like a chapel in a palace, remain unprofaned, whilst all the rest
is tyranny, corruption, and folly,” had possessed more influence in the
councils of William than any other minister. He was, therefore, on the
accession of Anne, one of the most conspicuous marks for the violence of
faction. Agreeably to custom, those who could discover little to blame
in the elevation of this distinguished statesman, deprecated his origin.
The race from which he rose to a pre-eminent sphere, have been described
“as the dregs of the people.”[378] To his honour, and not to his shame,
might the fact redound, supposing the statement to be true; but,
unhappily for those who exulted in such a source of humiliation, and
attributed the modest demeanour of the Lord High Chancellor to a
consciousness of this humble origin, Somers sprang from a family both
ancient and respectable.
His ancestors, though not distinguished by the honours of rank, were
neither “hewers of wood nor drawers of water.”[379] From the time of the
Tudors, one branch of the Somers family had owned and inhabited an
ancient house in the northern suburbs of the city of Worcester, which
edifice, hallowed by the appellation of the “White Ladies,” from its
site, that of an ancient monastery, had been spared by foes, and
honoured by friends, during all the convulsions of the civil wars. In
“Somers’s House,” as the respected tenement was called, Queen Elizabeth
had been received, and entertained in her progress through the county.
The extensive and richly cultured gardens of the old conventual
residence had furnished the famous pears which that Queen, in the
fulness of her approbation, had added to the city arms, as a testimony
both of her satisfaction in eating the fruit, and of her admiration at
the good order by which a tree, laden with it, and transplanted from the
garden of the “White Ladies” into the market-place, could be preserved
from injury.
In Somers’s house Charles the Second took refuge before the battle of
Worcester, and left there the sacred relics of his garters, waistcoats,
and other garments, when he fled to Boscobel. And in this time-honoured
mansion, where his mother was placed for security, was born the
celebrated John Somers, just at the eventful time of the battle of
Worcester, 1651. His birth occurring in this species of sanctuary, and
in those times of commotion, was not inserted in any register.
The father of Lord Somers, notwithstanding the protection which his roof
had afforded to Charles the Second, commanded a troop of horse in
Cromwell’s army; but quitted the profession of arms upon the
establishment of the Commonwealth; and, enjoying a patrimony not
exceeding three hundred pounds a year, took a house in the precincts of
the cathedral at Worcester, and commenced practising as an attorney. On
his father’s pursuit of this calling, honourable in proportion to the
principle with which it is exercised, the future greatness of the young
John Somers was founded.
The civil wars had thrown into confusion some of the finest estates in
the county; and the elder Mr. Somers, in his legal capacity, found ample
employment in settling disputed rights, and revising dilapidated
fortunes. Amongst other families, the Talbots, Earls of Shrewsbury,
placed their estates and finances in his hands. The Earl of Shrewsbury,
at that time young, gay, accomplished, the godson of Charles the Second,
and the pupil of Father Petre, was a Roman Catholic; and had been, from
his infancy, the object of the zealous care and attention of those
active missionaries, the Jesuits. His spiritual guides and his other
tutors had formed a brilliant, and perhaps what may be termed an amiable
character, but had not produced a sound statesman, or an irreproachable
moralist. From his infancy, the licentiousness of a court, and the
darker passions that lurk in the shadows of that bright scene, had been
familiar to this young nobleman.
Five years before his acquaintance with Somers commenced, Lord
Shrewsbury had lost his father in a duel with the Duke of Buckingham,
whose horse was held by the abandoned wife of the murdered nobleman, in
the disguise of a page. Lord Shrewsbury had attractive and popular
qualities, which rendered him afterwards the darling of a people in
whose cause he proffered his fortune and influence, to compass the
Revolution. At the period when his acquaintance with the Somers family
began, he was disgusted with the unsatisfactory life of a courtier,
notwithstanding the adulation paid to his rank and to his possessions,
through the medium of personal flattery, and by the incense offered to
his talents. Resolved, also, to rid himself of the numerous priests and
other dependents who thronged around him, he retired to his estate in
Worcestershire, where much of his property was situated; but his seat at
Grafton not being in a fit state to receive him, the young nobleman made
the house of his agent, at the White Ladies, his principal abode. And
here a strange contrast must have been presented to the scenes, and the
society which the young but satiated man of fashion had quitted.
“Somers’-house,” as the old mansion was irreverently called by the
vulgar, was large enough to contain many separate families; and numerous
Blurtons, Foleys, and Cookseys, with whom the family of Somers had
intermarried, had already taken up their abodes in the capacious
edifice. These simple, and, as it happened, united and industrious
relatives, lived in the most primitive manner that could be devised,
somewhat after the fashion, but without the peculiarities, of a Moravian
establishment. They spent the mornings in their respective occupations:
some attended to the farm on the Somers property, and in cultivating
teasels; others were engaged in the clothing trade, in manufacturing
woad and madder; others superintended the labours of the cottagers,
dependencies twenty in number, after the conventual fashion; and the
making of bricks, tiles, and other building materials, which the
dilapidated state of the city brought into great request. When the
labours of the day were ended, all the relatives, their children and
visitants, repaired to the great hall of the old nunnery, dined together
at one common table, the products of their farm and their fish-ponds
furnishing the viands, and passed the evening in conversation or
merriment, or in discussions more engrossing, on politics and family
interests. At Christmas, the board was spread after the ancient fashion;
and the collar of brawn, and the huge saltcellar were displayed in the
old conventual hall during the whole winter.
In this busy and happy scene, the friendship of Lord Shrewsbury with
young Somers took root. Often occasional visiters swelled the number of
the inmates; for the old dormitories of the nuns were used by the
hospitable father of Lord Somers to supply the deficiency of inns and
taverns. Nor is it of slight importance to trace those circumstances
which mark the early portion of a great man’s life. In the motley
society of the “White Ladies,” the future Chancellor of England probably
learned to know himself and others. His prudence, his pliability in
matters of little consequence, his firmness in matters of moment, may
all have had exercise in the various emergencies and temptations to
which a boy is exposed among a large assemblage of older persons, with
whose affairs, and in whose family politics, he must necessarily,
sometimes involuntarily, participate.
So ardent was the friendship contracted in these scenes between Lord
Shrewsbury and Somers, that the latter, although intended for the bar,
delayed his removal to the university until he was twenty-two years of
age, in order that he might not sooner be separated from his friend, and
from the society at the “White Ladies.” So strong was the attachment
formed by Lord Somers to the old house where these social days were
passed, that one of his first cares, in after times of prosperity, was
to repair the venerable edifice, together with the Priory of St. Oswald
adjoining.[380] Nor did the happy community of the “White Ladies” cease
to welcome their favourite member, young Somers, at each college
vacation, after his removal to Oxford. The Earl of Shrewsbury and his
friend made, upon such occasions, that happy home their place of
meeting. The foundation of Somers’s fortunes was laid by the
introduction which his friend afforded him to Lord Shaftesbury, Sir
William Temple, and other leaders of the opposition, to the court of
Charles the Second: but a far greater benefit was achieved for Lord
Shrewsbury himself, in his conversion to a pure faith.
The vacations of the “White Ladies” were not idly, though they might
sometimes be unprofitably, spent. The celebrated Richard Baxter acted as
the spiritual guide of several members of the Somers family, and at that
time resided at Worcester. By the arguments of this pious divine, aided
by the conversation of Mr. Somers, who was nine years older than his
friend, Lord Shrewsbury was prepared for that conversion to the
Protestant faith, which Tillotson afterwards confirmed and commemorated.
It might have been well for public morals, if the pursuits of the two
friends had not taken another direction. The famous “Tale of a Tub” is
supposed to have had its origin in the leisure of the White Ladies.
Shrewsbury and Somers are said to have sketched the characters, and
composed the plan of the poem; Lord Shaftesbury, and Sir William Temple
treasured up the imperfect outlines, and entrusted them to Swift; Swift
manufactured the materials into their well-known form, and gave them to
the world.[381]
Like all really popular works of fiction, life itself supplied the
characters. Blurton, the uncle of Lord Somers, was portrayed in Martin,
the good church-of-England man. The grandfather of Lord Somers was
exhibited in Jack the Calvinist, the devoted disciple of the
Presbyterian Baxter. Father Peter was drawn from the famous Father
Petre. For the publication of this noted satire, Swift, as it is well
known, lost the chance of a bishoprick, in consequence of Queen Anne’s
scruples.
The introduction to Russell and Sidney, which Lord Shrewsbury afforded
to his friend, confirmed those political principles which Somers in a
degree inherited. During the reign of Charles the Second, he was
employed in writing state papers, ascribed to Sidney, but certainly the
productions of Somers’s pen. He wrote the celebrated answer to King
Charles’s declaration on dissolving the last Parliament. The study of
the classics varied the severer toils of law and politics. It was not,
however, until he had entered his thirty-seventh year, that Somers drew
upon his merits as a lawyer, and a statesman, the distinguished
approbation which had hitherto been accorded to him by the learned few.
In 1688 he became counsel for the bishops imprisoned by James the
Second; and by the great display of ability on that memorable occasion,
his future station in his profession, and in the state, was determined.
From that epoch in our country’s annals, Somers held on a consistent and
a patriotic course, until his death. He rose, says his bitterest
foe[382] to “be the head and oracle” of the Whig party. “He hath raised
himself by the concurrence of many circumstances,” says the same writer,
“to the greatest employments of the state, without the least support
from birth or fortune; he hath constantly, and with great steadiness,
cultivated those principles under which he grew.”[383] Although
incorrupt in his high station, he was compared to Bacon, but only in the
intellectual features of his noble character. As a statesman he was true
to his principles, above the littleness of avarice, inflexible upon
points of conscience, benevolent, energetic, just. During his long life
he sought every adequate means of benefiting mankind, and he projected
schemes to benefit posterity.
The public career of Somers was irreproachable, but not happy. Often
deceived in those whom he thought his friends, or the friends of his
principles, Lord Somers had suffered the indignity and injustice of an
impeachment in the late reign. His glorious refutation of that factious
charge achieved for him a reputation which an untried man could scarcely
have attained.
It was these trials of fortitude that drew from the early friend of
Somers the following observation.
“I wonder,” thus wrote the Earl of Shrewsbury from Italy, “that a man
can be found in England, who has bread, that will be concerned in public
business. Had I a son, I would sooner breed him a cobbler than a
courtier, a hangman than a statesman.”[384]
Lord Somers had no opportunity of evincing how far his sentiments in
this respect agreed with those of the noble Earl. He never married, and
his moral character shared in the general contamination of the age.[385]
The Duchess of Marlborough, in her opinions of the Whigs, comments
severely on his conduct in this respect; even whilst he was seated on
the woolsack, he offended the laws of society, and injured his best
interests by his example.[386] But her insinuations against his
integrity as a chancellor were refuted, by the unblemished probity which
all historians have attributed to this eminent and upright, but, as it
must unhappily be allowed, not wholly irreproachable man.
Lord Halifax was the other Whig member of the council who was dismissed
at the same time with Somers. These noblemen were both, at that time,
the personal friends of the Earl and Countess of Marlborough; yet it was
impossible, the Countess declares, to introduce Lord Somers into the
administration until near the close of Marlborough and Godolphin’s
influence with the Queen.[387]
Lord Somers, bland and courteous, never offending in word or look,
humble, as if unconscious of his great abilities, and yielding to others
far inferior to himself in judgment and knowledge, was not enslaved by
the talents, the beauty, and the power of Lady Marlborough; and, even at
this time, he was secretly disgusted by her arrogance and love of
domination. He submitted to the will of the Queen, as manifested in his
dismissal, with a lofty calmness, which gave that act of her Majesty the
semblance of an indignity, disgraceful to her judgment, rather than of a
mortification imposed upon Somers. Nor did the slights of worldly
friends, and the taunting opposition of foes, weaken his resistance to
those measures of which he disapproved, or abate his ardour to promote
schemes of which he augured well, whether proposed by a party who had
deserted him, or by adversaries who rejoiced in his adversity.
Repressing the impulses of a temper naturally impetuous, he permitted
the extensive information which he possessed concerning all the
political interests of Europe, his profound knowledge as a lawyer, and
his manly eloquence, still to be useful in the service of his country;
and his great character stood unsullied by petulance; a mark for envy,
which could not sap its noble foundations, although it might by calumny
injure and deface its exterior. But whilst Lord Somers thus encountered
unmerited contumely, his companion in the loss of office, Lord Halifax,
was not so resigned to the loss of an importance on which his vanity
rendered him dependent for comfort.
“Mouse Montague,”[388] as Lady Marlborough, writing after their
estrangement, contemptuously calls Lord Halifax, was descended from the
house of Manchester, but, being a younger brother, his patrimony
amounted to fifty pounds a year only. With this, as the Duchess remarks,
he “could make no great figure.”[389] His name was given him for a
political work, which first brought him into notice; for it was the
fashion of the day to attach some appellation to the great men who most
attracted public attention. Even the pulpit was sometimes the origin of
such appropriations; and the great Godolphin is said to have been
mortified and enraged by the addition of “Volpone” to his other
designations, affixed to him by a sermon preached by Dr. Sacheverel.
Mr. Montague, endowed with his humble title, soon rose into fame. He
became a member of parliament, and attracted the notice of Godolphin. He
had abilities which recommended him to the notice of that able minister.
His knowledge of finance was accurate; and he displayed minor
qualifications which were serviceable, when conjoined with those of
others, though they might not have enabled him to stand alone. Montague
exercised the arts which please, and possessed the talents which dazzle.
It would be presumptuous to say of the man whom Addison extolled, and
whom Steele described, (in a dedication be it remembered,) as “the
greatest of living poets,”[390] that he had, as Swift said of Lord
Sunderland, but an “understanding of the middling size.” But he was, as
Pope observes, “fed with dedications,” though he does not appear, from
all accounts, to have been very willing to recompense his flatterers by
feeding them in return. As a politician, he was timid and uncertain,
because governed more by a desire for his own interest, than by a fixed
principle. His oratory was energetic as well as elegant; but his conduct
wanted the vigour which gave expression to his language only. His
patronage of literature and of literary men, however it may have been
ridiculed, was the most respectable feature in a character which cannot
stand the test of examination. His poems, with the exception of two,
were written upon public events, in which the views of a politician were
mingled with the gallantry of a man of the world. It is not to be
expected that a poem on the death of Charles the Second, or an ode on
the marriage of the Princess Anne, should display much inspiration. His
lordship’s verses on the Toasting Glasses of the Kit-Cat Club are
allowed by Horace Walpole, with contemptuous brevity, to be “the best of
the set.” His “knack of making pretty ballads,” which Lady Marlborough
graciously ascribed to him, elevated as it was by flattery into
excellence, was not the only social talent which Lord Halifax possessed.
He read aloud admirably; and Lord Godolphin, having a good deal of that
business to do, employed him frequently in this way. His manners,
notwithstanding that the Duchess of Marlborough compares him, for
ill-breeding, to Sir Robert Walpole, were acknowledged to be elegant.
His disposition was social; and, where circumstances did not tend to
draw money from his pocket, he was benevolent. He had the merit
(ascribed to him by Steele, who sullied the just praise by the
subsequent flattery) of having, “by his patronage, produced those arts
which before shunned the light, into the service of life.”[391] To his
exertions, as first commissioner of the Treasury, the stability of paper
credit and the improvement of the crown were due. He projected the
national library; and, to bring his merits to their climax, he had the
honour of sharing an impeachment with Somers, and of defending himself
against it with success.
Lady Marlborough encouraged the advances made by Lord Halifax to procure
her favour, and courted his regard in return. His predominant weakness
was a love of female admiration; and although, as the Duchess, in her
old age, and when there was no Lord Halifax to show himself, or to hear
her remarks, observed, “he was a frightful figure,” yet he “followed
several beauties who laughed at him for it.”[392] Such were her
expressions when parties and politics pleased no longer. In her younger
and busier days, the manœuvring Lady Marlborough humoured the politician
and the coxcomb, by “projecting marriages and other allurements.”[393]
“She came,” says Cunningham, “one evening to his lordship’s country
villa, as if by accident, bringing with her performers and instruments
to compose a concert, which lasted till late in the night.”[394] The
Italian music, then lately introduced, engrossed the fashionable world;
and so busied in the acquisition, and with the patronage of this
newly-imported taste, were even politicians, that the enemies of the
Duke of Marlborough gave out that men of no experience—men frequenting
the theatres, squandered the public money, as well as their own, and
mismanaged public affairs. Lady Marlborough attended the numerous
entertainments with which Halifax, combining profit with pleasure,
treated the citizens, with whom he possessed much interest. The ladies
all smiled upon the noble poet, who managed his costly galas with skill
and effect. But the thrifty politician (careful and covetous, as many
persons are in private who passionately love display) ate upon pewter
when alone, that his plate might not be injured by too much rubbing.
Indeed, according to Lady Marlborough, he did worse; for he sometimes
paid the authors whom he patronised, with presents given by others, the
merit of which he took to himself.[395]
Lord Halifax had not, at this period of his life, experienced how unsafe
it is to lay bare the weaknesses of the heart of man to that dangerous
being, a female wit. Self-interested, vain, restless, petulant, and even
almost absurd, as he was, we cannot suppose him devoid of some good
qualities, which secured him the confidence of Godolphin, and the esteem
of Somers; yet the well-known and, in their way, almost unequalled lines
of Pope will be called to recollection.
“Proud as Apollo on his forked hill,
Sat full-blown Buffo, puff’d by every quill;
Fed with soft dedication all day long,
Horace and he went hand in hand in song.”[396]
In strong contrast with Halifax, how must the social qualities of Somers
have risen in comparison; how refreshing must have been his good sense,
which set forth all his great qualifications in order and beauty; how
delightful that delicate sense of politeness which sprang in him from a
humanity of disposition; which appeared in the least important of his
actions; which manifested itself in the kindly expression of the
countenance, in the refined manners, in the very tone of his voice. How
admirable at once the solidity and the eloquence of a mind which
comprehended not only the most abstruse sciences, the most profound and
varied knowledge, but which displayed the graceful acquirements of an
accomplished gentleman. Whilst Halifax employed his hours of recreation
“to fetch and carry sing-song up and down,” Somers, by dividing his time
between the public scenes of life, and the retirement of a cheerful, not
an unemployed and gloomy and selfish retirement, attained a perfection
of taste, an elegance and purity of style, that few men of his
profession and station, engrossed as they must necessarily be with dry
and recondite researches, have been enabled to acquire. He had, says
Swift, “very little taste for conversation;”[397] and, unlike his
associate _Buffo_, who
“Received of wits an undistinguished race,”
consoled himself, in his hours of recreation, “with the company of an
illiterate chaplain or favourite servant.”—Yet the man who never
delivered an opinion of a piece of poetry, a statue, or a picture,
without exciting admiration from the just, and happy, and delicate turns
of expression which he adopted, must have loved to commune with higher
minds than the unsuitable companions whom Swift has assigned to his
leisure hours.[398]
Queen Anne retained in his office, as lord high steward, William Duke of
Devonshire. This nobleman, “a patriot among the men, a Corydon among the
ladies,”[399] had officiated at her Majesty’s coronation, as he had done
at that of William and Mary,—where his stately deportment and handsome
person, as in costly attire he bore the regal crown, eclipsed the sickly
monarch, lowly in stature, behind whom he walked, whilst his daughter
bore Queen Mary’s train. Whilst a boy, he had borne the royal train,
with three other noble youths, at a similar ceremonial, when Charles the
Second ascended the throne. Yet, though descending from a stock devoted
to the Stuarts, and though his grandmother, the celebrated Countess of
Devonshire, was instrumental in the Restoration, the high-minded peer
became, upon conviction, a strenuous supporter of that liberty and of
those rights upon which the second James so largely encroached. He voted
for the bill of exclusion, and spoke boldly, though always with
politeness and temper, upon that famous measure. At the trial of his
friend Lord Russell, when it was almost deemed criminal to be a witness
in behalf of the illustrious prisoner, Lord Cavendish, with the Earl of
Anglesea, Mr. Howard, Tillotson, and Burnet, gave his testimony to the
honour, the prudence, and good life of the distinguished sufferer. When
he found that the doom of Russell was inevitable, he sent him a message,
entreating to be allowed to change cloaks with him, and to remain in the
prison whilst Russell should make his escape. The noble refusal of the
generous offer is well known. It was Cavendish’s sad office to attend
his beloved, and more than ever honoured friend, to the last; to solace
the wretched Lady Russell, and bear the last message of affection from
the noblest of beings to one who merited all his love. In the court, and
in the senate, Lord Cavendish displayed the gallant qualities which had
been manifested in the prison of Lord Russell. Insulted in the precincts
of the court by Colonel Culpeper, a creature of King James’s, he
retaliated by dragging the offending party out of the presence-chamber,
and caning him on the head. For this act he was prosecuted and fined
5000_l._ But Cavendish, then Earl of Devonshire, chose rather to go to
the King’s Bench prison, than to pay a fine which he thought exorbitant.
He escaped to Chatsworth, where, in the midst of difficulties occasioned
by loans in the former earl’s time to the exiled family never repaid,
and aggravated by Lord Cavendish’s own rash castigation of Culpeper, his
energetic mind framed a plan for remodelling the venerable pile in which
he had sought security. The famous waterworks, the gardens, pictures,
statues, and a great portion of the modernised structure, were the
result of this nobleman’s magnificent taste and profuse
expenditure.[400] His splendour and liberality were guided by an economy
as essential to the peer who wishes to retain his independence, as to
the peasant. His attention to the meanest of his guests was such, that
when he gave an entertainment, he would send for the groom-porter to
inquire if he, and all of the same degree, had received due provision.
His love of liberty was shown in a favourite saying of his, “that the
deer in his park were happier than subjects under a tyrannical king:”
or, as he expressed the same sentiments in his own poetry—
“O despicable state of all that groan
Under a blind dependency on one!
How far inferior to the herds that range,
With native freedom, o’er the woods and plains!”[401]
But whilst the noble Cavendish detested that tyranny under the effects
of which Russell had perished, and the whole British nation had
suffered, in the properties and safety of its subjects, during the reign
of James the Second, his well-conditioned mind cherished the elevating
sentiments of loyalty, where loyalty was justly due. That bond of social
union he prized, as every rightly thinking man must prize it, as an
auxiliary to freedom, and a rallying point for the sincere, and the
well-intentioned of all political opinions, however opposed on other
points. The character of Lord Cavendish affords an illustration of the
truth, that it is perfectly consistent with the lover of liberty, and
the advocate of the subject’s right, to cherish the most ardent zeal for
the maintenance of regal authority, and to feel the strongest personal
attachment to the sovereign. Far from being one of those who, in the
unsettled state of the government, desired that its disarranged elements
might settle into a republic, the Earl of Devonshire, though he signed
the association to invite William the Third to England, was the first of
the nobility to step forward to protect the person of the Princess Anne,
whom he guarded with a loyal and chivalric zeal which has been already
described.
This model for English noblemen had received the honour of a dukedom in
1694, the preamble to his patent containing some of the highest
compliments from William and Mary ever offered from a monarch to a
subject. He was one of the few who was honoured with an equal respect
and confidence by their successor. Unhappily for the Whig party, to whom
his influence was consistently given, this peer did not enjoy his
restored fortunes, and high favour, many years after the accession of
Anne. His deathbed was instructive, as the last scene of a life which,
exhibiting the most generous and heroic qualities, had displayed,
nevertheless, sundry irregularities. The love of pleasure and the love
of virtue are sometimes strangely conjoined in the same character.
Courteous, though commanding; in person at once attractive and stately;
accomplished in the ornamental arts—poetry, painting, music; standing on
a high eminence, and living, from his youth upwards, in public life;—the
errors of the Duke of Devonshire were attributable to the pervading
spirit of the times. What we call virtue in private life was not then
recognised by the great and fashionable. The Duke, like most other men
of his class, had fallen into those received notions which exempt men
from the purity, and decorum, which are at once the restraint and the
safeguard of woman. On his deathbed the man of pleasure and of the world
felt that he had driven off his repentance too late. Happily, his senses
were spared to him. He sent for Dr. Kennet, and entreated that prelate
“to pray heartily with him to God that he would accept of his
repentance.” He declared himself ready to ask pardon of all whom he had
offended, and also to forgive others. At every successive visit from his
reverend adviser, he reiterated his repentance. His prayers for the
“peace of God” were earnest, and, as it seemed, effectual. After the
many agonising struggles of a wounded and chastened mind—after evincing
his real piety by acts of justice and of charity, (beautiful planets,
which should ever shine upon the deathbed,) peace was given to him.
Fortitude and patience were added to that inward conviction of pardon.
He fixed the probable hour of his departure, and asked what was the
easiest way of dying. His soul departed, as it seemed, in a peaceful
slumber. “And thus,” says his biographer, “he fell asleep, not merely
like an ancient Roman, but rather like a good Christian.”[402]
The death of Cavendish raised up a memorable controversy among the
clergy, upon the propriety of receiving deathbed repentance, and of
ratifying it with the administration of the sacraments. The question, as
was usually the case in those days, was raised by party clamour rather
than by religious zeal; and Dr. Kennet, who preached the funeral sermon
of the Duke, was branded with opprobrium by the whole body of the
clergy, for a contempt of discipline.[403]
Of a very different character was Thomas, created, in 1714, Marquis of
Wharton, whose white staff was given by the Queen, before his face, to
Sir Edward Seymour,—an affront so marked as to draw down the following
threat in private from the offended nobleman:—“That he would soon
provide himself with other rods to chastise the new ministers.”[404]
This able, but unprincipled man, received his dismissal in a manner very
different from the dignified demeanour of Somers, on incurring a similar
mortification. Wharton was a specimen of those unsound materials of
which parties are composed, and of which honest and great men are
forced, by political compact, to make use. It seems singular that a man
who scoffed at all religions, and outraged every right feeling, should
have been brought up in the most rigid puritanical principles. The
mother of Lord Wharton, more especially, was one of the zealous
adherents to the Presbyterian faith. But though he deviated from the
parental precept, and conformed to the national worship, Wharton had
imbibed in his early education a love of constitutional freedom, which
not all the seductions of royal favour could efface.[405] His morals he
owed to a different school. A favourite companion of Charles the Second,
he never, like Marlborough, and Somers, and Cavendish, retrieved the
errors of early youth by a sincere and effectual amendment. The
consciences of those individuals were wounded by a sense of their
transgressions; but his was hardened. His nature was debased by habitual
sin; they, “like sheep, were led astray,” but their hearts were not
corrupted. Purity, holiness, honour, had always charms for these great
men, and must always have charms for those who are really great; but, to
Lord Wharton, these lights were dim.[406]
In the opinion entertained of Lord Wharton by the world, William seems
to have coincided; for, in spite of Wharton’s activity as one of his
most powerful partisans, and of his Majesty’s endurance, not to say
enjoyment, of his coarse and fearless jokes,[407] he advanced Wharton to
no place of political importance. By William, Lord Wharton was made
comptroller of the household, an office far below his ambition, and, as
far as ability should be taken into account, his deserts.
Wharton was an associate, but not a friend, of Marlborough and
Godolphin. He was, in truth, a brier in their path; a dangerous friend,
more dreaded than a foe; a man whose elevation they feared even more
than his open enmity. He was an able debater, bold, and therefore likely
to be, to a certain extent, powerful; for irresolute characters are
governed by those of a decisive and fearless temper. His fluency,
however, was devoid of all grace, his manner was coarse, his wit
pungent, but always tainted with grossness. His attacks upon others were
unsparing and reckless.
The absence of all religion—not merely the sceptical turn of many of
those who aimed at being thought wits, but an avowed, and, as it is not
difficult, in such a case, to believe, an actual infidelity,—may
sufficiently account for the dereliction from all that is honourable and
estimable, which Thomas Lord Wharton’s political career presented. It
also accounts for the marked indignity offered to him by Queen Anne in
the mode of his dismissal. Sir Edward Seymour, the leader of the Tories,
and the promoter of the impeachment of Somers and Halifax in 1701, was
substituted in his place. The privy seal was given to the Marquis of
Normanby, a nobleman of great accomplishments and of personal beauty,
who was not the less agreeable to Anne from having been the first who
aspired to her hand, before Prince George was fixed upon as her destined
husband. Rich, young, attractive, Lord Normanby, then Lord Mulgrave,
might doubtless have succeeded in obtaining her consent; but though his
addresses were silenced, they were not forgotten by the Queen.[408] The
appointment of Lord Nottingham and Sir Charles Hedges to be principal
secretaries of state completed the manifestation of the Queen’s
inclination for the high church party.