Decorated bannerCHAPTERXI.(1748 to 1750.)
Decorated banner
DEPRECIATION OF THE STUARTS.
theGovernment at this time began to be embarrassed with the surviving Jacobite prisoners. Many who were destined for the Plantations, and had made their little melancholy preparations for going into a life-long exile and slavery, were set free unconditionally. Others were variously treated. In January, 1748, Æneas Macdonald was brought from Southwark gaol to the Cockpit, where he was examined by the Dukes of Newcastle, Dorset, and Montague, the Earl of Chesterfield, and others of the Privy Council. It is not known what was got from him; but one result of the examination was that his execution, which had been fixed for Friday, the 22nd, was deferred ‘for some days.’ The report was immediately raised in London that the Earl of Traquair would be tried for his life, and Macdonald would be admitted king’s evidence against him. The report was unfounded, for the earl was soon afterwards liberated on bail. Four dukes—Norfolk, Gordon, Hamilton, and Queensborough—were his sureties. Macdonald was also set free. The Government thought they had captured Lord Elcho at Dover;and the prisoner, with three others, was brought to London, where they proved to be four Jacobitevalets de chambre, who were on their way to join their escaped rebel masters in France. Other small game continued to be brought to town from time to time, particularly deserters from the duke’s army, when in Carlisle, to that of the Chevalier. For such men there was no mercy. Death, or worse than death, was the penalty. The journals give an account of six deserters being whipt in St. James’s Park. ‘One of them refusing to be tied up to the Halberts, in a very obstreperous manner, was tied and drawn up to a tree, and very severely handled for his obstinacy.’
Exultation over the victory at Culloden was still prevailing. In other respects, it may be asserted that apprehensions of domestic disturbances had now pretty well ceased. Walpole felt that if the French attempted an invasion, it would be for themselves, and not for the Chevalier. ‘They need not be at the trouble,’ he wrote in January, ‘of sending us Stuarts; that ingenious House could not have done the work of France more effectually than the Pelhams and the patriots have.’ The London Whigs maintained the memory of the triumph of Cumberland. For years they kept the anniversary of the Jacobite overthrow at Culloden by dining, or drinking, or doing both, together. Here is a sample of what they thought of the triumph, taken from the advertisement columns of ‘The GeneralAdvertiser:’—
‘Half-Moon Tavern, Cheapside.Saturday next,the 16th April, being the anniversary of the Glorious Battle of Culloden, the Stars will assemble in the Moon, at six in the evening. Therefore, the choice spirits are desired to make their appearance and fill up the joy.’
THE GOVERNMENT AND THE JACOBITES.
Within a month, however, the Government were referring to the Jacobites, as if the rebellion had not been stamped out at Culloden. The special occasion on which the Jacobites were ill-spoken of in Parliament this year was in the House of Lords. The Peers were discussing the Scottish episcopal question, and the Highland dress. Lord Hardwicke, the Chancellor, with other Lords, denounced the Scottish bishops as Nonjurors, whosecongé d’élire, if there was one, came from the Pretender; and whose ‘orders,’ conferred on others, could only be a farce. Jacobitism had by no means lost its vitality. In some cases it had been bribed into a deceitful calm, which might be followed by a storm at any opportunity. Lord Hardwicke thought the condemned Jacobites had been too leniently dealt with, and that they would have had no cause to complain had the most rigorous penalties been exacted. In short, his lordship went far to authorise Lord Campbell’s judgment, that if the Duke of Cumberland was responsible for the way in which he stamped out rebellion in Scotland, Lord Hardwicke, at Westminster, was responsible for the judicial murders committed on rebels. The following is from the speech, which aroused some surprise in the House ofLords:—
ENLARGEMENT OF PRISONERS.
‘Every man who has taken orders from a nonjuring Bishop in England or Scotland must be supposed to bedisaffected to our present happy establishment. I think the government ought not to allow them to be preachers in any congregation whatever.’—After allowing that there were honest Nonjurors, who, while preserving their principles, refrained from all hostility towards the Government, the Lord Chancellor said there were others, ‘who, notwithstanding being Jacobites in their hearts, not only take all the oaths we can impose, but worm themselves into places of trust and confidence under the present government, and yet join in, or are ready to join in, any rebellion against it; and with respect to such men I must say that no regulation we can make, no punishment we can inflict, can be called cruel and unjust.’
No doubt one of the Jacobites to whom Lord Hardwicke alluded was the Jacobite Mr. Pitt, Lord of Trade, and the pet M.P. of Jacobite Wareham.
IN THE PARK AND ON THE MALL.
For all this, lenity towards the Jacobite prisoners continued to be practised. The three brothers Kinloch were liberated from close custody. Sir James Kinloch and Mr. Stewart were to be confined to an English provincial town, with liberty of walking to a distance of a couple of miles. The exact conditions were,—‘that they should remain in such places, as his Majesty, his heirs, and successors shall from time to time appoint.’ Then came pardons, a half-dozen at a time, to various of the ‘Manchester officers’ taken at Carlisle, who had been lying under sentence of death since 1746. Among them was Captain Lindsay, who was haltered and in the sledge, with Governor Hamilton and Sir John Wedderburn,when a reprieve arrived for him at the prison-gate. The two younger brothers Kinloch, with Farquharson of Monaltries, were banished, but might go whithersoever they would, except to any part of the British dominions. The most joyous party of Jacobites was that of the Earl of Cromartie (or ‘Mr. Mackenzie,’ as he was called since his attainder) and his family. The eldest son, Lord Macleod, was freely pardoned. The earl was permitted to leave the Tower, but he was bound to reside in the house of a King’s Messenger. Accordingly, the earl, countess, my lord, the younger children, and a servant or two, were to be seen alighting from a hackney-coach at the door of Mr. Lamb’s house in Pall Mall. Their appearance at the windows attracted many a gazer, and when Mr. Lamb permitted them to stroll on the Mall, crowds of sympathisers congratulated them as they passed. Later, the earl had so far an extension of liberty as was to be found in a permission, or order, to reside in some town in the south of England.
It was probably by accident that, on the Pretender’s birthday, June 10th, a special free pardon passed the Great Seal for Mr. John Murray, of Boughton, and Hugh Fraser, gentleman (king’s witnesses against Lord Lovat). Murray obtained a pension of 200l.a year. The pardon cleared them of all treason committed before 1st May, 1748. On Saturday, the 11th, they were both at large, and were to be seen, two pale men, trying to get a complexion in the parks. At the same time small parties of men left London for Scotland, forthe purpose of fortifying various points of that kingdom, an invasion of which by the French was vaguely talked of in all taverns and coffee-houses in London. There was certainly an undefined fear from the beginning of the year of something being intended there in the interest of the Pretender.
THE STATUE IN LEICESTER SQUARE.
In 1742, the Prince of Wales had promised the mob greeting him on his birthday, with roaring cheers, from the front of Leicester House, that he would put up a statue of his father in the centre of the square. Since that promise was made and forgotten, the famous ducal mansion of the Duke of Chandos had been knocked to pieces by the auctioneer’s hammer. On the princess’s birthday, 19th November, 1748, there was again a mob in front of the prince’s ‘palace’ in Leicester Square, not only to congratulate him, but to witness the uncovering of an equestrian statue of GeorgeI.This statue was one of the many which had adorned the duke’s house, Canons, near Edgeware. Nobody seems to know now at whose cost it was purchased and put up. It is suggested that the prince, or his semi-Jacobite friends, bought it, with the thought that, irritated as GeorgeII.might be by having a statue erected to him by his son, he would be still more irate at having one erected of his father. The fact is that the statue was bought and set up by subscriptions of the inhabitants of the square. The unveiling of the ‘Golden Horse and Man’ was witnessed by a brilliant company at the windows of Leicester House, among whom was the Duke of Chandos himself, Groom of theStole to the Prince. Hogarth and other celebrities, doubtless, looked on, from other windows of houses in the square. This was the statue which in later days so ignominiously perished; which dropt its arms, lost its limbs, fell from its horse; and which ultimately was swept away, horse and rider, in 1874, under a storm of sarcasm and contempt.
AN ECCENTRIC JACOBITE.
From this record of London in the Jacobite times must not be omitted the death of a most remarkable Jacobite, of whom little is remembered. This was Mr. John Painter, of St. John’s, Oxford. This Jacobite scholar made three several attempts, by letter, to induce the Government to allow him to be beheaded in place of Lord Lovat! Mr. Painter asked it as a particular favour. The ministers were not amiable enough to grant his prayer, and he was never happy afterwards. Just previous to his death, he forbade his executors to bury him near any of his relations. He urged them to obtain permission for his corpse to hang in chains over the spot where Lovat’s head was struck off. On being questioned as to his reasons, he replied vaguely, that he had not been guilty of any baseness, but he had committed a fatal error in judgment which had led to Lovat’s destruction. He did not define it; he left complimentary farewells to Lord Chesterfield and Mr. Pelham, and an expression of pity for Lovat’s son. ‘That unfortunate gentleman,’ said Painter, ‘suffers not only through his father’s folly, but through mine.’
GLOOMY REPORTS.
As the year drew to an end, adverse parties quarrelled over the terms of the peace of Aix la Chapelle;but this matter was forgotten in the news which reached London that the young Chevalier had been literally seized ‘neck and heels’ at the Paris Opera house, and deposited at Vincennes, as a preliminary to turning him out of France. About the same time his conqueror, the Duke of Cumberland, quietly returned to London from the continent. He came post from the coast to Lambeth, where he took a boat from which he landed at Whitehall; and thence he quietly walked across the park, to St. James’s. He was warmly greeted on his way, especially by that part of the garrison from Carlisle which had reached the metropolis before their fellows.
Rumours of fresh outbreaks by the Jacobites had been freely circulated in London from the moment of the suppression of the last. The sight of the Duke of Newcastle, entering Leicester House, one November day, gave rise to a report with which London was speedily busied. ‘It was owing,’ writes the Countess of Shaftesbury, in the ‘Malmesbury Correspondence,’ ‘to a message from the Prince of Wales, that he had something of importance to communicate; and he accordingly laid before him the intelligence he had received of a new rebellion forming, and almost ready to break out in the Highlands. The Duke assured His Royal Highness that his Majesty would take very kindly this information, which he observed to concur exactly with the accounts sent to the Government above a month ago. I heartily wish this may produce a union between the King and people which, sure, can never be morenecessary than at this crisis, when new dangers threaten us from the untamable bigotry of the Scotch Jacobites, encouraged, perhaps, by the insolence of their friends in many parts of England.’
THE HAYMARKET THEATRE.
‘The great Duke’ seems to have been among the very simple people who, in February, 1749, were drawn to the Haymarket Theatre by the promise of ‘the Bottle Conjuror,’ to jump into a quart bottle in presence of the audience. When the matter proved to be a hoax, and the audience were further insulted by a loud announcement from behind the curtain that, if they would sit quiet till the following night, the conjuror would jump into a pint bottle, a riot ensued in which the interior of the house was absolutely destroyed. In the confusion, the duke was seen looking for his sword; and it is said that an audacious Jacobite called out, ‘Billy the Butcher has lost his knife!’ The alleged loss was certainly made known by a satirical Jacobite, in the following advertisement:—‘Lost on Monday night, at the Little Play House in the Haymarket, a Sword, with a gold Hilt and a cutting Blade, with a crimson and gold Sword-knot tied round the Hilt. Whoever brings it to Mrs. Chenevix’s Toy-shop, over-against Great Suffolk Street, near Chearing Cross, shall receive thirty Guineas reward, and no Questions asked.’ This advertisement, with its reference to the Court toy-woman, offered fair opportunity for further Jacobite wit or venom to show itself; and the demonstration was made in the following manner:—‘Found entangled in the Slit of a Lady’s Smock Petticoat, a gold-hiltedSword of martial length and temper, nothing the worse for wear;—with the Spey curiously wrought on one side of the blade, and the Scheldt on the other;—supposed to have been stolen from the plump side of a great General, in his precipitate retreat from the Battle of Bottle Noodles, at Station Foote. Enquire at the Quart Bottle and Musical Cave, Potter’s Row.’
TREASONABLE PAMPHLETS.
In the same month, there was a loosening of the bonds of some condemned Jacobites and a tightening of others; a releasing of old prisoners and a netting of new;—with a recapturing of Jacobite exiles who had been glad to leave the country, but who had come secretly back again. Half-a-dozen of the Carlisle and Manchester officers left the Southwark gaol for Gravesend, on their way to America. The more audacious of them wore white rosettes in their hats, in proud assertion of their unbending principles. Quite as audacious was the republication, at the price of 6d., of the regicidal pamphlet, by Col. Titus,—‘Killing no Murder, a Discourse proving it lawful to kill a tyrant.’ Another pamphlet,—‘A Letter from a Friend in the Country to a Friend at Will’s, on the 3 new articles of War,’ with the epigraph, from Waller’s ‘Maid’s Tragedy Altered’—was much to the samepurpose:—
Oppression makes men mad, and from their breastAll reason does, and sense of duty, wrest.The Gods are safe, when under wrongs we groan,Only because we cannot reach their throne.Shall Princes, then, who are but Gods of clay,Think they may safely with our honour play?
Oppression makes men mad, and from their breastAll reason does, and sense of duty, wrest.The Gods are safe, when under wrongs we groan,Only because we cannot reach their throne.Shall Princes, then, who are but Gods of clay,Think they may safely with our honour play?
Oppression makes men mad, and from their breast
All reason does, and sense of duty, wrest.
The Gods are safe, when under wrongs we groan,
Only because we cannot reach their throne.
Shall Princes, then, who are but Gods of clay,
Think they may safely with our honour play?
MURRAY AND LORD TRAQUAIR.
There was a less serious incident of the year whichprobably amused both Jacobites and Hanoverians. Mr. Murray of Boughton and the Earl of Traquair had come out of the late perilous time, with their necks safe. The two liberated Jacobites were not the better friends for their good fortune. They had a desperate quarrel, which led Murray to air his bravery by sending the earl a challenge to fight a duel. Lord Traquair, having no stomach for fresh perils, indicted Murray in the King’s Bench, for inciting to a breach of the peace. A verdict ofGuiltybrought on him stern rebuke, and led to his ultimate withdrawal into privacy in Scotland.
On the part of institutions as well as of individuals, there was a sort of anxiety to advertise their loyalty. When the fireworks in St. James’s Park were about to be exploded in celebration of the Peace of Aix la Chapelle, many of ‘the Quality’ desired to see the display, from the windows of St. George’s Hospital. The ruling powers there, by no means, wanted such company; but being afraid of a charge of disloyalty being levelled against them, if they refused, the Board made an explanation thus singularly worded:—‘Whereas it is apprehended that many persons will be desirous to see the fireworks from St. George’s Hospital, this is to inform them there are but two wards from which they can be seen; that these are women’s wards, and that most of the patients in them are in very dangerous disorders. It is therefore hoped that, for Decency’s sake, for sake of the Patients, and indeed for their Own sake (it not being at all certain thatsome of the Disorders are not catching), it will not be taken amiss that no person whatever can be admitted. By Order. Hugh Say, Clerk.’
POLITICAL MEETING.
At this time, the Pretender’s chief agent in England was Dr. William King, Vice-Principal of St. Mary Hall, Oxford, and public orator. At the opening of the Radcliffe Library, the ultra-Jacobite orator made a speech, in his official capacity. The ‘General Advertiser’ says that ‘it was a most eloquent speech of an hour long; and it met with great applause.’ Other journals describe it as ‘an elegant oration.’ Walpole, however, says: ‘The famous Dr. King, the Pretender’s great agent, made a most violent speech at the opening of the Radcliffe Library. The Ministry denounced judgment but, in their old style, have grown frightened, and dropt it.’ Then follows this singular illustration of the men and times:—‘This menace gave occasion to a meeting and union between the Prince’s party and the Jacobites which Lord Egmont has been labouring all the winter. They met at the St. Alban’s Tavern, near Pall Mall, last Monday morning, a hundred and twelve Lords and Commoners. The Duke of Beaufort opened the ceremony with a panegyric on the stand that had been made this winter, against so corrupt an administration, and hoped it would continue, and desired harmony. Lord Egmont seconded this strongly, and begged they would come up to Parliament early next winter. Lord Oxford spoke next, and then Potter, with great humour, and, to the great abashment of the Jacobites, said he was very glad to see this union, andfrom thence hoped that if another attack, like the last Rebellion, should be made on the Royal Family, they would all stand by them. No reply was made to this; then Sir Watkin Williams spoke, Sir Francis Dashwood, and Tom Pitt, and the meeting broke up.’
DR. KING’S ORATION.
Walpole says that ‘the great Mr. Dodington’ gave the assistance of his head to this conference; but there is no notice taken of it in Dodington’s ‘Diary.’
With regard to Dr. King’s oration, which was published as he delivered it, in Latin; and also in an English translation, by a friend,—it is elegant throughout, and harmless also, except perhaps in the closing paragraphs, in which the Ministry found offence. Dr. King, after deploring the universal corruption, wickedness, misery, and misgovernment which reigned without check or restraint, goes on to hope for a return or restoration of men, measures, and incorruptible virtue, whereby the nation might recover its wrecked honour and happiness. Here is a sample of one of the four paragraphs with which the oration closes:—‘Redeat(necque me fugit hoc verbum meum, quippe meum, ab inficetis et malevolis viris improbari iterandum est tamen), Redeat nobis Astræa nostra, aut quocunque nomine malit vocari ipsa Justitia: non quidem fabulosa illa, sed Christianissima Virgo, si non genitrix, certe equidem custos virtutum omnium.’
THE EARL OF BATH.
No doubt the ‘redeat’ had direct reference to the hoped-for return of the ‘king’ at Rome, for whom good wishes were offered up in the London toast—‘The Royal Exchange,’—a toast which is really a summaryof Dr. King’s closing paragraphs. At this time the London papers were busy with reporting the movements of that king’s son—the young Chevalier. He had promised the municipality of Friburg to take up his residence there. The magistracy had invited him, not having the fear of the English Government before their eyes. Charles Edward broke his promise, upon which the magistrates (according to a letter from Friburg in the London papers) sharply reproached him for having caused them to offend the King of England by an invitation which came to nothing. Why he should prefer Avignon to Friburg they could not understand. The latest notice of his movements in the metropolitan journals was that he was livingincognitoat Venice. There was manifestly some uneasy curiosity about him, and a desire on the part of the loyal citizens to be prepared for anything that might turn up in the chapter of accidents or conspiracies. The Earl of Bath only expressed the general feeling of the city, if not of the country, when he said, in a debate on the Mutiny Bill in the Lords, ‘A parcel of rascally Highlanders marched from the northernmost part of Scotland through millions of people to within 100 miles of London, without meeting with any resistance from the people; and might, for what I know, have marched to London, and overturned our government, had we had no regular troops to prevent it;—a manifest proof that a standing army is absolutely necessary.’
THE LAUREATE’S ODE.
The loyal Muse was at Court, as usual, on New Year’s day, 1750, when the royal family and a brilliantarray of privileged peers and peeresses assembled to hear the annual ode of the laureate ‘set to Music.’ There was nothing in it like the ring of a hearty Jacobite song. The more Cibber piled his loyalty, the more ridiculous he became, as may be seen by the sample of a single brick out of the lumberingedifice:—
When the race of true GloryCalls Heroes to start,Then the Muse meets a storyWell worthy of Art.Had her Pindar of oldKnown our Cæsar to singMore rapid his raptures had roll’d,But;—Never had Greece such a king.
When the race of true GloryCalls Heroes to start,Then the Muse meets a storyWell worthy of Art.Had her Pindar of oldKnown our Cæsar to singMore rapid his raptures had roll’d,But;—Never had Greece such a king.
When the race of true Glory
Calls Heroes to start,
Then the Muse meets a story
Well worthy of Art.
Had her Pindar of old
Known our Cæsar to sing
More rapid his raptures had roll’d,
But;—Never had Greece such a king.
All that Whigs and Cibber’s friends could say for such tuneless and burlesque lines was that he made them so on purpose. Jacobites replied to them less fiercely than Johnson, but yet not without wit. For instance, on seeing a tobacco pipe lit with one of the laureate’sodes:—
While the soft song that warbles George’s praiseFrom pipe to pipe the living flame conveys,Critics, who long have scorn’d, must now admire,For who can say his Ode now wants its fire!
While the soft song that warbles George’s praiseFrom pipe to pipe the living flame conveys,Critics, who long have scorn’d, must now admire,For who can say his Ode now wants its fire!
While the soft song that warbles George’s praise
From pipe to pipe the living flame conveys,
Critics, who long have scorn’d, must now admire,
For who can say his Ode now wants its fire!
THE JACOBITE MUSE.
The laureate’s odes could neither make people loyal, nor keep them so. On the other hand, the Jacobite Muse, with her petticoat busked up to her knee, was as brisk and winning as Maggie Lauder, especially in Scotland. She gave much concern to the people at St. James’s and the Cockpit, from the beginning to the end of the year. She was working mischiefin the north. How matters were going on there, and how different was the treatment of the Scotch Muse, in December, from that of England before the throne of George, at St. James’s, in the preceding January, is told in the London papers. Captain Stafford, of Pulteney’s Foot, was stationed in Aberdeen, where the Jacobite Muse was rampant. The captain seized the singers of treasonable ballads in the streets, and brought them, with ballads and publishers, before the magistrates. These were Jacobites, and they could see no harm in the minstrels or the muse; and they discharged the peripatetic singing agents of the young Chevalier. They would not even confiscate the ballads. This the loyal captain took upon himself to do; he brought the whole mass of harmonious treason from the printer’s to the Market Place, and set fire to the ton of songs that was intended to raise one. While they were burning he made a speech, of which this is one of the flowers:—‘May all the enemies of His Most Sacred Majesty, King George, our rightful and lawful King, be consumed off the face of the earth, as the fire consumeth these vile and treasonable ballads.’ For which the captain was much commended in and about St. James’s.
PRISONS AND PRISONERS.
The disloyal muse was not silent in London. Macdonald, ‘said to be an Irish priest,’ made the echoes of a Jacobite tavern in George Street, Bloomsbury, reecho with treasonable songs till he was flung into Newgate,—which then was a sentence of death. The gaol-fever was then destroying prisoners, judges, andwitnesses, and sweeping life out of hundreds of homes in the vicinity. While suppressing chords of a lyre which was soon re-strung, a certain sort of service was not forgotten. ‘We hear,’ says the ‘Penny Post,’ ‘that a pension of 400l.per annum is settled on a person eminently concerned in the late Rebellion, for services done by him.’ The Government treated Lovat’s son with justice,—gave him a free pardon, he having been an unwilling rebel. As for emptying the London prisons of convicted rebels, they seemed to be filled as fast as they were emptied. Some of the captives were sent over the Atlantic, others were allowed to transport themselves, and many were set free altogether. A little matter, however, could cast a man into a dungeon. The ‘Daily Post’ (in July) records that ‘A Person of Note has arrived in Town, in the Custody of a Messenger, from Scotland. He is accused of seditious Practises, particularly in encouraging the use of the Highland Dress.’ A good look-out was kept at the Tower, which was undergoing repair, and sentinels showed much alacrity in firing on, or over, people who approached too near the Tower ditch after sun-set.
This year is one of several assigned to a secret visit of the young Chevalier and a friend to the exterior of the Tower. As very few people really knew where he was residing, this story was probably invented. The London papers said of Charles Edward, in the spring, ‘It is currently reported that the young Pretender, who lately made such a disturbance in these kingdoms, died a few days ago in Switzerland.’ However, the princewas alive again in June. In that month the London and Paris journals were treating of a trade riot which was being turned to political purposes. In June, soon after the king left London for Hanover, the metropolis was disturbed by a report that a body of Northumberland colliers, to the amount of six thousand, had left the pits and had scattered themselves among the hills and about the border. Out of what seems to have been a mere strike, the ‘Gazette de Hollande’ made an incipient insurrection. On the faith of its Jacobite correspondent in London, it announced that one of the leaders of the colliers had ascended a hill, and in presence of his followers had proclaimed Charles Edward as ‘King of England, France, and Ireland,’ and ‘Defender of the Faith,’ to which the devout pitmen had replied with a fervent ‘Amen!’
‘DEFENDER OF THE FAITH.’
‘Defender of the Faith!’ What could this mean? It is the first ‘inkling’ of the young Chevalier’s playing with his ‘orthodoxy.’ The ‘fermentation’ puzzled a French journalist, who, at the close of June, wrote thus: ‘Prince Edward (sic) keeps up an intercourse with secret correspondents in England; and one does not absolutely know in what corner of Europe he is residing. He is said to have gone over the whole of the North. He is an extraordinary and indefatigable man; and travels twenty leagues a-foot, with a couple of confidential followers. If he were daring enough to pass into Scotland, during the King of England’s absence, what, without a party on which he can depend, will he beable to accomplish, wanting (as he does) arms and money, and especiallywithout having publicly embraced the Anglican religion?’
NEWS FOR LONDON.
Had Charles Edward thenprivatelybecome a member of the Protestant Church of England? Did the London correspondent of the ‘Gazette de Hollande’ know anything of an intention to that effect? However this may be, it is certain that in the autumn of this year we have the record, true or false, of the presence of the young Chevalier in London, and of his renunciation of Roman Catholicism,privately, however, and under an assumed character, in one of the London churches!
In December the same journals chronicle as a notable incident, ‘That the Chevalier de St. George and his Son (call’d Cardinall of York) had a long audience of the Pope, a few days ago, which ’tis pretended turn’d upon some despatches, receiv’d the day before from the Chevalier’s eldest Son.’ Whatever these despatches contained, loyal Londoners hugged themselves on the fact that the Princess of Wales was taking her part in annually increasing the number of heirs to the Protestant Succession, and loyal clerics expounded the favourite text (Prov. xxix. 2), ‘When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice.’ Preachers of the old Sacheverel quality took the other half of the verse, ‘When the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.’ These were convenient texts, which did not require particularly clever fellows to twist them in any direction.