Decorative bannerCHAPTERVIII.(1716.)
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thePrince, after hearing the sentences pronounced, went home much touched by compassion. The Princess was more active in her pity. She had a great mind to save Lord Carnwath. ‘She has desired me,’ writes Lady Cowper, ‘to get Sir David Hamilton to go and speak to him,to lay some foundationwith the king, to save him; but he will persist in saying that he knows nothing. ’Tis a thousand pities. He is a man of good understanding, and not above thirty. He has had his education at Oxford,’—the Whig lady adds, by way of fling at the Tory university—‘as one might judge from his actions.’
Lord Carnwath, however, wrote a letter which Hamilton carried to court, and which Lady Cowper delivered to the Princess of Wales. She took the letter, and was much moved in reading it, and wept, and said, ‘He must say more to save himself. Bid Sir David Hamilton go to him again, and beg of him, for God’s sake, to save himself by confessing. There is no other way,’ said Caroline Dorothea, ‘and I will givehim my honour to save him, if he will confess; but he must not think to impose on people by professing to know nothing, when his mother goes about talking as violently for Jacobitism as ever, and says that her son falls in a glorious cause.’
The simple comment of Lady Cowper when the persons arrested endeavoured to shift their responsibility—fathers on sons, and sons on fathers—has at least the merit of common sense. Alluding particularly to those who pleaded that they were drawn into treason unconsciously, she says in her Diary: ‘They all pretend to know nothing, and would have people believe this affair was never concerted; and nobody knows how he came into the Rebellion. God help them! ’tis a wrong way to mercy to come with a lie in their mouth.’
CARNWATH’S CONFESSION.
Lord Carnwath’s confession, if it may be called so, related how he went to Lorraine where he had an interview with the Chevalier. He had persuaded the Prince, he said, to make sure of friends in England and to appear in person in Scotland. The Chevalier waited for an expression, which he might take for one of encouragement, from the Parliament in London. Some of his followers afterwards told Carnwath, that, if the Parliament here expressed no desire for a Restoration, the Jacobite scheme would be to engage the King of Sweden to go to Scotland and establish James on the Scottish throne.
THE KING AND LADY NITHSDALE.
Applications for mercy troubled the king. He especially wished to avoid having petitions thrust uponhim by persons deeply interested in their object. King as he was, his wish was compelled to give way to circumstances. Lord Nithsdale had prepared such a petition; and his noble wife undertook to put it into the king’s hands, though she had no hope that it would be followed by the slightest favour. ‘The first day,’ says the noble lady, in her letter to her sister Lady Traquair, ‘I heard that the King was to go to the Drawing Room. I dressed myself in black, as if I had been in mourning, and sent for Mrs. Morgan, because, as I did not know his Majesty personally, I might have mistaken some other person for him. She stayed by me and told me when he was coming. I had also another lady with me, and we three remained in a room between the King’s apartments and the Drawing Room, so that he was obliged to go through it; and, as there were three windows in it, we sat in the middle one, that I might have time enough to meet him before he could pass. I threw myself at his feet, and told him, in French, that I was the unfortunate Countess of Nithsdale, that he might not pretend to be ignorant of my person. But, perceiving that he wanted to go off without receiving my petition, I caught hold of the skirt of his coat, that he might stop and hear me. He endeavoured to escape out of my hands, but I kept such strong hold that he dragged me upon my knees, from the middle of the room to the very door of the Drawing Room. At last, one of the blue-ribands who attended his Majesty, took me round the waist, while another wrested the coat out of my hands. The petition, whichI had endeavoured to thrust into his pocket, fell down in the scuffle, and I almost fainted away through grief and disappointment.’
THE KING AND LADY DERWENTWATER.
The Countess of Derwentwater fared no better, even under more favourable opportunity. Her husband was a grandson of CharlesII.; his mother, Lady Mary Tudor, being the daughter of that religious and gracious king, and Mary Davies. There were then two dukes at the Court of GeorgeI.—the Dukes of Richmond andSt.Albans—who were sons of CharlesII.Richmond’s mother was Louise de Querouaille.St.Albans was the son of Nell Gwynne. These two dukes undertook to present the Countess of Derwentwater to the king. If the sovereign sanctioned such presentation, it should have been followed by his granting, if not a full pardon, at least some gracious favour on behalf of the prisoner under sentence. The countess was accompanied by the Duchesses of Cleveland and Bolton and a group of other ladies of high rank. The two dukes presented the young countess to the king, in the royal bedchamber. She prayed for the pardon of her husband with passionate earnestness. The king listened civilly, and quite as civilly dismissed her, in tears and despair.
SCENE AT COURT.
Lady Cowper furnishes two scenes in connection with the attempts to save the condemned lords, which admirably illustrate the time and its character—‘1716. Feb. 21.’ ‘The ladies of the condemned lords brought their petitions to the House of Lords, to solicit the King for a Reprieve. The Duke ofSt.Albans was theman chosen to deliver it, but the Prince advised him not to do so without the King’s leave. The Archbishop of Canterbury (Wake) opposed the Court strenuously in rejecting the petition. Everybody in a consternation. ’Tis a trap laid to undo the Ministry.’ The Archbishop’s mercy-fit did not last long. Lady Cowper went to him on the following morning, by order of the Princess, to talk with him. She wrung from him a humiliating concession: ‘He says, he’s far from flying in the King’s Face, after all the obligations he has received from him, and that he thought himself in the right way of serving him; but, if the King was not of the same opinion, he would stay at home, which was all he could do.’
On the evening of the day on which the ladies of the condemned lords took their petition to the House of Peers, the Duchess of Bolton—(Henrietta Crofts, a natural daughter of the Duke of Monmouth, by the daughter of Sir Robert Needham, though Lady Cowper demurred to the parentage)—went to Court. ‘The Duchess,’ says Lady Cowper, ‘went with the ladies to make them believe she was one of the Royal family; though that won’t do. It’s too plainly writ in her Face that she’s Penn’s Daughter, the quaking preacher. The Princess chid her and she made all the excuses she could. She said, Lady Derwentwater came crying to her when the Duke was not at Home, and persuaded her to go and plead for her Lord.’
THE CONDEMNED LORDS.
Lady Cowper describes Lord Nottingham as ‘behaving sadly’ in the discussion on the matter of the sentenced peers. But, my lord did nothing sadderthan express a hope that the king would reprieve the illustrious criminals whether they confessed or not. The Duke of Bolton, by command of the House, presented to the king the address of the peers, beseeching him to reprieve such of the lords as deserved it, and for as long a time as he should think fit. To this address, his angry Majesty very civilly replied—‘I shall always do what I think most for the Honour of my Government, and the safety of my Kingdom.’ To the record of which circumstance Lady Cowper adds, ‘The Lords that had gone astray the Day before plainly showed by their Looks that they felt they had played the Fool.’
The king was angry, inasmuch as the lords, by addressing him, implied that he required to be moved to clemency. He told Mademoiselle von der Schulenburg ‘that he should be ashamed to show himself after this.’ Forthwith Lords Derwentwater, Kenmure, Nithsdale, Widdrington, Nairn, and Carnwath were ordered for execution.
On the Sunday before the appointed day, the High Church clergy took care to manifest their opinions, perhaps to exhibit their charitable feelings, by asking their congregations to join with them in prayers for the condemned lords. The scene that ensued was solemn and impressive, scarcely marred by the angry flinging-out of church of some exasperated Whig hastening home to write to the papers. Pray for lords like these, was the cry. ‘Are their souls dearer to God than the souls of thieves and murderers who diemonthly at the common place of execution?’ On the other hand, there were Tory partizans among the lower classes who thought practice might as well follow praying. They made a feeble attempt on the Sunday night to pull down the scaffold which was erected in readiness for the tragedy on Tower Hill. The sight of a solitary soldier made them desist. As anyone caught would certainly have been hanged, and as anyone who tarried might have been shot, the Jacobite sympathisers cleared away from the hill with remarkable alacrity.
LADY NITHSDALE.
On the evening before the execution a little drama was being performed, the success of which is altogether inexplicable. Lady Nithsdale, accompanied by Mrs. Mills, in whose house she lodged, and by a Mrs. Morgan,aliasHilton, went in a hackney-coach to the Tower. The last two went in the character of friends of Lord Nithsdale, introduced by the wife to take their last farewell. They were really two confederates suddenly secured to further the plan for my lord’s escape. To keep them from reflection, Lady Nithsdale talked incessantly as they proceeded on their way.CHANGES OF DRESS.Mrs. Mills, who was ‘in the family way,’ and of the figure as well as height of Lord Nithsdale, wore clothes which she was to give up to the prisoner, dressed in which he was to attempt to make his escape! The tall and slender Morgan wore, under her riding hood, a second hood and other clothes in which Mrs. Mills was to be attired, after giving up her own dress to my lord. ‘The poor guard were not sostrictly on the watch as they had been,’ wrote the countess, in after years, to her sister. They seem really to have been rather confederates than guards. The only restraint was that the supposed lady-friends should be introduced one at a time. Mrs. Morgan was the first to be taken in. During the brief time she was in Lord Nithsdale’s room, she divested herself of the garments in which Mrs. Mills (after the latter lady should have given up her own for Lord Nithsdale’s use) was to leave the Tower. Mrs. Morgan was then conducted to the gate by the countess who, feigning to be anxious for the arrival of her maid, Evans, implored Mrs. Morgan to send her forthwith. Mrs. Morgan having been thus got rid of, Lady Nithsdale took Mrs. Mills by the hand and led her, with her face buried in her handkerchief, as it had been all the time she had been waiting, to the chamber in which the earl stood, the passive, yet hopeful object of the countess’s devotion. Mrs. Mills stripped to the extent that was necessary, and my lord put on the cast-off garments, his wife having pinned her own petticoats about him. She also painted his eyebrows to match those of Mrs. Mills, and distributed white and rouge over his face and chin, the better to give him the appearance of a woman and to conceal that of an unshaven man. Mrs. Mills then put on the dress which Mrs. Morgan had brought in for her underherclothes, and Lady Nithsdale led her out, as she had done the other lady, but with no feigned weeping in her handkerchief, as when she passed in—imploringher to hasten, for her life, the coming of the tardy Evans. Guards, their wives and daughters, looked sympathisingly as they passed, and the sentinel officiously opened the door; but for whom he and the rest took this second departing lady, in a new costume, is beyond all conjecture.
ESCAPE OF LORD NITHSDALE.
The countess having now passed out the two ladies whom she had brought in with her, returned to the earl’s cell, to further prepare for his escape in the guise of the weeping woman, Mrs. Mills. When all was ready, save the half-ashamed, but not too reluctant earl himself, and the time was ‘’twixt the gloaming an’ the murk,’ the dusk before the lamps were lit, Lady Nithsdale led her lord over the threshhold. He buried his face in his handkerchief as Mrs. Mills had done. His lady kept him close before her, that the guard might not observe his gait, and went on imploring him as my dear Mrs. Betty, ‘for the love of God, to go and hasten the company of her maid, Mrs. Evans.’ At the foot of the stairs appeared the faithful Evans herself. She took the supposed woman by the arm and went away with him out of the Tower.
Thus, the countess had brought in two ladies and had passed outthree; and no guard or gatekeeper seems to have been at all awake to a fact so suspicious.
LADY NITHSDALE.
Lady Nithsdale returned to her lord’s empty room in the same feigned fear of being too late to go to Court with a petition for the earl’s life, in consequence of the dilatoriness of her maid who had come and had just gone away with the supposed Mrs. Betty, whowas despatched on a mission to find the provoking Abigail, and send her to dress her mistress, at once. The rest of the scene in Lord Nithsdale’s apartment may be best told in Lady Nithsdale’s own words:—‘When I was in the room, I talked to him as if he had been really present, and answered my own questions in my lord’s voice, as nearly as I could imitate it. I walked up and down, as if we were conversing together, till I thought they had enough time to clear themselves of the guards. I then thought proper to make off also. I opened the door and stood half in it, that those in the outward chamber might hear what I said; but held it so close that they could not look in. I bid my lord a formal farewell for that night, and added that something more than usual must have happened to make Evans negligent on this important occasion, who had always been so punctual in the smallest trifles, that I saw no other remedy than to go in person; that if the Tower were still open when I finished my business, I would return that night; but that he might be assured that I would be with him as early in the morning as I could gain admittance into the Tower; and I flattered myself that I should bring favourable news. Then, before I shut the door I pulled through the string of the latch, so that it could only be opened on the inside. I then shut it with some degree of force, that I might be sure of its being well shut. I said to the servant, as I passed by, who was ignorant of the whole transaction, that he need not carry in candles to his master, till my lord sent forhim, as he desired to finish some prayers first. I then went down-stairs and called a coach, as there were several on the stand. I drove home to my lodgings, where poor Mrs. Mackenzie had been waiting to carry the petition, in case my attempt had failed.’ Her first words were: ‘There is no need of a petition! My Lord is safe and out of the Tower, though I know not where he is.’ The countess, restless in her joy, went in a chair to her friend, the Duchess of Buccleuch, who, friend as she was to the sentenced earl and to his countess, was ‘seeing company’ on the eve of the execution. Lady Nithsdale did not enter the mansion. She went, in a second chair, to another friend and confidant, the Duchess of Montrose. The countess was so excited by the strange success of the night, that the duchess was frightened, and scarcely crediting the extraordinary story, thought that the poor lady’s troubles had driven her out of herself. Her Grace, however, cautioned her to secrecy, and even to flight.
VISITING FRIENDS.
But the countess was bent upon joining, that very night, the husband whom she had restored to liberty and life. The faithful Evans, who had both courage and discretion (qualities which were utterly wanting in the husband of Mrs. Mills, whose timidity and confusion made him a burthen instead of a help), had safely led her master to a friend’s house, whence she had as discreetly and secretly removed him to another. This fact accomplished, she met her mistress at a trysting place, and conducted her to the earl. The temporary asylum was ‘opposite to the guard-house.’ Thepoor and honest woman who owned it, knew nothing and asked nothing about what must have seemed not above suspicion. When the gentleman’s wife arrived, she was shown up to a very small room with a very small bed in it. To be heard walking up and down was, the fugitives thought, a thing to be avoided. They threw themselves on the bed, and there consumed the wine and bread which had been brought up by the mistress of the house.
THE EVE OF EXECUTION.
While these incidents were making the night memorable in one part of London, a circumstance of another character, yet not altogether unconnected with the adventures of the Nithsdales, was taking place at Court.
The Princess of Wales had a curiosity to see one of ‘the Pretender’s Cross-Bows.’ This was the name given to the gags which had been discovered among the spoils of the war. These iron instruments were a devilish invention, and it is said that they were made by the hundred weight. The sharp, straight part of the gag passed over the tongue into the throat, the semi-circular portion pressed against the cheeks. Any attempt to speak would cause both tongue and cheeks to be cut. The instrument of torture was shown to the Princess and her ladies, by Countess Cowper, giving rise to great unanimity of comment. When this grim pastime was over, other occupation was taken up, not by, but in presence of, the noble and illustrious ladies. ‘We sat up till past two,’ says the countess, ‘to do a pleasing office, which was to reprieve four of the Lordsin the Tower.’ It was resolved that only Lords Derwentwater and Kenmure should die. Lords Widdrington, Nairn, Carnwath, andNithsdalewere reprieved. When this resolution was being made, the last-named lord and his lady were lying on the little bed in the little room near the guard-house, unconscious that a reprieve deferred the execution of himself and three other lords to the 14th of March.
THE PRESS, ON THE TRIALS.
How did, what is now called the Fourth Estate, deal with the trial, the criminals, and the penalty?
The newspaper press neither reported the proceedings, nor made any comments on the judgment delivered. The simple facts that the Jacobite lords had pleadedguilty, that they had been sentenced, and that the Prince was present when the lords were condemned, were chronicled in few words. On February 21st the public were told that ‘the dead warrants had come,’ and that the master carpenter of the Tower had marked out the ground on ‘Great Tower Hill,’ for the scaffold. The ‘London Gazette’ despatched the lords in three lines. ‘Whitehall, Feb. 25th. Yesterday, James, late Earl of Derwentwater, and William, late Viscount Kenmure, condemned for High Treason, were beheaded on Tower Hill.’ The ‘Flying Post’ went into details, nine lines long, in which it was said that the lords, ‘being conveyed from the Tower to the Transport Office on Tower Hill, were beheaded in sight of many thousands of spectators, without the least disturbance or disorder; and we hear that the other four are reprieved till the 14th of March next. TheEarl of Derwentwater’s corpse was taken down from the scaffold into a Hackney Coach, and that of Viscount Kenmure into a hearse.’ A paragraph, as brief as it is interesting, is appended to the above details. It runs thus: ‘P.S. We hear that the Earl of Nithsdale made his escape from the Tower, on Thursday night, at seven o’clock, in woman’s apparel.’ The ‘Daily Courant’ tells of the execution and the escape, in four lines. When the news of Lord Nithsdale’s escape reached Lady Cowper, at Court, she rejoiced at it, declaring that she was never better pleased with anything in her life, and that everybody else was as pleased as she was. ‘I hope he’ll get clear off!’ she exclaimed, when the report of the escape was confirmed.THE KING, ON THE ESCAPE.King George himself good-naturedly remarked, on the same report being made to him,—‘It was the very best thing a man in Lord Nithsdale’s condition could have done!’—Lord Campbell calls this, ‘a quaint saying,’ and takes the trouble to tell posterity, ‘I have often been tickled by it!’—After all, there is some doubt as to the truth of this story. Lady Nithsdale says, in her letter to her sister, Lady Traquair: ‘Her Grace of Montrose said she would go to Court to see how the news of my Lord’s escape was received. When the news was brought to the King, he flew into an excess of passion, and said he was betrayed, for it could not have been done without some confederacy. He instantly despatched two persons to the Tower, to see that the other prisoners were well-secured.’
LORD DERWENTWATER.
The Earl of Derwentwater, after all hope of mercyhad left him, repudiated the principles he had affected while he was seeking for mercy. He had called the judgment of the Lords a ‘just judgment,’ and he acknowledged a difficulty in advancing anything that could extenuate his guilt. When the hour of execution was approaching, he expressed a desire that the inscription on his coffin-plate should intimate that he had died in the cause of his lawful and legitimate sovereign. With this desire the prudent undertaker declined to comply. On the scaffold, where the earl did not allow his sensible terror of death to mar his manly dignity, he read a paper, in which he denied the guilt he had formerly admitted, and also the authority of the peers who had pronounced a judgment which he had acknowledged to be just! He protested that the only lawful king was King James; and he asserted that the country would not be free from disturbances and distractions till that most praiseworthy king should be restored. Yet, he remarked that he himself would have lived in peace, if King George had only granted him his life! That Lord Derwentwater should have been allowed to read such a paper to a multitude witnessing his execution, is a proof of the indifference of the Government to the consequences of such an appeal. As far as the author of it was concerned, it was in bad taste. In every other respect, the unfortunate earl met his fate with becomingness. At a single stroke of the axe, he passed from life unto death; but the plaintive spirit of his last words lives in that stanza of ‘Lord Derwentwater’sLast Good Night,’ in which, referring to his countess, hesays,—
Farewell, farewell, my lady dear,Ill, Ill, thou counseled’st me,I never more may see the babe,That smiles upon thy knee.
Farewell, farewell, my lady dear,Ill, Ill, thou counseled’st me,I never more may see the babe,That smiles upon thy knee.
Farewell, farewell, my lady dear,
Ill, Ill, thou counseled’st me,
I never more may see the babe,
That smiles upon thy knee.
LORD KENMURE.
Viscount Kenmure—‘the bravest Lord that ever Galloway saw’—was beheaded as soon as the body of Lord Derwentwater had been removed. He too had confessed his guilt, and, in return for the mercy which he prayed for, had promised to show himself the most dutiful of the subjects of King George. On the night before his execution, he wrote to a friend in quite a different spirit. He disavowed all he had said to the Lords. He now knew no king but the one to whom he offered the devotion of a dying man—King JamesIII.! On the scaffold—whither he was accompanied by his eldest son!—he did not follow Lord Derwentwater’s example of making a public profession of his principles, but Lord Kenmure prayed audibly for King James, for whose sake he sacrificed his life. That life perished under two blows of the axe. The unfortunate lord did full justice to the bard who said that there never was a coward of Kenmure’s blood, nor yet of Gordon’s line. He left, weeping for him, the widow who had counselled him neither to go into, nor to refrain from going into, the struggle that ended so fatally for him and her. That she approved what her lord had resolved is suggested in the Jacobite song, whichsays:—
His lady’s cheek was red, Willie,His lady’s cheek was red,When she his steely jupes put on,Which smell’d o’ deadly feud.
His lady’s cheek was red, Willie,His lady’s cheek was red,When she his steely jupes put on,Which smell’d o’ deadly feud.
His lady’s cheek was red, Willie,
His lady’s cheek was red,
When she his steely jupes put on,
Which smell’d o’ deadly feud.
Lady Kenmure, however, was a woman of good sense. She had friends around her in London, and it will be presently seen how she turned them to account.
TAKING THE OATHS.
Terrified by these examples, many people took the oaths, who had hitherto been sullenly neutral. The more prominent of these were laughed at by the Whig press. ‘Some few days past,’ said the ‘Flying Post,’ ‘one Linnet, curate to the famous Whitechapel Doctor (Welton), after much consideration, deliberation, and premeditation, but at last without any hesitation, took the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration, without any mental reservation, before some of his Majesty’s Justices of the Peace for the County of Middlesex.’ Poor Linnet, however, was unable to digest the oath of abjuration which he had taken. This inability and the above critical sarcasm killed the ex-Jacobite in a few days. The reverend gentleman was taken suddenly ill at a house in Mansel Street, where he was used to visit, and where he died (say the press-reporters of that day, with a brevity and lucidity that are not without their merits), ‘of a Twisting of the Guts.’ Other Jacobite parsons who declined to take the oath which had choked Linnet, found safety in withdrawing within the fortifications of the Mint, in Southwark. There they had sanctuary, and might drink to what king they pleased as long as they could pay for theliquor, share it with their landlord, and pay their rent in advance.
Lady Cowper, in her Diary, protests that Linnet took the oaths which secured him in his preferment, much against his will; ‘and they choked him, for he actually died the next day of no other disease but swearing to the Government.’
THE DERWENTWATER LIGHTS.
That day was the last Tuesday in February, when London, just after dark, was attracted by strange flashes of light in the North West. The light was diversely compared to the dawn of day, to that of the moon breaking through the clouds; and a newspaper philosopher cheerfully described it as ‘darting many streams towards all parts of the sky, which looked like smoak.’ Its progress was towards the South-East, and it died out at the witching hour of night. Superstition sharpened or deceived the eyes of beholders in all parts of the country. The London Jacobites hailed this Aurora as a message from Heaven to cheer them after the depression caused by the execution of the sentence on the Jacobite leaders. The London Whigs did not know what to make of it, but men of both parties, whose eyes were made the fools of other senses, agreed in seeing in the field of the sky armies fiercely engaged, giants flying through ether with bright flaming swords, and fire-breathing dragons flaring from swift and wrathful comets. They swore they heard the report of guns; they were quite sure they smelt powder. What one man said he saw, another assented to, and proceeded to see something more monstrous. Whatever din of battle was heardby one group, a thousand echoes of it were heard by another. The journals were not nice in calling such people by rude names.SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATIONS.The scientific critics saw nothing but what was natural, and they schooled the Londoners in this wise:—‘The Sun having been hot for two days past, and particularly that afternoon, by which vapours were exhaled both from the Earth and Water, and the sulphurous Particles mixed with them, taking fire, might occasion that Light, and some coruscations, as is very common upon marshes in fenny places, in Spring and Summer nights.’ The explainer spoke with more confidence as to the intentions of Providence. The Jacobites had taken courage at the eclipse of the preceding year. To them it was a sign that the temporary adumbration of the Sun of Stuart would be followed by triumphant effulgency. The Sun of Stuart had proved to be only a mock Sun.Argal—‘they have,’ writes the philosophic critic, ‘all the reason in the world to believe that this last prodigy, if they will have it so called, portends a due chastisement for their obstinacy in carrying out designs against their King, their Country, and the Protestant Religion.’
Nobody looked on that northern aurora in the way prescribed. Sentiment connected it with an individual. The aurora might not be an omen of good for a party, yet it might be a symbol of grief for an individual, and an assurance that Heaven had taken to its glory what men had destroyed. The sentiment has not quite gone out, even now, in the vicinity of Dilston. The aurorais still popularly called there the ‘Earl of Derwentwater’s Lights!’
LADY COWPER, ON THE AURORA.
Lady Cowper describes the spectacle more simply than scientifically. ‘First appeared a black cloud, from whence smoke and light issued forth at once, on every side, and then the cloud opened and there was a great body of pale fire, that rolled up and down and sent forth all sorts of colours—like the rainbow on every side; but this did not last above two or three minutes. After that it was like pale elementary fire, issuing out on all sides of the Horizon, but most especially at the North and North-West, where it fixed at last. The Motion of it was extremely swift and rapid, like Clouds in their swiftest Rack. Sometimes it discontinued for a While; at other Times it was but as Streaks of Light in the Sky, but moving always with great Swiftness. About one o’Clock this Phenomenon was so strong that the whole Face of the Heavens was entirely covered with it, moving as swiftly as before, but extremely low. It lasted till past four, but decreased till it was quite gone. At one, the Light was so great that I could, out of my Window, see People walking across Lincoln’s Inn Fields, though there was no Moon. Both Parties turned it on their Enemies. The Whigs said it was God’s Judgment on the horrid Rebellion, and the Tories said it came for the Whigs taking off the two Lords that were executed. I could hardly make my Chairmen come home with me, they were so frightened, and I was forced to let my glass down and preach to them as I went along, to comfortthem! I am sure anybody that had overheard the Dialogue, would have laughed heartily. All the People were drawn out into the Streets, which were so full One could hardly pass, and all frightened to Death.’
The Rev. Dr. Clarke lost no time in explaining the phenomenon to the Chancellor’s wife; and in a few hours the public were informed that if they wished to know all about it, they had only to repair, on subsequent Friday nights, to hear the Rev. Mr. Whiston lecture on the subject, at Button’s coffee-house; admission one shilling.
REVELRY.
While terror affected some persons, others were given up to gaiety. The Duke of Montague showed his bad taste and lack of feeling by giving (almost while the tragedy on Tower Hill was a-doing) a ball and masquerade of the most splendid description to ‘three hundred people of quality.’ The guests were the duke’s confederates in bad taste and over-affected loyalty.
The king and court were present and were witnesses of the demonstration; but while they savoured the incense, M. d’Herville, who had come over, Ambassador Extraordinary from France, to notify the death of LouisXIV., glided among the gay throng, and whispered to some of the masks whom he recognised, that London must not suppose that all was over. ‘The Chevalier’s retreat from Perth,’ said the Envoy, ‘is all a feint. It was concocted in France, only to prolong the time till the Regent of France can succour him openly!’ The next day, this whispered secretfound loud and angry, or joyful expression, in London, according to the political feeling of the reporter. A few days later, the public had to speak on a subject of much more peaceful tendency. Sir Isaac Newton, accompanied by Dr. Clarke, had gone toSt.James’s, and was received graciously by the Princess, in her own apartment, where Sir Isaac explained to her Highness and her ladies his system of philosophy. The Princess took great interest in the venerable octogenarian; and it was at her request that he drew up his ‘Abstract of a Treatise on Ancient Chronology.’
ADDISON, ON THE PRINCESS OF WALES.
On the 1st of March, the spirit of loyalty was further developed. It was the birthday of the Princess of Wales, and Addison seized the opportunity to overwhelm that lady with the most fulsome praise,—in the current number of the ‘Freeholder.’ According to the writer, she was the most beautiful, most religious, and most virtuous lady of her time. Her mirth was without levity, her wit without ill-nature; and then, as if the writer was mocking himself as well as the subject of his praise—the Princess’s delicacy was said to be on a par with her husband’s virtue—a touch of satire which happened to be perfectly true. On that day, too, church steeples rang peals of congratulations. ‘It was observable,’ said the Whig papers, ‘that the High-Church Wardens were very sparing of their bells; though they need not spare their ropes for the use of their friends, since there’s enough to be had fortheirservice elsewhere.’
Lord Lumley, Master of the Horse, and eldest sonof the Earl of Scarborough, distinguished himself by his loyal liberality. In front of his house, in Gerrard Street, Soho, as soon as night set in, an enormous bonfire of faggots was kindled. Three barrels of ale and beer were broached in the street, and thirst with means to quench it caused Jacobites to pass for Whigs, or to fraternise with them in drinking the health of the Princess. From the windows of the houses of the Earl of Manchester and of other peers, and from those of the house of the Ambassador from Morocco, gazed spectators of various hue and quality. The street was a highly fashionable street; but perhaps a little descending from its highest quality, as Lord Manchester’s house is occasionally described, for the benefit of enquirers, as ‘next to the Soup Shop.’
NITHSDALE IN DISGUISE.
While Soho was thus indulging in gaiety, a coach-and-six set off from the door of the Venetian Ambassador in Leicester Fields. It was on its way to Dover to meet his Excellency’s brother, who was expected to arrive at that port. Among the servants in the Ambassador’s livery was one who was not in the Ambassador’s service. This was the Earl of Nithsdale. After a sojourn of several days in the little room where he and his wife had found refuge, a more secure asylum was procured for him in the above Envoy’s house. Within the coach rode one Michel, one of his Excellency’s upper servants, but the Ambassador was doubtless in the secret. On arriving at Dover, Mr. Michel and the livery servant went on board a boat, hired by the former for Calais. The wind was so fair,the tide so favourable, and the passage was made so swiftly, that the captain remarked—things could not have been better if his passengers had been flying for their lives. The passengers on landing set forward together for Rome, where Michel became the confidential servant of the Earl. Soon, all London was certain of the fact that Lord Nithsdale had escaped to the continent.
LADY NITHSDALE IN DRURY LANE.
Shortly after, the Duchess of Buccleuch, from a house in Drury Lane, received a note from Lady Nithsdale, who would not write till she was assured of the earl’s safety. In her note, and in a private interview with the duchess, she stated that it was natural her lord’s escape should be attributed to her. It was flattering to her to be supposed worthy of the merit of such a deed; but that a mere supposition ought not to render her liable to punishment for an imaginary offence. She was desirous to obtain permission to live in freedom; and the Solicitor-General went so far as to state that as the countess had so much respect for Government as not to appear in public, it would be cruel to make further search for her. The Government, however, was less generous, and intimated that, if she publicly appeared in either England or Scotland, she would not remain unmolested.
At the same time, more comic scenes in this drama were being acted by Sir Robert Walpole and Colonel Cecil. That agent of the Chevalier was not aware he was playing the part of dupe. He was a simple, unlearned,honest fellow who had got it into his head that Walpole intended to restore the Stuarts, and that nothing better was to be done, meanwhile, than to let the minister know how the subordinate agents were proceeding, in order to bring about the same end. Walpole had the colonel to his house, pumped him dry, and then left him undisturbed till the springs were flowing again.Then, the poor Jacobite tool (applied to Hanoverian purposes) might be seen going down to Walpole’s house, crammed with intelligence which he was about to reveal where, for Jacobite objects, it should never be known.
COMIC AND SERIO-COMIC INCIDENTS.
Next came the serio-comic incidents. Influential men in London were applied to with more or less earnestness, to intercede for the lives of some of the doomed men. These applications had their grimly-grotesque aspects. Lady Cowper gives in her Diary a remarkable instance, which admirably illustrates this fact. A Mr. Collingwood, taken in the North, lay in a Liverpool dungeon, under sentence to be hanged. ‘Mrs. Collingwood,’ writes Lady Cowper, ‘wrote to a friend in town to try to get her husband’s life granted to her. The friend’s answer was as follows: “I think you are mad when you talk of saving your husband’s life. Don’t you know you will have £500 a year jointure if he’s hanged, and that you won’t have a groat if he’s saved? Consider, and let me have your answer, for I shall do nothing in it till then.” The answer did not come time enough,’ adds the diarist, ‘and so he was hanged!’
TO THE PLANTATIONS.
It was impossible to kill all the captives. Accordingly, persons remaining in London or in country gaols were induced to petition for banishment. They were then made over as presents to trading courtiers. The courtiers might sell to them their pardons. Such prisoners as could purchase them might be seen viewing the Lions of London before they returned home. Others came up from country prisons to look at the capital whither they had hoped to carry and there to crown their king. Prisoners who were unable to buy their pardons of courtiers who had them to sell, and that, at very high rates, were simply sent off to the Plantations. The veriest Whigs who saw a group of these unfortunates on their way to the river, must have covered their eyes for shame.
Flower and leaves