CHAPTERV.

Decorated bannerCHAPTERV.(1745.)

Decorated banner

‘TANCRED AND SIGISMUNDA.’

thestage took an early opportunity to put forth utterances in behalf of ‘moral order.’ On March 18th, 1745, Thomson, as warm a Hanoverian as could be found among Scots, produced his tragedy—‘Tancred and Sigismunda,’ at Drury Lane. The piece was ostentatiously patronised by Frederick, Prince of Wales, to whom the poet subsequently dedicated it, as a liberal patron of all arts, but particularly of dramatic art. Pitt and Lyttelton were present at a private reading of the play, which, therefore, had a certain political significance, and Whigs and Jacobites sat in judgment on it. Thomson’s cunning, however, enabled him to please both parties. WhenSiffredi(Sheridan) uttered the lines, referring to a deceasedking,—

He sought alone the good of those for whomHe was entrusted with the sovereign power,Well knowing that a people, in their rightsAnd industry protected, living safeBeneath the sacred shelter of the laws,Encouraged in their genius, arts, and labours,And happy each as he himself deserves,Are not ungrateful,—

He sought alone the good of those for whom

He was entrusted with the sovereign power,

Well knowing that a people, in their rights

And industry protected, living safe

Beneath the sacred shelter of the laws,

Encouraged in their genius, arts, and labours,

And happy each as he himself deserves,

Are not ungrateful,—

the applause which followed had a divided, or a double, application; but it was as nothing to the tumult of approbation which greeted the passage emphasised byTancred(Garrick):—

They have great oddsAgainst the astonished sons of ViolenceWho fight with awful justice on their side.All Sicily will rouse, all faithful heartsWill range themselves around Prince Manfred’s son;For me, I here devote me to the serviceOf this young Prince.

They have great odds

Against the astonished sons of Violence

Who fight with awful justice on their side.

All Sicily will rouse, all faithful hearts

Will range themselves around Prince Manfred’s son;

For me, I here devote me to the service

Of this young Prince.

And again had thundering acclamation double-meaning whenSiffrediexclaimed:—

Thou art the man of all the many thousandsThat toil upon the bosom of this isle,By Heaven elected to command the rest,To rule, protect them, and to make them happy.

Thou art the man of all the many thousands

That toil upon the bosom of this isle,

By Heaven elected to command the rest,

To rule, protect them, and to make them happy.

When the first act ended, the factions of Jacobites and Hanoverians were equally satisfied with their power of making political use of passages in this play.

They found few opportunities in the second act; but both parties clapped hands at the lines ofOsman:—

We meet to-day with open hearts and looks;Not gloom’d by Party scowling on each other,But all, the children of one happy isle,The social Sons of Liberty.

We meet to-day with open hearts and looks;

Not gloom’d by Party scowling on each other,

But all, the children of one happy isle,

The social Sons of Liberty.

POLITICAL DRAMA.

During the remainder of the tragedy the love-woes ofTancred, andSigismundaabsorbed the sympathies of the audience, though Thomson laid a clap-trap or two, in a passage where mention was made of ‘a faithlessprince, an upstart king,’ and in an allusion to the Normans who bravely won,

With their own swords, their seats, and still possess them,By the same noble tenure;

With their own swords, their seats, and still possess them,

By the same noble tenure;

but especially in denouncement of a reign which Osmond stigmatised as a usurpation; andadded—

This meteor King may blaze awhile, but soonMust spend his idle terrors;—

This meteor King may blaze awhile, but soon

Must spend his idle terrors;—

which usurpation Jacobites would assign to George; while Whigs saw in the temporary royal meteor the ‘King’ in whose name, his son, Charles Edward, was preparing to invade Great Britain.

The Earl of Orford, the champion of Brunswick and the staunch supporter of the Hanoverian succession, died this year. Horace Walpole says of his father, ‘he died, foretelling a Rebellion which happened in less than six months, and for predicting which he had been ridiculed.’ It required no gift of prophecy to foretell an event which had been long almost openly preparing.

Amid the growing excitement of London, there was a motion made by Mr. Carew in the Commons, for holding new parliaments annually. He supported the motion by a curious illustration. The king, he said, who first introduced long parliaments (RichardII.) was dethroned and put to death by Henry of Lancaster, who took his place and was honoured by the people as their deliverer from slavery. Sir William Yonge replied that annual parliaments would deprive the king of all power over them; and deprivation of all such powercost CharlesI.his head. Similar effect would follow from like cause. Sir John Phillips, who was said to be equally troublesome whether as patriot or placeman, was not only for annual parliaments, but for a fresh Ministry every new session! The motion was negatived by 145 to 112.

THE YOUNG CHEVALIER.

After the prorogation of Parliament which followed in May, the king went abroad. He did not return till the end of July, more than a fortnight after the young Chevalier had sailed from Port St. Nazaire, with a band of Scotch and Irish adventurers, who, after much peril, arrived in the Hebrides. The Regency, in London, offered a reward of 30,000l.to anyone who should capture him on British ground. On the 4th of June King JamesIII.was proclaimed, at Perth, King of Great Britain. On the 10th a similar proclamation was made at Edinburgh. Five days later the Highland army attacked, and in ten minutes, utterly routed Sir John Cope, seven miles from Edinburgh, near Preston Pans, and Gladsmuir. This victory left almost the whole of Scotland in possession of the Jacobites,—and the road open to them to invade England. They did not reach Carlisle till the 15th of November. On the 24th they were in Lancaster. On the 28th they entered Manchester, imposed a heavy requisition on the town, and were joined by some bold spirits among the younger men. On the 1st of December, Charles Edward entered Macclesfield. On the 4th that young prince, with 7,000 men, entered Derby, and losing heart, left it on the 6th, in retreat northward. Onthe 9th they were again in Manchester. On Christmas day, they entered Glasgow;—‘a very indifferent Christmas-box to the inhabitants,’ according to Ray; and on the 30th of December, Carlisle, in which a rebel garrison was stationed, surrendered at discretion to the young Duke of Cumberland. Therewith ended the rebel invasion of England. This succession of events greatly influenced the metropolis.

When the storm was threatening, and also when it burst, clergymen in town, and probably in the country also, opened their Bibles, questioning them as oracles, and interpreting the answers, according to their respective temperaments. One good man, whose eye fell upon the words of Jeremiah,—‘Evil appeareth out of the North, and great destruction,’ proclaimed to his congregation that the words had reference to the Pretender and his invasion of England. This application of the text has been pronounced to be as absurd as that of the ‘casting down of Mount Seir’ to the overthrow of the French.

FEELING IN LONDON.

For what London was feeling and saying in this eventful year, 1745, search must be made in the correspondence of the time. The letters of Walpole, for instance, begin the year with the expression of a fear, if Marshal Belleisle, who had been made a prisoner at Hanover, where he was travelling without a passport, should be allowed to go at large, on his word, in England, as it was reported he would be, that mischief would come of it. ‘We could not have a worse inmate!HOPES AND FEARS.So ambitious and intriguing a man, who was the authorof this whole war, will be no bad general to head the Jacobites on any insurrection.’ The marshal was, at first, kept ‘magnificently close’ at Windsor, but as he cost the country there 100l.a day, he was sent to Nottingham, to live there as he pleased, and for the Jacobites to make what they could of him. For the moment, the Duke of Beaufort was more dangerous than the marshal. The duke was a declared, determined and an unwavering Jacobite, and led the party against Court and Ministry. At the end of April there was ‘nothing new.’ In May came the honourable catastrophe of Fontenoy, and the dishonourable sarcastic song made by Frederick, Prince of Wales, on his brother, the Duke of Cumberland’s glorious failure. Alluding to the duke, Walpole writes, ‘All the letters are full of his humanity and bravery. He will be as popular with the lower class of men as he has been for three or four years with the low women. He will be the soldiers’ ‘Great Sir,’ as well as theirs. I am really glad; it will be of great service to the family if any one of them come to make a figure.’ Walpole saw the necessity of having a hero opposed to the young Chevalier. One was sorely needed. Belleisle must have enchanted the Jacobites by his publicly asserting that this country was so ill-provided for defence, he would engage, with five thousand scullions of the French army, to conquer England. Walpole owned his fears. He was depressed by our disasters in Flanders, the absence of the king from England, that of ministers from London, ‘not five thousand men inthe island, and not above fourteen or fifteen ships at home. Allelujah!’

HORACE WALPOLE’S IDEAS.

The Ministry released Belleisle, who wentincog.about London, and was entertained at dinner by the Duke of Newcastle at Claremont, and by the Duke of Grafton at Hampton Court. Walpole compares the idle gossip about the French coming over in the interest of the Pretender, and the neglect of all defence, with the conduct of the Londoners on a report that the plague was in the city. ‘Everybody went to the house where it was, to see it!’ If Count Saxe, with ten thousand men, were to come within a day’s march of London, ‘people will be hiring windows at Charing Cross and Cheapside to see them pass by.’ Walpole, in truth, was as indifferent as he accused his contemporaries of being. If anything happened to the ship, what was that to him, he was only a passenger. He playfully described himself as learning scraps from ‘Cato,’ in case of his having to depart in the old, high, Roman fashion. Recollecting that he is writing on the anniversary of the accession of the House of Brunswick, he tacks a joyous P.S. to one of his letters, in the words, ‘Lord! ’tis the first of August, 1745, a holiday that is going to be turned out of the almanack!’ When the Governmentdidbegin to prepare for serious contingencies, Walpole expressed his belief of their being about as able to resist an invasion as to make one.

DIVISIONS IN FAMILIES.

When the young Chevalier, stealing a march upon Cope, was approaching Edinburgh, Walpole wrote from London, that people there had nothing to oppose,‘scarcely fears.’ Lord Panmure, who had got his title through the attainder of his elder brother, for the ’15 affair, and the Duke of Athol, who owed his dukedom to the attainder of his elder brother, the Marquis of Tullibardine (who was then with Prince Charles Edward), for the same affair, left London, in order to raise forces in Scotland for the defence of the Hanoverian succession. Panmure, with other Scotch lords, raised a few men. Athol returned to London to announce his inability to get together a force for such a purpose; and when it was proposed to send the Duke of Argyle, Maccullummore excused himself on the singular ground that there was a Scotch Act of Parliament against arming without authority. There was a scene in a London house that might furnish a subject to a painter. The young Whig Duke of Gordon, at an interview with his Jacobite uncle, told the latter that he must go down to Scotland and arm his men. ‘They are in arms,’ was the reply. ‘You must lead them against the rebels.’ ‘They will wait on the Prince of Wales,’ rejoined the uncle, who alluded to the young Chevalier. The duke flew in a passion, but the uncle pulled out a pistol, and said it was in vain to dispute. As Walpole here drops the curtain over this scene, we may suppose that the little domestic drama was carried no further.

COURT AND CITY.

As news reached town that the rebellion did not grow in the North, and that there was no rising in England to help it, Walpole wrote, ‘Spirit seems to rise in London.’ The king, or as Walpole calls him, ‘the person most concerned,’ took events withheroic imperturbability, or stupid indifference. Charles Edward had repealed the union between England and Scotland. King George believed himself to be, and likely to remain, King of Great Britain, as before. When ministers proposed to him any measures with reference to the outbreak, his Majesty only answered, ‘Pooh! don’t talk to me about that stuff!’ It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that ministers did not summon Parliament. They had nothing either to offer or to notify. The London merchants, on the other hand, were zealous and liberal in opening subscriptions for raising more troops.

VARYING OPINIONS.

In this time of uncertainty, if not trouble, the professional patriot came to the surface in the person of Alderman Heathcote. At a City meeting, that sham Jacobite proposed to supplant a loyal address to the king by a demand for a redress of grievances; ‘but not one man seconded him.’ Walpole, with all his affected indifference and pretence of indifference on the part of the public, betrays the true temper of the metropolis, when he says, ‘We have great hopes the Highlanders will not follow him [Charles Edward] so far [into England], very few of them could be persuaded the last time to go to Preston.’ And something of the general uneasiness may be traced in Walpole’s intimation to Montagu, of his dislike of becoming ‘a loyal sufferer in a thread-bare coat, and shivering in an antechamber at Hanover, or reduced to teach Latin and English to the young princes at Copenhagen. Will you ever write to me inmy garret at Herrenhausen?’ With all this simulation of light-heartedness, Walpole writes seriously enough, from Arlington Street, ‘Accounts from Scotland vary perpetually, and at best are never very certain.... One can’t tell what assurances of support they may have from the Jacobites in England ... but nothing of the sort has yet appeared.... One can hardly believe that the English are more disaffected than the Scotch, and among the latter no persons of property have joined them.’ The temper of the Government is also described in a few words: ‘Lord Granville and his faction persist in persuading the king that it is an affair of no consequence; and, for the Duke of Newcastle, he is glad when the rebels make any progress in order to refute Lord Granville’s assertions.’ London was as delighted as Walpole with the naval watch kept in the Channel, and with the spirit of the English nobility adding, or promising to add, regiments to the regular force, to which, however, they gave little or no additional strength. He who had been laughing and calling others laughers, confesses in September that his own apprehensions were not so strong as they had been. ‘If we get over this I shall believe that we never can be hurt, for we never can be more exposed to danger. Whatever disaffection there is to the present family, it plainly does not proceed from love to the other.’

LONDON WIT.

This sense of security was seriously shaken when London got the news of the victory gained by Charles Edward’s army near Preston Pans over General Cope.It was known to ‘the Papists’ on Sunday, but the Government received no official news till Tuesday! ‘The defeat,’ says Walpole, ‘frightens everybody but those it rejoices.’ Thenhe, who had alternately laughed and trembled, affected the philosopher, and pretended that he could endure without emotion the ruin which he had foreseen. ‘I shall suffer with fools, without having any malice to our enemies, who act sensibly from principle and interest.’ When London found that no advantage was taken of the victory by the victors, London and Walpole resumed their good spirits. The latter referred to the subjoined advertisement as a proof that there was more wit in London than in all Scotland. ‘To all jolly Butchers.—My dear Hearts! The Papists eat no meat on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, nor during Lent! Your friend, John Steel.’ Such wit can hardly have alarmed the Papists, but it may have had something to do with a report which followed,—that they intended to rise and massacre their enemies in London. It was taken seriously. All the Guards were ordered out, and the Tower was closed at seven o’clock. When the murrain among the cattle broke out, it was absurdly said that the Papists had poisoned the pools! The Papists however did send money contributions from London to Charles Edward. It is wonderful that the highwaymen did not intercept the bearers, and make them deliver.

THE PARLIAMENT.

When Parliament met in October, the attendance was thin. The Pretender had threatened to confiscatethe property of all Scotch members who should attend, and to make it treason for English members to do so! Yet there were Jacobites present, and they opposed the address as well as the suspension of the Habeas Corpus. A proposal to enquire into the causes of the progress of the Rebellion was shelved by a majority of 194 to 112. Most of the former felt, it is said, ‘the necessity of immediately putting an end to it, and that the fire should be quenched before we should enquire who kindled or promoted it.’

There were many whose fears had been great because of the greatness of the stake. These rejoiced when the Guards left London, roaring as they marched from the parade that they would neither give nor receive quarter. Walpole affirmed that the army adored the duke who was to be their commander. On the other hand, ‘the Calligulisms’ of the Prince of Wales brought on him a general contempt. The working men were, almost without exception, loyal. When there was an idea of the king going to the encampment at Finchley, the weavers offered him a guard of a thousand men. It was in the caricature of the march to Finchley that Hogarth exhibited the baser side of his character. The wrath of the king at the painter’s insult to the defenders of their country was well-founded. The popular feeling was not with the artist. When the prisoners captured in the ‘Soleil’ were brought to London, it was difficult to save them from being cruelly handled.THE RADCLIFFES.Among them was Mr. Radcliffe who had been condemned to deathwith his brother, Lord Derwentwater, in 1716, and Mr. Radcliffe’s son, who was at first suspected of being Charles Edward’s brother, Henry. This suspicion very nearly cost the young captive his life, more than once, on the road. ‘He said that he had heard of English mobs, but could not conceive they were so dreadful; and wished he had been shot at the battle of Dettingen, where he had been engaged. The father, whom they call Lord Derwentwater, said, on entering the Tower, that he had never expected to arrive there alive. For the young man, he must only be treated as a French captive; for the father it is sufficient to produce him at the Old Bailey, and prove that he is the individual person condemned for the last Rebellion; and so to Tyburn.’ Walpole reflected the general feeling of the metropolis which had been kept so long in a state of suspense, sometimes concealing it under indifference, at others not caring to conceal its own fears.

Noblemen’s servants were not rendered particularly cheerful in October, by a report that they were to be made to serve as soldiers, receiving their pay both as warriors and flunkeys. The soldiery were so ill off, that civilians bestirred themselves for their relief. The Quakers contributed ten thousand woollen waistcoats to keep them warm. The Corporation of London gave them as many blankets and watchcoats. King George, when everything else had been provided, paid for their shoes out of his privy purse!

THE LONDON JACOBITES.

There was a desire to bring the matter to a conclusion as cheaply as possible. The ‘Craftsman’ recommendedthat the Pretender should be ‘cut off,’ if that end could be compassed. A hope was expressed that the nation would not be taxed for encountering a ‘ragged, hungry rabble of Yahoos of Scotch Highlanders,’ with the cost of an expedition against an Alexander. There would be no use, it was said, in constructing an apparatus fit for hunting a lion,—for the catching of a rat. The rats were, nevertheless, troublesome, if not formidable. The London Jacobites were ostentatiously ecstatic when news reached town of the defeat of Cope. King George’s proclamation had ordered an observation of silence on public affairs. When the removal of notorious Papists from the city had been contemplated, ‘What will you get,’ loudly asked the Jacobites of the Romish Church, ‘by driving us ten miles out of town? We shall then form a camp, and you will find us a much more formidable body than we now appear to be while dispersed among you.’ Remove the Papists! why, the Duke of Newcastle had shown so little disposition that way, that his French cook still ruled supreme in the kitchen of his mansion in Lincoln’s Inn Fields! There were others like the duke; and, what trust could be placed in a militia formed out of servants of noblemen whose lackeys went to mass in the private chapels of the Ambassadors? Yet, something must be done. It was in vain that proclamations, signed ‘JamesIII.’ and ‘Charles Edward,’ were burnt at the Royal Exchange, by the common hangman, in presence of the sheriffs. New documents were circulated as widely as ever.If they were not cried in the street, there were other ways of bringing them before the public. In the dusk of the evening, a baker would rest with his basket, or a street porter with his burthen, against a wall. Inside the basket, as inside the porter’s burthen, there was a little boy who had all the necessary contrivances to enable him to paste a Jacobite paper on the wall. In the morning, London was found to be covered with treasonable documents, and for some time, magistrates were driven almost mad in trying to account for the appearance of papers which seemed to have got on the walls by inexplicable and undiscoverable means.

THE VENETIAN AMBASSADOR.

On Sunday, October 6th, half of riotous London followed the Foot Guards to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and applauded them as they entered the old abandoned play-house, which was converted by them into a barrack. A couple of days later all uproarious London was on the river, or in the streets, to witness the grand entry of the Venetian Ambassador. His Excellency and suite came in state barges from Greenwich to the Tower, and he passed in greater state still of coach and cavalry, from the Tower to his noble residence inThriftStreet, Soho, as Frith Street was once called. The greetings which welcomed him on the part of those who hailed in his person an ally of King George, were as nothing compared with the unceasing thunder of hurrah-ing which saluted him as he rode, next day, in greatest state of all, to have audience of the sovereign. When his wife, as soon as she was installed in her house, in Soho, gave a masquerade which madeeverybody forget the perils of the time, there may have been people who distrusted her Popish principles, but no one doubted her taste, or objected to her politics.

MONARCH AND MINISTERS.

Yet was there every now and then a cry of alarm. Messengers had seized a waggon load of cutlasses, and they were slow to believe that the weapons were not ordered by Pope and Pretender for the slaughter of Church-and-King men. They proved to have come to London in due course of trade. Persons who believed, nevertheless, in the existence of a conspiracy were gratified by the seizure of some Irish priests who indulged in the utterance of seditious words in public places. Zealots, of Jacobite proclivities, even had the assurance to contradict loyal preachers in their own pulpits, but afterwards found themselves in durance for their boldness. One day, Sir Robert Ladbroke astounded the Duke of Newcastle by rushing in to his office and announcing that he had had anonymous warning to leave his house, as Jacobite insurgents meant on a certain night to set fire to the city. Everywhere guards were doubled, and there was much fear. The king showed none. He stood for a couple of hours on the terrace at St. James’s, overlooking the park, to witness the manœuvres and the ‘march past’ of six regiments of trained bands, and he had an air as if he and danger were strangers. Moreover the Londoners were in a fever of delight with the other king,—the king of the city. On Lord Mayor’s day, Sir Richard Hoare was resolved that if he was to be thelast Protestant Lord Mayor of London, people should remember him. On October 29th (old Lord Mayor’s day), he went from Guildhall to the Court of Exchequer, in the grandest coach ever seen, and he was accompanied by ‘a large body of associated gentlemen out of Fleet Street, completely clothed,’ as one, indeed, might expect they would be!

NEWS IN PRIVATE LETTERS.

From the ‘Letters of the First Earl of Malmesbury, his Family and Friends,’ it is to be gathered that the Londoners were kept in ignorance of Sir John Cope’s defeat, till private letters arrived by which the whole disgrace was revealed. Lord Shaftesbury writes that Pitt’s respectful motion to advise the king to recall the troops (chiefly cavalry) from Flanders, and use them in suppressing the rebellion, was lost, or ‘eluded,’ by putting the previous question—ayes 136, noes 148; in which division young Horace Walpole was in the minority, and old Horace Walpole on the other side; ‘not a Tory on either side speaking. I leave you to reflect on this proceeding, though I think a very little reflection will suffice.’ People who had letters from the north ran with them from house to house, some, even, to St. James’s, to impart their contents, and small regard was had to any of the newspapers. But individuals could be as untrustworthy as the papers. Old Lord Aylesbury was conspicuous as a ‘terror-raiser.’ He says ‘the Papists poisoned his grandfather, and made a fool of his father, and that he believed all the Jacobites would turn to Popery very easily, if it was to prevail.’ The old lord was to be seen daily goingto Court, ‘to show his public attachment to the Revolution of 1688.’

THE LONDON TRAINBANDS.

With respect to the king reviewing the Trainbands from the garden wall of St. James’s, recorded in a preceding page, Lord Shaftesbury writes,Oct.26th, 1745: ‘This morning the Trainbands were reviewed by his Majesty. By what I saw of them myself, I can venture to affirm that, notwithstanding their deficiency in smartness, from want of an uniform, which may possibly expose them to the ridicule of some of our very fine gentlemen, they would make an honourable and effective stand, if needful, for their religion and liberties. They are really, upon the whole, good troops.’ The Rev. William Harris gives a fuller account of the same incident to his brother: ‘I was to-day accidentally in St. James’s Park, when the City Militia were reviewed by the King, who stood on the terrace in his own garden, attended by the Duke, Lord Stair, Dukes of Dorset, Newcastle, Bolton, and several others of the nobility. It was a most tedious affair, I make no doubt, to his Majesty; for the London men made but a shabby appearance, and there could be no great entertainment in seeing them. Their officers were well enough, and to these, as they made their salute, passing by under the terrace, his Majesty returned everyone the compliment by pulling off his hat. There were no less than six regiments, and I suppose it might be near two hours before they all had gone in review before his Majesty.’

SCENES AT COURT.

Conflicting reports flew about, but the discouragementwas not very profound, and the birthday drawing-room, on the 30th of October, was as gay and brilliant as if there were no rebellion afoot. The reverend writer of the letter quoted above was present, and he describes to Mrs. Harris the silks of the princesses, the brocades and damasks of the ladies, and the blaze of Lady Cardigan, who excelled as to jewels, having on a magnificent solitaire, and her stomacher all over diamonds. There, too, fluttered the Prince of Wales in light blue velvet and silver; the Duke of Cumberland strolled about with a little more gold lace than usual on his scarlet uniform; and Lord Kildare outdid all other fine and loyal gentlemen present, ‘in a light blue silk coat, embroidered all over with gold and silver, in a very curious manner, turned up with white satin, embroidered as the other; the waistcoat the same as his sleeves.’ But the grandest and quaintest figure there was the Venetian ambassadress, who had gone in state from Frith Street, Soho, to the intense delight of the ‘mob.’ This lady ‘drew most people’s attention by somewhat of singularity both in her air and dress, which was pink, all flounced from top to bottom, with fringe of silver interspersed. She looks extremely young, has the French sort of behaviour, and was much taken notice of and spoke to by all the Royal Family in the Circle.’ The most soberly-dressed man there was the king himself. He wore a deep blue cloth coat and waistcoat trimmed with silver, and was as good humoured and gracious as if Johnny Cope was carrying all before him in the north.

THE KING’S SPEECH TO THE GUARDS.

The regiments which arrived in London, in November, from Fontenoy, kept the metropolis in some commotion, till they were pushed forward, after brief rest, to the midland counties. While they were receiving tents and arms at the Tower, the Duke of Cumberland had his headquarters at St. James’s, whence orders were issued (says Mr. Maclachlan—‘Order Book of the Duke of Cumberland’) of the most minute character and detail.

The king has been accused of indifference to passing events, and of having only reluctantly allowed the Duke of Cumberland, who served so nobly with him at Dettingen, to command the army against the young Chevalier. Perhaps, what seemed indifference was confidence in the result. There is evidence, however, that he was not without anxiety at this critical juncture. In Hamilton’s ‘History of the Grenadier Guards,’ there is the following description of a scene at St. James’s, quoted from Wraxall. The incident described is said to have occurred at the military levee held by the king, previous to the Guards marching to the north: ‘When the officers of the Guards were assembled, the king is said to have addressed them as follows: “Gentlemen, you cannot be ignorant of the present precarious situation of our country, and though I have had so many recent instances of your exertions, the necessities of the times and the knowledge I have of your hearts, induce me to demand your service again; so all of you that are willing to meet the rebels hold up your right hand; all those who may, from particular reasons, find itinconvenient, hold up your left.” In an instant, all the right hands in the room were held up, which so affected the king, that in attempting to thank the company, his feelings overpowered him; he burst into tears and retired.’

ASPECTS OF SOCIETY.

While this scene was being acted at St. James’s, Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, then residing in Dover Street, wrote to Dr. Freind: ‘People of the greatest rank here have been endeavouring to make the utmost advantage of the unhappy state of their country, and havesoldthe assistance it was their duty togive. Self-interest has taken such firm possession of every breast, that not any threatening calamity can banish it in the smallest instance. There is no view of the affair more melancholy than this.... Everything is turned to a job, and money given for the general good is converted too much to private uses.... There were some exceptions. Almost all our nobility,’ she writes, ‘are gone to the army, so that many of the great families are in tears, and indeed it makes the town appear melancholy and dismal.’ There were exceptions in this case. ‘Let it be said, to the honour of our sex, there are no dramas, no operas, and plays are unfrequented; and there is not a woman in England, except Lady Brown, that has a song or tune in her head; but indeed her ladyship is very unhappy at the suspension of operas.’ On the night this letter was written, Mrs. Clive’s Portia, at Drury Lane, was unattractive, in spite of her imitations of eminent lawyers, in the trial scene; and Mrs. Pritchard’s Lappet was equally unavailing tobring the public to witness ‘The Miser,’ at Covent Garden. But Rich’s three nights of the ‘Beggars’ Opera,’ for the benefit of the patriotic fund, produced happy results. From Mrs. Cibber down to the candle-snuffers, all sacrificed their pay with alacrity.

FRENCH NEWS OF LONDON.

As correct news of the condition of London in the latter half of the year, it was stated in the French papers that insurrectionary undertakings prevailed; that the principal shops were closed; that suspected peers were under arrest; that an attempt had been made to murder the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that the Tower had been captured by a Jacobite mob, who had liberated nearly three hundred prisoners! Everyquidnuncin Paris turned to the article ‘London’ in the ‘Gazette de France,’ to read with avidity of the closing of great firms, the breaking of the chief banks, and the bewilderment of the king on his reaching the capital from Hanover. The ‘Gazette’ had no doubt of the crowning of James Stuart in Westminster Abbey during the Christmas holidays; and, perhaps, hoped for the appearance of ‘the Elector of Hanover’ on Tower Hill!

ANXIETY AND CONFIDENCE.

On Friday, the 5th December 1745, it is undeniable that London was shaken into terror and consternation by the news of the arrival of Charles Edward on the Wednesday at Derby. It was long remembered as ‘Black Friday.’ ‘Many of the inhabitants,’ says the Chevalier de Johnstone, in his ‘Memoirs of the Rebellion,’ ‘fled to the country with their most precious effects, and allthe shops were shut. People thronged to the Bank to get payment of its notes; and it only escaped bankruptcy by a stratagem. Payment was not indeed refused; but as they who came first were entitled to priority of payment, the bank took care to be continually surrounded by agents with notes, who were paid in sixpences in order to gain time. Those agents went out at one door with the specie they had received, and brought it back by another; so that thebonâ fideholders of notes could never get near enough to present them, and the bank by this artifice preserved its credit, and literally faced its creditors.’

This, of course, was imaginary. The metropolis recovered its tranquility. The king, on his side, regained his equanimity. At a levee, held in December, his Majesty and Lord Derby disputed pretty loudly as to the numbers of the rebels. ‘Sir,’ said Lord Derby, who had just arrived from Lancashire, whoever tells you the rebels are fewer than 10,000 deceives you;’ which was, as Mr. Harris writes, thought to be a pretty strong expression for his Lordship to use to the king. At a court held a day or two later, Sir Harry Liddel, just from the north, was asked by his Majesty what Sir Harry held the rebel force to be? He answered about 7,000, to which estimate the king seemed to assent; but this did not prevent the whole Court and City from falling into the utmost panic again before the end of December. The alternation of hope and fear however passed suddenly into confidence, when, asthe year ended, news reached the London coffee-houses that young Cumberland was likely to turn the tide of rebel success. Carlisle was evidently on the point of surrendering, and this important event took place at the close of the year 1745.

Down to that close, traitors were as closely looked for in London as rebels were now pursued in their retreat. Whether through delicacy or ignorance, the style in which a successful ‘take’ of traitors was made was comically mysterious. For example, in this month of December, the papers announced that ‘A Musician who resided some years in London as a foreign Nobleman, and an Irish Comedian who has acted five years on the English Stage, were committed to the Marshalsea for High Treason.’

JOHNSON AND LORD GOWER.

In this eventful year, Jacobite Johnson was quietly engaged on his Dictionary. Aloof from the fray, he could not forbear flinging a stone on an ex-Jacobite who had ratted. When he came to the word ‘renegade,’ he remembered Lord Gower’s abandonment of the old Jacobite interest, for place at Court; and his prejudice prompted him to make Lord Gower infamous for ever, by adding his name to the vocabulary of slang. ‘When I came to the wordrenegade,’ he said to Boswell, ‘after telling that it meant “one who deserts to the enemy; a revolter,” I added, “sometimes we say aGower.” Thus it went to the press; but the printer had more wit than I, and struck it out.’ Another distinguished man was looking on events with an indifferencewhich seems affectation.BOLINGBROKE.‘I expect no good news,’ writes Bolingbroke to Marchmont, in September, ‘and am therefore contented to have none. I wait with much resignation to know to what Lion’s paw we are to fall.’

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