Decorated bannerCHAPTERII.(1728 to 1732.)
Decorated banner
theCourt of GeorgeII.opened the new year with a reckless gaiety that reminds one of Whitehall in the time of CharlesII., as described by Evelyn. Twelfth Night was especially dissipated in its character. There was a ball at St. James’s, and there were numerous gaming tables for those who did not dance. The king and queen lost 500 guineas at Ombre; the Earl of Sunderland, more than twice as much. General Wade lost 800 guineas, and Lord Finch half that sum. The winners were Lord William Manners, of 1,200 guineas; the Duchess of Dorset, of 900 guineas; the Earl of Chesterfield, of 550 guineas. The play was frantically pursued, and a madder scene could not have been exhibited by the Stuarts themselves.MIST’S JOURNAL.Mist’s Jacobite Journal referred sarcastically to the brilliant dissipation. On the wit and repartee which duly distinguished a royal masquerade at the opera-house, Mist made a remark by which he contrived to hit the Parliament. ‘They may be looked upon,’ he said, ‘as a Prologue to the Top Parts that are expected to be soon acted in another place.’ The death of an honest Scotch baronet, namedWallace, gave Mist another opportunity which he did not let slip. ‘Sir Thomas’ was declared to be ‘a lineal descendant of the famous Sir William Wallace of Eldersly, called the Restorer of the Liberties of Scotland, in whose days our distressed country wanted not a worthy patriot to assert her rights.’ On the anniversary of Queen Anne’s birthday, Mist eulogised her as ‘that great and good Queen,’ praised the lovers of Justice, Religion, and Liberty who kept the day; and added that she was the zealous defender of all three, ‘and therefore dear to the memory of all such whose hearts areentirely English.’ For less than this, men had stood in the pillory. Edmund Curll, the publisher, was standing there at this very time for nothing worse than publishing a ‘Memoir of John Ker of Kersland.’ The times and the manners thereof were, the first, miserable; the second, horrible. Robbery and murder were accounted for ‘by the general poverty and corruption of the times, and the prevalency of some powerful examples.’ In June, the ‘wasp sting’ takes this form: ‘There is no record of any robberies this week;—we mean, in the street.’
But for Mist, the general London public would have been ignorant of the movements of illustrious Jacobites, abroad. In that paper, they read of the huntings of the Chevalier de St. George and his boy, Charles Edward. Lord North and Grey, now a ‘Lieutenant-General in the army of England,’ and the Duke of Wharton, Colonel of the Spanish regiment, ‘Hibernia,’ with other honest gentlemen of the same principles, werehelping to make Rouen one of the gayest of residences. At a later period, when Wolfe became the printer of this Jacobite ‘Weekly,’ and changed its name to ‘Fog’s Journal,’canardswere plentiful. The Duke of Wharton is described as having opened a school in Rouen, with a Newgate bird for an usher; Mist is said to have set up a hackney coach in the same city; and all three are congratulated on being able to earn a decent livelihood!
LOCKHART OF CARNWATH.
A much more honourable Jacobite than any of the above, was this year pardoned, namely, Lockhart of Carnwath; but, he was required by the English Government to pass through London, and present himself to the king. His return from exile was permitted only in case of his obedience. On the other hand, Lockhart stipulated that he should be asked no questions, and that he should be at full liberty to proceed home, unmolested. Sir Robert Walpole agreed to these terms. Lockhart left Rotterdam in May, and arrived safely in London.
GEORGEII.AND LOCKHART.
King George seems to have had a curiosity to see a man who had been plotting to set another in his place. ‘It was the more remarkable,’ says Lockhart, ‘in that he could not be persuaded or prevailed on to extend it’ (his gracious disposition) ‘to others, particularly my Lady Southesk, whose case was more favourable than mine; and so, to gratify him by my appearing in his Court, I was obliged to come to London. This was what did not go well down with me, and what I would gladly have avoided, but there was no evitingit; and as others, whose sincere attachment to the king’ (JamesIII.) ‘had often preceded me on such like occasions, I was under a necessity of bowing my knee to Baal, now that I was in the house of Rimmon.’
Lockhart was kept waiting more than a fortnight for the interview. During the whole of that time, he was ordered to keep himself shut up in his house. Imagining he was to be put off, he boldly wrote to Walpole that he might be sent back to Rotterdam. ‘Whereupon, he sent for me next day, and introduced me to King George in his closet. After a little speech of thanks, he told me with some heat in his looks that I had been long in a bad way, and he’d judge, how far I deserved the favour he had now shown me, by my future conduct. I made a bow and went off and determined never to trust to his mercy, which did not seem to abound.’
Lockhart, however, did trust to King George’s mercy, and to his honour. He appeared in public, and was much questioned by Tories in private, or at dinners and assemblies, as to the affairs of the so-called JamesIII.He told them just as much as he pleased to tell them. They knew too much, he said, already; but they evidently thought the Jacobite cause in a better condition than it really was. Lockhart adds the strange fact that all the members of the Government received him with great—Sir Robert Walpole with particularly great—civility. ‘Several insinuations were made that if I would enter into the service and measures of the Government I shouldbe made very welcome. But I told them that I was heartily weary of dabbling in politics, and wanted only to retire and live privately at home.’
THE JACOBITE CAUSE.
Lockhart lingered in London, only to hear how well-informed the Government had been of his proceedings; they had read his letters, knew his cyphers, employed his own agents, and had a spy at the Chevalier’s side who enjoyed his confidence and betrayed it, for filthy lucre! Lockhart suspected Inverness, buthewas doubtless not theonlyagent. The old Jacobite began to despair of the cause. Above a dozen years had elapsed since the outbreak of 1715, and while much had been done, the activity had been employed on doing nothing. There was now no party, and of course, no projects. Lockhart’s visit to London, where he associated with Whigs and Tories, taught him a sad truth to which he gives melancholy expression. ‘The old race drops off by degrees, and a new one sprouts up, that, having no particular bias to the king, as knowing little more of him than what the public newspapers bear, enter on the stage with a perfect indifference, at least coolness, towards him and his cause, which consequently must daily languish and, in process of time, be totally forgot. In which melancholy situation of the king’s affairs. I leave them in the year 1728.’
CHARACTER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
George Lockhart admired neither the English people nor their representatives in the House of Commons. Both he considered equally ignorant of the nature of true liberty and the principle of honest government.Speaking at one time of the members in Parliament assembled, he observes,—‘Though all of them are vested with equal powers, a very few, of the most active and pragmatical, by persuading the rest that nothing is done without them, do lead them by the nose and make mere tools of them, to serve their own ends. And this, I suppose, is owing to the manner and way of electing the members; for, being entirely in the hands of the populace, they, for the most part, choose those who pay best; so that many are elected who very seldom attend the House, give themselves no trouble in business and have no design in being chosen, even at a great expense, but to have the honour of being called Parliament men. On the other hand, a great many are likewise elected who have no concern for the interest of their country, and, being either poor or avaricious, aim at nothing but enriching themselves; and hence it is that no assembly under Heaven produces so many fools and knaves. The House of Commons is represented as a wise and august Assembly; what it was long ago I shall not say, but in our days, it is full of disorder and confusion. The members that are capable and mindful of business are few in number, and the rest mind nothing at all. When there is a party job to be done, they’ll attend, and make a hideous noise, like Bedlamites; but if the House is to enter on business, such as the giving of money or making of public laws, they converse so loud with one another in private knots, that nobody can know what is doing, except a very few who, for that purpose, sit near the clerks’ table; orthey leave the House and the Men of Business, as they call them, to mind such matters.’
THE KING AND QUEEN.
In 1728, royalty continued to exhibit itself in a manner which, now, seems rather unedifying. On Sundays and Thursdays, in the summer, the city sent curious multitudes to Hampton Court, to see their Majesties dine in public. The sight-seers went freely into the gallery, where a strong barrier divided them from the royalties at table. On all occasions, the pressure against this barrier was immense; on one, it gave way, when scores of ladies and gentlemen were sent sprawling at the foot of the king’s table. Away went perukes and hats; for which there was a furious scramble, with much misappropriation, more or less accidental. While it lasted, king and queen held their sides and laughed aloud, regardless of etiquette, or indeed, of becomingness; but there was provocation to hilarity, when the worshippers were rolling and screaming at the feet of the national idols.
One of the latter showed how little he was prejudiced against Jacobites when they had qualities which outweighed their political defects. Dr. Freind, the Jacobite physician, whom the Prince of Wales had taken to St. James’s from the Tower, was, on the Prince’s accession to the throne, appointed physician to the queen. The doctor did not escape sneers and inuendoes from his old friends. ‘Dr. John Freind,’ writes Mr. Morrice (June, 1728), ‘is a very assiduous courtier, and must grow so more and more every day, since hisquondamfriends and acquaintances shun anddespise him; and whenever he happens to fall in the way of them, he looks methinks very silly.’ATTERBURY WEARY OF EXILE.Atterbury in exile, on hearing of Freind’s death, in 1728, remarked: ‘I dare say, notwithstanding his station at Court, he died with the same political opinions with which I left him.’ There was a talk in London of Atterbury himself being at least weary of exile. His later letters show some longing to die in his native land; and Walpole seems to have been aware of the fact. In October 1728, Atterbury’s son-in-law, Morrice, wrote to the bishop,—‘I was assured near two months ago, that Sir Robert Walpole had given out that you had entirely shaken off the affair of a certain person,—were grown perfectly weary of that drooping cause, and had made some steps, by means of the Ambassador at Paris, towards not being left out of the General Act of Grace which, it is every now and then talked, will pass the next Parliament; and that you desired above all things to come home, and end your days in your own country.’ The next Parliament, however, was not disposed to lenity.
In the king’s speech, on opening the Session in January, 1729, there was no reference to the Pretender. The king, however, attributed certain delays at the Courts of Vienna and Madrid to ‘hopes given from hence of creating discontents and division’ among his subjects; but if this hope encouraged these foreign Courts, ‘I am persuaded,’ said the king, ‘that your known affection for me, and a just regard for your own honour, and the interest and security of the nation,will determine you effectually to discourage the unnatural and injurious practices of some few who suggest the means of distressing their country, and afterwards clamour at the inconveniences which they themselves have occasioned.’ In the usual reply, the Lords lamented that the lenity of the constitution was daily abused, and that the basest and meanest of mankind ‘escape the infamous punishment due by the laws of the land to such crimes.’ The Commons, after some debate, employed terms equally strong.THE PRINCE OF WALES AT CHURCH.The Heir Apparent used the opportunity to illustrate his fidelity to the Protestant succession. Prince Frederick, to convince all good people of his Protestant orthodoxy, went a round of the London churches. He was accompanied by a group of young lords and gentlemen of good character, and, at this time, his reputation did not suffer by his being judged according to the company he kept. On the occasion of his dissipated church-going, the prince and his noble followers took the Sacrament in public: the doors of the church, whichever it might be, were set wide open, and the church itself was packed by a mob of street Whigs and Tories, who made their own comments on the spectacle, which was not so edifying and impressive as it was intended to be. Fog’s Jacobite paper hinted that a family not a hundred miles from St. James’s was split up with petty domestic quarrelling. The family, indeed, dined together twice a week in public; but people were reminded that outward appearances were exceedingly deceptive,—and sacramental partakings (it was said) proved nothing.
THE MORALS AND MANNERS OF THE TIME.
The papers of the year bear witness to the wickedness and barbarity of all classes of people, of both sexes. Half the highwaymen and footpads were members of his Majesty’s own guards. There was not a street or suburb of London that was free from their violence and villany. Small offences being as much a hanging matter as the most horrible crimes, lawless men found it as cheap to be murderers as petty-larcenists; and all looked to Tyburn as the last scene, in which they must necessarily figure. Three or four of these fellows, behind old Buckingham House, stopped the carriage of the Bishop of Ossory, who was on his way to Chelsea with his son. They took from the prelate’s finger his episcopal ring (of great value), and from his hand what seemed to be a pocket book, but which was a Book of Common Prayer. When the highwayman who held it saw that it was a Prayer Book, he handed it back to the bishop. ‘Had you not better keep it?’ said the prelate. ‘Thank you, no!’ rejoined the Pimlico Macheath, ‘we have no occasion for it at present, whatever may be the case at some time hereafter.’ The time alluded to was the hour of ‘hanging Wednesday,’ at Tyburn, when each patient was provided with a Prayer Book, which he often flung at someone in the crowd of spectators before he was pinioned. There was always a great variety of company at the triple tree in Tyburn field, built to accommodate a score. At a push a couple of dozen could be disposed of on a very busy hanging morning. The sufferers ranged,—from the most brutal murderers,men and women, down to timid pickpockets and shy shoplifters, boys and girls, to all of whom the bloody code of the time awarded the same measure of vengeance. The London mob were almost satiated with Tyburn holidays. It was an agreeable change for them to witness the public military funeral of old Mary Davis, who had served, both as sutler and soldier, in our wars in Flanders. In her later years, Mary kept a tavern in King Street, Westminster, bearing the curious sign of ‘Man’s worst ills.’ The crowd there, and about St. Margaret’s, where she was buried, was as great as at their Majesties’ coronation.
ATTERBURY, ON MIST.
The press prosecutions of this year were few. A vendor of some reprints of former very offensive numbers of Mist’s Journal lost his liberty for a while; and a poor servant girl, for delivering to a caller (who may have been a police agent) an obnoxious pamphlet, was sentenced to imprisonment in Bridewell, there to receive ‘the correction of the house,’—which meant a severe whipping.
No better proof of Atterbury’s sympathy with Mist and the enemies of the established Government can be given than in the following passage, from a letter written at Montpellier, in March, 1729-30. It is addressed to Sempill, who was a favoured resident at the Chevalier’s Court, but really a spy in the service of the Court in London.—‘I shall be concerned if so honest a man as Mr. Mist should have any just cause of uneasiness. His sufferings, that were intended to distress and disgrace him, ought to render him in theeyes of those for whom he suffered, more valuable; and I hope it will prove so that others may not be discouraged.’
THOMSON’S ‘SOPHONISBA.’
During the next ten years Jacobitisin in the capital made no manifestation, but the Whig poets were rather ostentatious in their loyalty; and the royal family patronised them accordingly. For instance, on the last day of February, 1730, Thomson produced at Drury Lane his tragedy, illustrating the virtue of patriotism, namely, ‘Sophonisba.’ The queen herself had attended the full-dress rehearsals, at which crowded audiences were not so much delighted as they were told they ought to be. However, the notice the queen condescended to take of this essay to keep alive the virtue of patriotism, led the author to dedicate it to Caroline. In that dedication the poet informed both Whigs and Jacobites that the queen ‘commands the hearts of a people more powerful at sea than Carthage, more flourishing in commerce than those first merchants, more secure against conquest, and under a monarchy more free than a commonwealth itself.’ In the prologue it was said ofBritain,—
When freedom is the cause, ’tis her’s to fight,And her’s, when freedom is the theme, to write.
When freedom is the cause, ’tis her’s to fight,And her’s, when freedom is the theme, to write.
When freedom is the cause, ’tis her’s to fight,
And her’s, when freedom is the theme, to write.
In the play Mrs. Oldfield splendidly illustrated the spirit of patriotism, in the part of the heroine. Cibber acted the subordinate part ofScipio, in which he suffered at the hands of the Jacobites. These had not forgotten the offence in his ‘Nonjuror;’ and joining, hilariously savage with the critics who laughed atCibber in tragedy, they hissed him off the stage and out of the part on the second night. Williams, a moderately good player, succeeded him asScipio, and he, on the third night, looked so like the ultra-Whig actor, that the Jacobite spectators received him with groans and hisses, which, however, speedily turned to laughter and applause.
CIBBER MADE POET LAUREATE.
But Colley had his reward. The zeal he had displayed against Jacks and Nonjurors, by producing his famous comedy, now obtained its recompense, and his sufferings their consolation. In 1730, Cibber was appointed to the office of Laureate, with its annual butt of sack, or the equivalent, 50l.Every Jacobite who could pen a line, printed it against the laurelled minstrel. Apollo himself was pressed into the Nonjuringfaction:—
‘Well,’ said Apollo, ‘still ’tis mine,To give the real laurel,For that, my Pope, my son Divine,Of rivals end the quarrel.But, guessing who should have the luckTo be the Birth-day fibber,I thought of Dennis, Tibbald, Duck,But never dreamed of Cibber.’
‘Well,’ said Apollo, ‘still ’tis mine,To give the real laurel,For that, my Pope, my son Divine,Of rivals end the quarrel.But, guessing who should have the luckTo be the Birth-day fibber,I thought of Dennis, Tibbald, Duck,But never dreamed of Cibber.’
‘Well,’ said Apollo, ‘still ’tis mine,
To give the real laurel,
For that, my Pope, my son Divine,
Of rivals end the quarrel.
But, guessing who should have the luck
To be the Birth-day fibber,
I thought of Dennis, Tibbald, Duck,
But never dreamed of Cibber.’
The year was one fruitful in plays; but it was observed that when nuts are plentiful, they are generally of poor quality; so it was with the plays of 1730. They are all clean forgotten, including ‘Sophonisba’ itself,—the epilogue to which tragedy had this advice to ladies who patronised foreignproductions:—
To foreign looms no longer owe your charms,Nor make their trade more fatal than their arms,Each British dame who courts her country’s praise,By quitting these outlandish modes, might raise(Not from yon powder’d band, so thin, so spruce)Ten able-bodied men, for public use.
To foreign looms no longer owe your charms,Nor make their trade more fatal than their arms,Each British dame who courts her country’s praise,By quitting these outlandish modes, might raise(Not from yon powder’d band, so thin, so spruce)Ten able-bodied men, for public use.
To foreign looms no longer owe your charms,
Nor make their trade more fatal than their arms,
Each British dame who courts her country’s praise,
By quitting these outlandish modes, might raise
(Not from yon powder’d band, so thin, so spruce)
Ten able-bodied men, for public use.
JACOBITE HEARNE.
There was much meanness in the ill feeling of the Jacobites at even the little mischances that happened to the royal family. On a dark evening in November, the king and queen were returning from Kew to St. James’s, their footmen and grooms carrying torches. A storm of wind blew out the torches, and at Parson’s Green the carriage and its royal freight was overturned. Lord Peterborough’s people came to the rescue, with flambeaux, and the royal pair went on to town with nothing worse than an assortment of bruises. Such accidents were kindly attributed to the drunkenness of servants, but that bitter Jacobite Hearne thought that the mistress, if not the master, could be as drunk as they. Here is a sample of both thought and expression.—‘The present Duchess of Brunswick, commonly called Queen Caroline,’ says Hearne, in his ‘Reliquiæ,’ ‘is a very proud woman, and pretends to great subtlety and cunning. She drinks so hard that her spirits are continually inflamed, and she is often drunk. The last summer, she went away from Orkney House, near Maidenhead (at which she had dined), so drunk that she was sick in the coach all her journey, as she went along;—a thing much noted.’
A JACOBITE THREAT.
The Tories, on their side, were savagely mauled by the Whig press. The old Jacobite fire of Earberywas thereby inflamed, especially by the attacks on the old Tories in the ‘Craftsman.’ The former Stuart champion, who, in 1717, fled the country to avoid the consequences of publishing his ‘History of the Clemency of our English Monarchs,’ but whose sentence of outlawry was reversed in 1725, gave the ‘Craftsman’ warning, in the following advertisement, which was in the ‘Evening Post,’ of September 26, 1730,—‘Whereas the “Craftsman” has, for some time past, openly declared himself to be a root and branch man, and has made several unjust and scandalous reflections upon the family of the Stuarts, not sparing even King CharlesI., this is to give notice, that if he reflects further upon anyOneof that line, I shall shake his rotten Commonwealth principles into atoms.Matthias Earbery.’ The writer kept his word in his ‘Occasional Historian.’
To decline to take the oath of abjuration was still a very serious matter, involving not merely temporary loss, but life-long professional ruin. Pope had a nephew, Robert Rackett, whose position affords a striking illustration of these Jacobite times. The story is thus told by Pope himself, in a letter to Lord Oxford,Nov.16, 1730: ‘It happens that a nephew of mine, who, for his parents’ sins and not his own, was born a papist, is just coming, after nine or ten years’ study and hard service under an attorney, to practise in the law. Upon this depends his whole well-being and fortune in the world, and the hopes of his parents in his education, all which must inevitably be frustrated by theseverity of a late opinion of the judges, who, for the major part, have agreed to admit no attorney to be sworn the usual oath which qualifies them to practise, unless they also give them the oaths of allegiance and supremacy.DIFFICULTIES IN PROFESSIONAL LIFE.This has been occasioned solely by the care they take to enforce an Act of Parliament, in the last session but one, against fraudulent practices of attornies, and to prevent men not duly qualified as attornies from practising as such. It is very evident that the intent of the Act is in no way levelled at papists, nor in any way demands their being excluded from practising more than they were formerly. Therefore, I hope the favour of a judge may be procured, so far as to admit him to take the usual attorney’s oath, without requiring the religious one.’ Pope hopes one of the judges will be good-natured enough to do this, and he suggests Judge Price for Lord Oxford’s manipulation. ‘In one word the poor lad will be utterly undone in this case, if this contrivance cannot be obtained in his behalf.’ Lord Oxford applied, not to Price, but to ‘Baron C.’ (Carter or Comyns, as Mr. Elwin suggests). This judge, says Pope (Dec.1730), ‘showed him what possible regard he could, and lamented his inability to admit any in that circumstance, as it really is a case of compassion.’ Ultimately the obstacle seems to have been surmounted. Within a few months of half a century later, Pope’s nephew died in Devonshire Street, London, where he had ‘clerks’ in his employment. ‘He had, therefore,’ says Mr. Elwin in a note to the letter from which the above extractis taken, ‘managed to make his way in some line of business.’
DEATH OF DEFOE.
In the year 1731 died a popular and political writer, in the announcement of whose death neither his popular works nor his provocating agency in the service of Government is referred to. The event is thus recorded in Read’s ‘Weekly,’ for May 1st, 1731: ‘A few days ago died Mr. Defoe Sen., a person well known for his numerous and various writings. He had a great natural genius and understood very well the Trade and Interest of this Kingdom. His Knowledge of Men, especially of those in High Life, with whom he was formerly very conversant, had weakened his Attachment to any Party, but in the Main, he was in the Interest of Civil and Religious Liberty, in behalf of which he appeared on several remarkable Occasions.’
‘FALL OF MORTIMER.‘
In the month of July the Government began to look sharply after political offences on the stage. At the Haymarket Theatre, an historical tragedy, called ‘The Fall of Mortimer,’ was announced; and, in the announcement the Ministry saw an attack on Walpole, and probably on the queen. The grand jury of the County of Middlesex delivered a long ‘presentment’ to the Court of King’s Bench, in which the new play was described as ‘a false, infamous, scandalous, seditious, and treasonable libel, written, acted, printed, and published against the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, his crown and dignity.’ It is not clear that the play was ever more than rehearsed. On the night it was to have been regularly acted, a body of messengersand constables rushed through the stage door in order to make capture of the players. These were attired, and ready for the curtain to go up; Mullart, asMortimer, stood plumed and gallant at the centre of the stage. At the first alarm, however, he and his mates took to flight, decked out as they were, and succeeded in escaping. This play, which some thirty years later was again turned to political purpose, grew out of the brief fragment and the sketched-out plot of a play designed by Ben Jonson. In the few lines he wrote, there are the following against upstarts and courtiers. These were held to be adverse to Walpole’s peace as well as the king’s. Forexample:—
MortimerIs a great Lord of late, and a new thing!* * * * *At what a divers price do divers menAct the same things. Another might have hadPerhaps the hurdle, or at least the axe,For what I have this crownet, robes, and wax.There is a fate that flies with towering spiritsHome to the mark, and never checks at conscience.* * * * * WeThat draw the subtle and more pleasing airIn that sublimed region of a Court,Know all is good we make so, and go on,Secured by the prosperity of our crimes.
MortimerIs a great Lord of late, and a new thing!* * * * *At what a divers price do divers menAct the same things. Another might have hadPerhaps the hurdle, or at least the axe,For what I have this crownet, robes, and wax.There is a fate that flies with towering spiritsHome to the mark, and never checks at conscience.* * * * * WeThat draw the subtle and more pleasing airIn that sublimed region of a Court,Know all is good we make so, and go on,Secured by the prosperity of our crimes.
Mortimer
Is a great Lord of late, and a new thing!
* * * * *
At what a divers price do divers men
Act the same things. Another might have had
Perhaps the hurdle, or at least the axe,
For what I have this crownet, robes, and wax.
There is a fate that flies with towering spirits
Home to the mark, and never checks at conscience.
* * * * * We
That draw the subtle and more pleasing air
In that sublimed region of a Court,
Know all is good we make so, and go on,
Secured by the prosperity of our crimes.
This matter passed over. A press war sprang up in another direction.
DUELS AND SERMONS.
Lord Hervey published a pamphlet called, ‘Sedition and Defamation Displayed.’ An anonymous author speedily followed it up by ‘a Proper Reply to a late scandalous libel, called “Sedition and Defamation displayed.”’Hervey challenged William Pulteney, the reputed author of the Proper Reply. The parties fought in the new walk in the upper part of St. James’s Park. Their respective friends, Sir John Rushout and Henry Fox looked on, while the adversaries made passes at each other; but, when they closed, the seconds rushed in, parted, and disarmed them. A little plaister was all the remedy required to cover all the damage done by a few scratches on Lord Hervey’s person. Pulteney’s name, however, was struck out of the Council Book, and he was ignominiously put out of the commission of the peace.
The royal family proceeded to show that there was no prejudice on their part against the noble art of printing. A printing press and cases were put up at St. James’s House (as the old palace used to be called), and the noble art of printing was exhibited before their majesties. The future victor of Culloden, the Duke of Cumberland, worked at one of the cases. He set up in type a little book, of which he was the author, called ‘The Laws of Dodge Hare.’ The duke, at this time, also took lessons in ivory-turning, which was considered to be a ‘most healthful exercise.’ Generally on Sunday, while the king and queen were in the Chapel Royal, one of the Bishop of London’s chaplains preached to the young Duke and the Princesses Mary and Louisa in his royal highness’s apartment! As his royal highness had recently stood godfather, in person, to the son and heir of Lord Archibald Hamilton, he was supposed to be of importance enough to be thus preached to.The young princesses were thrown in to make up a juvenile congregation.
Very much seems to have been made of the young duke this year, as if he had a mission to perform. A little establishment was set up for him, and he became a ‘personage.’ The papers solemnly proclaimed how the Duke of Cumberland appeared in public, for the first time, with his own coach and livery servants. He paid a visit to Sir Robert Walpole, in Arlington Street, and went afterwards to Major Foubert’s Riding House (on the site of what is now called Major Foubert’s Passage, Regent Street), and there received his first lesson in riding.
The only manifestation of party feeling this year was made by the citizens of London. A subscription had been entered into for the casting of a statue of WilliamIII.When it was executed, the city, influenced by Jacobite feeling, refused to receive it. Bristol was more loyal. The citizens there bought the effigy that London despised, and William soon stood erect in the midst of Queen Square.
YOUNG LORD DERWENTWATER.
Among the miscellaneous chronicling of the year, there is one made by most of the Saturday papers to this effect: ‘Yesterday, Friday, August 19th, the Lord Derwentwater arrived at his house in Poland Street, from France.’ This was John, the late earl’s only son. He came to London to consult Chiselden, the great physician. He was hopelessly ill of dropsy; and a double sympathy attracted crowds of Jacobites to resort to Poland Street to manifest their respect for the sufferingson of one of the martyrs to the cause of the Stuarts.
A STANDING ARMY.
When in 1732 the National Defences became a serious matter for consideration, the Jacobites affected to think that an army of 12,000 men would suffice for the protection of the realm. The Whigs insisted that at least 17,000 would be required for its defence. The London Whig papers asserted that 4,000 men would have all their work to do in keeping Scotland quiet. The fortified towns of England would require 2,000 men. The remainder would not be sufficiently strong in numbers, for sudden emergencies, if the total was only to be 12,000. Such insufficiencies would leave many places without defence. This would encourage Risings. Open insurrection would lead to foreign invasion, with the Pretender at the head of it. The wind that would bring over his hostile fleet would shut up our own in our harbours. Why had Jacobitism increased tenfold in the last four years of Queen Anne? Because the High Priests had been unmuzzled, and the necessary forces had been disbanded. The Preston Rebellion, as the outbreak of 1715 was contemptuously called, would never have happened at all if we had had 17,000 men under arms. As it was, it was crushed not by the bravery or ability of our troops and officers, but by the incapacity and timidity of the rebels themselves. So ran Whig comments in Parliament.
Unless the Government in London were sure that there were as many majorities in all Corporations against the Chevalier’s pretensions as there were ‘incertain places against King William’s statue,’ the administration was conjured to keep up the numbers of the army. While the Jacobites had hopes, England must entertain fears. Had LouisXIV.lived a few months longer, a French army would have been in full march to seat the Chevalier on a throne at Westminster. The Regent, Duke of Orleans, did not help the Pretender, simply because he needed our alliance against Spain which refused to recognise his Regency.
THE DUKE’S GRENADIERS.
At home there was a seeming fixed determination that the Duke of Cumberlandshouldbe a soldier, and be trained to the ability necessary to meet future emergencies. The youthful prince had military inclinations. That military spirit was stimulated by the formation of a company of youthful grenadiers out of a dozen sons of persons of quality. Their dress resembled the uniform of the 2nd Foot Guards. ‘His Royal Highness the Duke,’ say the journals of the day, ‘diverts himself with acting as corporal, choosing to rise regularly in Preferment. The number being but twelve, is to be increased.’ Fog’s Jacobite journal says maliciously,—‘increased in case of War.’
Observance of the solemn anniversary of the 30th of January used to be considered as a protest that all parties might make against ‘the sin of rebellion.’ However this may be, reverence for the Royal Martyr seems to have suffered some diminution in the year 1732.
GENERAL ROGUERY.
When Dr. Hare, Bishop of Chichester, preached before the House of Lords, in the Abbey, on the 30th of January, the only peers present were the Lord Chancellor,Lord Onslow, and the Bishops of Peterborough, Lincoln, Lichfield and Coventry, St. David’s, and Rochester. The sermon was thoroughly political. The text was from Proverbs xxiv. 21, ‘My son, fear thou the Lord and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change.’ The sermon was described as ‘most extraordinary; the preacher vindicated the King’s honour and sincerity in his concessions to the Parliament;’ and he insisted strongly on the uses of ‘keeping up the day.’
Later, the Jacobites found some little satisfaction in the smart reprimand delivered by the Speaker of the House of Commons to Sir John Eyles, for directing the secretary of the Commissioners for the sale of forfeited estates to set his name to an order for the disposal of the Earl of Derwentwater’s estates, in the sale of which, great frauds were discovered. But where was fraud not found at that time? From the benches of Parliament to the council-room of the Charity Commissioners, rogues abounded; the country was sold by the Senate, and the poor were plundered by their trustees. Yet, these things caused less emotion in the London coffee-houses than the report which came of the death of Bishop Atterbury at Paris, in February. The event was simply recorded in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ in these uncompromisingwords:—
DEATH OF ATTERBURY.
‘February 15, 1732.—The Revd. Dr. Francis Atterbury, late Bishop of Rochester, died at Paris, justly esteemed for his great learning and polite conversation.’ In what sense the Jacobites esteemed him may be seenin an expression in one of Salkeld’s letters, wherein the writer laments the loss of ‘that anchor of our hopes, that pillar of our cause.’
Pope, in a letter to Lord Oxford, referred to Atterbury’s death in these terms: ‘The trouble which I have received from abroad, on the news of the death of that much-injured man, could only be mitigated by the reflection your Lordship suggests to me—his own happiness, and return into his best country, where only honesty and virtue were sure of their reward.’ Pope could not have thought the ex-bishop innocent of the treason, of which he was undoubtedly guilty; for the poet had knowledge of the treachery before the Jacobite prelate’s death. Samuel Wesley must have known it too, but he ignored all but his patron’s virtues in a very long elegy on Atterbury’s decease, written in very strong language, of which these lines are asample:—
Should miscreants base their impious malice shed,To insult the great, the venerable, dead;Let truth resistless blast their guilty eyes!
Should miscreants base their impious malice shed,To insult the great, the venerable, dead;Let truth resistless blast their guilty eyes!
Should miscreants base their impious malice shed,
To insult the great, the venerable, dead;
Let truth resistless blast their guilty eyes!
—which is a sort of malediction that is now quite discarded by moral and by fashionable poets.
The ‘Craftsman’ of May 6th announces the arrival of Mr. Morrice, the High Bailiff of Westminster, at Deal. On landing he was taken into custody and sent up prisoner to London, where, after being rigorously examined by one of the Secretaries of State, he was admitted to bail. The corpse of the ex-bishop was arrested as it came up the river. It was taken to the Custom House, where, the coffin being examined for papers,and nothing compromising being found, the body, according to the facetious ‘Craftsman,’ was discharged without bail. Great opposition was made to a request for burial in the Abbey; and when this was granted, the ‘Craftsman’ was ‘not certain as to the usual Church ceremony being read over the corpse.’
BURIAL OF ATTERBURY.
The public were, at all events, kept in the dark, lest Jacobite mobs should make riotous demonstrations at the ceremony. ‘On Friday, May 12th,’ says Sylvanus Urban, ‘the Corpse of Bishop Atterbury was privately interred in his Vault in Westminster Abbey. On the Urn which contained his Bowels, &c., was inscribed: “In hac Urnâ depositi sunt cineres Francisci Atterburi Episcopi Roffensis.” Among his papers brought over by Mr. Morrice was “Harmonia Evangelica,” in a new and clearer Method than any yet publish’d. ’Tis also said he translated Virgil’s “Georgics,” which he sent to a friend with the following Lines prefix’d,
Haec ego lusiAd Sequanæ ripas, Tamesino a flumine longeJam senior, fractusque, sed ipsa morte meorumQuos colui, patriæque memor, neque degener usquam.’
Haec ego lusiAd Sequanæ ripas, Tamesino a flumine longeJam senior, fractusque, sed ipsa morte meorumQuos colui, patriæque memor, neque degener usquam.’
Haec ego lusi
Ad Sequanæ ripas, Tamesino a flumine longe
Jam senior, fractusque, sed ipsa morte meorum
Quos colui, patriæque memor, neque degener usquam.’
They who were of the prelate’s way of thinking made him, in one sense, speak, or be felt, even in his grave. The body of the Jacobite Bishop of Rochester had scarcely been deposited at the west end of the south aisle of Westminster Abbey, of which he had been the Dean, when copies of an epigrammatic epitaph were circulating from hand to hand, and were being read with hilarity or censure in the various Londoncoffee-houses and taverns. It ran to another tune than that made upon him by Prior,namely:—
His foes, when dead great Atterbury lay,Shrunk at his corse, and trembled at his clay.Ten thousand dangers to their eyes appear,Great as their guilt and certain as their fear!T’ insult a deathless corse, alas! is vain;Well for themselves, and well employ’d their pain,Could they secure him,—not to rise again!
His foes, when dead great Atterbury lay,Shrunk at his corse, and trembled at his clay.Ten thousand dangers to their eyes appear,Great as their guilt and certain as their fear!T’ insult a deathless corse, alas! is vain;Well for themselves, and well employ’d their pain,Could they secure him,—not to rise again!
His foes, when dead great Atterbury lay,
Shrunk at his corse, and trembled at his clay.
Ten thousand dangers to their eyes appear,
Great as their guilt and certain as their fear!
T’ insult a deathless corse, alas! is vain;
Well for themselves, and well employ’d their pain,
Could they secure him,—not to rise again!
The printsellers reaped a harvest by selling the Bishop’s portrait. The most popular was sold by Cholmondely in Holborn, but he was had up before the Secretary of State, and was terrified by that official into suppressing the sale.
AT SCARBOROUGH.
All London, that is, what Chesterfield called ‘the Quality,’ went seaward in August. The cream of them settled on the Scarborough sands. ‘Bathing in the sea,’ says Chesterfield, ‘is become the general practice of both sexes.’ He gives an amusing account of how ‘the Quality’ from London looked, at Scarborough, and he jokes, in his peculiar fashion, upon plots, Jacobites, and ministers. He writes to the Countess of Suffolk: ‘The ladies here are innumerable, and I really believe they all come for their healths, for they look very ill. The men of pleasure are Lord Carmichael, Colonel Ligonier, and the celebrated Tom Paget, who attend upon the Duke of Argyle all day, and dance with the pretty ladies at night. Here are, besides, hundreds of Yorkshire beaux, who play the inferior parts and, as it were,only tumble, while those three dance upon the high ropes of gallantry. The grave people are mostly malignants or, in ministerial language, “notorious Jacobites,” such as Lord Stair, Marchmont, Anglesea, and myself, not to mention many of the House of Commons of equal disaffection. Moreover, Pulteney and Lord Cartaret are expected here soon; so that if the Ministry do not make a plot of this meeting, it is plain they do not want one for this year.’
NOTORIOUS JACOBITES.
Chesterfield was branded as a ‘notorious Jacobite,’ because he had opposed Walpole’s famous Excise Bill, this year. As a consequence, he was deprived of his staff of office as Lord Steward of the Household. While Chesterfield was writing so airily to Lady Suffolk, the king was laying out 3,000l.in repairing the Palace of Holyrood. A dozen years later, when ‘news frae Moidart’ reached the London Jacobites, they laughed at the idea of the ‘Duke of Brunswick’ having made Holyrood suitable for the reception of Charles Edward, Prince of Wales.
In the meantime a voice here and there from the metropolitan pulpits ventured to hope the king would be kept by divine guidance, in a safe groove. The future hero of Culloden was taking lessons in philosophy from Whiston, and in mathematics from Hawksbee; and, at a funeral more public than Atterbury’s, the Jacobites assembled in Poland Street, to pay a last mark of respect to the ‘Earl of Derwentwater,’ the patient whom great Cheselden could not save, and whose
THE EARL OF DERWENTWATER.
corpse was carried to Brussels to be deposited by the side of that of his mother, Anne Webb. The so-called ‘Earl’ John, son of the attainted and beheaded peer, as a sick man, was left unmolested, though he called himself by a title unrecognised by the Government.