REVERSAL OF ATTAINDERS.
The successful royal visit to Scotland led to some happy results. On Monday, May 24th, 1824, the Earl of Liverpool rose to inform the House of Lords that he had the king’s command to present bills for restoring the honours of several families which had been forfeited by attainder. The royal visit to Scotland, the first which any king had made since the Revolution, had led certain persons of undoubted loyalty to be relieved from the effects of the attainder which, he would not dispute, had been justly levelled against their disloyal ancestors. The king was gracious, the Crown was discreet. Four peerages had been selected for restoration, viz., the Earldom of Mar, in the person of John Erskine; the Viscountship of Kenmure (John Gordon); the Earldom of Perth and Viscountship of Strathallan to James Drummond; and the title of Lord Nairn to William Nairn. It was also proposed to reverse the attainder of Lord Stafford.
The Earl of Lauderdale warned the Government to be quite sure that James Drummond had any claims,before they restored the above two titles. The Earl of Radnor thought the proceeding a very extraordinary one. Ultimately the Bill was read a first time.
DEBATE IN THE COMMONS.
On June 4th, the Commons agreed to a proposition from the Lords that, considering Mr. Erskine’s age and infirmity, the Bill to restore him to the forfeited earldom should be proceeded with. Mr. Erskine was unable to come up to London to take the indispensable preparatory oaths. He found ready grace from an unanimous House.
When, ten days later, the Bills were read a second time in the Commons, the restoration of the blood of Stafford (attainted in 1680) was recognised as an act of justice; that of the Jacobite peers as one of grace and favour. Captain Bruce expressed the pain he felt that while this grace and favour cleared the taint in the blood of the lineal descendants of those who had forfeited title and estates, such grace was kept from descendants of collaterals; and but for this prohibition he himself would now be Lord Burleigh. To which Lord Binning added the remark that, by old Scottish law, the claims of a collateral branch were not estreated by forfeiture.
Mr. Peel rejoined that there were only two courses—indiscriminate reversal of all the attainders, or impartial selection. As to the first, some of the lineal descendants did not desire restoration, on considerations of property. Government, he said, had selected those respecting whom no doubt existed with regardto the original patent; and he spoke with reverence of the earldom of Mar, which existed prior to any records of parliament.
The result was that king and parliament at Westminster, in this year 1824, restored the following forfeited titles:—Erskine, Lord Erskine, Earl of Mar; Gordon, Lord Lochinvar and Viscount Kenmure; Nairn, Lord Nairn; and Drummond, Lord Maderty, Drummond of Cromlix, and Viscount Strathallan. The Viscount Strathallan restored this year was a descendant of the viscount who was slain at Culloden, but who was styled in the Whig London papers as ‘Mr. Drummond.’
A TRANSPONTINE PLAY.
A minor incident, yet a characteristic one, may here be mentioned. The power which in 1808 had prohibited the counterfeit presentment on the stage of Charles Edward, could not obstruct those of GeorgeIII.and all his family, in 1824, at the ‘Coburg.’ This house, being in Surrey, was beyond the jurisdiction of the Lord Chamberlain’s office. The drama, acted in defiance of him and of good taste, was called ‘George the Third, the Father of his People.’ The defunct king (acted by Bengough, who singularly resembled him), and the deceased Queen Charlotte, with her inseparable snuff-box, next delighted the Transpontines with their gracious presence; but tenfold more delight and amusement were caused by the presence of all the living members of the royal family. In noticing this singular piece, the ‘Morning Chronicle’ gave a Jacobite (or perhaps a Jacobin) flavour to itscriticism. The title, it argued, was disrespectful to GeorgeIV.It is always the king on the throne who is the Father of his People. GeorgeIII., therefore, should have been styled the Grandfather of his People! Again, in the drama, the latter is called ‘the best of kings,’ a designation which is the right of the king in possession; therefore, said the ‘Chronicle,’ GeorgeIII.was ‘the second best,’ or the author might have called him ‘the best but one.’
THE BODY OF JAMES THE SECOND.
It is a singular coincidence that the same year in which four Jacobite peerages were relieved from attainder, the remains of JamesII.were discovered at St. Germain. The body was for many years ‘deposited’ in the chapel of the English Benedictines, Paris—body,minusheart, brains, and bowels, entombed in various places, to which places English Jacobites used to resort as to holy shrines. The leaders of civilisation, at the outbreak of the Revolution, smashed the urns containing brains, &c., and scattered the contents. The body at the Benedictines was treated with similar indignity; but, in a mutilated form, it was privately interred at St. Germain. No mark was set on the place, and it was forgotten, but was discovered this year in the course of rebuilding a part of the church. Information of this discovery was sent to London by our ambassador, to whom orders were sent from Downing Street to see the remains re-interred with every religious ceremony that could manifest respect.
CEREMONY AT ST. GERMAIN.
On the 7th of September, the Paris papers announced that a solemn mass would be celebrated onthe 9th, and invited the attendance of all British subjects on this solemn occasion. Now, this invitation of the Paris authorities to British subjects to attend the funeral service in honour of the re-depositing of what remained of the body of JamesII., puzzled rather than excited the London journals. Writers therein protested against this service, if thereby the legitimate right of the Stuarts was recognised, or confession was made that service for the dead could get a soul in or out of purgatory. Sly hits were made against Lord Eldon, the keeper of the king’s conscience, for ordering such a mass at a period when he was in the habit of toasting the Protestant ascendency. Many persons—the most of them, it is to be hoped, moved by praiseworthy sympathies—went from London to be present at the ceremony. It was solemn and dignified. Distinguished persons, bearing familiar names of the old Jacobite times, were present. Marshal Macdonald and the Duke of Fitz-James were amongst them. By a curious coincidence, the British ambassador in France was then a Stuart—Sir Charles Stuart, afterwards Lord Stuart de Rothesay. He placed a royal diadem of gold beneath a black crape veil, on the coffin, and this graceful act of homage was in appropriate harmony with the restoration, as far as it could be effected, of the descendants of those who had suffered in the Jacobite cause, to the long forfeited titles of their ancestors.
SOMETHING NEW.
It really now seemed as if the curtain had fallen on the great Jacobite drama, and that it would not bepossible to cause it to rise again for an additional act or for a farce succeeding to the tragic drama. In the year 1826, indeed, there was a little graceful episode, namely, the restoration of the titles of Ogilvie, Lord Ogilvie and Earl of Airly; of Dalzell, Lord Dalzell and Earl of Carnwath; and of Sutherland, Lord Duffus. But, not only while these acts of grace were being enacted, but for many years before and many years afterwards, a course of action was being taken which was intended to revive the whole question, and to put on the stage the old Jacobite play, with alterations, improvements, new actors, and an entirely newdénouement. London did not become aware of this till about the year 1847. In Scotland, however, there had long been expectancy raised of ‘something new,’ which will appear in Jacobite incidents under Queen Victoria.
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