The Project Gutenberg eBook of London in the Jacobite Times
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: London in the Jacobite Times
Author: Dr. Doran
Release date: November 6, 2023 [eBook #72049]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Richard Bentley & Son, 1877
Credits: Carol Brown, Susan Skinner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON IN THE JACOBITE TIMES ***
LONDON
IN
THE JACOBITE TIMES
VOL. I.
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
TABLE TRAITS AND SOMETHING ON THEM
HABITS AND MEN
KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS
MONARCHS RETIRED FROM BUSINESS
NEW PICTURES AND OLD PANELS
LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER
HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS
THE BOOK OF THE PRINCES OF WALES
THEIR MAJESTIES’ SERVANTS: ANNALS OF THE STAGE
SAINTS AND SINNERS
THE LAST JOURNALS OF HORACE WALPOLE (EDITED)
A LADY OF THE LAST CENTURY
‘MANN’ AND MANNERS AT THE COURT OF FLORENCE
LONDON
IN
THE JACOBITE TIMES
BY
Dᴿ DORAN, F.S.A.
AUTHOR OF ‘TABLE TRAITS’ ‘QUEENS OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER’
‘THEIR MAJESTIES’ SERVANTS’ ETC.
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.
[Illustration: colophon]
LONDON
RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON STREET
Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen
1877
_All rights reserved_
LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
TO MY SON
ALBAN HENRY G. DORAN, F.R.C.S.
WITH EQUAL RESPECT AND
AFFECTION
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME.
CHAPTER I.
(1714.)
PAGE
In the Churches――In the Streets――Steele’s Satire――In
Parliament――Political Amenities――Sacheverel:
Marlborough――On Parade. First Blood――The ‘Peregrine
Yatch’――The King at Greenwich――Scottish Homage――Claret
Loyalty――The Artillery Company――The Royal Entry――The
Players’ Homage――The Affairs of Scotland――A Royal
Proclamation 1
CHAPTER II.
(1714.)
Carte, the Jacobite――An Old and New Lord
Chancellor――Preparations for the Coronation――The Scene
in the Abbey――Whigs and Jacobites――Tory Mobs――The Royal
Family in the Park――Seditious Pamphlets――Jacobite
Clubs――Royalties――At St. James’s――Electioneering
Tactics――Royal Chaplains――The Chevalier in London 18
CHAPTER III.
(1715.)
At the Play――Flight of Ormond――Sacheverel――Politics in
the Pulpit――Calumny against Sacheverel――Danger in
the Distance――Flight of Bolingbroke――Bolingbroke
Pamphlets――Bolingbroke’s Character――Politics in
Livery――Satire――Flying Reports――Decree in the
‘Gazette’――The Lash――The Pillory――A Harmless Jacobite 33
CHAPTER IV.
(1715.)
Politics in the Army――Lieutenant Kynaston――Jacobite
Plotters――False Accuser――The Military Board――The
Lieutenant disposed of――Captain Paul――Arrest of
Members of Parliament――Harvey, of Combe――Sir William
Wyndham――Search for Papers――Wyndham’s Escape――Dramatic
Courtesy――Uncourteous Interview――A General Stir 50
CHAPTER V.
(1715.)
Pamphleteering――General Confusion――Jacobite
Mobs――Rioting――Ballad-Singers――Political
Songs――Arrests――In the Park――Invasion Imminent――Sound
of Shot――Afloat on the Thames――The Horse
Guards――The Chevalier de St. George――The King’s
Speech――Preachers Awake――A Famous Sermon――Satirical
Art――Mischievous Sermons――A Sound of Alarm――Jacobite
Agents――Arrests――Popular Feeling 66
CHAPTER VI.
(1715.)
Camp and Pulpit――Popular Slogan――Perilous
Anniversaries――Popular Demonstrations――News from the
North――Reports from Scotland――Further Intelligence――News
from Preston――Jacobite Fury――Street Fighting――The
Prisoners from Preston――Tyburn Tree――Jacobite
Captains――Drawing near London――Highgate to
London――Arrival in Town――The Jacobite Chaplain――Lady
Cowper’s Testimony――Jacobite Reports 89
CHAPTER VII.
(1715-16.)
The Chevalier in Scotland――The Chevalier out of
Scotland――Cost of living in Newgate――Inside
Newgate――Visitors to Newgate――Sorting the
Prisoners――Extortion――Dissensions――Jacobite
Patten――Hanoverian Patten――Addison’s Satire――Lack
of Charity――Whig Liberality――Whig and Jacobite
Ladies――Matthew Prior――Royalty on the Ice――Impeachment
of the Rebel Lords――Character of King George――From the
Tower to Westminster――The Drum Ecclesiastic――Muscular
Christians――Charles I., King and Saint――The
Rebel Peers――Solemn Politeness――Derwentwater’s
Plea――Widdrington’s Reply――Appeal for Mercy――Nithsdale’s
Apology――Carnwath and Kenmure――Nairn’s Explanation――The
Lord High Steward――Conclusion――Lord Cowper’s Speech 109
CHAPTER VIII.
(1716.)
Carnwath’s Confession――The King and Lady Nithsdale――The King
and Lady Derwentwater――Scene at Court――The Condemned
Lords――Lady Nithsdale――Changes of Dress――Escape of
Lord Nithsdale――Lady Nithsdale――Visiting Friends――The
Eve of Execution――The Press, on the Trials――The
King, on the Escape――Lord Derwentwater――Lord
Kenmure――Taking the Oaths――The Derwentwater
Lights――Scientific Explanations――Lady Cowper on
the Aurora――Revelry――Addison, on the Princess of
Wales――Nithsdale in Disguise――Lady Nithsdale in Drury
Lane――Comic and Serio-Comic Incidents――To the Plantations
143
CHAPTER IX.
(1716.)
State-Trial Ceremonies――Lord Wintoun in Court――Opening of the
Trial――The Legal Assailants――The King’s Witnesses――The
Rev. Mr. Patten――Patten’s Character of Wintoun――Military
Witnesses――The Surrender at Preston――A Prisoner
at Bay――Incidents of the Trial――Wintoun Baited by
Cowper――The King’s Counsel――The Verdict――Sir Constantine
Phipps――A Fight for Life――The Fight grows Furious――The
Sentence――Doom Borne Worthily――The Jacobite Lawyer 169
CHAPTER X.
(1716.)
Edmund Curll――The New Poems――Princess of Wales and Lady
Kenmure――Luxury in Newgate――General Forster’s Escape――A
Ride for Life――The Prisoners in the Tower――Patten on
the Prince of Wales――In and Out of Newgate――Politics
on the Stage――Simon Fraser, as a Whig――Dutch Service
in Gravesend Church――Aids to Escape――Shifting of
Prisoners――Breaking out of Newgate――Pursuit――Hue and
Cry――Domiciliary Visits――Talbot Recaptured――Escape of
Hepburn of Keith 190
CHAPTER XI.
(1716.)
David Lindsay――Trials of Rebel Officers――Colonel Oxburgh――The
Colonel at Tyburn――A Head on Temple Bar――More
Trials――Jacobite Jurymen――Towneley and Tildesley――Their
Trials――Their Acquittal――The Chaplain at Towneley
Hall――Justice Hall and Captain Talbot――Gascogne’s
Trial――The Duchess of Ormond――Gascogne’s
Defence――Christian Feeling――Fracas in a Coffee-House――Joy
and Sorrow in Newgate――Chief Justice Parker――The
Swinburnes――Scott’s Newgate――Mob Ferocity 211
CHAPTER XII.
(1716.)
Festive Fighting――Jacobite Boys――Flogging Soldiers――Hoadly
in the Pulpit――Flattery by Addison――On the Silver
Thames――Two Pretty Fellows――Thanksgiving Day――Sherlock’s
Sermon――Bishop of Ely’s Sermon――King George’s Right to
the Throne――A Nonjuring Clergyman, to be Whipt――Saved
by the Bishop of London――The Rose in June――More
Bloodshed――Jacobite Ladies――Ladies’ Anti-Jacobite
Associations――Riot in a Church――Pope’s Double
Dealing――Addison, on Late and Present Times――Political
Women 234
CHAPTER XIII.
(1716.)
The Rev. Mr. Paul――A Cry for Life――Paul and Patten――Paul,
a Jacobite Again――The King in Fleet Street――A Reading
at Court――Sanguinary Struggles――A Jacobite Jury――The
Mug-Houses――The Street Whipping Post――Patten in
Allendale――Scenes at Hampton Court――Bigots on Both
Sides――At Drury Lane Theatre――Afternoon Calls――Escape
of Charles Radcliffe――The Stage and Playgoers――Loyal
Players――An Anti-Jacobite Pamphlet 256
CHAPTER XIV.
(1717.)
Bishop Atterbury――Jacobite Congregations――Liberty Used,
and Abused――Jacobites at Large――An Entry in a Cash
Book――Bishop Atterbury, the Chevalier’s Agent――More
Prosecutions――Trial of Francia――Patten’s ‘History
of the Late Rebellion’――Slander Against the
Jacobites――Patten’s Details――Downright Shippen――Shippen,
on George I.――Cibber’s ‘Nonjuror’――Dedication to the
King――Significant Passages――Jacobite Outlay――Advantages
of Clamour――Political Allusions――Incense for the King――A
Lecture from the Stage――Public Feeling――Atterbury’s
Opinion 276
CHAPTER XV.
(1718.)
A Youthful Jacobite――A would-be Regicide――A Fight in
Newgate――Up the Hill to Tyburn――Scene at Tyburn――A
Jacobite Toast――Satirical Pamphlet――Lovat already
Suspected――Hearne on Echard’s ‘England’――Atterbury
Conspiring――The Bishop’s View of Things――The Royal
Family on the Road――Military Difficulties――Scenes at
Court――A Scene in ‘Bedlam’――A Whig Whipt――Treason in
the Pulpit――More Treason――Jacobites in the Pillory――The
King at the Play――Daniel Defoe――His Dirty Work――Mist’s
Journal――Jacobite Hopes――Art and Poetry 300
CHAPTER XVI.
(1719.)
The Skirmish at Glenashiels――Judicial Caprice――Assault on
the Princess of Wales――The King and his Ladies――A
Suspicious Charity Sermon――Riot in Church――Riot
Prolonged――Liberty of the Press――A Capital
Conviction――Jacobite Fidelity――A Political Victim――Three
more to Tyburn――A Last Request――An Apologetic Sermon――An
Innocent Victim――Political Plays――Incidents――Royal
Condescension――The King’s Good Nature――Rob Roy and the
Duke of Montrose 326
CHAPTER XVII.
(1720-’21-’22.)
Atterbury’s Hopes――Death of Laurence Howell――In Hyde Park――At
Bartholomew Fair――Stopping the King’s Expresses――Cibber’s
‘Refusal’――In State to the Pillory――Birth of the ‘Young
Chevalier’――Government and the Jacobites――Treasonable
Wit――Recruiting for the Chevalier――Epigrammatic
Epitaph――Arrest of Jacobites――Atterbury’s
Correspondence――Jacobite Trysting Places――The Officers
in Camp――A Cavalry Bishop――The Ladies in Camp――Whig
Susceptibility――More Arrests――Atterbury to Pope 347
CHAPTER XVIII.
(1722.)
The Bishop in the Tower――Pope and Atterbury――The
‘Blackbird’――Treatment of Atterbury――Scenes in
Camp――Soldiers and Footpads――Discipline――Christopher
Layer――The Plot――Layer at Westminster――Antagonistic
Lawyers――The Trial――A False Witness――A
Confederate――Layer’s Ladies――Layer’s ‘Scheme’――The
Defence――Strange Witnesses――The Verdict――Layer’s
Dignity――The Jacobites in Mourning――A Jacobite
Player――Suspension of the ‘Habeas Corpus’――Arrest of
Peers――Lord Chief Justice Pratt――London Sights――Ambitious
Thieves 369
CHAPTER XIX.
(1723.)
The Plot――Satire on the Plot――Decyphering――Proceedings
against Atterbury――Debate in the Commons――Debate
in the Lords――Condemnation of Plunkett――Kelly’s
Trial――Kelly’s Defence――Sentence on Kelly――The
King at Kensington――Arrests――Patten in Peril――A
Strange Sermon――Treatment of Atterbury――Oglethorpe
and Atterbury――In the House of Lords――The Whig
Press and the Bishop――Street Incidents――Opening of
Letters――Sir Constantine Phipps――The Defence――Special
Pleading――Evidence for Atterbury――Pope, as a
Witness――Atterbury’s Defence――Rejoinder for
the Crown――Wit of Lord Bathurst――Newspaper
Comments――Atterbury and Layer――Layer on
Holborn Hill――Layer at Tyburn――Lamentation for
Layer――Lamentation, continued――Bolingbroke,
Atterbury――Atterbury Leaving the Tower――Atterbury on
the Thames――Pope and Atterbury――Layer’s Head――The Co-
Conspirators――Atterbury serving the Chevalier――Letter
from Atterbury 397
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
LONDON
IN
THE JACOBITE TIMES.
CHAPTER I.
(1714.)
[Illustration: Drop_O]n the last morning of Queen Anne’s life, a
man, deep in thought, was slowly crossing Smithfield. The eyes of
a clergyman passing in a carriage were bent upon him. The carriage
stopped, the wayfarer looked up, and the two men knew each other. The
one on foot was the dissenting preacher, whom Queen Anne used to call
‘bold Bradbury.’ The other was Bishop Burnet.
‘On what were you so deeply thinking?’ asked the bishop.
‘On the men who died here at the stake,’ replied Bradbury. ‘Evil
times, like theirs, are at hand. I am thinking whether I should be as
brave as they were, if I were called upon to bear the fire as they
bore it.’
[Sidenote: _IN THE CHURCHES._]
Burnet gave him hope. A good time, he said, was coming. The queen was
mortally ill. Burnet was then, he said, on his way from Clerkenwell to
the Court, and he undertook to send a messenger to Bradbury, to let him
know how it fared with Anne. If he were in his chapel, a token should
tell him that the queen was dead.
A few hours later, Bradbury was half-way through his sermon, when he
saw a handkerchief drop from the hand of a stranger in the gallery.
This is said to have been the sign agreed upon. The preacher went
quietly on to the end of his discourse; but, in the prayer which
followed, he moved the pulses of his hearers’ hearts, by giving thanks
to God for saving the kingdom from the doings of its enemies; and he
asked for God’s blessing on the King of England, George I., Elector of
Hanover.
About the same time Bishop Atterbury had offered to go down in front
of St. James’s Palace, in full episcopal dress, and proclaim James
III.――the late Queen’s brother. The Tory Ministry wavered, and
Atterbury, with words unseemly for a bishop’s lips, deplored that they
had let slip the finest opportunity that had ever been vouchsafed to
mortal men.
[Sidenote: _IN THE STREETS._]
The Regency knew better how to profit by it. George was proclaimed
king. Dr. Owen of Warrington preached a Whig sermon, from 1 Kings xvi.
30, ‘And Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord,
above all that were before him.’ The text was as a club wherewith to
assail the soil of James II. A little later, Bradbury was accused of
having preached from the words, ‘Go, see now this cursed woman, and
bury her; for she is a king’s daughter.’ This was a calumny. Burnet’s
sermon was on Acts xiii. 38-41, and defied objection. In those verses
there was nothing to lay hold of. The most captious spirit could make
little out of even these words, ‘Behold, ye despisers; and wonder and
perish, for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no
wise believe, though a man declare it unto you.’ The Jacobites could
turn it to no purpose.
Queen Anne was dead, George was proclaimed. The fine gentlemen in
coffee and chocolate houses, and the fine ladies who breakfasted at
noon, in bed, read in their respective papers that ‘the late queen’s
bowells were yesterday buryed in Henry the VII.’s Chappel.’ ‘If,’ wrote
Chesterfield to Jouneau, ‘she had lived only three months longer, … she
would have left us, at her death, for king, a bastard who is as great a
fool as she was herself, and who, like her, would have been led by the
nose by a band of rascals.’
[Sidenote: _STEELE’S SATIRE._]
On the other hand, there were men who sincerely mourned the queen’s
death. These men were troubled in their walks by the revels at Charing
Cross. There Young Man’s Coffee-house echoed with sounds of rejoicing.
Some of the revellers had been recipients of the most liberal bounty of
the queen, and did not care to conceal their ecstacy. Men circulated
the good news as they rode in carriages which the queen had purchased
for them. At Young Man’s might be seen an officer sharing in the
unseemly joy, whose laced coat, hat and feather, were bought with the
pay of the sovereign, whose arms were on his gorget. People who had
been raised from the lowest degree of gentlemen to riches and honours,
could not hide their gladness. And now, men read with diverse feeling
a reprint, freshly and opportunely issued, of Steele’s famous letter
in the ‘Reader,’ addressed to that awful metropolitan official, the
Sword-bearer of the City Corporation. The writer reminded the dignitary
that, as the Mayor, Walworth, had despatched the rebel Wat Tyler with
a stroke of his dagger, so ‘is it expected of you,’ said Steele, ‘to
cut off the Pretender with that great sword which you bear with so much
calmness, which is always a sign of courage.’ ‘Let me tell you, Sir,’
adds Steele, with exquisite mock gravity, ‘in the present posture of
affairs I think it seems to be expected of you; and I cannot but advise
you, if he should offer to land here (indeed if he should so much as
come up the river), to take the Water Bailiff with you, and cut off his
head. I would not so much, if I were you, as tell him who I was, till I
had done it. He is outlawed, and I stand to it, if the Water Bailiff is
with you, and concurs, you may do it on the Thames; but, if he offers
to land, it is out of all question, you may do it by virtue of your
post, without waiting for orders. It is from this comfort and support
that, in spite of what all the malcontents in the world can say, I
have no manner of fear of the Pretender.’
[Sidenote: _IN PARLIAMENT._]
There were, however, some who had hopes of that luckless prince,
and who looked upon any other who should take the crown which
they considered to be his, by divine right, as a wicked usurper.
Accordingly, the Nonjuring Jacobites and High Church congregations sang
their hymns, in their respective places of worship, to words which had
a harmless ring, but which were really full of treason. One sample is
as good as twenty,――and here it is!――
Confounded be those rebels all
That to usurpers bow,
And make what Gods and Kings they please,
And worship them below!
On the day the queen died, Parliament met to vote addresses to her
successor. The Jacobite spirit was not entirely extinguished in
either House. In spite of an attempt to obtain an adjournment in the
Upper Chamber, the Lords carried an address, in which they said:
‘With faithful hearts we beseech your Majesty to give us your royal
presence.’ In the Commons, Mr. Secretary Bromley moved an address so
made up of grief expressed for Anne’s death, that Walpole demanded
‘something more substantial;’ and loyal members insisted that
congratulations rather than condolence should abound in the address
from the Commons. To both Houses the king intimated that he was
hastening to satisfy their ‘affectionate urgences.’
[Sidenote: _POLITICAL AMENITIES._]
Meanwhile rival papers watched each other as jealously as adversaries
in churches and the streets. Abel, in the ‘Post Boy,’ happened to say,
‘We patiently await the arrival of the king!’ The ‘Flying Post’ flew at
him immediately. ‘Villain,’ ‘vile wretch,’ and ‘monster,’ were among
the amenities flung at Abel. Here was a ‘fellow’ who dared to say he
‘_patiently_ waited’ for an event for which the ‘faithful Commons’ had
declared they ‘waited _impatiently_.’ In his next number, Abel said
he _meant_ ‘impatiently.’ He was called a liar now, as he had been
traitor before. Others said, ‘Hang this odious beast!――he dares to say
he waits impatiently the arrival of the king! _What king, Bezonian?_ We
guess it is his Bar-le-ducish Majesty!’ Such was the nick-name given to
the Chevalier de St. George, who was then residing at Bar-le-Duc, in
Lorraine.
[Sidenote: _SACHEVEREL: MARLBOROUGH._]
People in streets and taverns next became anxious about the wind. The
Whigs were desirous that it should blow so as to bring the new king
speedily from Holland. If a gentleman in a coffee-house ventured to
remark that ‘it was strange the wind should have turned against his
Majesty just as he had reached the Hague,’ the speaker was set upon
as a Jacobite who took that way to insinuate that God was ruling the
elements in the Tory interest. Swords were whipt out, and he had to
fight, beg pardon, or run for it. In the street if an old basket-woman
lamented that the wind was bad, and a thoughtless porter rejoined that
the wind was well enough, the loyal woman raised a cry which hounded
on a hundred blackguards to hunt the porter down, and beat him to
the very point of death. An indifferent man could not express, in any
circle of hearers, a word or two of respect for Queen Anne without
being accused of disrespect for King George. While Tories bought from
the street-criers the broadsheet ‘Fair and softly, or, don’t drive
Jehu-like,’ the Hanoverian papers called for the imprisonment of the
criers, and confiscation of the broadsheet. The latter, they said,
implied that the established Government was acting fraudulently, and
was likely to upset the State-chariot. ‘Stand fast to the Church; no
Presbyterian Government!’ was the title of another sheet, published
by word of mouth, in the City. Down swooped the constables on the
criers,――audacious fellows, it was said, who dared to insinuate that
the Government was abandoning the Church. Of course, the sight of Dr.
Sacheverel on the causeway was provocative of hostile demonstration.
As he once came from St. Andrew’s Church into Holborn, a Whig, anxious
for a row, shouted, ‘There goes Sacheverel, with a footman at his back.
It ought to be a horsewhip!’ On the other hand, Tories entrapped Whigs
into drinking ‘his Majesty’s health,’――meaning the health of King
James. In a Smithfield tavern a gentleman said to an Essex farmer,
‘I will give you half-a-crown to drink “His Majesty’s health.”’ The
farmer ‘smoked’ the Jacobite speaker, took the money, gave him a couple
of kicks as equivalent to two shillings change, and then walked off,
uttering the slang word ‘_bite!_’ by way of triumph.
[Sidenote: _ON PARADE. FIRST BLOOD._]
There was one individual whose coming was as anxiously looked for
as that of the king; namely, the Duke of Marlborough, who had been
for some time in voluntary exile. England at last was informed that
the duke had condescended to return to this ungrateful nation. On his
arrival in London, after passing triumphantly through provincial towns,
he was addressed by officials, the spokesmen of mounted gentlemen and
of commonalty afoot. He is said, not without some sarcasm in the words,
to have replied to these addresses ‘with that humble and modest air
which is so peculiar to himself.’ At Temple Bar his state carriage
broke down. Tories jeered him as he emerged from it. A humbler sort of
coach was procured, and Whigs saluted him with _huzzas!_ as he entered
it.
Loyal captains were spirited up by the news of the coming of their
old leader. On the parade in the Park, Captain Holland addressed his
company. He congratulated them on having acquired such a king as George
the First after such a sovereign as Queen Anne! The captain swore
that he would sustain the Hanoverian Protestant Succession. ‘If,’ he
added, ‘If there’s any person among you that’s a Roman Catholic, or not
resolved to act on the same principles with me, I desire him to march
out!’
Pretty well the first blood drawn in the growing antagonism of Stuart
and Brunswick was in a coffee-house dispute as to the merits of the
Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Sir Constantine Phipps. A Cornet Custine,
who shared Captain Holland’s opinion, spoke contemptuously of the
Jacobite Chancellor. A Mr. Moore, described as a ‘worthy gentleman’
by the papers with Stuart proclivities, left the room in apparent
displeasure. Custine followed him into the street, compelled him to
defend himself, and ran him through the heart with the energetic
_Hanoverian thrust_. Young Moore died of it, and the Cornet was
imprisoned. ‘We wish Mr. Custine, on this occasion’ (killing a
Jacobite), say some of the papers, ‘all the favour the law can allow
him.’ The alleged grounds for favour were that the duel was fairly
fought, swords having been simultaneously drawn on both sides. At a
later period, Chancellor Phipps was dismissed. He returned to England.
Oxford immediately made him a D.C.L., and, as he resumed practice at
the English Bar, the Jacobites confided to him the conduct of their
cases, and Sir Constantine became the great Tory lawyer of Westminster
Hall.
[Sidenote: _THE ‘PEREGRINE YATCH.’_]
At length news arrived that the king and the prince had left the Hague,
where, in their impatience to reach England, they had tarried eleven
days, and laid all the blame upon the wind. Next, London was a-stir
with the intelligence that the ‘Peregrine Yatch,’ bearing Cæsar and
his fortunes, with a convoy of men of war, was off the buoy at the
Nore. The new sovereign was to land at Greenwich, whither every sort
of vehicle, carrying every sort of persons, now repaired. The loyal
excursionists hoped to have a good view of their new sovereign as he
went processionally through the Park. Pedestrians passed the gates
without difficulty, but not even to the ‘Quality’ indiscriminately was
it given to enter within the enclosure. Carriages bearing friends to
the royal family were turned back full of malcontents, when they did
not carry the great officers of the crown, privy-counsellors, judges,
peers, or peers’ sons. The Duke of Ormond’s splendid equipage drove up
to the palace, but the great Tory duke had to retire without alighting.
The king would not receive him. His Majesty was barely more gracious
to the Earl of Oxford. The ex-Lord Treasurer kissed the king’s hand,
amid a crowd of other homage-payers, but the sovereign took no more
notice of Harley than of the most insignificant unit in that zealous
mob. The other mob outside were discussing the reported changes in the
Administration, when a sovereign homage was rendered to that would-be
sovereign people.
[Sidenote: _THE KING AT GREENWICH._]
‘At Greenwich,’ say the London papers, ‘the king and prince were
pleased to expose themselves some time at the windows of their palace,
to satisfy the impatient curiosity of all loving subjects.’ Among those
who were ready to be so were Scottish chiefs with historical names.
There had been no lack of homage to Queen Anne on the part of Scottish
peers. The Master of Sinclair was a Jacobite, who had been in trouble
in Queen Anne’s time. His neck was in peril, but the queen pardoned
him. His history of the insurrection of ’15, in which he took part, is
severely condemnatory of all the leaders, and especially of Mar. In the
introductory portion of it, the Master sketches in equally censuring
terms the Scottish peers in London, a little before Queen Anne’s death.
◆[Sidenote: _SCOTTISH HOMAGE._]◆ ‘While at London,’ he says, ‘I had
occasion to see the meanness of some of our Scots nobilitie who were
of the sixteen, and who I heard complain grievously of the Treasurer’s
cheating them, because he had gone out of town without letting them
know, or giving them money as he had promised. I was told they wanted a
hundred pound, or some such matter, to pay their debts, and carry them
down to Scotland, and that they used to hang on at his levee like so
many footmen. My God! how concerned I was to see those who pretended
to be of the ancient Scots nobilitie reduced to beg at an English
Court! And some of those, of which number was my Lord Kilsyth, were
they who gave themselves the greatest airs in our affair,――so useful
is impudence to impose on mankind!’――See ‘Memoirs of the Insurrection
in Scotland in 1715,’ by John, Master of Sinclair, published by the
Abbotsford Club, 1858, and reviewed in the ‘Athenæum,’ 31st December,
1859, by the able hand of the late Mr. Dilke.
In reference to the king’s arrival at Greenwich, Mr. Dilke says:
‘Queen Anne’s ministers had taken the chiefs into the direct pay of
Government, at the rate of about 350_l._ a year each. The Highlanders
were then as quiet as Lowlanders, and when King George landed at
Greenwich, an address was ready for him, signed with all the great
names that so soon after figured in the rebellion, by Macdonel of
Glengarrie, Macdonald of the Isles, Mackenzie, Macklean, Macleod,
Cameron of Lochiel, Mackintosh, Macpherson of Cluny, Chisholm, and
others, offering loyal and faithful service to ‘a prince so highly
adorned with all royal virtues, and expressing a hope that his
Majesty’s royal and kindly influence would reach them even in their
distant homes.’ His Majesty was not so advised; his kindly influence,
that is, his money, did not reach them, and these poor people were
driven to follow the standard of a little Mogul like Mar. Mar knew what
would be influential, and in his Proclamation, though he called on them
‘by their faith, honour, allegiance, by their devotion and love, to
join the standard of their king, he wisely concluded with the promise
of a gratuity and regular pay.’
[Sidenote: _CLARET LOYALTY._]
After the king and prince had set out on their journey from Greenwich
to London, the impatient curiosity of all loving subjects in Greenwich
was directed to another object. At eight o’clock precisely they were in
crowds about the _Ship_, calling on the landlord, Thomas Sweetapple,
to make good his promise, namely, that he would broach a hogshead of
the finest French claret behind his house, and give thereof to all true
loyalists, to drink his Majesty’s health. Mine host kept his word; but
the liquor was out long before all true loyalists could taste of it.
The unsatisfied drinkers were made as loyal to the Establishment as to
the throne. One zealous Whig exclaimed, in proof of his zeal for the
Protestant succession, ‘It’s true I never go to church, but d――n me if
I don’t always stand up for her!’
[Sidenote: _THE ARTILLERY COMPANY._]
For the royal entry into and through London every preparation had
been made. Occasionally little difficulties presented themselves.
For example, Captain Silk, whose office and principles may be guessed
by his being described as ‘Muster Master, with others of his kidney,’
ventured to assert that the London Artillery Company had no right
to appear officially at the royal passage through the City. The
cannoneers, descendants of primitive heroic Cockneys, appealed to the
proper authorities, and the appeal was allowed. Further, the Artillery
Company had their little revenge. Captain Silk was prevented from even
seeing the spectacle. The warlike company charged him with having drunk
the health of the pretended James III. on his knees, while the song
was sung of ‘The king shall have his own again!’ The captain was laid
by the heels, and the artillery of London rejoiced at it. But ‘Captain
Silk’s Jacobite Militia tune’ became a favourite with Tory musicians.
Among the advertisements which offered places to spectators along
the whole line, from Greenwich to St. James’s, there was one which
announced that ‘several senior gentlemen, with their own gray hairs,’
had resolved to ride before the king ‘in white camblet cloaks, on white
horses.’ They advertised for volunteers, old and gray enough, who were
assured that they ‘would be led up in the procession by persons of
eminence and figure.’ It was subsequently reported that these ‘senior
gentlemen, in their own gray hairs,’ applied too late to the Earl
Marshal to have a place appointed for them in the procession, but that
they would have seats in a gallery of their own at the east end of St.
Paul’s. They would be presented, it was said, with lovely nosegays, to
revive their spirits and refresh their memories, ‘which will be a fine
orange stuck round with laurel――the former to put them in mind of the
happy Revolution; the latter, of the glorious victories gained under
the Duke of Marlborough in the late wars.’ The above is a specimen of
the mild political wit of the day. Curious eyes looked at the gallery
at the east end of St. Paul’s. They saw nothing of the seniors and
their emblems, but others swore they were there, nevertheless, or
why was the heroic Marlborough factiously hissed as he passed? At
other points, the Church and King party had their revenge. The king
and prince in their state coach might have been excused for wearing
an air of surprise at the unusual huzzaing and clapping of hands of
the gentlemen, and the ecstacy of the ladies in the balconies of the
Three Tuns and Rummer tavern in the City. The applause was not for
Great Brunswick but for the Earl of Sutherland. The people in the
balcony remembered that in King William’s days, Lord Sutherland had
been insulted in that very tavern. He had drunk King William’s health
on his birthday, and the Jacobites present flourished their swords and
vapoured about the Earl as if they would slay him and all Protestantism
with him.
[Sidenote: _THE ROYAL ENTRY._]
The stately line――and it was a right pompous affair――was a little
cumbrous, but it was well kept together, from the kettle-drums and
trumpeters, followed by hosts of officials, troops, coaches, &c., to
the dragoons who snatched a drink from the people, as they brought up
the rear. Perhaps the road about the east end of Pall Mall was the most
joyous; for there the balconies and galleries were filled with people
who had something to satisfy besides curiosity or loyalty, and who
had been attracted thither by the promise that all the fronts of the
balconies and galleries should have ‘broad flat tops large enough to
hold plates and bottles.’ The spectators there were primed to any pitch
of loyalty as his Majesty passed.
[Sidenote: _THE PLAYERS’ HOMAGE._]
At night, the stage paid its first homage to the new sovereign.
Graceful Wilks spoke an ‘occasional prologue’ at the theatre in Drury
Lane; and loyal and dramatic people bought it in the house or at Jacob
Tonson’s over against Catherine Street, Strand, for twopence. But while
Wilks was loyal, he had an Irish Roman Catholic servant, who was so
outspokenly Jacobite, that the player discharged him, lest evil might
follow to himself. The fellow, however, had what the French call ‘the
courage of his opinions,’ but not the discretion which many had who
shared them. He went down to the colour-yard at St. James’s, drew his
sword upon the flag, abused the new king, gave a tipsy hurrah for
his ‘lawful sovereign,’ and knew little more till he found himself
next morning aroused from the straw to answer a charge of treason. He
pleaded ‘liquor,’ and was allowed the benefit of his hard-drinking.
[Sidenote: _THE AFFAIRS OF SCOTLAND._]
The press at this moment burst into unusual activity. There was
especially great activity in and about the Black Boy, in Paternoster
Row. It was from under that well-known literary emblem that Baker, the
publisher, issued the popular edition of a work that all the world
was soon reading, for exactly opposite reasons. Baker had, somehow,
got possession of the Jacobite Lockhart’s manuscript of his ‘Memoirs
concerning the Affairs of Scotland, from Queen Anne’s Accession to
the Throne to the commencement of the Union of the two kingdoms of
Scotland and England, in May, 1707. With an Account of the Origin and
Progress of the designed Invasion from France, in March, 1708. And some
Reflections on the Ancient State of Scotland.’ On the same title-page,
notice was made of ‘an Introduction, showing the reason for publishing
these Memoirs at this juncture.’
These Memoirs treat with immense severity all the leading Whig noblemen
and gentlemen of Scotland. The book was therefore read with avidity, by
the Tories, or Jacobites. But many Tories who had rallied from the Whig
or Hanoverian side were handled quite as roughly, to the great delight
of their former colleagues, and to a certain satisfaction on the part
of present confederates. The volume showed both Whigs and Tories where
their enemies were to be found, and it was accordingly read by both
to the same end. But, it also recognised no other king than James the
Third of England, and Eighth of Scotland, and, therefore, crafty Baker
had an introduction written for the Whig party; that is to say, it
warned all loyal people to put no trust now in men who had pretended
to reconcile a sham fidelity to Queen Anne with a real one to her
brother; men who, in 1708, had hoped to set aside the Protestant
succession. ‘And if,’ says the last paragraph of the Introduction, ‘a
rebellion of that _Black Dye_ was carried on against a Queen of the
greatest Indulgence to their Follies, and who was wickedly represented
by them as having concealed Inclinations to serve their Interest, and
keep the Crown in trust for their King, what Rancour, what Hellish
Malice, may not King George expect from a Faction who put their Country
in a Flame to oppose his Succession, and were reducing it to a Heap of
Ruins to prevent his being Sovereign of the Soil!’
[Sidenote: _A ROYAL PROCLAMATION._]
One of King George’s first acts was to issue a proclamation against the
‘Pretender,’ in which the reward of 100,000_l._ was promised to any
person who should apprehend him, if he attempted to land in the British
dominions.
[Illustration: Leaves]
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
CHAPTER II.
(1714.)
[Illustration: Drop-T]he king’s proclamation against the Pretender,
in which 100,000_l._ was offered for the capturing him alive, caused
angry discussion in the Commons. Pulteney said, in his lofty way, that
if the Pretender did not come over, the money would be saved; and, if
he did, the sum would be well laid out in the catching of him! Campion
and Shippen denounced the outlay, and Sir William Wyndham, casting
blame on the king’s words, was called upon to assign a reason for his
censure. Wyndham would not condescend to explain. By a vote of 208 to
129 he was subjected to be reprimanded by the Speaker. The minority
withdrew from the House, and when the Speaker reproved the Jacobite
member, and extolled his own lenity in the words and spirit of the
reproof, Wyndham would neither admit the justice of the censure, nor
acknowledge any obligation to him who administered it.
[Sidenote: _CARTE, THE JACOBITE._]
‘What will King Lewis do for the Chevalier?’ was the next query of the
Londoners. The King of France and Navarre soon showed his
indisposition to do anything for the substantial good of the Stuarts.
Quidnuncs in the Cheapside taverns made light of ‘your James III.’
They advised him to learn to get his bread by tile-making, by cutting
corns, by selling Geneva, or by turning horse-doctor. They cocked
their hats as they swaggered home on the causeway, but the low
whistling of a Jacobite air, by some hopeful person on the opposite
side of the street, showed them that the White Rose was not so
withered as they thought it to be. Men’s minds were anxious as to
coming struggles, though the Hanoverians affected much, and
well-founded, confidence. Little else was thought of. The newspapers
seemed to wake up from absorbing contemplation when they announced, as
if they scarcely had time for the doing of it, that ‘about a fortnight
ago died Mr. William Pen, the famous Quaker.’ One man, at least, as
grave as Pen, stooped to make a joke, in order to show his principles.
He walked abroad in a lay habit, but there were many people who passed
by, or met him in the street, who very well knew Mr. Carte, the
ex-reader of the Abbey Church, at Bath. He had avoided taking the
oaths which were supposed to secure the allegiance of the swearer to
the Hanoverian king. Mr. Carte, happening to be overtaken in the
streets by a shower of rain, was accosted by a coachman with the cry
of ‘Coach, your reverence?’ ‘No, honest friend,’ replied the nonjuring
parson, ‘this is no _reign_ for me to take a coach in!’ Smaller jokes
cost some men their lives. A nod or a shrug was a perilous luxury. At
the first court held at St. James’s, Colonel Chudleigh, a zealous
Whig, marked some jocular vivacity on the part of Mr. Aldworth, M.P.
for New Windsor. The Colonel took it in an offensive light, and when
exchange of words had heated him, he cast the most offensive epithet
he could think of at Aldworth, by calling him ‘Jacobite!’ Almost at
the foot of the king’s throne, it was nearly equivalent to calling
Aldworth ‘Liar!’ The two disputants descended the stairs, entered a
coach together, and drove to Mary-le-Bone fields. In a few minutes
after the two angry men had alighted, the Colonel stretched Aldworth
dead upon the grass, and returned alone to the levee. This was the
second bloodshed in the old Jacobite and Hanoverian quarrel.
[Sidenote: _AN OLD AND NEW LORD CHANCELLOR._]
Shortly after this duel, Lord Townshend was seen to enter Lord
Chancellor Harcourt’s house, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, from which he
soon after issued, carrying with him the Purse and Great Seal. These
symbols of power he had obtained by warrant signed by the king’s
hand. On his way from Lord Harcourt’s house to the palace, Townshend
left word with Lord Cowper to wait on the king at St. James’s at one
o’clock,――and men who saw my Lord on his way made, probably, as shrewd
guess as himself as to the result of his visit.
The king received him in the closet. Cowper’s acute eye recognised the
Purse and Seal lying in the window. His Majesty, in a few words in
French, shortly committed them to his keeping, ‘having,’ says Cowper
in his Diary, ‘been well satisfied with the character he had heard of
me.’ Cowper replied in English, saying, among things less noteworthy,
‘that he had surrendered the Great Seal to the late Queen, believing
she was going into measures which would raise France again, and ruin
the common cause.’
After the new Chancellor had taken his leave, the following little
dramatic scene occurred. ‘The Prince was in the outer room,’ says
Cowper, ‘and made me a very handsome and hearty compliment both in
French and English, and entered very kindly into talk with me. Among
other things, speaking of the Princess’s coming, I wished she was
here while the weather was good, lest she should be in danger in her
passage; he said Providence had hitherto so wonderfully prospered his
family’s succeeding to the Crown in every respect, by some instances,
that he hoped it would perfect it, and believed they should prosper in
every circumstance that remained.’
[Sidenote: _PREPARATIONS FOR THE CORONATION._]
The next circumstance was the spectacle of the coronation, which soon
followed that of the public entry. Among the advertisements offering
accommodation to see the show, there was one of a house, near the
Abbey, ‘with an excellent prospect, and also with a back door out of
Thieving Lane into the house. There will be a good fire,’ it is added,
‘and a person to attend with all manner of conveniences.’ Meanwhile,
Mr. Noble’s shop in the New Exchange, Strand, was beset by ladies, or
their servants, eager to buy the Coronation favour with the Union Arms,
which had been sanctioned by the Earl Marshal, who had also (it is to
be hoped, with reluctance) approved of the poetical motto without
which the favour was not to be sold:
King George, our Defender
From Pope and Pretender.
――There was a great pinning of them on as breast knots and shoulder
knots, and a good deal of gallantry and flirtation went on between
young ladies and gentlemen helping to adorn each other.
[Sidenote: _THE SCENE IN THE ABBEY._]
The ceremony was of the usual sort. King George was crowned King of
France, as well as of Great Britain and Ireland. In proof of his right,
‘two persons, representing the Dukes of Aquitaine and Normandy,’
consorted with peers of more sterling coinage. These ‘persons’ were, on
this occasion, a couple of players. They wore crimson velvet mantles,
lined with white sarcenet, furred with miniver, and powdered with
ermine. Each of them held in his hand a ‘cap of cloth of gold, also
furred and powdered with ermine.’ They did homage to the king, as the
English peers did, and when these put on their coronets in the royal
presence, the sham Dukes clapped their caps jauntily on their heads.
This part of the spectacle was the only part that afforded merriment
to the Jacobite nobility, all of whom were present, from Bolingbroke,
with his three bows bringing his head to the ground, to James II.’s old
mistress, the Countess of Dorchester, who made saucy remarks on all
that passed.
[Sidenote: _WHIGS AND JACOBITES._]
The Whig Lady Cowper says in her Memoirs that the Jacobites looked as
cheerful as they could, but were very peevish with every one that spoke
to them. There was no remedy for them, remarks my Lady in her Diary,
but patience. ‘So everybody was pleased, or pretended to be so.’ Lady
Dorchester is an exception to the rule. When Archbishop Tenison went
round the throne, formally asking the consent of the people at large
to the making of the new king, the lively Jacobite countess remarked
to Lady Cowper, ‘Does the old fool think anybody here will say _no!_
to him, when there are so many drawn swords?’ The will was there, but
the expression of it was kept down. Lady Dorchester was not the only
saucily-disposed lady present. The Tory Lady Nottingham rudely shoved
the ex-Tory Lady Cowper from her place. The latter found refuge on the
pulpit stairs. ‘Her ill-breeding,’ says Lady Cowper, in her Diary,
‘got me the best place in the Abbey, for I saw all the ceremony,
which few besides did. The lords that were over against me, seeing
me thus mounted, said to my lord that they hoped I would preach. To
which, my lord laughing, answered, he believed that I had zeal enough
for it, but that he did not know I could preach.’ To which my Lord
Nottingham answered, ‘Oh, my lord, indeed you must pardon me, she can
and has preached for the last four years such doctrines as, had she
been prosecuted in any court for them, your lordship yourself could
not defend!’ After this little passage, when the scene was changed
to Westminster Hall, the usual challenge was fruitlessly made by the
hereditary champion. The banquet was held and came to an end. The king
and guests departed. The weary waiting-men took _their_ refreshment,
and when they came to collect the ‘properties’ of the scene――plate,
knives, forks, viands, table cloths――nearly all had disappeared. Great
outcry arose, and the rogues were commanded in advertisements to make
restitution, or dreadful penalty was to follow; but they seem to have
kept all they took that day, and to have escaped detection.
[Sidenote: _TORY MOBS._]
The day did not pass off decorously in the streets. Some unwelcome
cries reached the king’s ears as he walked along the platform between
the Abbey and the Hall. At night, Tory mobs, on pretence that the
Whigs, by the motto on their ‘favours,’ showed a disposition to
‘burn the Pope and the Pretender, with Dr. Sacheverel to boot,’ lit
up bonfires, danced round them to rebel airs, and while some of the
celebrants shouted for Sacheverel, others uttered blasphemy and
ill-wishes against King George. In country places, similar incidents
occurred; but messengers were despatched thither, and they soon
returned, bringing the worst of the offenders with them through London
to its various prisons. York, Norwich, and Bedford; Reading, Taunton,
Bristol, and Worcester, yielded the greatest number of seditious
rioters. A boy, twelve years of age, was brought up as leader of the
Taunton mob! The most notable person bagged by the messengers was
Alderman Perks of Worcester. The Jacobites in London witnessed his
passage to Newgate with manifestations that showed they looked on him
as a martyr. On the other hand, the Irish Protestants in London made
a manifestation in favour of Church and Government. In commemoration
of the delivery of their fathers from the massacre in Ireland of so
many of their contemporaries, in October 1641, by the Papists, these
Whig loyalists marched in procession at 10 A.M. to St. Dunstan’s, where
they heard a sermon from Dr. Storey, Dean of Limerick. At noon, they
again marched in procession to the Old King’s Head, Holborn, where they
dined, drank, and cheerfully celebrated the massacre in which so many
innocent persons had perished.
[Sidenote: _THE ROYAL FAMILY IN THE PARK._]
Serious as the times were, the king and royal family manifested no
fear. They were unostentatiously brave. The most bitter Tory could
not but admire them, walking round St. James’s Park, in a November
afternoon, almost unattended; not guarded at all. This too was at
the time when the Attorney-General was ‘prosecuting authors,’ as
the journals have it, ‘for reflecting expressions in their writings
against the king.’ The Government were at that very moment complaining
of seditious meetings being held, by the encouragement of some whose
duty it was to suppress them; meetings which were accompanied by
rioting, and often followed by murder or attempts at such crime.
It was a time when almost all the lords in office are said to have
received the Pretender’s ‘Declaration’ and his other manifestoes by
‘foreign post’ or the ambassadors’ bags. In November 1714, a pamphlet
was published with this significant title: ‘The sentiments of our
Forefathers relative to Succession to the Crown, Hereditary Right, and
Non-Resistance. Dedicated to all those who prefer Hereditary Right
to a Parliamentary one, notwithstanding the latter is likely to take
place. By a Lover of Right.’ ◆[Sidenote: _SEDITIOUS PAMPHLETS._]◆
Every night were significant works like this, and even more scandalous
pamphlets, cried through the streets. As yet, however, no vindictive
measures were adopted. It was thought politic to give the Tories good
words, but not to put any trust in them. Their audacity sometimes
challenged prosecution. Mr. Pottes was arrested for a ‘provoking’
pamphlet: ‘Reasons for Declaring a War against France;’ and messengers
were busy in looking after the author of a ‘Test offered to the
Consideration of Electors of Great Britain, which at one view discovers
those Members of Parliament, who were for or against the Hanoverian
Succession.’ A thousand pounds was the sum offered to anyone who could
and would discover the author of the ‘Test,’ and half that sum was
offered for the discovery of the printer. The Government dreaded the
effects of these writings on the elections to the first new parliament
under King George. When the matter was happily over, the ‘squibs’ did
not die out. The Whigs, to show how Tories had triumphed, published
a (supposed) list of expenses of a Tory election in the West. Among
the numerous items were: ‘For roarers of the word, _Church!_ 40_l._’
‘For several gallons of Tory Punch drank on the tombstones, 30_l._’
‘For Dissenter Damners, 40_l._’ The Tory journal writers laughed, and
expressed a hope that at the forthcoming anniversary of the birthday of
glorious Queen Anne, there would be more enthusiastic jollity than on
the natal anniversaries of Queen Elizabeth and King William, which were
still annually kept. The public were requested to remember that Anne as
much excelled every English sovereign since Elizabeth, as Elizabeth had
excelled every one before her. Whigs looked at one another in taverns
and asked, ‘Does the fellow mean that Brandy Nan was better than King
George?’
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE CLUBS._]
In the Tory pamphlet, ‘Hannibal not at our gates,’ the writer sought
to persuade the people that there was no danger a-foot. In the Whig
pamphlet ‘Hannibal at our gates, or the progress of Jacobitism, with
the present danger of the Pretender,’ &c., Londoners were especially
warned of the reality of the peril. The Jacobite clubs, it was said,
had ceased to toast the Jacobite king, or ‘impostor,’ under feigned
names. They were described as ‘so many publick training schools where
the youth of the nation were disciplined into an opinion of the justice
of his title,’ and into various other opinions which were strongly
denounced. The writer has an especial grievance in the fact that an
honest Englishman cannot show respect to King William by keeping his
birthday, without running the chance of being in the Counter as a
rioter, if he only happens to fall into the hands of a Tory magistrate.
Respect for princes, according to this Whig, is a courteous duty, and,
forthwith, he speaks of the Chevalier as a ‘notorious bastard,’ and
of his mother, Mary of Modena, as a ‘woman of a bloody and revengeful
temper.’
[Sidenote: _ROYALTIES._]
Rash deeds followed harsh words. Among the persons assaulted in the
streets, on political grounds, was the Duke of Richmond, who was
roughly treated one dark night. Such an attack on a Duke who was an
illegitimate son of the Stuart King Charles II., by a Popish mistress,
Louise de Querouaille, was taken by the Government as a certain
evidence of a perhaps too exuberant loyalty. Nevertheless, the king
continued to go about without fear. He drove almost unattended to dine
or sup with various gentlemen and noblemen. We hear that ‘His Majesty
honoured Sir Henry St. John, father of Viscount Bolingbroke, with
his royal presence at dinner.’ The king thus sat at table with a man
whose son he would unreluctantly have hanged! As for the Prince and
Princess of Wales, they were as often at the play in times of personal
danger, as princes and princesses are in times of no peril whatever.
Perhaps they trusted a little in the proclamation against Papists and
Nonjurors, whereby the former were disarmed, and were (or could be)
confined to their houses, or be kept to a limit within five miles
of their residences. The oath of allegiance was to be taken by all
disaffected persons, and among the drollest street scenes of the day
was that of some Dogberry stopping a man on the causeway and testing
his loyalty by putting him on his affidavit!
[Sidenote: _AT ST. JAMES’S._]
There was zeal enough and to spare among the clergy of all parties.
Not very long after the Princess of Wales was established at St.
James’s, Robinson, bishop of London, sent in a message to her by Mrs.
Howard, to the effect that, being Dean of the Chapel, he thought it
his duty to offer to satisfy any doubts or scruples the Princess might
entertain with respect to the Protestant religion, and to explain
what she might not yet understand. The Princess was naturally ‘a
little nettled.’――‘Send him away civilly,’ she said, ‘though he is
very impertinent to suppose that I, who refused to be Empress for the
Protestant religion, do not understand it fully.’ The Bishop thought
that the august lady did not understand it at all, for the Princess had
declared among her ladies ‘Dr. Clarke shall be one of my favourites.
His writings are the finest things in the world.’ Now Dr. Clarke was
looked upon as a heretic by Robinson, for Clarke was not a Trinitarian
according to the creed so-called of Athanasius. Lady Nottingham, High
Church to the tips of her fingers, denounced the Doctor as a heretic.
Lady Cowper gently asked her to quote any heretical passage from Dr.
Clarke’s books. Clarke’s books! The lady declared she never had and
never would look into them. Cowper mildly rebuked her. Cowper’s royal
mistress laughed, and the ‘Duchess of St. Alban’s,’ says Lady Cowper,
‘put on the Princess’s shift, according to Court Rules, when I was by,
she being Groom of the Stole.’
[Sidenote: _ELECTIONEERING TACTICS._]
The first election of Members of Parliament which was about to take
place excited the liveliest and most serious interest throughout the
kingdom, but especially in London. Mighty consequences depended on
the returns. To influence these, Popping issued from under his sign
of the _Black Raven_, in Paternoster Row, a pamphlet entitled, ‘Black
and White Lists of all Gentlemen who voted in Person, for or against
the Protestant Religion, the Hanoverian Succession, the Trade and
the Liberties of our Country, from the Glorious Revolution to the
Happy Accession of King George.’ These lists, like others previously
published, were as useful to the Jacobites as to the Hanoverians, and
perhaps were intended to be so. A phrase in the Preface, which seems
thorough Whig, was understood in every Jacobite coffee-house. ‘French
Bankers, Friends of the Faction, are continually negotiating great Sums
for Bills of Exchange upon London,――to support the Pretender’s party,
and bribe Voters.’ The various questions to which these division lists
refer are very numerous. Among them may be noted the names of those who
voted for or against the Crown being given to the Prince of Orange,――of
members who, in 1706, voted for tacking the Bill for preventing
occasional Conformity, to a Money Bill, to secure its passing in the
House of Lords; finally,――of those members ‘who are not numbered among
Tackers or Sneakers.’ On the other hand, a decidedly Tory pamphlet
was circulated, in which the Londoners, and, through them, Englishmen
generally, were implored not to vote for men who wanted war, whatever
might be the motive. It bids each elector bless the present peace,
‘while his sons are not pressed into the war nor his daughters made the
followers of camps.’ This was bringing the subject thoroughly home to
the bosoms of the Athenians.
[Sidenote: _ROYAL CHAPLAINS._]
There were people who were to be more easily got at than the
pamphleteers. Dr. Bramston, for a sermon preached in the Temple Church,
was struck out of the list of Royal Chaplains. He published the
discourse, for his justification. The most rabid Whig in the kingdom
could find no hostility in it, nor the most rabid Tory any support. The
Court found offence enough. Dr. Bramston and his fellow chaplains, who
had read prayers to Queen Anne,――Dr. Browne, Dr. Brady, the Rev. Mr.
Reeves of Reading, and the Rev. Mr. Whitfield, were informed that they
were not only struck out of the list of her late Majesty’s chaplains,
but that ‘they would not be continued when his Majesty is pleased to
make a new choice.’ Compassion is not aroused for Dr. Brady, he being
half of that compound author Tate and Brady, of whom many persons have
had such unpleasant experience on recurring Sundays at church. Tate
helped Brady to ‘improve’ the Psalms, after the fashion in which he had
‘improved’ Shakespeare; and it is hard to say which king suffered most
at his hands――King Lear or King David!
On the other hand, the feeling on the Jacobite side very much
resembled that which is recorded in the ‘Memoirs of P. P., clerk of
this Parish,’――in which parish, Jenkins, the farrier, ‘never shoed
a horse of a Whig or fanatic, but he lamed him sorely.’ Turner, the
collar-maker, was held to have been honoured by being clapt in the
stocks for wearing an oaken bough on the 29th of May;――Pilcocks, the
exciseman, was valued for the laudable freedom of speech which had
lost him his office;――and White, the wheelwright, was accounted of good
descent, his uncle having formerly been servitor at Maudlin College,
where the glorious Sacheverel was educated!
[Sidenote: _THE CHEVALIER IN LONDON._]
At a somewhat later period, a pamphlet was published, in which the
Chevalier de St. George is introduced, saying:――‘Old _Lewis_ assur’d
me he would never desert my Interest, and he kept his _Bona fide_ till
he was drub’d into the humble Condition of su’ing for Peace, and I was
seemingly to be sacrificed to the Resentment of my Enemies; but our
_dear Sister_ and the _Tories_ concerted privately to elude the force
of the Treaty, and kept me at Bar-le-Duc, from whence I made a Trip
to Somerset House, but was soon Frighten’d away again by the sound of
a Proclamation, at which Sir Patrick and I scour’d off. Soon after,
dear Sister departed this mortal Life, but the Schemes being yet not
entirely finish’d, and my good Friends not having the Spirit of Greece,
_Hanover_ whipt over before me.’ This passage will recall an incident
in Mr. Thackeray’s ‘Esmond.’
[Illustration: Design]
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
CHAPTER III.
(1715.)
[Illustration: Drop-T]he second homage paid by the stage to the royal
family was, in 1715, rendered in person by Tom Durfey. Tom had been
occasionally a thorough Tory. Charles II. had leant on his shoulder.
Great Nassau, nevertheless, enjoyed his singing. Queen Anne laughed
loudly at his songs in ridicule of the Electress Sophia; and yet here
was the Electress’s son, George I., allowing the Heir Apparent to be
present at Tom’s benefit. This took place on January 3rd, 1715. On
this occasion, Tom turned thorough Whig. After the play, he delivered
an extraordinary speech to the audience on the blessings of the new
system, the condition and merits of the royal family, and on the state
of the nation as regarded foreign and domestic relations! At the other
play-house, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, a piece was acted called the
‘Cobler of Preston,’ in which _Kit Sly_ and his story were ‘lifted’
from the ‘Taming of the Shrew.’ _Kit_ was played by Pinkethman. When
he said, ‘Are you sure now that I’m your natural Lord and Master? I
am devilishly afraid I am but a _Pretender_!’――the Whigs clapped till
their hands were sore, and the Tories ‘pished’ at the poorness of the
joke.
[Sidenote: _AT THE PLAY._]
If more taste had been shown in those who catered for the royal family
when they went to the play, it would have been as well. At an evening
drawing room, in February, the Duchess of Roxburgh, hearing that the
Princess of Wales was going to Drury Lane the following day, told the
Countess of Lippe and Buckinberg that the play which was to be acted
on that occasion ‘was such a one as nobody could see with a good
reputation.’ ‘It was “The Wanton Wife,”’ says the Countess Cowper in
her Diary, and the Princess’s irreproachable lady-in-waiting adds of
Betterton’s play, which is better known by its second title, ‘The
Amorous Widow,’――‘I had seen it once, and I believe there are few in
town who had seen it so seldom; for it used to be a favourite play, and
often bespoke by the ladies. I told this to the Princess, who resolved
to venture going, upon my character of it.’ The result is admirably
illustrative of the morals of the time.――‘Went to the play with my
mistress; and to my great satisfaction she liked it as well as any play
she had seen; and it certainly is not more obscene than all comedies
are.’ ‘It were to be wished,’ adds the lady, ‘our stage was chaster,
and I cannot but hope, now it is under Mr. Steele’s direction, that it
will mend.’
[Sidenote: _FLIGHT OF ORMOND._]
While Princesses and their ladies were amusing themselves in this way,
the public found amusement in watching the Duke of Shrewsbury, who was
to be seen looking, half the day long, through his windows into the
street. They knew therefrom that he had been turned out of his Lord
Chamberlainship. Whigs who rejoiced at this disgrace were almost as
glad at seeing the Earl of Cardigan leisurely riding down Piccadilly.
He had nothing more to do, they said, with the Buckhounds. It was
reported in the coffee-houses that Dean Swift had been arrested. This
was not correct. It was quite true, however, that Lord Oxford was not
only in the Tower, but was kept in closer restraint than ever. While
Tories were buying Ormond’s portrait, ‘engraved by Grebelin,’ for 1_s._
6_d._, as the portrait of a leader who had not fled, and was not under
ward in the Tower, there was one morning partly a cry, partly a whisper
running through the town,――‘Ormond’s away!’ It was time. Secretary
Stanhope had impeached him and other, but less noble, peers, of High
Treason; and the tender-hearted Whig, Sir Joseph Jekyll, had said in
the Commons, ‘If there is room for mercy, he hoped it would be shown to
the noble Duke.’ When the warrant reached Richmond, the nest was warm
but the bird had flown.
On Sundays, the general excitement nowhere abated. At church, political
rather than religious spirit rendered congregations attentive. They
listened with all their ears to a clergyman, when he referred to
the king’s supremacy in ecclesiastical affairs, and when he had to
enumerate the royal titles in the prayer before the sermon. If he
omitted to note the supremacy, and the congregation were Whiggish,
there was a loyal murmur of disapproval. If he happened to speak of
his Majesty, not as ‘King by the Grace of God,’ but as ‘King by Divine
Permission,’ the more sensitive loyalists would make a stir, withdraw
from the church; and certain of the papers would be full of a holy
horror at such proceedings on the part of the minister.
[Sidenote: _SACHEVEREL._]
In the sermon preached at St. Andrew’s, on the 20th of January――the
Thanksgiving day for the accession of George I.――Sacheverel (while
the king was being almost deified at St. Paul’s) reflected severely
on the Government, and obliquely on the king himself and his family.
Court, city, and army were alike charged with degrading vices. With
still greater boldness did he attack the ministry for appointing
as a Thanksgiving time the anniversary of the day on which Charles
I. was brought to trial. Finally, Sacheverel denounced the Crown’s
interference with the clergy. They who advised that course, he said,
might any day counsel the king to commit acts hostile to both Law and
Gospel. During the delivery of this political harangue, the Doctor’s
friends were disturbed by an individual who took notes of the sermon.
They said ‘it was more criminal to steal the Doctor’s words out of his
mouth in the church than to pick a man’s pocket in the market, or to
rob him on the highway.’ This sermon, which fired London, seems now
to be but a poor thing. The text was from Matthew xxiii. 24-26. The
discourse affirmed that national sins brought national punishment,
especially ‘_the sin of that day_,’ which, it was inferred, had for its
penalty――the present sad condition of England. The Jacobite spirit
manifested itself most sharply in a passage referring to the regicides
‘who were concerned in the bloody actions of that bloody tragedy of
that glorious martyr, King Charles the First, who was next of all to
the Son of God himself.’ After murdering the king, the greatest sin,
said Sacheverel, was to usurp the place of the heir. Every hearer
felt that George I. was here hinted at as the usurper of the seat
which by right belonged to James III. The putting to death of Charles,
Sacheverel declared to be ‘the greatest sin that ever was.’ The
‘rebellion of the creature against the Sovereign’ was censured almost
as heavily. The censure appeared to point against those who dethroned
James II., but every hearer felt that it was directed against those who
kept the throne――against James II.’s son and heir.
[Sidenote: _POLITICS IN THE PULPIT._]
When the discourse was ended, the congregation fell upon the
note-taker. They demanded his papers, and were not enlightened by his
exclamation:――‘Ah! you’ve spoilt my design!’ Each party took him for
an adversary, and the man would have been murdered had not Sacheverel
ordered his clerk and servant to go to his rescue. When it was
discovered that the victim was ‘one Mologni (_sic_), an Irish Papist,’
the Whigs were probably sorry that they had not rolled him in the
gutter that then ran down the centre of Holborn Hill.
[Sidenote: _CALUMNY AGAINST SACHEVEREL._]
Every possible (and impossible) sin was charged upon Sacheverel for
this sermon, especially by the notorious bookseller and pamphleteer,
John Dunton. This worthy ally of Hanover, in his ‘Bungay, or the
false brother proved his own executioner,’ which was circulating
in London, immediately after the sermon of January 20th, roundly
accused Sacheverel of being ‘a man of the bottle that can sit up whole
nights drinking until High Church is drunk down, and laid low or flat
under the table, as you were at Sir J. N――――rs in Oxfordshire, which
occasioned that sarcasm, _There lies the pillar of our Church_.’
Sacheverel was accused of being guilty of the most profligate
gallantry. His own clerk, it was said, had to rouse him up from cards,
on a Sunday, when service time was at hand! and as for blasphemy,
Sacheverel, it was affirmed, could never make reference to Dissenters
without damning them for Hanoverians, and consigning them to their
master, the Devil! The list of crimes would have been incomplete if it
had not closed with the assertion that Sacheverel was at heart really
an Atheist!
Tavern Whigs waxed religiously wrathful against Sacheverel. One Dunne,
in a Southwark tavern, after roaring over his drink against the Tory
parson, reeled forth on a dark and stormy night, and happened to come
on a funeral by torch-light, on its way to St. Saviour’s. A clergyman
walked with it, as was then the custom. ‘D―――― me!’ exclaimed Dunne,
‘here’s the Doctor of Divinity! I’ll have a bout with him.’ The
clergyman was not Dr. Sacheverel, but his curate, Mr. Pocock. It was
all one to Dunne, who assaulted the curate, pulled off his hat, tore
off his peruke, and finally knocked him down. Dunne was conveyed
away by the watch. The Tory ‘Post Boy’ was sarcastic on the incident,
‘The clergy,’ it said, ‘within the bills of mortality, who are about
six feet high and wear black wigs, are desired to meet at Child’s
coffee-house, St. Paul’s Churchyard, next Thursday, in order to
consider proper methods to distinguish themselves from Dr. Sacheverel,
that they may not be murthered by way of proxy instead of the said
Doctor.’ The other side remarked, that there would be no safety for
tall men with flaxen wigs till Sacheverel was hanged out of the way.
[Sidenote: _DANGER IN THE DISTANCE._]
On similar occasions in London there were similar manifestations in
an opposite sense. ‘On the eve of the Pretender’s birthday (10th of
June), they make great boasts of what they will do to-morrow,’ said the
Whig papers, ‘which, they say, is the anniversary of his birth. But it
is believed that the High Church wardens, who pretend a right to the
bells, will not be very fond of hanging in the ropes. A serenade of
warming pans will be more suitable for the occasion, and brickbats may
serve instead of clappers for a brickmaking brat.’
[Sidenote: _FLIGHT OF BOLINGBROKE._]
In March, London had been called from personal to national
considerations. There was a phrase in the king’s speech, on opening
Parliament in this month, which sounded like a trumpet-call to
battle. ‘The Pretender,’ said the Prince who had leapt into his
place, ‘who still resides in Lorraine, threatens to disturb us, and
boasts of the assistance he still expects here, to repair his former
disappointments.’ The national prosperity was said to be obstructed
by his pretensions and intrigues. In reply to this, the faithful
Parliament expressed all becoming indignation; and Jacobites who felt
unsafe in London began to take measures for securing a refuge. On the
18th of March, or as some reports say, the 5th of April, a nobleman
seemed to court notice at Drury Lane Theatre. He was now with one
friend, now with another, among the audience. He was quite as much
among the actors, having a word with Booth (who had experienced his
liberality on the night that ‘Cato’ was first played) anon, gossiping
smartly with Wilks, and exchanging merry passages of speech with
delicious Mrs. Oldfield. All who saw him felt persuaded that the
Viscount Bolingbroke had reason to be above all fear, or he would not
have been there, and in such bright humour, too. Bolingbroke ordered a
play for the next night, left the house, and half an hour after, having
darkened his eyebrows, clapped on a black wig, and otherwise disguised
himself, was posting down to Dover under the name of La Vigne, without
a servant, but having a Frenchman with him who acted as courier. The
fugitive reached Dover at six in the morning, but he was detained by
tempestuous weather till two, when, despite the gale, the wind being
fair, the master of a Dover hoy agreed to carry him over to Calais,
where Bolingbroke landed at six in the evening. An hour later, he was
laughing over the adventure with the governor of the town, who had
invited him to dinner. At the same hour the next night, all London was
in a ferment with the news of this flight of Bolingbroke. The Privy
Council was immediately summoned. They were alarmed, but powerless;
and finding themselves helpless, they had nothing better to do than to
commit to Newgate the honest man who had brought the intelligence to
London!
[Sidenote: _BOLINGBROKE PAMPHLETS._]
Bolingbroke’s enemies and friends were alike busy, the first to injure,
the latter to defend him. His foes issued, at the price of 4_d._,
‘A merry letter from Lord Bol――――ke to a certain favourite mistress
near Bloomsbury Square.’ It was ‘printed and sold by the pamphlet
sellers of London and Westminster.’ It was in doggrel rhyme, not witty
but, emphatically, ‘beastly.’ Towards the conclusion, the following
mischievous lines occur, foreshadowing invasion and his own return:――
In the meantime, I hope
The mist will clear up,
That the thunder you’ll hear
May soon purge the air,
And then that the coast
May be clear at the last.
[Sidenote: _BOLINGBROKE’S CHARACTER._]
This unclean and menacing pamphlet offended Tories who were not
altogether Jacobites. It was not answered, no one could stoop to do
_that_, but it was followed by a sixpenny pamphlet, from More’s, ‘near
Fleet Street,’ in which Bolingbroke was rather ill-defended by one
of those friends whose precious balsam aggravates rather than heals.
The writer, however, was earnest. With regard to Bolingbroke’s idle
talk at table over his wine, the anonymous advocate observed:――‘My
Lord, everybody knows, drank deep enough of those Draughts which
generally produce Secrets, and had Enemies enough to give Air to the
least unguarded Expressions in favour of the Pretender.’ To the not
unnatural query of the Whigs,――‘Why did he fly?’ Bolingbroke’s champion
loftily replies:――‘My Lord had too elegant a Taste of Life to part with
it, to gratify only the Resentments of his Enemies! If he was a Rake,
it was his nature that was to be blamed; if he was a Villain, no one
could charge him with hypocritically attempting to hide it.’ ‘As to
personal Frailties, his Lordship had his Share, and never strove to
hide them by the sanctified cover which Men of high Stations generally
affect; whose private Intrigues are carried on with as much Gravity
as the Mysteries of State. His Faults and Levities were owing to his
Complexion, and that Life and Humour with which he enlivened them, made
them so pleasing that those who condemned the Action could not but
approve the Person. A vein of Mirth and Gaiety were as inseparable from
his Conversation, as an Air of Love and Dignity from his Personage, and
a Greatness of Spirit from his Soul.’
Meanwhile, Lady St. John, Bolingbroke’s mother, was showing to
everybody at Court a letter from her son to his father, in which he
protested that he was perfectly innocent of carrying on any intrigue
with the Pretender. Of which letter, says Lady Cowper, ‘I have taken a
copy, but I believe it won’t serve his turn.’
[Sidenote: _POLITICS IN LIVERY._]
Court and parliament being agitated, the lackeys imitated their
betters. The footmen, in waiting for their masters, who were members
of Parliament, had free access to Westminster Hall. For six and thirty
years they had imitated their masters, by electing a ‘Speaker’ among
themselves, whenever the members made a more exalted choice within
their own House. The Whig lackeys were for Mr. Strickland’s man. The
Tory liveried gentry resolved to elect Sir Thomas Morgan’s fellow. A
battle-royal ensued in place of an election. The combatants were hard
at it, when the House broke up, and the members wanted their coaches.
Wounds were then hastily bandaged, but their pain nursed wrath. On the
next night, the hostile parties, duly assembled, attacked each other
with fury. The issue was long uncertain, but finally the Tory footmen
gained a costly victory, in celebration of which Sir Thomas Morgan’s
servant, terribly battered, was carried three times triumphantly round
the Hall. There was no malice. The lackeys clubbed together for drink
at a neighbouring ale-house, where the host gave them a dinner gratis.
The dinner was made expressly to create insatiable thirst, and before
the banquet came to a close, every man was as drunk as his master.
[Sidenote: _SATIRE._]
In March, 1715, Bishop Burnet, the man more hated by the Jacobites
than any other, died. These perhaps further indulged their hatred of
the very name, by attributing to his youngest son, Thomas Burnet, the
authorship of a famous Tory ballad, which was long praised, condemned,
quoted or sung in London coffee-houses,――it was named
BISHOP BURNET’S DESCENT INTO HELL.
The devils were brawling at Burnet’s descending,
But at his arrival they left off contending;
Old Lucifer ran his dear Bishop to meet,
And thus the Archdevil, th’ Apostate did greet:――
‘My dear Bishop Burnet I’m glad beyond measure,
This visit, unlook’d for, gives infinite pleasure.
And, oh! my dear Sarum, how go things above?
Does George hate the Tories, and Whigs only love?’
‘Was your Highness _in propriâ personâ_ to reign,
You could not more justly your empire maintain.’
‘And how does Ben Moadley?’――‘Oh! he’s very well,
A truer blue Whig you have not in hell.’
‘Hugh Peters is making a sneaker within
For Luther, Buchanan, John Knox, and Calvin;
And when they have toss’d off a brace of full bowls,
You’ll swear you ne’er met with much honester souls.
‘This night we’ll carouse in spite of all pain.
Go, Cromwell, you dog, and King William unchain,
And tell him his Gilly is lately come down,
Who has just left his mitre, as he left his crown.
Whose lives till they died, in our service were spent;
They only come hither who never repent.
Let Heralds aloud then our victories tell;
Let George reign for ever!’――‘Amen!’ cried all hell.
Court-life was certainly not particularly exemplary. A Stuart Princess
would not have dared to seek reception at St. James’s, but the mistress
of a Stuart King was welcomed there. The old Louise de Querouaille,
Duchess of Portsmouth, chief of the royal Husseydom in the apartments
of Charles II., was presented to the Princess of Wales by the Duchess’s
granddaughter, the Countess of Berkeley, Lady of the Bedchamber, then
in waiting! According to the records of the time, the Duchess was
‘most graciously received.’ Next evening (it was in March, 1715) this
painted abomination of a woman sat at the king’s side, at a supper
given by the Duke of Richmond, in Priory Gardens. The royal harridan’s
granddaughter sat on the other hand of George I.! Her husband, the Earl
of Berkeley, and the Earl of Halifax made up this highly respectable
party of six.
[Sidenote: _FLYING REPORTS._]
This laxity of moral practice, at Court, was made capital of by the
Jacobites. Throughout April and May, they proclaimed that there was
not a man about St. James’s who was not noted for disaffection or
lukewarmness to Church principles. There was a report that a ‘new
Academy was to be erected at Hampstead, for instructing youths in
principles agreeable to the present times.’ The existing Parliament was
declared to be as capable of burning Articles, Homilies, and Liturgies,
as ‘Sacheverel’s Parliament’ was of burning the Oxford decree.
Episcopalian clergymen were said to be looked on with such small favour
by the Government, that a prelatic military chaplain in Scotland was
removed by the authorities in London on the sole ground of his being an
Episcopalian. This, the Duke of Montrose told the Archbishop of York,
‘could not be got over.’ Presbytery would be more perilous to England
than Popery; but both menaces would disappear, if George and his
hopeful family were ‘sent back to their own German dominions, for which
Nature seems to have much better fitted them.’[1] This was said to be
the opinion of the most sensible Whigs, as well as of all the Tories
in England.
[Sidenote: _DECREE IN THE ‘GAZETTE.’_]
There is little doubt that the Tories in London were exasperated
to the utmost by the disregard which the Whig and the Dissenting
preachers manifested for the decree in the ‘Gazette’ which forbade
the meddling with State affairs in the pulpit. Bradbury made his
chapel echo again with demands for justice against traitors. Tories
called him the ‘preaching Incendiary.’ They had previously treated
Bishop Burnet as ‘a lay preacher who takes upon him, after a series
of lewdness and debauchery, in his former life, to set up for an
instructor of Ministry, and impudently tells the Ministers of State,
the King’s Majesty, and all, that he expects the last Ministry should
be sacrificed to his resentments, and their heads be given to him in a
charger, as that Lewd Dancer did to John the Baptist.’[2]
Humble Jacobites, on the other hand, were often mercilessly treated.
Ill words spoken of the king brought the hangman’s lash round the loins
of the speaker. Half the Whig roguery of London went down to Brentford
in May, to see a well-to-do Tory butcher whipped at the cart’s tail
from Brentford Bridge round the Market Place. That roguery was very
much shocked to see wicked Tory influence at work in favour of the High
Church butcher; for, he not only was allowed refreshment, but the cart
went so fast and the lash so slowly, that the Hanoverian cockneys
swore it was not worth while going so far to see so little.
[Sidenote: _THE LASH._]
To their loyal souls, ample compensation was afforded soon after.
There was a Jacobite cobler of Highgate who, on the king’s birthday,
was seen in the street in a suit of mourning. On the Chevalier’s natal
day, he boldly honoured it by putting on his state dress, as holder
of some humble official dignity. Jacobites who, on the same occasion,
wore an oaken sprig or a white rose, well-known symbols, could easily
hide them on the approach of the authorities, but a beadle who came
out in his Sunday livery, to glorify the ‘Pretender,’ was courting
penalties by defying authority. The magnanimous cobler went through a
sharp process of law, and he was then whipped up Highgate Hill and down
again. To fulfil the next part of his punishment, the cobler was taken
to Newgate, to which locality he was condemned for a year. People in
those days went to see the prisoners in Newgate as they did the lions
in the Tower, or the lunatics in Bedlam, and parties went to look at
the cobler. If they were Tories, they were satisfied with what they
saw, but Whigs turned away in disgust. ‘Why,’ said they, ‘the villain
lives in the press-yard like a prince, and lies in lodgings at ten or
twelve shillings a week!’ The disgusted Whig papers remarked that ‘he
was not whipped half as badly as he deserved.’ They were not always
thus dissatisfied. A too outspoken French schoolmaster, one Boulnois,
was so effectually scourged for his outspokenness, from Stocks Market
to Aldgate, that he died of it. The poor wretch was simply flogged to
death. The Stuart party cried shame on the cruelty. The Hanoverians
protested that there was nothing to cry at. The man was said to be not
even a Frenchman, only an Irish Father Confessor in disguise! What else
could he have been, since the Jacobites, before Boulnois was tied up,
gave him wine and money. Such gifts to suffering political criminals
were very common. ◆[Sidenote: _THE PILLORY._]◆ An offender was placed
in the pillory in Holborn, for having cursed the Duke of Marlborough
and the ministry. He must have been well surrounded by sympathisers.
Not a popular Whig missile reached him; and when, with his head and
arms fixed in the uprights, his body being made to turn slowly round
to the mob, he deliberately and loudly cursed Duke and ministry, as he
turned, the delight of that mob, thoroughly Tory, knew no bounds. They
even mounted the platform and stuffed his pockets with money.
[Sidenote: _A HARMLESS JACOBITE._]
The author of ‘George III., his Court and family,’ in the introductory
part illustrates the gentler side of George I.’s character, by quoting
his remark when entrapped by a lady into drinking the Pretender’s
health,――‘With all my heart! I drink to the health of all unfortunate
princes.’ And again, when paying one of his numerous visits to private
individuals in London, the king marked the embarrassment of his host as
his Majesty looked on a portrait of the Chevalier de St. George, which
the host had forgotten to remove. ‘It is a remarkable likeness,’ said
the king, ‘a good family resemblance.’ Nor was he insensible to humour,
if the following story, told in the above-named work, may be taken
for a true one. ‘There was a gentleman who lived in the City, in the
beginning of the reign of this Monarch, and was so shrewdly suspected
of Jacobitism that he was taken up two or three times before the
Council, but yet defended himself so dextrously, that they could fasten
nothing on him. On the breaking out of the Rebellion in 1715, this
person, who mixed some humour with his politics, wrote to the Secretary
of State, that as he took it for granted that at a time like the
present he should be taken up as usual for a Jacobite, he had only
one favour to beg, that if the administration meant any such thing,
they would do it in the course of next week; for, the week after, he
was going down to Devonshire on his own business, which, without this
explanation, would no doubt be construed as transacting the business of
the Pretender. Lord Townshend, who was Secretary of State at that time,
in one of his convivial moments with the king, showed him this letter,
and asked him what his Majesty would direct to be done with such a
fellow. “Pooh! pooh!” says the king, “there can be little harm in a man
who writes so pleasantly!”’
[1] ‘Letter, from Perth to a gentleman in Stirling.’
[2] ‘Confederacy of the Press and the Pulpit for the blood
of the last Ministry.’
[Illustration: Scrollwork]
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
CHAPTER IV.
(1715.)
[Illustration: Drop-T]he popular demonstrations troubled the
authorities less than the expressed discontent of some of the soldiery.
The Foot Guards especially had become clamorous at having to wear
shirts that would not hold together, and uniforms that _would_ go into
holes, while the wearers were liable to punishment for what they could
not prevent. On the anniversary of the king’s birthday (20th May),
crowds of soldiers of the regiments of Guards paraded the streets,
exhibited their linen garments on poles, and shouted, ‘Look at our
Hanover shirts!’ Others stript off shirts and jackets, and flung them
over the garden walls of St. James’s Palace and Marlborough House.
Some of the men made a bonfire in front of Whitehall, and cast their
shoddy garments into the flames! The soldiers were treated with
peculiar consideration. Marlborough reviewed them in the Park, and then
addressed them in a deprecatory speech which began with ‘_Gentlemen!_’
He acknowledged that they had grievances, promised that these should
be redressed, informed them that he himself had ordered new clothes
for them, and he almost begged that they would be so good as to wear
the old ones till the new (including the shirts) were ready! The
whole address showed that the soldiers were considered as worth the
flattering. It ended with a ‘tag’ about ‘the best of kings,’ and as
the tag was cheered, it was, doubtless, supposed that the flattery
had not been administered in vain. Fears connected with the soldiery
were certainly not groundless. A reward of 50_l._ was offered for the
apprehension of Captain Wright, of Lord Wimbledon’s Horse. The Captain
had written a letter to a friend in Ireland, which letter had probably
fallen into the hands of ‘the king’s decypherer.’ The Government had,
at all events, got at the contents. The offensive portion was to the
effect that the Duke of Ormond would overcome all his enemies, and the
writer expressed a hope that they should soon send George home again!
The ‘loyal’ papers were not afraid to accuse the bishops of so far
tampering with the soldiery as to encourage them in thinking, or even
in saying, how much better off they were in Ormond’s days than _now_!
[Sidenote: _POLITICS IN THE ARMY._]
The papers proved both the watchfulness and uneasiness which existed
with respect to the army. One day it is recorded that a Colonel of the
Guards was dismissed. As danger seemed to increase, a camp was formed
in Hyde Park, whither a strong force of artillery was brought from
the Tower. A sweep was made at the Horse Guards of suspected men, on
some of whom commissions were said to have been found signed by the
‘Pretender!’ All absent officers were ordered to return at once to
their posts in the three kingdoms. An important capture was supposed
to have been made of a certain Captain Campbell. London was full of the
news that Mr. Palmer, the messenger, was bringing the Captain to town;
but the messenger arrived alone. He had let the Captain escape, and
people who expected that Palmer would be hanged were disappointed that
he was only turned out of his place.
[Sidenote: _LIEUTENANT KYNASTON._]
At this period, Fountain Court, in the Strand, was a quiet spot, with
good houses well-inhabited. In one of these lodged two Captains,
Livings and Spencer, and a Lieutenant, John Kynaston. The last had got
his appointment through sending ‘information,’ under the pseudonym
of ‘Philo-Brittannus’ to the Secretary of War. The Lieutenant looked
for further promotion if he could only discover something that the
Government might think worth a valuable consideration. Kynaston lounged
in coffee-houses, listened to gossip on the parade, and was very much
at home among the Captains of all services, and especially of some who
assembled in the little room behind the kitchen at the ‘Blew Postes,’
in Duke’s Court. But his well-regulated mind was so shocked at what
he heard there that he unbosomed himself to the two Captains, his
fellow-lodgers in Fountain Court. Loyalty prompted Kynaston to let
King George know that his Majesty had dangerous enemies within his own
capital. The Captains approved. But then, the idea of being an informer
was hateful to Kynaston’s noble soul! The Captains thought it might
be. On the other hand, to be silent would be to share the crime. His
sacred Majesty’s life might be in peril. It was not acting the part of
a base informer to put his Majesty on his guard. The Captains endorsed
those sentiments as their own; and when Lieut. Kynaston went to make
an alarming revelation to Mr. Secretary Pulteney, he carried in his
pocket the certificates of the Captains that the bearer was a loyal
and disinterested person, and that it gave them particular pleasure in
being able to say so. Pulteney heard what the gallant gentleman, the
principal in the affair, had to say, and he, forthwith, called together
a Board of General Officers, with General Lumley for president, before
which Kynaston and the naughty people whom he accused were brought face
to face.
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE PLOTTERS._]
The latter bore it very well. Among the first whom Kynaston charged as
pestilent Jacobite traitors were a Cornhill draper and a peruque-maker
from Bishopsgate Street. The Lieutenant declared that when he was
present they had drunk the Pretender’s health. The honest tradesmen
swore that they did not drink that toast, but that Kynaston had
proposed it. They were set aside, while a lawyer and a doctor were
brought before the Board for a similar offence. They pleaded their
well-known principles. ‘Aye, aye,’ said the Lieutenant, ‘your
principles are better known than your practice.’ This faint joke did
not elicit a smile; and in the next accused individual, a ‘Captain
D――――,’ Kynaston caught a Tartar. The Lieutenant deposed mere ‘hearsay’
matter as to the accused being a Jacobite, but the Captain claimed to
be sworn, and he then testified that Kynaston had said in the Captain’s
hearing: ‘If I’m not provided for, I shall go into France,’ which was
as much as to say he would go over to ‘the Pretender.’ ◆[Sidenote:
_FALSE ACCUSER._]◆ This pestilent Captain was then allowed to withdraw.
‘As he was departing the Court,’ says Kynaston, in a weak but amusing
pamphlet he subsequently published, ‘he gave me a gracious nod with
his reverend head, and swore, “By God, I’ve done your business!”’ The
Lieutenant felt that he had. The best testimony he could produce,――that
is, the least damaging to himself,――was in the case of the free-spoken
roysterers of the little room behind the kitchen at the ‘Blew Postes.’
Ormond’s health, Bolingbroke’s health, and similar significant toasts,
were given there――so he alleged. ‘Yes,’ answered the accused, ‘but they
were given by you, and were not drunk!’ They called the kitchen wench
in support of their defence. The loyal Lieutenant summoned rebutting
testimony, but his cautious witnesses alleged that no such healths were
proposed, and, therefore, could not be drunk by Kynaston or anybody
else. The military Board of Enquiry thereupon separated, leaving
informer and accused in ignorance of what further steps were likely to
be taken. Kynaston went away for change of air, but such severe things
were publicly said of him, by friends as well as foes, that he thought
the best course he could take would be to show himself in the Mall.
[Sidenote: _THE MILITARY BOARD._]
_There_, then, is the next scene in this illustrative comedy. Kynaston,
with his hat fiercely cocked, is seen at a distance by a ruffling
major, named Oneby. The Major says, loud enough for the general
audience,――‘As soon as I see Kynaston, I’ll make him eat his words
and deny his Christ! I’ll _path_ him, and send him quick to hell!’
The Lieutenant, leaning on the arm of one of his captains, blandly
remarks to him as both draw near to the fire-eating major, ‘Gentlemen
give themselves airs in my absence.’ And then looking Oneby sternly
in the face, exclaims, ‘I value not a Jacobite rogue in the kingdom!’
According to Kynaston’s pamphlet, this had such an effect on Oneby,
that the Major came daintily up to him and in the most lamb-like voice
asked, ‘What news from the country, Lieutenant?’ To which the latter
replied, ‘News, sir? that his Majesty has enemies there as well as
here.’ And therewith, they cross the stage and _exeunt_ at opposite
sides.
This was not the ordinary style of Major John Oneby’s acting. He was
an accomplished and too successful duellist. A few years after the
above scene in the Park, he killed Mr. Gower in a duel fought in a
room of a Drury Lane tavern――the result of a drunken quarrel――over a
dice-board. The Major was found guilty of wilful murder, and condemned
to be hanged; but he opened a vein with a penknife, as he lay in bed in
Newgate, and so ‘cheated the hangman.’
[Sidenote: _THE LIEUTENANT DISPOSED OF._]
The Military Board, meanwhile, went quietly and steadily about its
work. What it thought of the disinterested Lieutenant and those whom
he charged with treason, he learned in a very unexpected way. He was
ill at ease in bed, reading the ‘Post Boy,’ when his much astonished
eyes fell upon the following paragraph:――‘Lieutenant John Kynaston
has been broke, and rendered incapable of serving for the future.’
This was the first intimation he had had of any return made to him
by way of acknowledgment for his information. He accounted it a lie,
inserted by ‘that infamous and seditious Bell-wether of their party,
Abel Roper!’ In quite a Bobadil strain, Kynaston afterwards registered
a vow in print that he ‘should, by way of gratitude, take the very
first opportunity of promoting a close correspondence between Abel
Roper and his brother Cain.’ Before that consummation was achieved,
Kynaston――it was a fortnight after the announcement appeared in the
‘Post Boy’――received a document, ‘On his Majesty’s Service,’ which
convinced the ex-Lieutenant that he no longer formed part of it. He
rushed to the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Marlborough. ‘It’s a hard
case,’ said the Duke, ‘but I am going into my chair!’ and so he got
rid of the appellant. Kynaston hired a chair and was carried over to
General Lumley, the President of the Military Board. ‘You had better
keep quiet,’ said the General, ‘you might get insulted!’ _Insulted_
meant beaten or pointed out in the streets. Kynaston at once went to
bed with a fever which conveniently kept him there for seven weeks.
‘The Lieutenant is sneaking,’ cried his enemies; but he appeared in the
guise of a pamphlet, in which he said that he should never recover the
surprise into which he had been thrown by discovering that the people
whom he had accused had found readier belief than he――the accuser.
Never again did John Kynaston ride with Colonel Newton’s Regiment of
Dragoons.[3]
[Sidenote: _CAPTAIN PAUL._]
Other informers were more profitable to listen to than Kynaston.
Marlborough, who dismissed the ex-Lieutenant so cavalierly, was one
day giving ear, with deep interest, to a sergeant in the Foot Guards.
The staple of the fellow’s news was, that his captain, Paul, had in
his desk a commission as Colonel of a regiment of cavalry, from the
Pretender; and that he had promised a lieutenant’s commission to the
sergeant, who had accepted the same, and now, out of remorse or fear,
or hopes of getting a commission in a safer way, came and told the
whole story to the great Duke. Marlborough dismissed him, bade him be
of good cheer, and keep silent. An hour or two afterwards, Captain
Paul was at the Duke’s levee. The Commander-in-Chief greeted him with
a cordial ‘Good morning, Colonel!’ (Captains in the Guards were so
addressed), ‘I am very glad to see you!’――and then, as if it had just
occurred to him――‘By-the-by, my Lord Townshend desires to speak with
you; you had better wait on him at the office.’ Paul, unsuspecting,
rather hoping that some good chance was about to turn up for him, took
his leave, ran down-stairs, jumped into a chair, and cried, ‘To the
Cock-pit!’ When his name was announced to the Secretary of State, Lord
Townshend sent a message of welcome, and a request that Paul would
wait in the anteroom, till some important business with some of the
Ministers should be concluded. Paul was still waiting when the Duke of
Marlborough arrived, and passed through the room to the more private
apartment. As he passed, the Colonel rather familiarly greeted him,
but Marlborough confined his recognition to a very grave military
salute, and disappeared through the doors. Paul looked the way that
the Commander-in-Chief had gone, felt perplexed, and then, addressing
the door-keeper who was within the room, said, ‘I think I need not
wait longer. I shall go now, and wait on my Lord another time.’ The
door-keeper, however, at once took all the courage out of him by
civilly intimating that the gallant officer must be content to stay
where he was, as Lord Townshend had given stringent orders that he was
not to be permitted to depart on any account. The sequel was rapidly
arrived at. Paul was taken before the Council, where he found that
the knaves’ policy was best――to avow all. He alleged that he got his
commission at Powis House, Ormond Street, and it was found in his desk.
He purchased comparative impunity by betraying all his confederates.
[Sidenote: _ARREST OF MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT._]
Conspirators who betrayed their confederates, like Colonel Paul,
yielded such information that Parliament readily granted power to the
king to seize suspected persons. His Majesty had grounds for getting
within safe-keeping half a-dozen members of the Lower House. The
suspected persons were, Sir William Wyndham, Sir John Packington,
Edward Harvey of Combe, Thomas Forster, and Corbet Kynaston. King
George, however, would not put a finger on them, without going through
the form of asking leave. The Commons gave consent, with alacrity,
thanking his Majesty, at the same time, for the tender regard he had
manifested for the privileges of the House. Before five o’clock the
next morning, Mr. Wilcox, a messenger, knocked at the door of Mr.
Barnes, the bookseller in Pall Mall. The sight of the silver greyhound
on his arm was as sufficient as if he had displayed his warrant in the
face of the Bibliopole, himself. ◆[Sidenote: _HARVEY, OF COMBE._]◆
Wilcox was in search of Harvey, who lodged there, when in town, but he
was not there on that morning. The messenger looked over his papers,
sealed them up, and then went post-haste down to Combe, in Surrey.
He arrived just in time to meet Mr. Harvey going out hawking. Harvey
welcomed Wilcox as if he had been a favoured guest, and went up to
London with him, as if it were a pleasure-excursion. Taken immediately
before the Council, he was good-humouredly bold, till he was shown what
he did not expect to see, a damaging treasonable letter in his own
handwriting. He faltered, turned pale, complained of sudden illness,
and asked for permission to withdraw, which was granted. Harvey, shut
up in his room, stabbed himself with a pruning knife, and when he
was found by his servant, almost unconscious from loss of blood, the
unlucky Jacobite refused to have medical aid. He only consented, at the
urgent prayer of his kinsman, the Earl of Nottingham, Lord President
of the Council, to at least see those who had been sent for. Mead,
Harris, and Bussiere restored him to a condition of capability to take
the sacrament. A Whig Lecturer, the Rev. Mr. Broughton, was at hand,
but that worthy man declined to administer, even after Mr. Harvey had
made a general confession of his sins. When the Jacobite had expressed
some measure of sorrow for his latest iniquities, the Whig clergyman
performed the rite, but not till he had fortified himself with a
warrant from the Council to give Harvey the comfort he desired.
[Sidenote: _SIR WILLIAM WYNDHAM._]
Meanwhile, Sir William Wyndham had secretly fled from London, as soon
as he knew the peril he would incur by tarrying there. Sir William’s
flight took him to Orchard Wyndham, his house in Somersetshire, where,
surrounded by partisans, he deemed himself safe at least till he could
devise means for putting a greater distance between himself and the
Tower. One morning, in September, at five o’clock, before it was yet
full daylight, two gentlemen arrived at the house, express from London,
with letters for him, which were of the utmost importance. Sir William
himself admitted them, in his night gear. They had scarcely crossed the
threshold, when one of the visitors informed the Baronet that the two
gentlemen he had admitted were Colonel Huske and a messenger, bearing a
warrant to arrest and carry him up to town. ‘That being the case,’ said
Sir William, ‘make no noise to awake Lady Wyndham, who is in a delicate
condition of health.’ The Colonel had received orders that Lady
Wyndham, being the Duke of Somerset’s daughter, was ‘on that account
to be put in as little disorder as possible.’ ◆[Sidenote: _SEARCH FOR
PAPERS._]◆ Accordingly, Colonel and messenger quietly followed Sir
William to his dressing-room, where the Colonel told him that he was
ordered to search his papers, and seize all that might be suspicious.
Wyndham produced his keys, readily; and he expressed such alacrity in
recommending a thorough search of drawers, desks, chests, &c., that
the wary Colonel, thought it might be as well to look elsewhere, first.
His eye fell on the Baronets garments, as they lay carefully flung over
a chair, and the astute agent, judging that the unlikeliest place was
the likeliest for treasonable matter to be stowed away in, took up Sir
William’s coat, with a ‘what may we have here?’ thrust his hands into
one of the capacious pockets, and drew thence a bundle of papers. The
emotion of Sir William was warrant of their importance. The Colonel
read it all in his confusion and disorder, and urged the instant
departure of his prisoner. ‘Only wait,’ said Sir William, ‘till seven
o’clock, and I will have my carriage and six horses at the door. The
coach will accommodate us all.’ Huske made no objection. Sir William
proceeded to dress; and, finally, he remarked, ‘I will only go into my
bed-room to take leave of my lady, and will shortly wait on you again.’
The Colonel allowed Sir William to enter the bed-room, and quietly
waited till the leave-taking should be accomplished. As the farewell,
however, seemed unusually long in coming to an end, the Colonel and
messenger began to look at each other with some distrust. They had
supposed that Wyndham was on his honour to return to them, but Sir
William had supposed otherwise. Whether he stopped to kiss his sleeping
wife or not, he never told, but he made no secret of what the Colonel
discovered for himself, on entering the room, namely, that Wyndham
had escaped by a private door, and perhaps his lady was not half so
much asleep as she seemed to be. Her husband, at all events, lacked no
aids to flight, the incidents leading to which were the common talk of
the town, soon after the Colonel had come back to Secretary Stanhope.
A reward of one thousand pounds was offered for the recapture of the
Jacobite whom the Colonel had been expected to take, keep, and deliver
up, in the ordinary discharge of his duty.
[Sidenote: _WYNDHAM’S ESCAPE._]
On the morrow of Wyndham’s escape, Lord William Paulet and Paul Burrard
were seated at a window in Winton market-place. From an inn-window
opposite a parson was seen staring at them rather boldly, and both
the gentlemen agreed that they had seen that face before, but could
not well tell where. It was Wyndham in disguise; and in that clerical
garb he contrived to get into Surrey, a serving-man riding with him.
There, at an inn, his servant wrote, in Sir William’s name, to a
clerical friend of the fugitive, asking for an asylum in his house.
If the friend’s fears were too great to allow him to grant such
perilous hospitality, he was urged to procure a resting place for
the fugitive in the residence of the rector of the parish, who might
receive an inmate in clerical costume without exciting suspicion.
This letter chanced to reach the house of the person to whom it was
addressed, during his absence. His wife had no scruples as to opening
the missive; perhaps she suspected there was mischief in it. Having
read its contents, and being anxious to serve and save her husband
before all the Sir Williams in the world, she promptly sent the
letter to the Earl of Aylesford, who as promptly submitted it to the
Ministry. Meanwhile Wyndham felt that the delay in answering his
request was the consequence of a discovery of his whereabouts. He at
once set forth again, and the magistrates being too late to seize the
master, laid hands upon the servant. There was found upon him a cypher
ring containing a lock of hair, at sight of which a Whig magistrate
exclaimed, ‘It’s the Pretender’s hair. Lord! I know the man and his
principles. It cannot be nobody’s else!’ On examination, however, it
was seen that the ring bore the cypher and carried the hair of Queen
Anne. While the other magistrates were jeering their too confident
colleague, Wyndham was quietly escaping from them.
[Sidenote: _DRAMATIC COURTESY._]
Passing on his way to London, Sir William encountered Sir Denzil Onslow
on horseback, escorted by two grooms. ‘Hereupon,’ says a pamphlet of
the period, ‘the knight, as it is customary for those of the black
robe (whose habit he had taken upon him) to do to Men of Figure, very
courteously gave him the salute of his hat and the right hand of
the road, which the said Mr. Onslow, being some time after apprised
of, acknowledged to be true, with this circumstance, that he well
remembered that he met a smock-faced, trim parson on such an occasion,
but that his eyes were so taken up, and his attention wholly employed,
with the beauties of the fine horse he rode upon, that he had no time
to make a true discovery of his person at that juncture.’
[Sidenote: _UNCOURTEOUS INTERVIEW._]
Wyndham, finding the pursuit grow too hot for him, rode to Sion House,
Isleworth, one of the seats of his father-in-law, the Duke of Somerset.
The two went up to the Duke’s town residence, Northumberland House,
whence Wyndham’s brother-in-law, the Earl of Hertford, sent notice
of the presence of such a guest to Secretary Stanhope. That official
dispatched a messenger, by whom Wyndham was carried before the Council
Board. It was said in London that he there denied all knowledge of a
plot; but the Council, nevertheless, committed him to the Tower. The
next day all London was astir with reporting the news that the Duke of
Somerset, having been refused as bail for his son-in-law, had at once
resigned his office of Master of the Horse.
Before Wyndham surrendered, the carriage of the Duke of Somerset, his
father-in-law, was seen standing at the door of the famous lawyer,
Sir Edward Northey. After the surrender, Government suspected that
this interview was for the purpose of a consultation as to whether the
proofs against Sir William could convict him of treason. Ministers
resolved that the Duke should be deprived of his places, and Lord
Townshend called upon him, with a sorrowful air, and a message from the
king that his Majesty had no further occasion for the Duke’s services.
‘Pray, my Lord,’ said Somerset, ‘what is the reason of it?’ Lord
Townshend answered, ‘I do not know!’ ‘Then,’ said the Duke, ‘by G――, my
Lord, you lie!’ ‘You know that the king puts me out for no other cause,
but for the lies which you, and such as you, have invented and told of
me!’ Such were the amenities which passed between noblemen in those
stirring Jacobite times. The duke asked leave to wait upon the king,
but he was curtly told to wait till he was sent for.
[Sidenote: _A GENERAL STIR._]
Still the plotters at large plotted on. The reiteration on the part
of the Whigs that they were powerless and on the road to destruction,
betrayed more fear than confidence. ‘If the (Tory) Party were not
under a judicial infatuation,’ says one paper, ‘they might plainly
see that Heaven has declared against them, by depriving them of their
Chief Supporters, and discovering their treasonable plots, which, when
set in a true light, will appear so treacherous and barbarous against
their lawful sovereign, King George, and so bloody against their fellow
subjects, as must make the memory of the Party execrable to latest
Posterity.’ This seemed to have little influence on the Jacobites.
The plot became so serious, there was so much uncertainty as to where
it might break out, that officers were hurrying from London to assume
command, in various directions, to Chester and to Dover, to Newcastle
and to Portsmouth, to Berwick and to Plymouth, to Hull, to Carlisle,
to York, to Edinburgh――east, west, north, south――there was a general
hurrying from London to whatever point seemed likely to prove dangerous.
[3] Case of Lieut. John Kynaston.
[Illustration: Flower]
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
CHAPTER V.
(1715).
[Illustration: Drop-R]ightly or wrongly, the Tory mob in London were
in no wise daunted. They listened to street preachers of sedition.
The listeners were generally called ‘scum,’ and the orator was often
designated ‘as a Tory cobler.’ Powder and arms were discovered on board
ships in the Thames, and persons, accused of giving information to the
Government, posted bills in the City affirming their innocence. Often
the information was intended to mislead. Mr. Harvey, of Combe, was said
to be expressing his contrition to a divine. The police messengers
could not believe he was either so sick or so sorry as his friends
affirmed. Their opinion was justified when they found him attempting
to escape from his house through the tiles――an attempt which they
frustrated.
Towards the end of the month, more of the lofty heads among the
Jacobites were struck at. Sir John Pakington and Sir Windsor Hunlake
were added to the list of prisoners, and the Whigs were elated by a
display made in London by a delegation from Hanoverian Cambridge. The
king had rewarded the loyalty of that University by purchasing, for
6,000_l._, the library of the Bishop of Ely, which he presented to
the Whig seat of learning. Cambridge, by delegation, came up to St.
James’s. The king declared that his present was only an earnest of
future favour.
[Sidenote: _PAMPHLETEERING._]
Both the Whig and the Tory press exasperated the Government. From the
former was issued a pamphlet, called ‘The necessity of impeaching the
late ministry.’ The pamphlet took the form of a letter to the Earl of
Halifax, and was written by Thomas Burnet. The amiable author, after
such vituperation as was then much enjoyed by those who admired the
flinger of it and were out of reach of the missiles, mildly remarks
that,――‘having commenced an enemy to the late ministry even from
their first entrance into power, he cannot forbear from pursuing them
with his resentment even to their graves, the only place, indeed,
where their crimes can be forgotten!’ This was a Whig cry for blood.
‘“England expects it,” as the saying is,’ rang out from the throats of
the ultra Whigs.
[Sidenote: _GENERAL CONFUSION._]
A still more perplexing pamphlet was sold in the streets, despite the
constables, namely, ‘The Soldiers’ humble address for the impeachment
of the late ministry.’ Political soldiers were felt to be as out of
place as militant parsons. It rained pamphlets; and the embarrassment
caused thereby was increased by the circumstance that some of them
bore on the title-page the names of eminent men as authors, whose
sentiments were directly opposed to those set forth in the pamphlet.
Great confusion ensued, and a fear of impending calamity fell upon
many. So marked was this fear, that two months before the eclipse
of April, the astronomers, Dr. Halley and Mr. Whiston, ‘thought it
necessary to caution people against being surprised or interpreting it
as any ill omen, wherein there is nothing but what is natural, or than
the necessary result of Sun and Moon.’ ‘It is all very well,’ said the
Tories, ‘but there has been no such eclipse in England, since the days
of Stephen the Usurper.’
The eclipse and the Pretender were subjects that gravely occupied
men’s minds. From the coffee-houses where ‘Captains’ more or less
genuine used to congregate and talk loudly, those swaggerers began to
disappear, and their acquaintances felt quite sure that mischief was
afoot. The Secretaries of State knew all about those ‘Captains.’ They
were followed whithersoever they went, till all of them, nearly two
dozen, were pounced upon in Dublin, after spies had discovered that
they were enlisting men for the Chevalier. Two-thirds of these Jacobite
recruiters were, upon brief trial and conviction, hanged, drawn, and
quartered. In England, a poor Jacobite who had drunk ‘Damnation to King
George,’ was only fined 50_l._; but as he was to lie in prison till he
paid that sum, he probably slowly rotted away instead of being promptly
hung. When the Tories had the opportunity to express hostile opinions
with impunity, they never failed to avail themselves of it. They had
this opportunity at the theatre. Whig papers remarked that ‘the Tory
faction hissed as much like serpents from the galleries as their
leaders, the High Church faction, did from the pulpits.’ Any allusion
to desertion of allies or to a separate peace was sure to be greeted
with volleys of hisses.
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE MOBS._]
In the Mug Houses bets began to be laid as to the length of time King
George was likely to be on the throne. Daring men, with their thoughts
over the water, wagered a hundred guineas he would not be king a month
longer. The next day, on the information of some of the company, they
would find themselves in peril of going to Tyburn in half that time.
The Tory mob had a way of their own to show their sentiments. They kept
the anniversary of Queen Anne’s coronation-day, and made the most of
their opportunity. They assembled at the Conduit on Snow Hill, with
flag and hoop, and drum and trumpet. They hoisted the queen’s picture
over the Conduit, and a citizen having flung to them a portrait of King
William, they made a bonfire and burnt it. They displayed a legend, the
contribution of a Mob Muse, which ran thus, alluding to the queen:――
Imitate her who was so just and good,
Both in her actions and her royal word!
[Sidenote: _RIOTING._]
They smashed the windows that were not illuminated, and they pelted
with flints the people who were lighting the candles intended to
propitiate them. They stopped coaches, robbed those who rode in them,
even of their wigs, and if the victims would not shout for Queen Anne,
the rascalry stript them nearly naked. Right into a Sunday morning in
April, this orthodox crew of incendiaries went about plundering, while
they shouted God bless the Queen and High Church! They drank horribly
the whole time, and toasted Bolingbroke frequently, but never King
George. High Churchmen would not blame riot when it took the shape of
burning down dissenters’ chapels, and the pious villains danced to
the accompaniment of ‘High Church and Ormond.’ At Oxford, town and
gown overstepped limits observed in London. In one of the many tumults
there, before they burnt in the street the furniture of one of the
dissenting ‘meeting houses,’ they fastened a Whig Beadle in the pulpit
and rolled him about the town till he was bruised in every limb. The
Whig papers, thereupon, significantly pointed out to their friends,
that there was a nonjuring congregation who met over a coffee-house in
Aldersgate Street. These people, it was said, prayed for ‘the rightful
king,’ and such wretches, of course, merited all that a Whig mob
could inflict on them. One of the most dangerous symptoms of the time
occurred on the arrest of some strapping young ballad wenches, who were
taken into custody, opposite Somerset House, for singing ballads of a
licentious nature against King George. The soldiers on guard rescued
the fair prisoners; and when much indignation was expressed at this
fact, the officers excused the men on the ground that they did not
interfere on political grounds, but out of gallantry to the ladies.
[Sidenote: _BALLAD-SINGERS._]
The street ballad-singers were irrepressible. They were the more
audacious as they often sang words which were innocent in their
expression, but mischievous by right application. The Jacobites were
ever apt at fitting old words and tunes to new circumstances. There was
a song which was originally written in praise of the Duke of Monmouth.
That song which lauded the unhappy nephew of James II. was now revived
in honour of that king’s son. ‘Young Jemmy’ was to be heard at the
corner of many a street. Groups of listeners and sympathisers gathered
round the minstrel who metrically proclaimed that
Young Jemmy is a lad that’s royally descended,
With ev’ry virtue clad, by ev’ry tongue commended.
A German gentleman, who subsequently published his experiences, was
astonished at the remissness or lenity of the magistrates generally,
but especially towards one arch-offender who, by song, furthered the
Pretender’s interests at the corner of Cranbourne Alley. ‘There a
fellow stands eternally bawling out his Pye Corner pastorals in behalf
of _dear Jemmy, lovely Jemmy_,’ &c.
[Sidenote: _POLITICAL SONGS._]
The writer adds, in sarcastic allusion to nobler personages who were
said to have the Chevalier’s commission in some secret drawer――‘I have
been credibly informed this man has actually in his pocket a commission
under the Pretender’s Great Seal, constituting him his Ballad-Singer
in Ordinary in Great Britain; and that his ditties are so well-worded
that they often poison the minds of many well-meaning people; that
this person is not more industrious with his tongue in behalf of his
master, than others are at the same time busy with their fingers among
the audience; and the monies collected in this manner are among those
mighty remittances the _Post Boy_ so frequently boasts of being made to
the Chevalier.’
The ballad, however, of ‘Young Jemmy’ did not mar the popularity of
‘The king shall enjoy his own again.’ The Jacobites knew no king but
James III. It was he who was referred to when the singers vociferated
The man in the moon may wear out his shoon
By running after Charles’s wain;
But all to no end, for the times will not mend
Till the king enjoys his own again.
Although songs in support of the house of Hanover were sung to the
same tune by Whig ballad-singers, this tune was thorough Tory,
and was profitable only to the Jacobites. Ritson compares it with
_Lillibulero_, by which air James II. was whistled off his throne.
‘This very air,’ he says, alluding to ‘The king shall enjoy his own
again,’ ‘upon two memorable occasions was very near being equally
instrumental in placing the crown on the head of his son. It is
believed to be a fact that nothing fed the enthusiasm of the Jacobites
down almost to the present reign (George III.), in every corner of
Great Britain, more than “The king shall enjoy his own again.”’
[Sidenote: _ARRESTS._]
Among the gentlemen of the laity whose fortunes were seriously affected
by the times and their changes was Colonel Granville. His brother
George, Lord Lansdowne, was shut up in the Tower, with Lord Oxford and
other noblemen. The colonel simply wished to get quietly away, and live
quietly in the country. He ordered horses for two carriages to be at
his door, in Poland Street, at six in the morning. The horse-dealer,
finding that the colonel was making a secret of his movements, lodged
an information against him with the Secretary of State. The spy accused
him of being about to leave the kingdom, privately. Early in the
morning, the two young ladies of the family, Mary and Anne Granville,
were awoke in their beds, by the rough voices of a couple of soldiers
with guns in their hands, crying out, ‘Come, Misses, make haste and
get up, for you are going to Lord Townshend’s’ (the Secretary of
State). Hastily dressed, by their maid, the young ladies were conducted
below, where the colonel and his wife were in the custody of two
officers and two messengers, supported by sixteen soldiers. Colonel
Granville devoted himself to consoling his wife, who went off into a
succession of hysterical fits, which could not have been cheering to
the daughters, the elder of whom was fifteen, the younger nine years of
age.
Colonel Granville did not come to harm, but there was a general
scattering of high-class Tories. Some fled in disguise; some were
ordered, others had leave, to depart. The Earl of Mar found his offer
to serve King George promptly rejected. Whereupon he galloped through
Aldersgate Street, and went northward, to serve King James.
[Sidenote: _IN THE PARK._]
Occasionally we meet with a Catholic Jacobite who preferred his ease
to his principles. In one of Pope’s letters he refers to a gentleman
in Duke Street, Westminster, who, having declined to take the oath of
abjuration, had consequently forfeited his chariot and his fashionable
Flanders mares. Supported by spiritual consolation, he bore his loss
like a patient martyr. Unable to take a drive, he watched from his
window those who could exhibit themselves in their carriages. The sight
was too much for his principles. These were maintained for the greater
part of one day, till about the hour of seven or eight, the coaches
and horses of several of the nobility, passing by his window towards
Hyde Park, he could no longer endure the disappointment, but instantly
went out, took the oath of abjuration, and recovered his dear horses,
which carried him in triumph to the Ring. ‘The poor distressed Roman
Catholics,’ it is added, ‘now unhorsed and uncharioted, cry out with
the Psalmist, “Some in chariots and some on horses, but _we_ will
invocate the name of the Lord.”’
There were other people, who met events with a philosophical
indifference. Sir Samuel Garth was to be seen squeezing Gay’s
forefinger, as Gay set Sir Samuel down at the Opera. The coffee-houses
were debating the merits of Pope’s ‘Homer,’ and of Tickell’s. The wits
at Button’s were mostly in favour of the former, but they made free
with Pope’s character as to morals, and some few thought that Tickell
stood above Pope. ‘They are both very well done, sir,’ said Addison,
‘but Mr. Tickell’s has more of Homer in it.’ Whereat, Pope told James
Craggs that ‘Button’s was no longer Button’s,’ indeed, that England
was no longer England, and that political dissensions had taken the
place of the old refinement, hospitality, and good humour. Politics
superseded poetry, yet all the world of London, in spite of politics,
was, according to Pope, discussing the merits of his translation. ‘I,’
wrote Pope in July, ‘like the Tories, have the town in general, that
is, the mob, on my side; ‘and to show the Secretary of State how little
politics affected him, he gaily notes that ‘L―――― is dead, and soups
are no more.’
[Sidenote: _INVASION IMMINENT._]
In that same July, however, there was a withdrawal of well-to-do Roman
Catholics, especially from London. Their opponents gave them credit for
having been warned of an approaching invasion, and of being desirous to
escape imprisonment. Popish disloyalty might be cruelly tested by any
constable who chose to administer the oath against Transubstantiation.
Towards the end of the month the king’s proclamation was first posted
in London. It announced that invasion was imminent, and it ordered all
Papists and reputed Papists to withdraw to at least ten miles from
London before the 8th of August. One hundred thousand pounds was the
reward again offered for the body of ‘the Pretender,’ dead or alive, if
taken within the British dominions. Meanwhile, at the Tory coffee-house
in Warwick Lane, the portrait of the Chevalier was passed from hand
to hand; while, to confirm waverers and encourage the converted,
great stress was laid upon the heroic look, the graceful carriage,
and the beautiful expression of clemency which belonged to the
original! Whig London was scandalised at the circumstance of a ‘priest
in an episcopal meeting-house’ in Edinburgh having prayed and asked the
prayers of the congregation for _a young gentleman that either was, or
would soon be, at sea_, on a dangerous enterprise. The London Whigs,
moreover, complained that the importation of arms and ammunition for
the service of the Pretender was favoured by Tory Custom-House officers
who had been appointed by the late ministry. Among the king’s own
foot-guards, enlisting for the Pretender was again said to be going
on. A strong recruiting party for the English army which went from
London to Oxford, and entered the latter city with its band playing,
was attacked by the Tory mob, by some of whom the big drum was cut to
pieces. The mob in various places attacked the houses of the Whigs.
◆[Sidenote: _SOUND OF SHOT._]◆ Shots were exchanged, and if a Whig
happened in defence of his life and property to slay a Tory, and the
case occurred where a jury of Jacobites could be summoned on the
inquest, the verdict was sure to be one of ‘wilful murder,’ whereat the
‘loyal’ London press waxed greatly indignant. It was with a sort of
horror that the Whig papers announced that eight-and-forty dozen swords
had been discovered in the north in the house of a tenant of Lord
Widdrington. Some of the papers ridiculed all idea of real danger. The
Duke of Ormond and Lord Rolle, the Duke of Leeds and Viscount Hatton,
might be dining with French ministers, but some papers thought little
would come of it. France objected to the English armaments going on,
as uncalled for. ‘Uncalled for!’ cried the Whig papers, ‘why, bloody
riot is rife in half-a-dozen large towns! One of the rebels shot in
Bromwicham had a fine lace shirt under his common frock!’
[Sidenote: _AFLOAT ON THE THAMES._]
Unpopular as the king and royal family may have been, there was never
the slightest show of fear or uneasiness about them. Even in August,
when an invasion was imminent, they went abroad among the people
quite unprotected. One Saturday evening in that month we hear of them
embarking in barges attended by many of the nobility afloat, and going
down the river ‘through bridge as far as _Limus_, to divert themselves
with music, which was most excellently performed on a great number of
trumpets, hautboys, and double curtails.’ On the return, the boats on
the river became so closely packed that the king ordered his watermen
to ship their oars and drift up with the flowing tide, as there was no
room left for rowing. The whole mass thus moved up together. The king
and royal family had perfect confidence in the people, and this trust
was not abused. The enthusiasm was unbounded. As twilight came down
upon them, the shipping and also the houses ashore illuminated with
lanterns and fired salutes. George I. was as safe as if he had been at
Windsor; and when, on landing at Privy Garden Stairs, he turned round
to salute the people, he must have felt that they were a noble people,
and they must have acknowledged that he was a stout-hearted king.
[Sidenote: _THE HORSE GUARDS._]
This was putting a bold face in front of peril. French emissaries were
in London, and there was no knowing for what desperate ends they had
been employed. Proclamations were despatched to Ireland for the arrest
of all Tories, robbers, and raparees, of whom there were already too
many concentrating for treasonable work about Dublin. The army itself
was not free from the most audacious treason. One morning as the fourth
troop of Horse Guards were about to turn out, an officer of the troop,
named Smith, was arrested in Whitehall. He affected to be indignant,
but the messengers produced the Secretary of State’s warrant for his
capture on a charge of high treason. Smith was shocked, and certainly
did not recover his coolness when the messengers took from his pockets
a commission signed by the Chevalier. The popular report as Smith
passed on his way to Newgate was, that on that very day he was to have
sold his post at the Horse Guards!
The king had no fear of assassination, but the ‘faction,’ as the
Jacobites were called, did their best to render his life uncomfortable.
There was natural indignation on the part of all moderate men when
a reprint appeared of the nonjuring Rev. Dr. Bedford’s work, ‘The
Hereditary Right of the Crown of England Asserted.’[4] This reprint was
denounced as being equivalent to the Pretender’s declaration, in folio.
The burthen of the book was, that to attempt the life of an usurper in
aid of the rightful prince was not murder. ‘As the rightful prince’
was not the same personage in the eyes of Whigs and of Tories, those
who put forth the book thought that neither party would be angry at the
justification of the murder of the chief of the opposite party.
While such publications were being printed, the metropolitan
authorities narrowly watched the temper of the people. The Lord Mayor
and Common Council were against the holding of Bartholomew Fair. One
newspaper, nevertheless, announced that the festival would be held as
usual. This step so smelt of sedition that the ‘author’ (as an editor
was then called) was only too glad to be let off by an abject apology.
It ended with:――‘We humbly beg his Lordship’s pardon for such an
affront.’
[Sidenote: _THE CHEVALIER DE ST. GEORGE._]
On September 13th news reached London that the Chevalier de St.
George had at last set out from Lorraine ‘in a Post Calash,’ in order
to travel incognito and so the more easily reach a seaport where he
could embark unobserved for some point in Great Britain. The Calash,
it was said, had not gone far before it was overturned. The august
traveller was reported as being generally hurt and bruised, but
particularly about the neck. This last was especially pointed out,
as if it were very significant. James was, at all events, so shaken
that his attendants had to carry him back. The Whigs eagerly longed
for confirmation of this news. ‘If it only proved true to the letter,
then,’ cried the Whigs, ‘it will give his party a further occasion to
remember the month of August, and furnish them with an opportunity to
drink as liberally to the Confusion of some other horses as they drank
to the “health of Sorrel,” the name of the horse that stumbled with
King William, and gave him the fall of which he died.’
[Sidenote: _THE KING’S SPEECH._]
There was growing uneasiness in London, despite the general confidence.
When the king prorogued Parliament in September, he was described
in the papers as being ‘pleased to take notice of the rebellion in
Scotland.’ He roundly laid that rebellion and the intended invasion
to the tumults and riots which had prevailed in the capital and in
various parts of the kingdom. Protestants, he said, had been deluded
into seditiously joining with Papists by false reports of the Church
of England being in danger under his administration. The king thought
this step was both unjust and ungrateful, considering what he had done
and what he had undertaken to do for her. The king naturally sneered
at the idea that a Popish Pretender was likely to be a better head of
the Church of England than a Protestant king. That informers were not
lacking may be perceived in a curious advertisement for a minister to
have put into the papers. It was to this effect:――‘Whereas a letter was
directed to the Right Hon. Robert Walpole, Esq., proposing to discover
matters of great importance, signed G. D., Notice is hereby given that
the said letter is received, and that if the person who wrote it will
come to Mr. Walpole’s lodgings at Chelsea any morning before nine
o’clock and make out what he therein proposes, he shall receive all due
encouragement and protection.’
On September 20th the ‘Daily Courant’ made no allusion whatever to the
troubled and anxious state of the nation, but it gave the satisfactory
intelligence that ‘All is in tranquility in France.’ On the same day,
however, a proclamation in the king’s name was issued, wherein it was
stated that ‘a most horrid and treacherous conspiracy’ was afoot, and
‘an invasion’ intended for the establishing of the Pretender.
[Sidenote: _PREACHERS AWAKE._]
The pulpits thereupon began to ring, but the Government made a
commendable attempt to muzzle the preachers, whether the latter were
blind adversaries or blinder advocates. The employment of violent
and malevolent terms against any persons whatsoever was prohibited.
The ‘intermeddling,’ in sermons, with affairs of state, was strictly
forbidden. The authorities, in fact, enjoined Christian ministers to
observe the charity which is the leading feature in Christianity.
The ministers, for the most part, claimed and exercised a rather
unchristian liberty. Foremost among the blaring trumpeters who sounded
on the Hanoverian side was White Kennett, Dean of Peterborough.
Kennett was a man who, in his early days, had offended the Whigs, by
his political publications; and, something later, had gratified the
Tories by putting forth an English translation of Pliny’s panegyric
upon Trajan, which was supposed to apply to James II.; while, at the
same time, he displeased the Jacobites by declaiming against popery and
by refusing to read the royal declaration of indulgence. The Whigs
whom he had offended, he appeased by his fierce opposition to
Sacheverel. Kennett was a man of great parts, as it is called, and was
particularly qualified for maintaining his opinions in a controversy.
Scholar, gentleman, priest and politician, he steadily went up the
ladder of preferment, till his merits and patronage had now brought
him to the deanery of Peterborough and the rectory of St. Mary,
Aldermanbury ◆[Sidenote: _A FAMOUS SERMON._]◆. It was in the church so
named that Kennett, on September 25th, 1715, preached his famous sermon
on witchcraft. The text was taken from 1 Samuel, xv. 23:――‘Rebellion is
as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, He hath also rejected
thee from being king.’ The sermon, a long one, and full of an invective
that almost reaches ferocity, is stuffed with inflammatory politics
from beginning to end, incendiary matter which _then_ made men half-mad
with joy or indignation, but which seems _now_ a poor thing save in
weight of mischievous words. The preacher, of course, proved to his own
satisfaction that all concerned in promoting the imminent rebellion
were bewitched by the devil; that stubbornness in opposing the royal
authority was the iniquity and idolatry alluded to in the text; and
that the Pretender, like his father, had lost the crown because he
did not care to be of the true community of faith. The sermon was
‘inspired,’ according to the Whig papers;――but by the devil, according
to the Tories and Tory critics in the clubs. Art took a curious revenge
for this discourse. ◆[Sidenote: _SATIRICAL ART._]◆ An altarpiece was
painted for St. Mary’s, Whitechapel, by order of Welton, the Jacobite
rector. The subject was The Last Supper. It gained a certain modest
amount of admiration, till some spectator remarked that Judas Iscariot
not only seemed a more than usually prominent figure in the group,
but that the face was wonderfully like Dr. White Kennett’s. It was,
in fact, Kennett’s portrait, and when this became known, all London,
but especially Jacobite London, was crowding to Whitechapel to behold
this novel pillorying of the modern Iscariot. If any spectator had
a doubt on the matter, it was removed by the black patch on Judas’s
head. Kennett, in William’s days, used to go out with his dog and his
gun, and with companions in his shooting excursions. On one of these
‘outings,’ an awkward companion let part of the charge of his gun go
into the head of the divine. The consequences were grave, but Kennett
was saved by undergoing the operation of trepanning. Ever afterwards
he wore a black patch over the place. The artist had not forgotten the
fact. Delighted Jacobites gazed at the figure in jeering crowds; and
when the picture had been seen and re-seen by all the Tories in town,
the Bishop of London interfered, and ordered it to be put away. Kennett
could afford to laugh. His sermon on the witchcraft of the rebellion
carried him to the episcopal throne at Peterborough.
[Sidenote: _MISCHIEVOUS SERMONS._]
The pulpits were not silenced. As what was considered the supreme
moment of peril became imminent, they shook again with the trumpet-like
roar of the preachers. The High Church lecturers inculcated obedience
to the _rightful king_, without naming him. The thorough Whig
Hanoverian clergy spared no epithets that they could fling, winged with
fire and tipped with poison, at the Jacobites’ sovereign, ‘a boy sworn
to destroy this kingdom,’ said one. Others were both foul and ferocious
in dealing with the Chevalier who desired to get possession of his
inheritance. The more eagerly they pelted him with unsavoury missiles,
the more lavish they were in terms which amounted to worshipping the
god-like monarch whom Heaven had sent for the advantage of England and
the wonder of the world. On October 16th, 1715, one of these sermons
was preached in St. Katherine Cree Church, London, by the minister,
the Rev. Charles Lambe. The text was taken from Proverbs, xxiv. 21,
‘My son, fear thou the Lord and the king: and meddle not with them
that are given to change.’ Such a text foreshadows its comment in
such hands as those of Lambe. But he went out of his way to assail
the Chevalier, into the circumstances of whose birth――to show he was
not the born son of Mary of Modena and James II.――Lambe entered in
the gossiping manner of such matronly midwives as his bishop was then
in the habit of licensing. ‘That was done in a corner,’ he said, with
an air of mystery, ‘which should have been done openly to the utmost
extent of decency.’ Had Lambe’s congregation been disposed to sleep, he
had matter prepared for the awakening of them in a passage which was
certain to touch them nearly. He knew that distant danger was unheeded,
but he brought this suggestive picture of London to the attention of
Londoners, and it could not have done otherwise than make their souls
uneasy, and rouse their spirits to be up and doing. ‘Have you any
notion of a civil war, your Treasury exhausted, your Banks plundered,
your Trade decayed, your Companies bankrupt, your Shops rifled, and the
various species of Stocks sunk, run down, and lost? Have you any idea
of Fields flow’d with blood, your Streets pav’d with the carcasses of
fellow citizens, your Wives and your Daughters torn from your Sides,
and made a Prey to enrag’d undistinguishing Soldiers. Think that you
see this beautiful and spacious City burnt, destroy’d, made a ruinous
Heap, attended with all the dismal Horrors of Fire and Sword even from
Fellow Countrymen, Fellow Subjects, and Fellow Protestants!’
[Sidenote: _A SOUND OF ALARM._]
Citizens and fathers must have stared in a sort of dismay. Lambe might
well say that if any disloyal man was present, he hoped such person
had been cured of his malady. Jones, probably, went home thinking
of a pavement made out of the carcasses of Brown and Robinson; and
the ladies of citizen families walked behind them in a flutter of
speculation as to what part of the force those undistinguishing
soldiers belonged.
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE AGENTS._]
London may be called the head-quarters of the rebels, before actual
war broke out. Captain John Shafto (on half-pay), an ex-Captain John
Hunter, and an Irish Papist who had served in the brigade in France,
were among the more active and daring agents. The leaders of the party
kept their secret tolerably well. They met, debated, provided all
things needful for their success, and carried on a correspondence
with friends at a distance. While agents moved quietly away from
London to teach the ‘Rurals’ the sacred duty of rebellion, more trusty
messengers, still, rode or walked through and away from town, bearing
letters and despatches which, if discovered, might cost a dozen lives.
These trusty gentlemen were sent into various parts of the kingdom.
They rode from place to place as travellers, pretending a curiosity
to view the country; and they performed their dangerous duty with a
success which perplexed the king’s messengers. The most dexterous of
these agents were Colonel Oxburgh, Nicholas and Charles Wogan, and
James Talbot, all Irish and Papists. There were others, men of quality
too, and occasionally a clergyman, who were entrusted with important
but still dangerous duties. ‘All these,’ says Patten in his ‘History,’
‘rid like Gentlemen, with Servants and Attendants, and were armed with
swords and pistols. They kept always moving, and travelled from place
to place, till things ripened for action.’
Meanwhile, the otherwise curious part of the public might be seen
wandering in troops to Duke Street, Westminster, to gaze at the house,
the master of which, the Earl of Scarsdale, was there put under
confinement. There was, elsewhere, a good look-out kept for perils
ahead; there was no indulgence of any mean spite. His Majesty’s ship
‘Ormond’ was then lying at Spithead. The Government did not stoop to
the little vindictiveness of painting out the name of the great rebel
who was then aiding and fostering rebellion, abroad. Sedition at home
was hottest very close to the Royal Palace. There was quite a commotion
at the bottom of St. James’s Street, at seeing messengers and guards
enter Mr. Ozinda’s chocolate-house, next door to the palace. Ozinda
himself was brought out captive, and when the mob saw him followed by
Sir Richard Vivyan and Captain Forde, also captives, they began to
smell a new gunpowder plot, and to surmise that the blowing up of the
royal family was to be one of the means for restoring the Stuarts.
[Sidenote: _ARRESTS._]
Much of the safety of London was entrusted to the Westminster
Cavalry Militia, who were now very active. Record is made of their
rendezvousing in Covent Garden, going thence to _Tuttle Fields_, where,
says the sarcastic ‘Weekly Packet,’ ‘they exercised without so much
as one Man falling from the saddle.’ At the same time, captures were
being effected in every direction. Now, a whole club might be seen,
properly secured, and passing on their way to Newgate, amid the jeers
of most spectators, and with the sympathy of a few. Country gentlemen
of many thousands a year were not held sacred even in the middle of
their dinner at an ordinary. It was a regular frolic to carry off half
the guests in eating-houses, before they had finished their repast, for
which perhaps they had little appetite left. Then, unlucky Italians or
demonstrative Frenchmen were ever and anon being handcuffed in country
places and hurried through London on suspicion of being the Pretender.
Ambassadors from foreign Powers had endless trouble thrown upon
their hands in protecting the rights of foreign hawkers of flash
jewelry, suspected of designs upon the throne. ◆[Sidenote: _POPULAR
FEELING._]◆The Whig writers seriously warned the London apprentices
who had Tory proclivities that Heaven was certainly against them.
At a feast in celebration of the expiration of a young fellow’s
apprenticeship, the freedman, in an after-dinner speech, railed
furiously at his late Whig master and at Whiggery generally. Before the
speaker, with anti-Hanoverian expletives for fireworks, had come to
an end, the young fellow’s excitement became too much for him. A fit
laid him senseless, and he died in an hour or so. The Whig patriots
protested that the Judgment of God was never so manifest as in this
case.
[4] The authorship of this pamphlet, first published
in 1713, for which Bedford was condemned to pay a
fine of 1,000 marks, and to be imprisoned three
years, was subsequently assumed by another nonjuring
clergyman――the Rev. George Harbin.
[Illustration: Flowers]
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
CHAPTER VI.
(1715.)
[Illustration: Drop-N]ext, the idea of a camp and mimic war in Hyde
Park was viewed, by _some_ ladies, with unconcealed delight. Pope wrote
half sportively, half seriously, to one of those gay women of the
period――most of them Jacobite at heart. ‘You may soon have your wish,’
he says, ‘to enjoy the gallant sights of armies, encampments, standards
waving over your brother’s corn-fields, and the pretty windings of the
Thames stained with the blood of men. Your barbarity, which I have
heard so long exclaimed against, in town and country, may have its fill
of destruction.’ The writer adds a notification of the perils that may
environ lovely women who delight in war, and he thus proceeds:――‘Those
eyes that care not how much mischief is done, or how great slaughter
committed so they have but a fine show, those very female eyes will be
infinitely delighted with the camp which is speedily to be formed in
Hyde Park. The tents were carried thither this morning. New regiments
with new clothes and furniture, far exceeding the late cloth and linen
designed by his Grace for the soldiery――the sight of so many gallant
fellows, with all the pomp and glare of war, yet undeformed by
battles, those scenes which England has, for so many years, only beheld
on stages, may possibly invite your curiosity to this place.’
[Sidenote: _CAMP AND PULPIT._]
The Guards, while encamped in Hyde Park, were preached to, on Sundays,
with an earnestness which stood for an apology. It seemed necessary
to persuade them, as the preachers did, that the happiness of Great
Britain, in having a wise and just Protestant king, was beyond all
conception.
The ‘Friends,’ too, lifted their voice. In November the Quaker spirit
was moved to uplift a shout against the Jacobites. A Ministering Friend
of the people so called gave a blast through the press of ‘a trumpet
blown in the North and sounded in the ears of John Ereskine, called by
the Men of the World Duke of Mar.’ At the Cheshire coffee-house, in
King’s Arms Court, Ludgate Hill, this pamphlet might be bought, or read
over the aromatic cup which was sold in that locality.
Pamphleteers came out with ‘bold advice,’――that Jacobitism should be
stamped out by vigorous laws. Everywhere the clerical Jacobites, who
prayed for the Pretender, by _innuendo_, were denounced. In Holland,
it was said, when a clergyman meddles with affairs of State, the
magistrates send him a staff and a pair of shoes, and that significant
course was recommended for Tory parsons. Another Dutch custom was
highly approved of. It was gravely proposed for adoption here, that the
clergy, generally, should preach only from texts prescribed for them by
the civil authorities!
[Sidenote: _POPULAR SLOGAN._]
Throughout this year, on days popular with either party, the streets
resounded with different cries, according to the anniversary. Now, it
was ‘a Stuart!’ ‘an Ormond!’ ‘No Hanoverians!’ or ‘High Church and
Ormond!’ which last cry was interpreted by the opposite party to mean
‘Pope and Pretender!’ Tory mobs of patriots went about asking High
Churchmen for money, to drink ‘Damnation to Whigs and Dissenters.’ The
same men went to the other side to ask drinking money for damning the
Pope; and when the Tories accused the Whigs of burning down their own
meeting houses, it was perhaps because the leading incendiaries were
recognised by Tories as having been active in supporting with their
sweet voices what they were then destroying torch in hand! The same
men would, the next day, burn the Pretender in effigy, in Cheapside,
and get drunk on the wages of their infamy. On the king’s birthday,
it was observed that loyalty prevailed among the lower orders,
wherever wine was to be had for nothing. Some made a demonstration.
‘In the Marshalsea,’ said the papers, ‘after the king’s birthday, our
prisoners, wherever able, had select companies to drink King George’s
health.’ As some keepers of prisons distributed punch at the prison
gates, nobody refused to drink ‘The king’s health,’ as long as the
liquor lasted.
[Sidenote: _PERILOUS ANNIVERSARIES._]
The London Jacobites showed their characteristic spirit on the night of
Friday, November 4th, the anniversary of King William’s birthday. They
built up a huge bonfire in Old Jewry, and prepared to hang over it an
effigy of that monarch. The Williamite Club, assembled at the Roebuck
in Cheapside, hearing of the insult, rushed out with ‘oaken plants’ in
their hands, and made furious and effective onslaught on the ‘Jacks,’
They scattered the faggots, broke the heads of all opponents, and
ultimately carried off the effigy in triumph. Some Jacks pleaded that
it was only an effigy of Oliver, but they were kicked for gratuitously
lying. The Whigs installed the captured figure in their club room,
where it was preserved as an ‘undeniable proof of that villainous
Design which the Faction had not then the courage to own and now have
the Impudence to deny.’
On the following day, loyal Londoners had their revenge. They
celebrated the national deliverance from the Gunpowder Plot, and,
through William III., from popery, slavery, and wooden shoes. With
bands of music, flaunting of flags, and continued hurrahs from loyal
and thirsty throats, the procession moved or stumbled through the
city. The effigies borne along with them in derision were those of the
Pope, the Pretender, the Duke of Ormond, Lord Bolingbroke, and the
Earl of Mar. There were men who carried warming pans, in allusion to
the legend that the Pretender had been brought in one into the palace
on the day that the queen, his mother, believed she had borne him.
There were men who represented the prince’s nurses, and others who
carried nursery emblems. The music played ‘Lillibulero,’ and tunes of
similar quality. The effigies of Ormond and Mar rode together in the
same cart. ◆[Sidenote: _POPULAR DEMONSTRATIONS._]◆ The former wore
an extravaganza sort of uniform, with an emblematic padlock on his
sword. Ormond was in scarlet and gold. Mar was in blue and silver,
with a paper pinned to his staff. It bore this inscription: ‘I have
sworn sixteen times to the Protestant religion, and I ne’er deceived
you but once.’ Pope and Pretender followed, cheek by jowl, in another
cart. They were pontifically and royally decked out, in caricature.
Bolingbroke, in absurd court dress, sat at the tail of the cart, as
in dutiful attendance on both masters; and a paper above him bore the
words, ‘Perjury is no crime!’ All these personages rode backwards like
traitors. The lengthy procession passed westward, from the Roebuck in
Cheapside by Holborn to St. James’s Palace, returning by Pall Mall and
the Strand. For the time being they were in full possession of the
streets. They paused at the houses of celebrated personages, to hail
them with blessings or curses equally highly-pitched. ‘Sometime before
their arrival at the Roebuck, on their return, a sneaking Jacobite mob,
perceiving the pile for the bonfire unguarded, came up with a shout of
“King George for ever!” the better to deceive the people, and scower’d
off with the faggots into bye-lanes and corners.’
Eastward, the procession went as far as Grace-church Street, amid vast
multitudes of people. The trumpets and hautboys now played none but
Protestant tunes. A double set of effigies were burnt on gibbets over
two huge bonfires, one in front of the Roebuck, the other before the
Royal Exchange,――the devil being added to the rest as a _bonne bouche_
for the loyal and pious people. The mob at last separated in pursuit of
liquor, and over their cups they talked of how an Irish priest had just
been clapped into Newgate for attempting to blow up the powder magazine
at Greenwich; and how Governor Gibson had saved Portsmouth Castle from
being seized and the fleet in the harbour burnt by rascally Jacks
who had conspired for the purpose. Before the next day had dawned,
expresses were galloping into London with news from the North.
[Sidenote: _NEWS FROM THE NORTH._]
Letters of November 3rd, sent express from Edinburgh, were printed
in the London papers of the 8th. They brought news of London to the
Londoners themselves, namely, that, according to a proclamation made
by Lord Mar, the Pretender’s friends had risen in such numbers in and
about London, that ‘King George had made a shift to retire.’ Fortified
in Perth, and awaiting communications from James, Mar ‘affects to seem
merry, diverts himself with balls, and has a press, with which he
prints and disperses false news, to keep up the spirit of his party.’
Among the reports sent to London was one that Mar’s detachments had
crossed the Forth, and swept the country clear as far as Newcastle.
Other chiefs, Lord Ogilvy, the Earl of Seaforth and Glengarry, were
said to be in occupation of the most important roads, bridges, and
passes.
Letters from Stirling assured the Londoners that the Duke of Argyle
was fully prepared to meet and defeat any movement that could be made
by the rebels. Great comfort was it to the Whigs in the metropolis
to hear that in some places those rebels were met on their march by
members of synods, who urged on the insurgents the duty of loyalty to
King George. Jacobite Foot and Horse were said to be in extremely bad
condition. The newspapers then say:――
[Sidenote: _REPORTS FROM SCOTLAND._]
‘Before they went into Kalso, they plundered the house of the Right
Hon. George Baillie of Jerviswood, and broke open everything that was
locked. They did the like to Sir John Pringle’s house at Stitchel.
When they went from Hawick, the Highlanders being unwilling to march,
they gave them a crown a-piece to go with ’em to Langham, where, being
alarm’d in the night, the Horse mounted, abandoned the Foot at two
o’clock in the morning, and marched towards Lancashire, upon which the
Foot marched to Ecclefechan, where they were divided about the course
they should take. Some of them were for going to Moffat and some to
Dumfries, but hearing that there were four thousand of the king’s
friends at the latter, seven hundred of them marched to Moffat, where
they dispersed to make the best of their way. Two hundred of them got
as far as Lamington in Clydesdale, where they were made prisoners in
the churchyard. The rest are picked up in parties of fifty or sixty, as
they march. The Lord Kenmure, with the Scots horse, is gone along with
the English; and Mackintosh of Borland with him. Mr. Forster commands
the (rebel) English Horse. The Lords Derwentwater and Widdrington be
with him, but they decline command because they are Papists. Borland
left his nephew sick at Kelso, under the care of Dr. Abernethy.’
[Sidenote: _FURTHER INTELLIGENCE._]
London laughed at the simplicity of Mar, who sent a trumpet to Argyle,
soliciting him to spare Mar’s plantations at Alloway. Mar also hoped
Argyle would ‘treat his prisoners civilly.’ The report that ‘Cameron of
Lochiel had been prevailed upon by some means or other from Inverary to
stay at home,’ made curses ring against him in the Tory coffee-houses
of London. The loungers and politicians in the Whig coffee-houses
laughed as they read or heard read that ‘Mar wrote to Captain
Robertson, offering him great Incouragement if he would come over to
him and bring others with him. The letter was delivered to the captain
by a lady, but he was so honest that he carried both the lady and the
letter to the Duke of Argyle.’――From Tiviotdale, under date of October
31st, the London papers of November 8th gave accounts of dissensions
among the rebels. ‘The Highlanders were unwilling to cross into England
in support of the rebel English Horse; and although they offered the
Highlanders 12_d._ a day, could not prevail with them.’
Then there is report of irresolute tarrying here, and of equally
irresolute wending elsewhere――of scares and scurries, of hurried
saddling of horses, leaving mangers full of corn, and of panics――which
sent crowds of rebels pell mell into rivers, which they forded at
great peril,――all to avoid General Carpenter, who was supposed to
be at their heels. In various ways they were said to have helped
themselves. ‘Kelso has lost 7,000 marks by them, and Selkirk in the
article of shoes 100_l_. sterling.’ Numbers of the gentry and common
people were said to have joined Carpenter. This day’s news must have
been discouraging to the Tories. It had such a depressing effect on Dr.
Sacheverel, that he gave up the Jacobite cause. On the following day,
November 9th, the reverend gentleman, with another or two of less note,
quietly slipped into the Court of Exchequer, and took the oaths of
allegiance to King George!!!
[Sidenote: _NEWS FROM PRESTON._]
The news of the battle of Sheriff Muir and of the crowning affair at
Preston reached London only four or five days after the events. The St.
James’s ‘Running Post’ was the first in the field with anything like
details. The public were told that Major-General Wills, being informed
that the Popish Lords Derwentwater and Widdrington, with the Scotch
and Northumberland rebels, in all between 4,000 and 5,000 men, were in
Preston, Wills marched upon that town on Saturday, November 12th. He
had with him regiments of horse and dragoons, known as Pitt’s, Wynne’s,
Honeywood’s, Dormer’s, Munden’s, Stanhope’s, and Preston’s. Other
dragoons held Manchester, and prevented the Jacobites there from rising
in arms as they had promised.
On arriving at the bridge over the Ribble, about a mile from Preston,
Wills saw about 300 of the insurgent horse and foot precipitately
retreating towards Preston, which they entered and barricaded. The
bridge was at once crossed, the town was reached, and a hot engagement
took place at the first barricade. The assailants suffered severely
from the shots fired by men from windows and in cellars. The infantry,
however, got a lodgment. When night came on, all the avenues of the
town were blockaded by Wills’s cavalry, the men keeping by the horses’
heads throughout the night. At nine on Sunday morning General Carpenter
joined Wills with three additional regiments of cavalry.
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE FURY._]
Private letters confirmed the report of the deadly nature of the
defence made by men under cover. This led Wills to fire the houses,
upon which the Jacobites withdrew to the centre of the town and into
the church, fighting again behind new barricades. When the resistance
became hopeless, offers to capitulate were sent to the attacking
general, but Wills refused all terms. They must surrender, he said, at
discretion. He would not treat with rebels. The surrender followed; and
the same day saw the fatal issues of Preston and of Sheriff Muir.
[Sidenote: _STREET FIGHTING._]
This news from Preston infuriated rather than depressed the London
Jacobites. On Queen Elizabeth’s birthday, November 17th, it was
whispered about that they intended to profane the day by burning the
effigies of his sacred Majesty King George himself, as well as that
of King William. The Whigs of the Roebuck assembled in and about that
hostelry, armed and resolved to prevent the profanation. At seven
p.m. one of their scouts rushed in breathless with the news that the
‘hellish crew’ were mustered in St. Martin’s-le-Grand to cries of
‘High Church and Ormond,’ ‘Ormond and King James,’ ‘King James and
Rome for ever!’ The Roebucks, thus interrupted when they were drinking
to the memory of Queen Elizabeth, while keeping their powder dry for
contingencies, at once marched out. The hostile forces encountered at
the east end of Newgate Street. The Jacobites were thoroughly thrashed,
and the assailants carried in triumph to the Roebuck the figures,
which had been destined for the flames in Smithfield, of the above
two kings, and also that of ‘the victorious Duke of Marlborough.’ The
figures were carried to the tavern-head-quarters of loyalty, and with
them a sort of Scaramouch, who had brandished in their defence a huge
scymitar, four fingers broad. The Whigs had scarcely got safe within
their stronghold when it was vigorously assaulted by at least five
hundred Jacobites. The latter, after whetting their rage by smashing
windows on their march, commenced their attack on the Roebuck fortress
by pulling down the sign, and breaking everything that was breakable
in front of the house. Finally, the crowning assault was made by the
hatchet and cleaver wielders against the gates. They laughed at being
rather politely requested to desist, and were amused when shot at
from the windows with powder only. Then, in self-defence, the Whigs
fired into the mass with ball. Down went two or three into the London
November mud, dead for James and the High Church. Up went, at the
same time, the shrieks and curses of the wounded. The remnant were
staggered; for a moment indecisive, they soon came to a resolution and
to action upon it. At this moment appeared in Cheapside the Lord Mayor
with a guard, some officers and citizens, shouting, ‘King George for
ever!’ The Jacobites fled in precipitation. The Scaramouch and some
other prisoners were lodged in Newgate. Great tribulation prevailed in
all the Jacobite quarters. In London, as at Preston, the star of the
Stuarts paled before the fire of Brunswick.
[Sidenote: _THE PRISONERS FROM PRESTON._]
The Londoners now looked for nothing more eagerly than for the arrival
in town of the prisoners taken at Preston. Some officers among them
had been shot for desertion. On the march to London the body consisted
of about three hundred men. The officers walked or rode first. The
gentlemen-volunteers followed, and the Highlanders brought up the
rear. They travelled by easy journeys, and were sometimes fettered, at
others free, according to the caprice of those who had them in guard.
The public were informed that they would enter London in four bodies,
‘according to the several prisons they were to go to,’ the first body
to the Tower, the second to Newgate, the third to the Fleet, the
fourth to the Marshalsea. On the march several attempted to escape. A
few succeeded; others were recaptured; some were cut down by pursuing
soldiery. Among the slain was a Cornet Shuttleworth. There was found
on his body the Chevalier’s banner. It was of ‘green taffety, with
buff-coloured silk fringe round it――the device, a pelica feeding her
young, with this Latin motto, “Tantum valet amor regis et patriæ,” “So
prevalent is the love of King and Country.” All London was in a fever
of agitation for this arrival――friends, that they might condole; foes,
that they might exult.
[Sidenote: _TYBURN TREE._]
Even the march of Major-General Tatton’s detachment of Guards up Gray’s
Inn Lane to Highgate, to meet the prisoners there, attracted crowds,
despite the severe weather. The last day of November a spectacle
of a gloomier character attracted the Londoners. Three Jacobite
captains――Gordon, Kerr, and Dorrell――went up Holborn Hill in carts
to Tyburn. They had been captains under William and under Anne, but
had flung up their commissions under George to take others from ‘King
James.’ Even the Tyburn mob must have respected them――they died in
such heroic, gentlemanlike fashion. They were calm, and declined to
acknowledge the justice of their sentence. ‘Obstinate and sullen’ were
the terms applied to them by the Whigs. To the last they persisted in
justifying themselves. To account for which it was illogically said
that ‘Gordon died a Papist, and ’tis shrewdly suspected the other two
were tainted with the same principles.’ ‘It is therefore no great
wonder,’ said the Whig ‘Evening Post,’ ‘that the precepts of their
Religion as well as the Sake of their Cause should inspire them to
leave the World in such an unrelenting Manner.’ These captains had
striven to secure Oxford for their king.
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE CAPTAINS._]
In rebel times and crimes, every captain is not a captain who is called
by that title. Thus, Captain Gordon was an adventurer who had killed
one man in England and another in Bengal. The captain was brought
in chains to England, but the chief witness against him died on the
voyage, and Gordon was set free. Dorrell had been a hostler at the
inn which gave its name to Hart Street, Covent Garden. Early in King
William’s reign he had risen through a sea of troubles to the rank
of ensign in the army, into which he had enlisted. His scarlet coat,
cocked hat, and sword, rendered him acceptable to a rich old widow,
with a portion of whose money Dorrell bought a share in a brewery near
Clare Market. Bankruptcy carried him to the Fleet, whence, issuing
in due time, he became a ruffler and gambler in taverns. When he was
hanged as a martyr to Jacobitism, the hostile papers said that he had
already earned that fate by cheating one Harper at the Cock and Pye in
Drury Lane, of a hundred pounds. These little incidents illustrate the
morals and customs of the period.
There is tradition of the gallant bearing of Lord Derwentwater on
the progress of the captives towards London. Thus, it is said in the
Jacobite ballad:――
Lord Derwentwater to Lichfield did ride,
With armed men on every side;
But still he swore by the point of his sword,
To drink a health to his rightful lord.
The earl took another view of the cause as he drew nearer to the
capital.
[Sidenote: _DRAWING NEAR LONDON._]
After arriving at Barnet, Lord Derwentwater, conversing with an officer
of General Lumley’s horse, which force had the prisoners of quality
in their keeping, asked him if he knew how they were to be disposed
of? The officer communicated his belief that they would be divided
among three or four prisons, according to their rank. Derwentwater
was silent for awhile, and then he remarked, ‘There’s one house would
hold us all, and we have a better title to it than any other people in
Great Britain.’ ‘What house is that, my Lord?’ asked the officer. ‘It
is Bedlam,’ answered Derwentwater, as the madness of the enterprise in
which he had been, not too willingly, engaged presented itself, not for
the first time, to his mind.
On the whole way from Lancashire to Highgate most of the Jacobite
captains were unsubdued in spirit. Many of them, however, on reaching
Highgate, and perceiving preparations for pinioning them, suddenly
became more sedate. Kindly-hearted Whigs in the London papers suggested
that the rebels were sad, from a thought of similar ropes that would
soon be about their necks! Allusion was made to the men of lesser
quality who would speedily be ‘under hatches in the Fleet before they
sailed for _Hanging Island_.’
[Sidenote: _HIGHGATE TO LONDON._]
There were noble men among these unfortunate Jacobites. The Earl of
Derwentwater and his brother Charles Radcliffe; the three brothers,
Lord Widdrington, with Charles and Peregrine Widdrington; old Edward
Howard, brother of the Duke of Norfolk; even Alexander and William,
sons of Sir Alexander Dalmahoy, were bound together. Two other
brothers, John and James Paterson, of Preston Hall, were also in fond,
but melancholy, companionship. William Shaftoe, of Bevington, had his
son, John Shaftoe, at his side; two other Shaftoes, kinsmen of the
former, and also father and son, rode near them. John Cotton, of Geding
in Huntingdonshire, supported his father, Robert Geding. Two brothers
Swinburne were among the prisoners, but not their father, Sir William.
James Dalzell cheered the drooping spirits of his nephew, the Earl of
Carnwath. Two Heskeths of Whitehill, Gabriel and Cuthbert, were pointed
out by the soldiery as another father and son. In the same relationship
were the two George Homes of Wedderburn; the George and Alexander
Home of Whitfield; and George and John Winraham of Eymouth. William
and George Maxwell were two brothers. Of cousins there were many. And
among those of best blood not yet named were the Earls of Nithsdale and
Winton, Viscount Kenmure, and Lord Nairn, with the Master of Nairn,
his son. The flower of Northumberland chivalry, members of the old
church, were there, Ordes, Forsters, Griersons, Riddells, Thorntons,
Claverings, and Scotts. These, with commoner men, yet men in all
essentials of manhood equal in quality, descended Highgate Hill amid
crowds of spectators, who lined the roads from the hill to the Tower,
the Fleet, Newgate, or the Marshalsea, into which prisons the noble
herd was driven, according to their degree of nobility. ‘The crowd gave
most remarkable demonstration of their abhorrence of this rebellion and
of their loyalty to his Majesty,’ so says the ‘London Gazette;’ and no
one expected it to say otherwise.
[Sidenote: _ARRIVAL IN TOWN._]
Even a Quaker could exult at the sight of the procession of captives.
Gerard Penrice, a prisoner, gave the following instance in his
so-called ‘Life of Charles Radcliffe’: ‘A Quaker fixed his eyes upon
me, and distinguishing what I was, said, “Friend, verily thou hast been
the Trumpeter of Rebellion to these men. Thou must answer for them.”
Upon this a Grenadier gave him a push with the butt end of his musket,
so that the Spirit fell into the ditch. While sprawling on his back, he
told the soldier, “Thou hast not used me civilly. I doubt thou art not
a real friend to King George.”’
From first to last the prisoners had looked to be rescued. The
Highlanders asked where the High Church Tories were? If they had had
no heart for the fight, could not they now come to the rescue? Forster
told his fellow-captives that a gentleman of Highgate had assured him
that a Tory mob would rescue them before they reached London. Nothing
came of it. Forster thought his quality might have taken him to the
Tower instead of to Newgate. ‘When,’ says a Whig paper, ‘he understood
that Gordon, Carr (Kerr), and Dorrell were executed the day before, and
their quarters then in the box just by, in order to be set upon the
gates, it spoiled his stomach so that he could not eat with his then
unhappy companions. It was the Whig crowd that shouted at the prisoners
in a triumphant manner. Not only were the streets thronged, every
coign of vantage in and about the houses was occupied, and spectators
on horseback and in coaches accompanied, followed, and in some cases
drew up to enjoy the pitiful, yet triumphant spectacle. ‘It gave a very
lively idea,’ said the ‘Flying Post,’ ‘of the triumphs of the ancient
Romans when they led their captives to Rome.’
[Sidenote: _THE JACOBITE CHAPLAIN._]
The rebel chaplain-general, Mr. Patten, rode by the side of the
ex-Northumbrian M.P. Forster, the leader of the English Jacobites. It
is hard to say which was the most coarsely assailed. The chaplain was
audacious enough to talk treason as he went on his way. Forster was
more reticent, but he was loudly taunted as a perjurer. He had taken
the oaths to King George, before he transferred his loyalty to King
James. The slang term for him was, ‘the Man under the Rose.’
Of priests and clergymen among the prisoners, few attracted more
attention than this Rev. Mr. Patten. The Londoners looked with
curiosity on a man who had delivered a sermon from such a significant
text as the following――Isaiah xiii. 15, 16, ‘Every one that is found
shall be thrust through, and every one that is joined unto them shall
fall by the sword. Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before
their eyes. Their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.’
This looks like a weak invention of the enemy, but it was believed
in, at least by the Whigs. Even while the procession of captives was
passing, swords were drawn at tavern doors, and in tavern rooms. If a
Whig was there to call Mar a villain, and the prisoners hang-birds, a
Jacobite’s rapier was speedily thrusting at his ribs to teach the other
better manners.
[Sidenote: _LADY COWPER’S TESTIMONY._]
Lady Cowper confirms these accounts. In her Diary, under date,
December, 1715, she says:――‘This week the prisoners were brought
to town from Preston. They came in with their arms tied, and their
horses (with the bridles taken off), led each by a soldier. The mob
insulted them terribly, carrying a warming-pan before them, and saying
a thousand barbarous things which some of the prisoners returned with
spirit. The chief of my father’s family was among them. He is above
seventy years old.’ Lady Cowper’s maiden name was Judith Clavering; and
it was the aged chief of that Jacobite house who rode defiantly through
the Low Church blackguards. ‘A desperate fortune,’ adds Lady Cowper,
‘had drawn him from home, in hopes to have repaired it. I did not
see them come into town, nor let any of my children do so. I thought
it would be an insulting of the relations I had here; though almost
everybody went to see them.’
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE REPORTS._]
From the very outbreak of the rebellion London had teemed with reports
which had no shadow of foundation. They were spread chiefly by Jacobite
incendiaries of figure and distinction. They protested that if King
George reigned, he would make a bridge of boats from Hanover to
Wapping,――a phrase which served to intimate that the kingdom would be
annexed to the electorate. People in the country were told that the
London churches were closed, and that a clergyman could not appear
in the streets in his clerical dress without risking a knock on the
head. As for resisting the Jacobites, the Highlanders were described
as too powerful to be resisted. It was certainly in ridicule of such
exaggerations that a story ran for a few days to the effect that those
terrible Highlanders had cut off the Dutch auxiliaries, had put on
their breeches, and, advancing on an English detachment which did not
recognise them, had cut the Whig soldiers to pieces. It is quite as
certain that the London Jacobites claimed the victory at Preston for
_their_ side, and were not silenced till the cavalcade of Jacobite
captives was passing from Highgate to the London prisons. Even then,
ultra-Tories were found who strongly suspected, or said they did, that
half the prisoners were hired players who were dismissed when the
public performance came to an end!
[Illustration: Leaves]
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
CHAPTER VII.
(1715-16.)
[Illustration: Drop-T]he mournful procession of Scottish nobles,
gentlemen, and brave fellows of less degree, was not the first
spectacle of the same kind witnessed by the Londoners. After the
abortive attempt at insurrection, made in 1708, the year after the
Union of England and Scotland, under the title of Great Britain,――the
castles of Stirling and Edinburgh, and all the prisons in Edinburgh,
were crammed full of nobility and gentry; ‘at first,’ says George
Lockhart of Carnwath, the gentle Jacobite, ‘no doubt, the Government
expected to have proof enough to have brought several of them to
punishment, but failing, blessed be God, in that, the next use they
made of them was to advance their politics; for no sooner did any
person who was not of their party pretend to stand a candidate, to
be chosen a Parliament Man, at the Elections which were to be next
summer, but were clapt up in prison, or threatened with it, if he did
not desist; and, by their means, they carried, generally speaking, whom
they pleased; but to return to the prisoners;――after they had been in
custody some weeks, orders came from London, to send them up thither;
which was accordingly done; being divided in three classes, and sent
up three several times, led in Triumph, under a strong Guard, and
exposed to the Raillery and Impertinence of the English mob; and now
it appeared to what a fine market Scotland had brought her Hogs, her
Nobility and Gentry being led in chains, from one end of the Island to
the other, merely on account of suspicion, and without any accusation
or proof against them.’
[Sidenote: _THE CHEVALIER IN SCOTLAND._]
This last made all the difference between the captives of 1708 and
those of 1715. Those of the former year were in time liberated, on
agreement on the part of the most influential to serve the English
Government at the Scottish elections, else, ‘I am afraid,’ says
Lockhart, ‘some heads had paid for it.’ This was the payment exacted at
the later period.
[Sidenote: _THE CHEVALIER OUT OF SCOTLAND._]
It was fatal to the political prisoners that the rebellion was
carried on after the double defeat at Sheriff Muir and Preston. The
Chevalier de St. George, otherwise James III., arrived in Scotland as
inopportunely as the chief actor in a tragedy, when the curtain is
falling. On December 22nd, 1715, he landed at Peterhead. All was lost
before he appeared. His progress was made with the saddening conviction
that nothing could be recovered. He marched with a loose array from
Peterhead to Dundee. From Dundee he went and played ‘king’ for a few
days in regal Scone, after having burnt a village or two. On January
9th, he entered Perth. A stand was to be made there, but, on that
day three weeks, the anniversary of the execution of his grandfather
Charles I., the stand was abandoned. News reached Perth that Argyle
was coming down upon them. The Jacobite army dispersed in various
directions, but chiefly scattered through the Highland fastnesses. A
faithful few accompanied James to Dundee, a fewer still to Montrose.
There was then further talk of holding out, but the unhappy prince
slipped away from the talkers, went on board the little vessel
waiting for him, and on February 9th, 1716, he was quietly dining at
Gravelines. Altogether, he was about six weeks in Scotland. It would
have been as well for him, and better for his followers, had he been at
the Antipodes. London would not then have raved so cruelly as it did
against the prisoners of Sheriff Muir and Preston.
On February 6th, 1716, when news of the dispersion from Perth had
reached London, Lady Cowper went to the play, to see ‘The Cobler of
Preston.’ It was ‘the poet’s night.’ The good news, in fact, ‘had
reached town the previous day. The good effects of the news, which not
only told of the withdrawal of the Jacobites, but that King George’s
forces had taken possession of that important city, were manifested in
the theatre; for there was not a word that was loyal but what met with
the greatest acclamations.’
[Sidenote: _COST OF LIVING IN NEWGATE._]
The prisoners claim more notice than the players. Those who were
marched to Newgate had the worst of it; but in that worst there
were degrees of difference. An Act of Parliament allowed a rent of
half-a-crown a week to be levied, for indulgence that would barely
save the lodger from lying on hard boards or harder stone. Instead of
half-crowns, pounds were exacted. For twenty guineas a prisoner might
buy the right of living in the governor’s house. When he had paid
the fee, he found he had bought the right of walking all day long in
the fetid press yard, and of eating in the pot-house rooms connected
with it. The governor argued that his house consisted of every part
of Newgate which was not really within the prison. It suited his
purpose to call the press yard external; and he derived profit from it,
accordingly.
As soon as a prisoner passed within the gates, it was quickly
ascertained if he had money in his purse; and, if this proved to be
the case, wine and brandy were called for, in his name, by a horde of
ruffians, male and female, and drunk by them, till they could drink or
call no longer. But there were other birds of prey. If the victim had
a few guineas left, after he had paid his garnish, the turnkeys would
take down various sets of fetters, handle them in his presence, affect
a shudder at their fearful weight, or praise their lightness,――one
pair being so many guineas lighter than the other. Should the novice
be reluctant, he received a taste of the quality of the ‘Condemned
Hold’ for the night. This dungeon was in the arch beneath Newgate. At
noon-day it was so dark that a candle only showed its darkness,――and a
candle, duly paid for, had usually only a lump of clay for its ‘stick.’
To escape from the horror, the victim was docile enough in the morning,
when he negotiated with the governor, over a bottle of brandy, for a
removal.
[Sidenote: _INSIDE NEWGATE._]
If this removal brought him to the comparative luxury of the press
yard, he was not necessarily privileged to partake of all its
enjoyments. On entering there, he saw, perhaps, one or two captives
studying books, a few reading newspapers, others at skittles, cards,
or toss-penny; and a numerous company in the drinking boxes or at the
windows of the different floors of the boozing kens looking into the
yard. In an instant, these left their occupations, to surround and
examine the new comer, and to exact his ‘footing,’ of a dozen of wine;
with tobacco in proportion. If he could afford it, this was the company
with which he might associate till he was hanged, or was otherwise
disposed of. ‘Lovely women’ formed part of it, and with these, marriage
might be contracted on limited liability. At ten (but later hours were
to be had, for the paying for them) the ladies and gentlemen were sent
to their respective rooms, but if they were docile and generous, the
turnkeys left their room doors unlocked, only bolting the doors at the
foot of the various staircases. In these places at night, ‘Hell let
loose’ is the only phrase that can becomingly describe the scene and
its incidents.
A man with a decent spirit might leave this stage of iniquity and
drunken despair, if he could muster 18_d._ daily, to have fellowship
with felons, in a stinking cellar on the master’s side. But this was
only to fall into a lower depth of this Hell.
[Sidenote: _VISITORS TO NEWGATE._]
When the staircase doors were unbolted in the morning (at eight
o’clock!), the prisoners were called over in the press yard, and every
one who had been drunk the night before was fined a groat. All pleaded
guilty to the soft impeachment if they possessed a groat, and the
liquor was drunk with the turnkeys, as an antepast of breakfast. One
day was not altogether like the others. Amid the despairing jollity,
a poor wretch might now and then be seen at a table, dictating his
last dying speech and confession to a friend, and sorrowfully admiring
the neatness of some of its points. Perhaps the ‘ordinary,’ as the
chaplain was then called, would venture a little of his ministry with
him, and utter the small standing joke of how ‘a passage of the Gospel’
meant, to such an offender, ‘in at one ear and out at the other.’ On
a summer’s evening, company from outside resorted to the press yard,
as some did to suburban tea-gardens, and drank and smoked, and sang
and swore with the regular inmates. On winter evenings, they resorted
to the rooms, and gave their orders from the windows to the tapsters
below. It was on one of those evenings that the prisoners in Newgate
were attracted by the sudden joyous peals ringing out from the London
steeples. Political prisoners looked sullen over their liquor, for
they knew that the side with which they sympathised had suffered some
defeat. Governor and officials looked glad, for orders had come down
to prepare for a large body of prisoners, and from Governor Pitt to
Marvel, the hangman, there was joyous expectation of a golden harvest
at hand.
‘It’s all up!’ was the prison comment, ‘from Lord Derwentwater to
George Budden, the upholsterer: they are all netted.’ The latter was
among the party who entered Newgate. The London Jacobite entered
quietly; whereas, Forster, full of pride and wrath, fumed because, he,
a member of parliament, and Jacobite General, for the nonce, had not
been taken, like Derwentwater and the other lords, to the Tower.
[Sidenote: _SORTING THE PRISONERS._]
The rebel prisoners were soon sorted. The moneyless were consigned to
the ‘Lions’ Den,’ the ‘Middle Dark’ and the ‘Common Side.’ They who had
guineas in their purses paid dearly for all they required.
The rebels had scarcely passed under the shadows of their respective
prisons, when the police messengers narrowly searched among the
crowd for traitors. A Justice of the Peace recognised a spectator
in a lay habit, who was perhaps too sympathetic in his aspect, as a
clergyman named Paul, who had preached seditious sermons in London
and the country, and who had been with the rebels at Preston. Paul’s
audacity or curiosity cost him dear. The Justice pointed him out to the
rogue-takers, and the parson was speedily hurried to the Cock-pit, and
thence was committed to Newgate.
It is related that when a handsome young prisoner, named Bottair, was
seen among the suffering crowd of captives, as they entered Newgate, a
kind-hearted ‘clerk of the prison’ cut away his tightened bonds. Young
Bottair expressed his regret. ‘The cord,’ he said, would have served to
hang me; or to show, if I escape the gallows, how I have been led, like
a dog in a string, for twice two miles together.’ The handsome lad then
dismissed the subject of himself, to think of his more destitute fellow
prisoners in other prisons. ‘I must desire you,’ he said to the clerk,
‘to make enquiry after them. They have been brought so many miles from
home, out of observance to my orders, that I hold myself obliged to see
that they do not want.’
[Sidenote: _EXTORTION._]
It was only those who had plenty of money who could procure some
lightening of their prison burthen. From twenty to twenty-five guineas
was now the fee for not being obliged to wear irons. Five pounds
weekly was the charge for lodging and being allowed to diet in the
‘Governor’s house.’ Even the brigadiers, colonels, and captains, who
had less ‘cash’ than the generals and gentlemen of wealth, had to
pay dearly for places of little ease, ‘for which they advanced more
money’ (say the papers) ‘than would almost have paid the rent of the
best house in St. James’s Square, or Piccadilly, for several years.’
Every one who wished to avoid being thrust into the horrors of the
common side, could only escape by a fee of ten guineas, and a weekly
rent, for such accommodation as was then allotted them, varying from
two shillings to two guineas, and for that, in some rooms, ten men lay
in four beds. Thousands of pounds including costly gifts――_both_ from
outside sympathisers――fell into the hands of officials. Indeed, but for
‘outsiders’ the prisoners generally would have been miserably off.
[Sidenote: _DISSENSIONS._]
While some of the Jacobite prisoners exchanged moral or philosophical
reflections, others, embittered by misfortune, fell to quarrelling.
Forster and Brigadier Mackintosh fought the battle of Preston over
and over again, in Newgate. The cause of quarrel sprang from an
incident in that unlucky town. During the contest, Forster rode up
to the barrier which Mackintosh held, and commanded him to make a
sally against the assailing force which was within gun-shot. The
Brigadier flatly refused. Forster declared that if he outlived the
day, and his king’s cause triumphed, he would have Mackintosh before
a court-martial. General and Brigadier were captured and confined
together. In the corridors, court-yard, and common-room of Newgate, the
leader and subordinate angrily discussed this incident, while eagerly
listening groups――for there was almost unlimited freedom of entrance
into the prison, in those days, visitors eating and drinking with the
captives――stood around and learned more from the wrangling chiefs than
they could from the newspapers or from any other source.
Some of the prisoners, like the aged, refined, and witty
ex-paymaster-general of the Jacobite army, found solace in writing
verses, ‘which gained applause,’ says Patten,[5] ‘from good judges of
poetry.’ Four Shaftoes, Northumberland men, two fathers and two sons,
were in Newgate. The elder, William Shaftoe, was a rich Northumbrian
squire, well-disposed to live at home at ease, but, being easily
persuaded, he joined the Rebellion at the instigation of his wife. Mr.
Justice Hall, his cousin, shared his captivity in Newgate. Patten tells
a story of the kinsmen, which, he says, ‘has something diverting in
it.’ They were walking in the press yard together when Shaftoe (who was
a Church of England man, but had been formerly a Romanist) exclaimed,
‘Cousin Jack! I am thinking upon what is told us, that God will visit
the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth
generation. I am of opinion that it is so with us, for your grandfather
and my grandfather got most of their estates as sequestrators, and now
we must lose them again for being rebels.’
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE PATTEN._]
Another captive, the Rev. Mr. Patten (to whom reference has already
been made), on finding himself in close confinement, soon turned
his thoughts upon the method for getting out of it. He found he had
leisure for reflecting on his past life. He took for especial subject
of consideration that part of his life which he had spent in promoting
the unsuccessful rebellion. He had been a fool. Could he save his neck
by becoming a knave? He thought he might, and that the attempt was
worth the making. The reverend gentleman, on the allegation of his
being troubled with scruples, petitioned the Secretary of State, Lord
Townshend, to be pleased to allow a clergyman to converse with him.
The noble lord freely granted what was asked, and in a short time the
Rev. Dr. Cannon was dispatched to the wavering Jacobite. He was, says
Patten, ‘a man of singular good temper and literature, who applied his
best endeavours to satisfy me in every Point and Query I proposed. In
which, his Learning and solid Reasoning prevailed upon me; for which
good Service, my best Wishes shall always attend him.’
[Sidenote: _HANOVERIAN PATTEN._]
Dr. Cannon’s course was made known by its results. Patten became
suddenly convinced that it was a duty incumbent upon him to make all
the reparation he could, for the injury he had done and had intended
to do to the Hanoverian cause. By being a traitor to his old comrades,
he would serve the cause against which he had been in arms, and secure
safety to himself by doing his best to destroy his former friends. ‘As
the first thing in that way,’ he tells us, ‘I became an Evidence for
the King; which I am far from being ashamed of, let what calumnies will
follow.’
His revelations were received and recorded by commissioners who had
no need to ‘bribe or brow-beat him,’ as they were accused of doing in
other cases. Patten ‘was used in the most gentleman-like manner.’ His
treachery was quickened by their politeness, and the Rev. Robert Patten
saved everything but honour.
Patten had first, however, to satisfy the Government that his testimony
was worth having. He made full confession, not only of what he knew of
others, but of his own preachings and practices. He told of his more
than ordinary activity at Penrith, where he had once been curate; how,
in obedience to orders from Forster, he had headed a troop of horse
and beset the house of his own brother-in-law, Mr. Johnston, collector
of the Salt Tax, whom he was charged to bring in prisoner, with his
books, papers, and, above all, with whatever money he had belonging to
the Government. Johnston, however, escaped, taking documents and money
with him. Patten, unwilling to return empty-handed, made prisoners of
the _posse-comitatus_ and brought them to Forster’s camp, where they
were despoiled of their arms, and then turned loose. At Preston he
acknowledged that he was constantly riding from one post to another,
giving accounts of how the battle was proceeding, and doing in fact
aide-de-camp’s work till his horse was shot under him. He thus
succeeded in being accepted as king’s evidence.
[Sidenote: _ADDISON’S SATIRE._]
Before his evidence was wanted, partisan newspapers mocked and
misrepresented the unfortunate prisoners, as was only natural in
_them_; but it is with pain that one sees Addison flinging dirt at them
and ridiculing them, in his paper, the ‘Freeholder.’ In an imaginary
diary of a Preston rebel, given in one of the numbers, the diarist is
made to state that, at a meeting of Jacobites, before the outbreak, a
resolution was passed that, as no cause existed for that outbreak, they
would rebel first and give reasons for it afterwards. All Jacobites,
it was agreed, were in want of something, and if they could overturn
the throne and King George with it, carry fire and sword into England,
as their chaplains recommended in their sermons, and divide property
amongst themselves, there would be a fair chance of happiness under a
new state of things, for the accomplishment of which they had had the
prayers of all the harlots in the kingdom!
[Sidenote: _LACK OF CHARITY._]
In similar unfairness of spirit, Jacobite squires in England were
described as maintaining that there had been neither tolerable weather
nor good laws in the country since the Revolution of 1688. Such squires
read only ‘Dyer’s Letter,’ and that rather for the style than for
news. They were heart and soul for Passive Obedience, and were ready
to knock out the brains of whoever held contrary opinions. A fling
at ‘Dyer’ was a favourite amusement with the Whig Essayist, who also
assailed the news-writer on the stage. ‘The reasons,’ says Vellum in
‘The Drummer,’ ‘why I should believe Sir George Truman is still living,
are manifold.’ One of them is, ‘because the news of his death was first
published in “Dyer’s Letter.”’
For a few days, the noblest of the prisoners were lightly held.
Their going to and fro between prison and the Secretary of State’s
office, in order to be questioned, kept the streets lined with gazers.
Soon, however, the various cases assumed more gravity. In the Tower
the captives were put under closer restraint, and the privilege of
visiting them was abolished. The wives and other relatives of the chief
prisoners endeavoured to present petitions on their behalf to the king,
but mostly in vain. The guards kept them at a distance from the royal
person. The Whigs were now thinking less of the prisoners than of
their estates. The St. James’s ‘Evening Post’ was delighted to inform
the public that all the estates and property, forfeited by rebellion,
would be ‘strictly applied to public uses.’ In some of the papers the
Jacobite ladies who were petitioning for their husbands’ or kinsmen’s
lives, were denounced as barbarous women who had driven their husbands
and relatives into rebellion. They were stigmatised as ‘tigresses,’
and it was pointed out to them that, to find themselves compelled to
seek mercy at the foot of that throne which they had sought to
overturn by fire and sword, was a retribution which they had justly
incurred. London was told to be glad at having escaped the tax which
the chiefs of the rebellion in Scotland were levying upon gentlemen
who voluntarily failed to join them, namely, 50 per cent. of their
property. ◆[Sidenote: _WHIG LIBERALITY._]◆ Whig liberality was praised
in the person of Lord Strathnaver, the Earl of Sutherland’s son. He had
promised his vassals to make good all their losses; and if the married
men fell in battle for King George, Lord Strathnaver undertook to
transfer their leases, if they held any, to their widows――gratis, and
for their lives. Many a Scottish wife in London sighed when she thought
of the pleasant alternative here suggested. With regard to the rank and
file of the Preston prisoners, who were not thought worth the expense
of bringing to London, judges left the capital to dispose of them in a
singular way. Every twentieth man taken by lot was to stand a trial,
all the rest were to be transported! This was the sternest of jokes
that the Whigs had ever had to laugh at, between the capture and trial
of the Jacobite prisoners of war in London. In the meantime, the law
myrmidons kept sharp eye and ear on London sympathisers. With respect
to these, it must be allowed that justice was very capricious. While
men were put to death for little more than wishing King George back in
Hanover, others were fined only a few marks for much worse offence.
For instance, one Thomas Smout was fined five marks ‘for speaking
traiterous and devilish words of his most excellent Majesty, namely,
devoting that sacred Majesty to the nethermost hell and protesting that
he would sooner fight for t’other King than for him.’
[Sidenote: _WHIG AND JACOBITE LADIES._]
In illustration of these times, nothing more strongly proves the
influence which women exercised in politics, especially on the Jacobite
side, than the persistence with which Addison addressed himself to them
in jest or in earnest. He insisted on the superiority of the charms
of Whig ladies, and he assured those on the Tory side that they might
improve their attractions by changing their politics. He counselled
the former to turn their fans into banners, and to make them convey
a declaration of principles by a display of loyal and significant
portraits. Such display, he thought, would lessen the Tory interest
much more than the Jacobite figures in the Oxford Almanack would
advance it. He characterised the Whig ladies as gentle creatures, but
the Jacobite women, he said, were shrews in their families and scolds
in politics. The vulgarity of the latter is offensively assumed, and
never more so than in the passage where Addison affects to counsel the
Jacobite ladies to be as gentle in their utterances as Cordelia. If
they were loud-tongued they would be taken for harlots, all of whom (he
said) were notorious Jacobites.
While Addison’s papers were being read at private breakfast tables
and in the coffee and chocolate-houses, the High Church mobs, less
loyal than the Drury Lane players, went about breaking the windows of
the meeting houses, where prayers were put up for the welfare of King
George. A diabolical attempt was made by a High Church ruffian to blow
up the people in the meeting houses in the Old Jewry, during divine
worship. Perhaps it was intended to suffocate them. Gunpowder and other
combustibles are mentioned in the reports. Their ignition filled the
place with flames, attended by a smoke and stench which nearly killed
those exposed to them. In the tumultuous rush to escape many persons
were grievously maimed; but no one was killed on the spot. The building
suffered much damage, and those who staggered from it helplessly into
the street, were speedily set upon by thieves, who carried off a great
booty in wigs, watches, and scarves.
[Sidenote: _MATTHEW PRIOR._]
About this time Mr. Matthew Prior shocked his old Jacobite friends by
taking the oaths at Hicks’s Hall, in order to prove that he was a good
Whig. Trimming Tory gentlemen who took the same oaths, on the first
day of Sessions, excused themselves for doing so, by writing pointless
epigrams to prove they had committed perjury. Jacobites, on the other
hand, greeted with hurrahs Swan, the Mayor of Newcastle-under-Line,
and two other Magistrates of that place, as they passed to Newgate in
custody, for having shown kindness to some of the destitute Preston
prisoners, as they were being escorted through that midland town.
Tories, in coffee-house debates, held Cuthbert Kynaston, M.P. for
Salop, to be a fool for having surrendered himself a prisoner. Soon
they had other things to think of. There was the fair on the hard
frozen Thames. That grand festival of the time was got up by the Whigs.
They roasted an ox whole on the ice near Whitehall, in honour of the
ninth anniversary of the birthday of Prince Frederick, and they made
night hideous with their toasts and drunken revelry.
[Sidenote: _ROYALTY ON THE ICE._]
Roasting oxen whole soon became an ordinary occurrence. The frozen-out
watermen were made glad by contributions of joints; to which were
added liberal donations from the royal family. While the ice was still
in solid block, a little procession of sedan-chairs was seen, one
bracing morning, going rapidly from St. James’s to Westminster. The
hard-trotting bearers set down their honourable load in Old Palace
Yard. The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Marlborough issued from
their respective chairs. Noblemen and gentlemen had come by similar
and by other conveyances. When all were afoot they went down to the
river which they crossed on the ice to Lambeth, and then returned,
seeing ‘all the fun of the fair,’ as they walked, or sometimes, as
they tarried. The prince was unguarded, though well accompanied, and
the enthusiasm gave extraordinary warmth to the occasion. When the
king went publicly, a few days after, to stand as godfather to the
second son of the Earl of Portland, Jacobites admired his fearlessness,
and Whig ladies began to call their new-born sons by the monarch’s
Christian name.
[Sidenote: _IMPEACHMENT OF THE REBEL LORDS._]
The king’s words which announced the Chevalier’s arrival in Scotland
were still vibrating in the ears of Parliament, when Mr. Lechmere
rose in the House of Commons to take the preliminary steps for the
condemnation of ‘the seven lords.’ In other words, he moved that the
House should impeach them. The motion was grounded, not on evidence,
but on common report. The speech was an able speech, with a craftily
seeming fairness in it. The speaker maintained that the existing
rebellion was the natural consequence of long preparation, and that
those most forward in it, here, were the guilty tools of equally guilty
men who were withdrawn from the public eye, or who conspired in greater
personal safety, abroad. A portion of the press, at home, by denouncing
the old Revolution, had knowingly made way for the new. The lenity
extended to writers who encouraged treason against King George by
denying the legality of the dethronement of King James, only inspired
more venomous authors to write down the Hanoverian dynasty and the
Protestant succession.
Then, adverting to the conspirators, as Queen Anne’s Tory friends
were called, Mr. Lechmere pointed out that Ormond, for whose sake
Marlborough had been traduced, now avowed his treachery, by serving
the Pretender, and by the preparations he was carrying on for a
fresh invasion of England, and the establishment of Popery in this
country. The enemy of Townshend――Bolingbroke――was then on the point
of manifesting the principles which had made him the enemy of so
virtuous a man, by becoming one of the ministers of the Chevalier.
While the great engines were actively working from afar, the lesser
engines and more ignoble tools were, said Mr. Lechmere, as actively
carrying on their work ‘below stairs.’ By this phrase he implied
that the juries in Westminster Hall, who acquitted men charged with
sedition against the present powers, were the enemies of the reigning
House. But, he added――making reference again to the Tory ministry of
the last reign,――those conspirators made their master-stroke when they
traitorously made England a party to her own destruction, by procuring
a majority of votes in Parliament which gave sanction to a Peace,
whereby France was restored to her former power of dominating over
Europe, and the barriers which guarded the liberties of this and allied
nations were broken down. The same influences, added the speaker, had
nearly sacrificed the trade of England to the interests of France.
[Sidenote: _CHARACTER OF KING GEORGE._]
The weakest point of the speech was in the passage in which, by almost
deifying King George――especially for his alleged divine quality of
mercy――Mr. Lechmere seemed to make of the sovereign a conspirator
against himself. The monarch, he said, was of such a tender nature that
he could not find it in his heart to be severe against his enemies.
‘On the contrary, those who have shown the greatest aversion to his
government, have received the kindest invitations and enjoyed the
highest indulgences from him.’ Equally at fault was the Impeacher when
he avowed that impeachment of the seven lords was a safer process
than leaving their case to be treated in the ordinary course of law
and justice. More vindictiveness was exhibited by Mr. Lechmere when
he expressed his gladness at the thought that, if the lords were
convicted, no plea of pardon under the Great Seal could stay the
execution of a sentence which was the result of an impeachment by
the Commons. Not, of course, that the Commons would be influenced
by vindictive considerations! It was certainly not to keep them calm
and clear and justly minded that he ended by shaking the Pretender’s
declaration in their faces. That act seemed to arouse the majority
of the House to fury, as a red rag might excite the fierceness of a
sufficiently angry bull. The terms in which it was written, and the
epithets applied to those terms by Mr. Lechmere, stirred the Whig
members as the alarm stirs the war-horse to dash forward whithersoever
his rider would force him. In a burst of frenzy, the House voted,
on the motion of Mr. Lechmere, the impeachment of James, Earl of
Derwentwater and his six confederates, the Lords Kenmure, Nithsdale,
Carnwath, Widdrington, Nairn, and Wintoun, for high treason.
[Sidenote: _FROM THE TOWER TO WESTMINSTER._]
Shortly after, of all the London sights, the most interesting was the
passing to and fro of those captured Jacobite Lords, between the Tower
and Westminster, where they underwent preparatory examining by the
privy council. When they went by water, the public knew little of the
matter. It was otherwise when they were taken to Westminster in one
huge lumbering coach; especially as on their way back they stopped to
dine at the famous tavern, the _Fountain_, in the Strand. The House had
long been patronised by the Tories, so that the Jacobite lords were ‘at
home;’――and Jacobite mobs cheered them as they entered and when they
departed. The repast, however, could not have been a joyous one――seven
lords eating roast beef and drinking port, with the something more
than chance of soon dying on the scaffold! They dined, closely guarded
by twelve Warders. Before they left, they who would, might have their
snuff-boxes filled at Lillie’s, next door, and for one of the street
Jacobites to get a pinch from this supply, made him happy for a week.
[Sidenote: _THE DRUM ECCLESIASTIC._]
This indulgence brought the Lieutenant of the Tower into trouble. He
was summoned before the Peers, and was questioned as to the unseemly
dining of the rebel lords in a tavern. The perplexed officer replied
that those lords had complained of feeling faint, and he had therefore
allowed them half an hour for dinner, at the _Fountain_, under
rigorous guard; but he was peremptorily forbidden to do so on any
future occasion. ‘If their lordships require refreshment,’ said the
Chancellor, ‘they must refresh here.’
On January 30th, Addison preached a smart lay sermon in the
‘Freeholder,’ and loyal pulpits resounded the universal sameness. One
of the exceptions was at St. George’s, Southwark. This place was said
to be the mint where all the lies were coined which were afterwards
put in circulation at the Royal Exchange. It is obvious that a sermon
on the dethronement and martyrdom of a king could be made to serve two
purposes. In the Whig pulpits, the discourse illustrated the wickedness
of treason against the powers that be,――the Government of King George.
In the Tory pulpits it was well understood that the Government of that
king was daily committing High Treason against the power that ought to
be,――that of James III. Accordingly, when the Rev. Mr. Smith, Tory
curate of St. George’s, gave out his text on January 30th (1 Samuel
xii. 25), ‘If ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both
ye and your king,’――there was scarcely a person present who did not
interpret its sense as antagonistic to King George. A Whig gentleman
was there, and he began to take notes of the sermon. This disturbed
the Jacobite preacher, who probably recognised in him a Government
agent. At all events, he called upon the note-taker to desist, but
the latter showed no signs of obedience. This led to the clergyman
exclaiming, ‘Mr. Wicks, if you go on writing, I won’t preach any more!’
The imperturbable Wicks added this remark to his notes, and then the
Tory parson called at the top of his voice, ‘Take away that fellow that
writes, out of church!’
[Sidenote: _MUSCULAR CHRISTIANS._]
The muscular christians of the congregation not only flung Wicks into
the street, they hunted him home, assailed his house, and threatened
to destroy it with all his family therein. They had committed much
damage when a civil and an armed force arrived, and compelled the
assailants to raise the siege and retreat. The virtuous mob, however,
having heard that Wicks had recently buried his father, scampered to
the neighbouring churchyard and commenced digging up the grave! They
were on the point of committing still more horrible violation, when
they were put to flight by the constables and a few soldiers. Whig
writers in the papers ask, jeeringly, if the preacher objected to notes
being made of his sermon, because he was about to say ‘something
extraordinary and smutty.’
[Sidenote: _CHARLES I. KING AND SAINT._]
The full High Church flavour of this anniversary is given in the
‘Weekly Remarks,’ of which the following is a sample: ‘Last Monday
being the anniversary of the martyrdom of King Charles the First, who
now wears a crown of glory in Heaven, and is the greatest saint there
in the English calendar (the English saints would neither let him
wear his crown nor even his head on earth), the Reverend Dr. Trap,
who is lecturer of St. Martin’s, preached an excellent sermon in the
morning at St. Andrew’s, where the church was so crowded that many
could not be admitted to the audience; and in the afternoon, the very
Reverend Dr. Henry Sacheverel, rector of St. Andrew’s, preached at St
Martin’s, where there was a like concourse of people and a like elegant
sermon. Their texts followed one another. They were taken out of St.
Matthew xxiii., 31st to 36th verses. In these sermons they have shown
themselves glorious Ministers of the Gospel.’
The same Jacobite paper thinks that the death of Dr. Williams, the
eminent dissenting preacher of Hogsden, is a very ominous matter to
the Dissenters. ‘The good old cause,’ it said, ‘must be playing the
crab, and going backwards.’ The writer in the ‘Weekly Remarks’ affects
to be grieved that the doctor did not outlive the 30th of January,
to make merry with his congregation at a ‘Calves Head Feast,’ on the
anniversary of the murder of King Charles.
[Sidenote: _THE REBEL PEERS._]
But more serious scenes in the drama were now to follow. The rebel
peers were to be tried, and Lord Cowper was appointed to act as Lord
High Steward. Lord Cowper’s appointment to the office vexed both
himself and his lady, but he had to support it with dignity. The going
down to Westminster Hall was a grand sight for the Londoners. All the
Lord High Steward’s servants had new liveries. There were five coaches,
four with two, and one (in which Lord Cowper rode) with six horses――two
footmen behind each. Garter with the wand, and the Usher of the Black
Rod were in the same coach next to that of the Lord High Steward.
Eighteen ‘gentlemen’ out of livery were on horseback between these two
carriages. Although the liveries of the coachmen and footmen were new,
Lady Cowper had them made plain, expressly. ‘I think it very wrong,’
she says in her Diary, ‘to make a parade upon so dismal an occasion as
that of putting to death one’s fellow creatures.’
[Sidenote: _SOLEMN POLITENESS._]
Their lordships entered the Hall in procession from the Upper House. A
proclamation for silence hushed the remaining buzz of talk among the
excited spectators. The managers of the impeachment for the Commons
then took their places with much punctilious reverence. Next, order was
given for the prisoners to be produced, one after the other, and then
all eyes were directed towards the door from which each entered――the
centre figure of a group of officials of distinguished rank, who
held him in custody. The most remarkable official walked immediately
behind the captive, bearing the processional axe with the edge turned
away from the prisoner. This official was not the executioner, whose
presence would not have been tolerated in such an assembly, but ‘the
gentleman-jailor.’ The processional axe is not the weapon which is
publicly exhibited; it is in charge of the resident governor. As soon
as the prisoner reached his appointed place he sank on his knees, from
which position the Lord High Steward blandly begged him to arise.
Having obeyed, the poor prisoner turned to the peers and saluted them
with the lowest bow he could accomplish, in testimony of his respect.
Not to be behindhand in courtesy, the peers arose (such of them as
were covered took off their hats), and bowed in return, as if they
were quite glad to see the unhappy gentleman who was standing there
for life or death. Lest he should build too lofty hopes on that basis
of civility, or on any other token of politeness vouchsafed to him,
the Lord High Steward, almost invariably, hastened to observe to him
that he had better keep in memory that all those little attentions were
tributes to his _rank_, which he hoped the peers would never forget.
It was further intimated that they would send him to death should he
be found a traitor, with every mark of detestation that their sense of
politeness to him as a peer would permit them to show.
[Sidenote: _DERWENTWATER’S PLEA._]
The Earl of Derwentwater was the first in rank, and therefore had
the poor privilege of being the first of the seven lords who was
called upon to plead. The crimes for which he was impeached by the
Commons having been published, the prisoner was asked what answer
he had to make thereto? Was he guilty or not guilty? The reply was a
mean apology. The best thing that may be said for it is, that it was
probably the work of Lord Derwentwater’s legal advisers, and that he
was counselled to be almost abject, as the only means of rescuing at
least his life.
The sum of it amounted to this. The poor earl was quite sure that if
the ordinary course of justice had not been followed, it was because
mercy might be the more readily extended to him, if the circumstances
of his case could authorise it. He complimented the king for his royal
attribute of clemency, and the earl the more urged its exercise on
the ground that forgiveness would not encourage anyone to the future
commission of treason, upon the presumption that his offence would
necessarily be mercifully visited.――Guilty, no doubt, he had been,
but he could hardly account for having become so. Constitutionally he
was disposed to lead a quiet life. He knew nothing of any conspiracy
(!); and, if he went to the first gathering at Plainfield, in
Northumberland, he went innocently, having been told that he would find
many friends and kinsmen assembled there. He joined them, he confessed,
but it was done thoughtlessly; and, after casting in his fortunes with
the enemies of King George, he never used the arms he wore. He might
have cut his way through the king’s forces at Preston, but he had
shuddered at the bloodshed that must ensue. The spilling of blood he
was always anxious to prevent, and, in point of fact, he had yielded
at the first manifestation of opposition; but, on assurance that the
king’s mercy would be extended to him. When he was in the hands of the
king’s generals, as a hostage for the surrender at Preston, he had
urged on his friends the necessity of their honourably observing the
promise, for the keeping of which he was himself a guarantee in safe
custody. And he had told General Wills, whose prisoner he was, that
whatever might happen, he would remain with the royal army;――from which
there was no possibility of his getting away!
Every phrase in this reply to the charge fell cold on the hearts of
many hearers who were ready to sympathise with a gallant gentleman,
standing in peril of a horrible death. The half apology, half
confession; the hope of mercy, and the hint that he was not unworthy of
it, did not serve the ill-fated nobleman. The Lord High Steward asked
him to plead ‘Guilty’ or ‘Not Guilty.’ Brought to this alternative,
Lord Derwentwater answered ‘Guilty.’ He made appeal to the royal
clemency, and withdrew, so gracefully self-possessed as to give
assurance to all present that a true gentleman, having done all he
could to save his life, would now meet his fate with dignity.
[Sidenote: _WIDDRINGTON’S REPLY._]
The answer put in by Lord Widdrington, who was brought in with the same
grim ceremony as Lord Derwentwater, was even more abject than that of
the earl who had just retired. He stood aghast, as it were, at the
measure of his own guilt, ‘but he came,’ as he said, ‘unawares into
this sudden and unpremeditated action.’ He went with his kinsmen to
the assembling at Plainfield in October, 1715, without any definite
knowledge as to what was intended! When treason came of it, he took
credit to himself for having practised it with small amount of wrong
or violence to those who withstood the traitors. Moreover, as he was
the last to take up arms, he was the first to lay them down, by which
Lord Widdrington suggested that he was less of a rebel than some of his
comrades in misfortune. He added that the surrender at Preston was made
on the encouraging assurances from the general on the other side that
they would experience the royal clemency. ‘Nature must have started
at yielding themselves up,’ on other grounds. Those who were in arms
against King George at Preston might have escaped had they chosen to
spill more blood, but they preferred to yield on the happy prospects
held out to them. In the same strain the answer went on to the end,
concluding with the assertion that clemency from the throne, and the
recommendation of mercy by the parliament, would make him for ever the
most loyal of subjects to King George, and cause him to have undying
esteem and veneration for the two Houses of Lords and Commons!!!
[Sidenote: _APPEAL FOR MERCY._]
As Widdrington remained standing at the bar, he was asked if he had
anything further to say. Whereupon he replied, that he hoped for
mercy; that he had the gout in the stomach! that he had not been able
to finish his answer till that morning; that it was doubtless full of
defects; and that ‘he humbly implored their Lordships’ intercession
to his Majesty for favour and mercy’――and therewith the unhappy lord
withdrew.
Patten’s testimony of him, if it be true, would lead us to expect
this undignified bearing in the unheroic son of a most heroic race.
‘There is but a small part of that left in this lord. I could never
discover anything like boldness or bravery in him, especially after
his Majesty’s forces came before Preston.’ Patten states that Lord
Widdrington was as unfit for a general as Mr. Forster himself, over
whose easy temper he had considerable influence. The peer’s family had
been distinguished for their bravery and their loyalty to the English
Crown; but ‘yet there is little of it left in this lord,’ writes
Patten, ‘or at least he did not show it that ever we could find, unless
it consisted in his early persuasions to surrender, for he was never
seen at any barrier or in any action but where there was the least
hazard. He was wonderfully esteemed at home by all the gentlemen of the
county, and it had been happy for him, and so we thought it had been
better for us (the rebels) had he stayed at home.’
[Sidenote: _NITHSDALE’S APOLOGY._]
Lord Widdrington having been taken out, the Earl of Nithsdale was
ushered in, with the usual tedious formality. On being called on to
answer to his impeachment, he made a reply that must have caused the
audience to doubt their own accuracy of hearing. He stated, indeed,
what his two predecessors had stated, and, like them, he reiterated
the perfectly incredible assertion that till after he joined the
Jacobite forces, he had never heard of any intended invasion, or of
any projected insurrection! He acknowledged that the authorities at
Edinburgh had previously summoned him to appear and give security for
his loyalty, but then he suspected they wished to imprison him, for
which he had the greatest distaste. Nothing is more astounding than
this repeated declaration of original innocence and ignorance made by
men of such birth and quality. Once in, however, Lord Nithsdale went on
to the commission of the most abominable treason. He confessed it in
the utmost confusion, and he trusted that he was not unworthy of the
royal clemency.
[Sidenote: _CARNWATH AND KENMURE._]
It was much more dignified on the parts of the Earl of Carnwath and
Viscount Kenmure that they put in no apologetic reply, nor made any
statement to show that they were less guilty than the co-accused. They
did not even aver that they had surrendered on promise of mercy. They
simply said they were guilty of bearing arms against King George, but
that if he could find some reason to spare their lives and fortunes,
he should have no more faithful subjects than themselves. After
Widdrington’s puling excuses and his plea of gout in the stomach, the
modest, manly remarks of these two lords must have fallen agreeably on
the ears of all in the assembly who sympathised with truth and courage.
[Sidenote: _NAIRN’S EXPLANATION._]
But, after all, the most extraordinary answer to the impeachment was
that made by William, Lord Nairn. It is true, he at once pleaded
guilty, and asked for mercy; but having done so, Lord Nairn presented
a petition, which was intended as an apology, with something of a
justification. Reduced to as few words as will convey its sense, it
was to this effect: he was a Church of England Protestant, but he had
unwarily imbibed mistaken principles in his tender years, which caused
him to be in no conformity with the Revolution of 1688, ‘lying under
the less necessity, for that he had married an heiress, in whom all
Lord Nairn’s, or rather _her_ own, estate was invested.’ He had never
taken the oaths, but he had lived as loyally as if he had, till he was
_inadvertently involved_ in this rebellion by Lord Mar and his forces
surrounding his estate and occupying his house, which lay between
Perth and Dunkeld, both of which cities they had fortified. Lord Nairn
solemnly declared that, up to that moment, he was ignorant of any
movement on behalf of the Pretender, and knew nothing of the passage
of the Forth till he found himself of the party making it! He ventured
his own person therein to avoid the imputation of cowardice, but he
sent back all his dependents. As for the invasion of England, he gave a
curious reason for being innocent of having share in it, ‘having been
bred a seaman,’ he said, ‘he had no pretensions to knowledge in the
land service! For the sake of his twelve children he asked for that
mercy which at the time of his surrender he was made to believe he
might reasonably expect.’
Lord Wintoun, on his request, was allowed to defer putting in
his plea.――Six of the seven lords, however, having thus pleaded
guilty,――each urging extenuating circumstances,――they were speedily
brought again to the Hall, to hear the pronouncing of doom.
[Sidenote: _THE LORD HIGH STEWARD._]
When the condemned lords were brought to Westminster Hall to receive
sentence, the Lord High Steward addressed them in a speech which,
highly praised as it was, at the time, has a very dull and commonplace
ring about it now. He spoke of King George, of course, as the lawful
sovereign, to make war against whom, and to compass whose death, was
a compound crime to be paid for by forfeiture of life. Yet, they,
as individuals, had attempted to destroy a monarch who occupied the
throne, by virtue of rights confirmed by the legislature of King
William and Queen Anne. The rebel lords, he said, had been convicted
of ‘an open attempt to destroy the best of kings, and to rase the
foundations of a Government, the best suited of any in the world to
perfect the happiness, and to support the dignity of human nature.’
Had the wicked attempt succeeded, King George would speedily,――so Lord
Cowper inferred,――have passed from the throne to the grave; for, being
of a valiant race (which was perfectly true), neither he nor any of his
family would have condescended to save themselves by flight.
[Sidenote: _CONCLUSION._]
Earl Cowper artfully turned the silly, almost base, plea of the
lords,――that they had been drawn into rebellion without thinking of
it,――into a charge of insane eagerness to commit treason. It was not so
well to represent these rebels of quality as men more concerned to live
on in this world than to prepare for the next. It was in worse taste to
enjoin those whom he was despatching to that farther realm, to cast
off――if they were Roman Catholics――such comfort as their own Priests
could bring them, and to commit themselves to the richer solace they
might obtain from Protestant ministers! To the Protestant lords, he
exclaimed, with a ‘good God!’ to give force to his sentiment, that they
must surely be covered with confusion when they reflected that they
had entered upon this treasonable enterprise, without even stipulating
for a faint promise of toleration for the Protestant religion. At
the conclusion, the Lord High Steward said, he must sentence them in
the terms used towards the lowest-born traitors, but, that ‘the most
ignominious and painful parts’ were usually remitted to persons of
their quality! Thus, the more ignorant rank and file of the rebels
would be disembowelled before they were half hanged; but the leaders,
being ‘of quality,’ would enjoy a happy and honourable dispatch under
the edge of the axe!
[Sidenote: _LORD COWPER’S SPEECH._]
The principal actors in this tragic drama were quietly withdrawn, but
not without formal courtesy passing between them and their judges. The
audience broke up as from a popular spectacle, more or less moved. Lady
Cowper was absent, as one of the condemned, Lord Widdrington, was her
cousin. The Countess says, in her Diary, ‘that the Prince of Wales was
there, and came home much touched with compassion for them. What pity
it is that such cruelties should be necessary!’ Yet one thing gratified
her. She was delighted beyond measure that her lord’s speech, on
pronouncing sentence, was universally commended. ‘But,’ says the lady,
‘I esteem nobody’s commendation like Dr. Clarke’s, who says, “that it
is superlatively good,” and that “it is impossible to add or diminish
one letter, without hurting it.”’
[5] _History of the late Rebellion._
[Illustration: Leaves]
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
CHAPTER VIII.
(1716.)
[Illustration: Drop-T]he Prince, 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 foundation_ with 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 give him 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.’
[Sidenote: _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.
[Sidenote: _THE KING AND LADY NITHSDALE._]
Applications for mercy troubled the king. He especially wished to
avoid having petitions thrust upon him 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, which I had endeavoured to thrust into his pocket,
fell down in the scuffle, and I almost fainted away through grief and
disappointment.’
[Sidenote: _THE KING AND LADY DERWENTWATER._]
The Countess of Derwentwater fared no better, even under more
favourable opportunity. Her husband was a grandson of Charles II.;
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 George I.――the Dukes of Richmond and St. Albans――who were sons of
Charles II. 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.
[Sidenote: _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 of St. Albans was the man 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.’
[Sidenote: _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 sadder than 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 die monthly 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.
[Sidenote: _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, _alias_ Hilton, 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. ◆[Sidenote: _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 so strictly 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 under _her_ clothes, 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――imploring her 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.
[Sidenote: _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 out
_three_; and no guard or gatekeeper seems to have been at all awake to
a fact so suspicious.
[Sidenote: _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, who was 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 for him, 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.
[Sidenote: _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.’ The poor 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.
[Sidenote: _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 Lords in the Tower.’ It was resolved that
only Lords Derwentwater and Kenmure should die. Lords Widdrington,
Nairn, Carnwath, and _Nithsdale_ were 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.
[Sidenote: _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 pleaded _guilty_, 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.
The Earl 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. ◆[Sidenote: _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.’
[Sidenote: _LORD DERWENTWATER._]
The Earl of Derwentwater, after all hope of mercy had 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’s Last Good Night,’ in which, referring to his
countess, he says,――
Farewell, farewell, my lady dear,
Ill, Ill, thou counseled’st me,
I never more may see the babe,
That smiles upon thy knee.
[Sidenote: _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 James III.! 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, which says:――
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.
[Sidenote: _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 the liquor, 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.’
[Sidenote: _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 heard by one
group, a thousand echoes of it were heard by another. The journals were
not nice in calling such people by rude names. ◆[Sidenote: _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 aurora is still popularly called there the
‘_Earl of Derwentwater’s Lights_!’
[Sidenote: _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 comfort them! 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.
[Sidenote: _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 Louis XIV., 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 secret found 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 to
St. 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.’
[Sidenote: _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 for _their_ service elsewhere.’
Lord Lumley, Master of the Horse, and eldest son of 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.’
[Sidenote: _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.
[Sidenote: 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.
[Sidenote: _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!’
[Sidenote: _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.
[Illustration: Flower and leaves]
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
CHAPTER IX.
(1716.)
[Illustration: Drop-O]n March 15, 1716, the wily Earl of Wintoun, after
repeated attempts to defer his plea, may be said to have been brought
to bay. The Lords would allow of no further postponements; and, ready
or not ready, they now brought him to trial. He had all due honours
paid him. There was a long processional entry, which opened with the
Lord High Steward’s Gentlemen Attendants, in pairs, and ended with
that great dignitary walking alone, and a supplementary group of pages
bearing his train. Between the two extremes of the procession walked
Clerks and Masters in Chancery, Serjeants at Law, the Judges, the elder
sons of Peers, Heralds, with Garter King-at-Arms in the midst of them,
and the Peers who were the judges in this solemn issue.
[Sidenote: _STATE-TRIAL CEREMONIES._]
When all these great personages had reached their proper places,
the Clerk of the Crown appeared on the floor of the House making
demonstrations of respect, in manner somewhat theatrical. As he
advanced to the Lord High Steward on the wool-pack, he stopped three
times and bowed very low. When he reached the wool-pack, he sank on
one knee, presented the king’s commission for holding the trial, and
then cleverly retired backwards, pausing thrice again to bow, as he
retreated. This little feat having been accomplished to the silent
approbation of the spectators, the Royal Commission was read to the
Peers. At the first word, they arose, taking off their coronets; and,
as the document was long and was in Latin, they seemed relieved when it
was over, and they sank back on their seats with a look of satisfaction.
Further relief ensued when another ballet-sort of movement was
performed by Garter, the lesser Heralds, and a corps of Gentlemen
Ushers. They advanced in a body, executed the triple ‘reverences’ at
the proper moments, and on arriving before the Lord High Steward,
they all went on their knees, while Garter, also kneeling, presented
to the great official the white staff, which was the symbol of his
office. My Lord took what was presented, the effect of which was, that
he was moved from the wool-pack to a chair of state placed on the
highest step but one of the throne. Shortly after, not caring for the
elevation, or finding himself too far removed from the body of the
court to hear accurately what might pass, Lord Cowper descended to the
table――permission being granted by the Peers.
[Sidenote: _LORD WINTOUN IN COURT._]
While this performance was proceeding, three persons were in a
neighbouring chamber――one of whom was the most interested in the
issue. They were the Earl of Wintoun, the Lieutenant of the Tower,
and the Gentleman Gaoler. Whatever may have been the tenour of
their conversation, it was arrested by the triple _Oyez_ of the
Sergeant-at-Arms and his sonorous command, as deputy of the Peers,
to the Lieutenant of the Tower to bring his prisoner into court. The
three gentlemen, of course, instantly obeyed. The Lieutenant, as
deputy-governor of the Tower, preceded the earl, at whose left side
walked the Gentleman Gaoler, carrying the official toy axe, with the
edge turned away from the accused rebel. As soon as Lord Wintoun
crossed the threshold, he made one deep general bow to the hushed
assembly. All the Peers rose and returned a ceremonious salutation.
When all this formality had come to an end, the Lord High Steward
recited the charges on which the earl at the bar was about to be
tried――rebellion, regicide, murder, and robbery――general and particular.
After some preliminary observations on matters which were known to
all the world, the Lord High Steward congratulated Lord Wintoun on
his being about to be tried by the whole body of his peers, summoned
indifferently. ‘Hence,’ added Lord Cowper, ‘your Lordship may be
assured that justice will be administered to you, attended not only
with that common degree of compassion which humanity itself derives to
persons in your condition, but also with that extraordinary concern
for you which naturally flows from a parity of circumstances common
to yourself and to them who judge you――those bonds, the weighty
accusation laid upon you with its consequences, almost only excepted.’
[Sidenote: _OPENING OF THE TRIAL._]
If Lord Wintoun had hitherto felt as he looked, not very seriously
concerned, the last words must have enforced some gravity of feeling
and of bearing. What followed, as it sounded still more gravely, was
calculated to inspire the accused with something like awe. It was to
this effect: ‘You must not hope that if you shall be clearly proved
guilty, their Lordships being under the strongest obligations to do
right that can be laid on noble minds, I mean that of their honour,
will not break through all the difficulties unmerited pity may put in
their way, to do perfect justice upon you, however miserable that may
render your condition.’
Lord Wintoun was then told that he might cross-examine any of the
witnesses brought against him, but that his counsel might _not_. And he
was bidden to observe that he was the first person impeached of high
treason, whose witnesses in defence would be heard upon oath, whereby
their credibility would be equal with that of the sworn witnesses of
the Crown.
[Sidenote: _THE LEGAL ASSAILANTS._]
Finally, Lord Cowper bade the impeachers proceed, on the part of the
Commons, with their work. Thereupon, these gentlemen flew at the earl
like hawks at a defenceless pigeon. As soon as one was out of breath,
and had exhausted one point, a colleague got up, fresh in wind, and
roared out other charges. Mr. Hampden, in opening the accusation,
contrived to strike at other persons as well as at the prisoner. He
ridiculed Lord Wintoun’s plea that he had unconsciously as it were
fallen into rebellion, and that when in it, he was rather passive
than active. Hampden could see some shadow of reason for Papists
seeking to overturn a Protestant throne, and to murder one whom they
called a ‘heretic king;’ but he could not understand the infatuation
of sympathising Protestants on any other ground than that they had
been de-naturalised by the late Tory administration under Queen Anne!
One curious remark was made by Hampden in the course of his speech,
in these words: ‘Whatever misrepresentations other prosecutions were
formally liable to, the notoriety of this rebellion has been so evident
that the most malicious of our enemies want confidence to deny it.’
Sir Joseph Jekyll, who followed, made almost as singular a remark,
namely, in his protest that he could not do so vain and wicked a thing
as to impose upon their lordships or divert them from the true merits
of the case. Jekyll chiefly dwelt on the absurdity of Lord Wintoun
hoping to make anyone believe that he could join the rebel forces, take
his armed retainers with him, march, fight, pray, and plunder for the
Pretender, without meaning any harm to King George.
Jekyll was succeeded by Sir Edward Northey, Attorney-General, in a
practical speech which was a condensed history of the Rebellion. He
laid great stress upon the facts that Lord Wintoun supplied his armed
servants who followed him with two shillings a day as military pay,
and that he distributed among them the blue and white ribbon cockade,
which distinguished the Jacobite soldiers from King George’s troops,
who wore on their caps a cockade of white and red. The hardest blow
struck in this speech was a sarcastic allusion to Wintoun’s comparative
passiveness. When that lord surrendered to Lord Forester at Preston,
said the Attorney-General, his chief complaint was, that the Jacobite
commander, Forster, had not treated him with the consideration due to a
man of quality; except, by putting him in the place of honour when to
fill it was dangerous.
[Sidenote: _THE KING’S WITNESSES._]
These speeches over, the witnesses were called. First came the
approvers――Quarter-master Calderwood, James Lindsay, and Cameron. They
all swore to the presence and active services of Lord Wintoun at every
step of the outbreak. The Lords treated them with great civility, and
the courtesy of the prosecuting counsel was remarkable. But the latter
were so eager to get answers, that before the witness could reply to
Jekyll, Mr. Cowper put a question, while Hampden asked queries of
another deponent who was yet considering how he was to satisfy a demand
made by the Attorney-General!
When Cameron closed his damaging evidence against the earl, the latter
was told by Lord Cowper that he might question the approver, if he
thought proper. Lord Wintoun looked in vain towards his counsel, and
then said, ‘My Lords, I am not prepared, so I hope your Lordships will
do me justice. I was not prepared for my trial. I did not think it
would come on so soon; my material witnesses not being come up; and
therefore I hope you will do me justice, and not make use of Cowper
(Cupar), Law, as we used to say in our country, “_Hang a man first,
and then judge him!_”’
[Sidenote: _THE REV. MR. PATTEN._]
At this sarcastic fling, Lord Cowper exclaimed to the Peers, ‘_Did you
hear?_’――and then begged Lord Wintoun he ‘would be pleased to speak
it again.’ Wintoun only reiterated his demand for more time,――leaving
Cameron to go away without any cross-examination. Then was summoned
the supreme villain among those who had turned king’s evidence,
namely, the Rev. Robert Patten. All eyes were bent on him, all ears
eagerly listening for ‘the parson’s’ revelations. The hearers were
disappointed. Patten, in his replies which affected the earl, merely
stated that he himself joined the rebels at Wooler, and that he first
saw Lord Wintoun at Kelsoe carrying a sword and taking part in the
proclaiming of the Pretender. At Jedburgh, Patten saw my lord at the
head of his men awaiting an attack, which turned out to be a false
alarm. A similar case occurred at Hawick. At Langholme, when some
of the rebel horse went to Dumfries, and part of the Highlanders
withdrew from the English Border, Wintoun went after them, but he
voluntarily returned to the rebel force about to invade England. At
Penrith, he was among the armed men at whose appearance the valiant
_posse comitatus_ suddenly evaporated. At Kirby, Patten stated that
he dined with _all_ the lords, and that, after dinner, they drank to
the Pretender, and success to the cause in hand. To this, the approver
added that he was present when the rebels carried off the guns which
they employed against the king’s forces at Preston, where he saw the
lord at the bar actively engaged. This was the sum of this witness’s
deposition, which was made in a few minutes. ◆[Sidenote: _PATTEN’S
CHARACTER OF WINTOUN._]◆ In one part of it, he expressed ignorance of
Wintoun’s opinions with regard to the march into England. After the
trial, however, in a book which he published, Patten spoke of Lord
Wintoun as follows: ‘This Earl wants no courage, nor so much capacity
as his friends find it for his interest to suggest, especially, if we
may judge by the counsel he gave. He was always forward for action
but never for the march into England, and he ceased not to thwart the
schemes which the Northumberland gentlemen laid down for marching
into England, not so much from the certainty, as he said there was,
of their being overpowered, as from the greater opportunity, which he
insisted there was, of doing service to their cause in Scotland, in
order to which he argued with and pressed them back into Scotland,
and, leaving Edinburgh and Stirling to their fate, to go and join the
Western Clans, attacking in their way the town of Dumfries and Glasgow,
and other places, and then open a communication with the Earl of Mar
and his forces. Which advice, if followed, in all probability would
have tended to their great advantage, the king’s forces being then so
small. However, therefore, some people have represented that Lord, all
his actions, both before a prisoner and whilst such, till he made his
escape out of the Tower, speak him to be master of more penetration
than many of those whose characters suffer no blemish as to their
understandings.’
[Sidenote: _MILITARY WITNESSES._]
When Patten retired, the audience felt that the chief actor had left
the stage, and that he had not come up to the general expectation. The
officers of the royal army succeeded him. Lord Forrester (being a lord,
he was ordered rather than allowed, to be seated on a chair) deposed
that in the attack on Preston, his regiment alone had thirty men killed
and forty wounded. On entering the place, he found the lords at the
_Mitre_ tavern, where he disarmed them, Wintoun delivering up his
pistols.
General Carpenter, who had been summoned at the earl’s request, spoke
to the attack and surrender. It was then seen why he had been called
by the earl,――who asked the very absurd question,――if _he_ had had
anything to do with the capitulation. Carpenter replied that Wintoun
did not directly and personally interfere, but that he was included
under the general treaty. Carpenter positively declared that he had
held out no hope to the rebels that surrender would necessarily ensure
the safety of their lives. When General Wills came forward to add his
testimony, the attention of the audience was deepened, to hear if,
on the last point, he would corroborate General Carpenter, and the
audience must have been satisfied that no assurance of mercy was held
out even to induce the Jacobites to surrender. General Wills deposed
that when the first overture was made, by Mr. Oxburgh (an Irish
ex-officer), sent out by Forster, the former offered that the force
in Preston should lay down their arms and submit; and he expressed a
hope that General Wills would ‘recommend them to the king’s mercy.’
◆[Sidenote: _THE SURRENDER AT PRESTON._]◆ On this, Wills refused to
treat at all with rebels who had slain the king’s subjects; but, on
pressure of appeal to his sense of honour and feelings of mercy, he,
Wills, agreed that if the rebels would surrender at discretion, ‘he
would prevent the soldiers from cutting them to pieces.’ It was while
these terms were under consideration that the Earl of Derwentwater and
Mr. Mackintosh were sent to the English camp, as hostages, that nothing
might be carried on for future furtherance of the defence, while the
terms were being considered. At seven o’clock in the morning of the
next day, Forster sent notice of their willingness to surrender at
discretion. Mackintosh, standing near Wills, expressed his doubt of the
Scots consenting to surrender on such terms. The negotiation was then,
temporarily, broken off, but, at last, the surrender at discretion
was made and accepted. Wills reiterated that no hope of mercy was
held out to induce them to yield the place and themselves. Patten, in
his ‘History of the Rebellion,’ states, in confirmation of the above,
that he ‘heard the answer which Colonel Cotton, whilst he was at the
White Bull, gave to a gentleman among the Rebels, who asked if they
might have mercy.’――‘That, Sir, I cannot assure you of,’ replied the
Colonel, ‘but I know the King to be a very merciful Prince;’ and then
he demanded of all the noblemen and gentlemen ‘to give their Parole of
Honours to perform what they on their part promised.’
[Sidenote: _A PRISONER AT BAY._]
When Lord Wintoun asked Wills if he had not attacked the town
without summoning it, thus _compelling_ it to resist, Wills readily
answered that such was the case, but then, while he was viewing
the place, the rebels shot two of his dragoons, and the attack was
made in consequence. Colonels Cotton and Churchill, with Brigadier
Munden, confirmed the testimony of their commanders by whom they had
been sent into the town to treat with the insurgents. Wintoun asked
Cotton if some of the rebel soldiers had not been shot, after the
capitulation. The Colonel, answering as readily as Wills, said, ‘Yes,
certainly; because they were trying to escape, contrary to the letter
and spirit of the terms of surrender.’ That was partly the reason why,
as Brigadier Munden said, when the leaders of the rebel force were
taken to the English camp, ‘Mr. Wills received them with the utmost
detestation and contempt.’
When the Lord High Steward called on Wintoun for his defence, the earl
made the whole audience smile, by his cool demand for a month in which
to prepare it. He had never seen his counsel, he said, but once. He
knew nothing of law. His witnesses were on their road, delayed by the
bad weather which made travelling difficult. ‘They will be of no use
to me,’ he said, ‘if they arrive after I am dead!’ Up to this time,
his counsel had not opened their mouths, and lest they should do so
now, the Attorney-General and Mr. Cowper started to their feet and
made speeches against any delay in a trial which had once commenced.
◆[Sidenote: _INCIDENTS OF THE TRIAL._]◆ Cowper was particularly
bitter――he who afterwards needed judicial indulgence, and was so near
being hanged himself! The public looked on from the galleries like
spectators gazing into the arena where a deadly struggle for life was
going on. When, at the close of the day, the Peers refused to allow
Wintoun further time, as being contrary to custom after a man was once
on trial, the earl remarked: ‘I think it very hard and great injustice
that I should be tied down to a foolish form, when I am in danger of
my life!’ He curtly bowed, walked out between his two over-officious
friends, the Lieutenant and the Gentleman with the axe, and was shortly
after conveyed in a carriage to the Tower. The mob did not know how it
had gone with him. They were silent. In the coffee-houses, the earl’s
sayings and doings of the day gave additional liveliness to those not
usually dull localities. But, on that night, the men who brought news
were more welcome than the men who brought nothing but wit.
[Sidenote: _WINTOUN BAITED BY COWPER._]
On the second day of the trial, after the usual processional
circumstance, and a formal permission to the Judges to put their hats
on over their wigs, Lord Wintoun was again called upon for his defence.
He looked towards his counsel. His counsel looked towards him. The earl
then said to the clerk, who stood near him throughout the trial, and
repeated his words aloud to the House, that he was ignorant of law, and
that his counsel would speak for him. Then ensued a scene that occurred
more than once while the trial was in progress. The Lord High Steward
complained that he had to tell the earl again and again that his
counsel dared not speak except to a point of law, and that he, against
whom the indictment was laid, must first state what the point of law
was! He was then invited to state it. The earl answered, with the
slightest touch of impatience, ‘It is impossible for me to do a thing
I don’t understand. I don’t know what the point of law is no more than
a man that knows nothing about it!’ At this natural remark some of the
lords tittered; whereupon Lord Wintoun said with quite natural gravity:
‘I am only speaking in my own defence. I do not expect to be laughed
at!’ On which words, falling amid a sudden silence, the Lord High
Steward came to the earl’s support, saying with dignity: ‘I think his
Lordship does observe well. I hope every one will forbear that!’ At the
end of this incident, the old dialogue was renewed. Wintoun was invited
to speak; he referred to his counsel; Lord Cowper explained the law and
custom, till he was weary of repeating it, but Wintoun was never weary
of provoking him to the tiresome process.
At length, Wintoun, the Jacobite earl, asserting that it would be
useless to produce his witnesses then in town, until he could bring up
others from the North to corroborate them, demanded further delay. Mr.
Cowper impatiently arose to press for immediate proceeding. He taunted
the earl by acknowledging that he had taken the best course he could
in such desperate circumstances; beating about the bush; fencing with
direct questions; trying to show that he might commit treason without
being a traitor;――yet being unable to disprove what had been alleged
and confirmed against him.
[Sidenote: _THE KING’S COUNSEL._]
Wintoun fearlessly replied that his counsel could show he was
incapable of committing treason, with which crime he was charged in
the indictment. This was in his boldest style of fencing. There can
be no doubt that when he asserted the loyalty of himself and family,
and denied that he had any design to overthrow the constitution of the
realm, he thought of loyalty to James III. and the constitution as it
was established under the Stuarts. At length, the Lord High Steward
bade the managers for the Commons to proceed. Mr. Cowper jumped to his
feet, and showed with alacrity that every iota of evidence against the
prisoner was confirmed. He alluded to no rebutting testimony being
even attempted; and, with something of a sneer, he commented on the
absurdity of Lord Wintoun wishing his treason to be viewed in a light
that should make it appear something quite different.
When Mr. Cowper had finished, Sir William Thomson rose to make his
thrust at a man who could not speak for himself, and who was not yet
allowed to have others speak for him. Sir William was strongest when he
denounced Wintoun’s plea,――that there were circumstances in his case
which made it different from that of others, and entitled him to be
more mildly dealt with,――as simply nonsense. It certainly was ignoble.
As for the earl’s innocence of heart, ignorance of law, and loyalty to
‘the King,’ Sir William laughed at all three. He concluded by a demand
for ‘justice,’ as the only way of obtaining safety and security for
England.
[Sidenote: _THE VERDICT._]
Then, without a word having been spoken in Wintoun’s defence, the
verdict of the peers was taken. There were ninety present. Thomas,
Lord Parker, was the first called upon to pronounce an opinion; and
this youngest lord, whose coronet was not a week old, arose, placed
his right hand on the spot where he supposed his heart to be, said
‘_Guilty_, upon my honour!’ and resumed his seat. Each succeeding peer
performed exactly the same action, and repeated precisely the same
words. The last fatal word was pronounced by the Lord High Steward
himself. Not one of the ninety was favourable to Wintoun, but the first
who pledged his honour to the verdict soon became a greater criminal
than the lord at the bar. He it was who as Lord Chancellor, the Earl of
Macclesfield, anticipated being driven from his post by resigning the
Great Seal. He had sold masterships in Chancery for great sums of gold,
and winked at, if he did not encourage, those masters in recuperating
their purchase money by embezzling that of the suitors.
Wintoun heard the adverse judgment with perfect calmness, but that
Friday night’s drive from Westminster Hall to the Tower was not a
pleasant one. The Gentleman Gaoler carried his axe all the way, with
the edge towards the condemned earl. The London Jacobites, as they
grouped together in their public or private resorts, had some faint
hope in an application for arrest of judgment.
[Sidenote: _SIR CONSTANTINE PHIPPS._]
The day to make that application was Monday, March 19th. All the
preliminary ceremonies having been duly performed, the earl was asked
what he had to say why judgment should not pass. Wintoun turned his
eyes towards Sir Constantine Phipps, and that great lawyer, in the most
apologetic tone, had only half expressed his ‘humble hopes that, if
their lordships pleased, there was a point of law,’――when, suddenly,
the Attorney-General arose in a flutter of indignation, ‘I hear,’
he cried in a sort of pious horror, ‘a gentleman of the long robe
offering to speak!――and to a point of law; before, too, the accused
had propounded the point, and their lordships had allowed that it was
one!’ The Attorney, having fallen back on his seat, full of breathless
amazement, Mr. Cowper, with the utmost legal fervour, could hardly find
words to express his surprise that Sir Constantine should presume to
speak! ‘If,’ said Phipps, ‘I had only been heard ten words more――――.’
‘No!’ interrupted Thomson, ‘he has no right to be heard one word
more!’ And the Lord High Steward followed with a stinging rebuke at
Sir Constantine’s audacity in daring to speak before he had obtained
the permission of the House. That was what Phipps was about to ask
for when Northey heard his voice and choked it in the utterance. Sir
Constantine sat perfectly silent under the accumulated rebuke, but he
was at length allowed to speak on the point that in the impeachment the
time of any alleged overt act was not stated with proper certainty. The
Jacobite lawyer made a good speech, in which he said that,――if in an
indictment for less perilous actions the time of action was omitted,
the indictment would fail. How much more should an indictment fall
through which perilled life, and omitted to state the date on which
the act was committed, which placed the accused in danger of death.
To general charges the Earl of Wintoun could not be expected to give
particular answers. Had a day been named, which brought him and a
stated act together, he might have brought forward witnesses to prove
an _alibi_. But every charge was laid down against acts committed ‘_on
or about_.’
[Sidenote: _A FIGHT FOR LIFE._]
Williams followed up his leader on this line by saying that ‘on or
about!’ a certain day would be bad; ‘on or about September,’ worse;
but ‘in or about September, October, and November,’ was worse than
all. Then, in allusion to Wintoun being called ‘the unhappy lord,’
Williams remarked, ‘He is unhappy as being in that doubtful state of
memory,――not insane enough to be within the protection of the law, nor
sane enough to do himself in any respect the least service whatever.’
At this natural observation all the managers of the Commons became
‘uneasy,’ as they said, at the learned gentleman going into a matter
of fact. Mr. Williams therefore restored their equanimity by simply
declaring that as the impeachment was defective, judgment should not be
executed.
[Sidenote: _THE FIGHT GROWS FURIOUS._]
The managers and their legal advisers had agreed that Lord Wintoun’s
counsel should be allowed to speak only on condition that the managers
of the impeachment on the other side should have the last words. They
followed accordingly. Mr. Robert Walpole suggested that Sir Constantine
Phipps had forgotten that Lord Wintoun’s case was not in an ordinary
court of law, but in a Court of Parliament, which was not to be bound
by common procedure. ‘What might quench,’ he said, ‘an Indictment in
the courts below should never make insufficient an Impeachment brought
by the Commons of Great Britain.’ The delighted Attorney-General went
on the same war-path, and proclaimed that parliamentary impeachments
were not to be governed by the forms of Westminster Hall. Mr. Cowper
added that the courts below had many forms for which no reason could be
given. ‘I believe,’ he said, ‘in parliamentary process, that nothing is
necessary that is not material.’ ‘Besides,’ said Thomson, ‘time, date,
and places _were_ laid in the five days at Preston. For the deeds done
there, Lord Wintoun had been convicted, and judgment could not legally
be stayed.’
Phipps and his colleagues replied that they were not convinced by
the arguments of their opponents; and the Attorney-General had the
last word in a speech, the chief point in which was the assertion,
sarcastically conveyed, that as far as concerned the rights of the
Commons of Great Britain, Lord Wintoun’s counsel had left the case just
where they found it.
Lastly, ‘the unhappy lord’ himself, who was the subject of this mortal
controversy, was asked if _he_ had anything to say why the sentence
of the law should not be carried out against him. He referred to
his counsel, and then the old series of explanations and irritable
squabbling, which Wintoun seemed delighted to provoke, ensued. At
length, on being told that if anything was to be said in arrest of
judgment, it must come from him, the doomed earl tranquilly remarked,
‘Since your lordships will not allow my counsel to speak, _I don’t know
nothing_.’
[Sidenote: _THE SENTENCE._]
The Lord High Steward then proceeded to deliver sentence. He prefaced
it by a speech, full of commonplaces about his own office, the crime
of rebellion, and the duty of punishing rebels. Lord Cowper then
proceeded to reconcile the earl with what he had to go through, by
observing:――‘Believe it, notwithstanding the unfair arts and industry
used to stir up a pernicious excess of commiseration towards such as
have fallen by the sword of justice (few if compared with the numbers
of good subjects murdered from doors and windows of Preston only), the
life of one honest loyal subject is more precious in the eye of God,
and all considering men, than the lives of many rebels and parricides!’
The Lord High Steward fully illustrated those sentiments by condemning
the earl to be hanged, to be cut down alive, to be ‘disembowelled
before his face, the bowels to be burnt, and the body quartered.’ It
was the old sentence against treason. Its form and spirit showed the
ancient horror of that crime.
[Sidenote: _DOOM BORNE WORTHILY._]
The Earl of Wintoun behaved as became a gentleman. He was calm and
dignified. His bearing won for him much sympathy. He turned away from
the bar, with his head nobly raised, his eye fixed on the edge of
the axe which was now carried thus significantly before him, and with
something on his brow that may have been the reflection of his thoughts
that he had not so nearly done with life as their sternly polite
lordships perhaps expected.
Lady Cowper made rather harsh record of Wintoun in her Diary. She says,
‘He received sentence of death, but behaved himself in a manner to
persuade a world of people that he was a natural fool, or mad, though
his natural character is that of a stubborn, illiterate, ill-bred
brute. He has eight wives. I can’t but be peevish at all this fuss
to go Fool-hunting. Sure, if it is as people say, he might have been
declared incapable of committing Treason.’
The truth is that the ‘illiterate brute’ may have spoken such English
as he used to hear in the smithy, but it was as good as much that was
spoken by country squires. The Jacobites would have made London echo
with their shouts if he had been acquitted. The Whigs manifested no
gladness that he was condemned. His passage to the Tower was witnessed
in respectful silence.
The Earl of Wintoun never asked nor sanctioned others to ask for
the life he had forfeited. He had defended it, but not altogether
heroically, for he had attempted to show that he had been deluded into
joining the rebels, that he had never been actively engaged for them,
and had never had an opportunity of escaping from them. Apart the
defence, his action was not without dignity; and the ultimate result
showed that he had more brains than he had credit for, even from the
friends and acquaintances who imagined they knew him best.
[Sidenote: _THE JACOBITE LAWYER._]
It is fair to Lord Wintoun’s Jacobite defender to say that Sir
Constantine――the displaced Tory Lord Chancellor of Ireland――did his
duty, at Lord Wintoun’s trial, in an able and dignified way. Duhigg, in
his ‘History of the King’s Inns,’ states, that after Phipps returned
to the English bar, ‘he seemed to consider official station as still
encircling him, and violated professional decorum at the bar of the
House of Lords, for which that august assembly most justly gave the
offender a public reprimand.’ The comment of Mr. O’Flanagan, in his
biography of Phipps, in the ‘Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland,’
is――‘The historian of the King’s Inns uses such strong language in
reference to all whom he dislikes, that I am not disposed to place
implicit reliance on all his statements.’ The Tory party naturally
honoured Sir Constantine, often escorting him to his mansion in the
new, fashionable, and semirural Ormond Street, with marks of enthusiasm.
The mug-houses, the coffee-houses, and the taverns, were crowded with
people more or less excited by the trial and its results. Friends
and acquaintances spoke without reserve, but when a stranger drew
near a group, the topic was changed. Some spoke of the new play, ‘The
Drummer,’ which they had seen on the previous Saturday, and others
talked of friends who had gone to the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre,
to patronise the benefit performance of Bullock, the favourite low
comedian of the time.
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
CHAPTER X.
(1716.)
[Illustration: Drop-T]wo days after the last trial, the Lord High
Steward stood up and declared that there was nothing more to be done by
virtue of his present commission. The House of Lords then ordered that
a full report of the Earl of Wintoun’s trial should be printed. This
was on Wednesday, March 21st. Mr. Cowper, clerk of the Parliaments,
accordingly appointed Jacob Tonson to print and publish it; and my
Lords ‘forbade any other person to print the same.’ Jacob, forthwith,
issued an edition, handsome in the getting up, and rather high in
price. Immediately, a spurious edition, in six folio pages, tempted the
general public――at two pence! It bore the name of ‘Sarah Popping, at
the Black Raven, Paternoster Row.’ The Lords, angry at this contempt,
ordered Mrs. Popping to be brought before them. On the 13th of April,
the famous antiquary, Sir William Oldys, Gentleman Usher of the Black
Rod, appeared before the House with the statement that he had Sarah
Popping under arrest, but, said Oldys, ‘She is so ill that she is not
in a condition to be brought to the bar; but a person is attending at
the door who can give an account concerning the said Paper.’ Whereupon,
one Elizabeth Cape was brought in, and she deposed to such effect, that
the Lords ordered the immediate arrest of two Fleet-Street publishers
and booksellers,――one, a John Pemberton; the other, the notorious
Edmund Curll.
[Sidenote: _EDMUND CURLL._]
While the deputies of the Gentlemen Ushers of the Black Rod were in
search of Curll and Pemberton, Sarah Popping petitioned the Lords for
a full pardon, on the ground that she, being ill, knew nothing of the
printing of the trial, which had been unwittingly undertaken by her
sister, and ‘it being usual in such cases to discharge the publisher
upon the discovery of the bookseller’――that is of the retailer, such
as Curll was, in this case. The Lords, having all the incriminated
persons before them, on Thursday, the 26th of April, discharged Popping
and Pemberton, ordered that Curll be detained in custody, and issued a
warrant for the arrest of Daniel Bridge, charged with being joined in
the printing of the earl’s trial. Bridge, on the 2nd of May, confessed
to the House that he was the printer of the twopenny edition; and he
accused Curll of having furnished him with the ‘copy’ to print from.
Curll and Bridge were ‘laid by the heels,’ but in a couple of days they
sent up a petition, in which they pleaded utter ignorance of their
Lordships’ prohibition to print any other account of the trial than
that which Tonson alone was authorised to put forth. They acknowledged
that their Lordships were justly offended; and they asked to be set
free, as they had families ‘which must be entirely ruined unless your
Lordships have compassion on them.’ Their Lordships were not hard upon
the offenders; both of whom were to be seen, one afternoon before the
week was out, humbly kneeling as they listened to a sharp reprimand
from the Lord Chancellor. After which process, the offenders paid their
fees, and then walked from Westminster to Fleet Street together. To
Curll, this 1716 was an eventful year. In it were included his first
appearance in the House of Lords, his quarrel with Pope, and the
humiliating indignities which he underwent at the hands and ‘tyrannick
rod’ of the boys in Westminster School.
[Sidenote: _THE NEW POEMS._]
Another publisher took advantage of the State trials to stimulate the
public to purchase three little poems, on the ground that they were
‘Published faithfully, as they were found in a Pocket-Book taken up
in the Westminster Hall the last day of the Lord Wintoun’s Tryal.’
Roberts, the publisher in Warwick Lane, stated in his advertisement
that, upon reading them at the St. James’s coffee-house, they were with
one voice pronounced to be by a _Lady of Quality_. The foreman of the
poetical jury at Button’s, considering the style and thought, declared
that ‘Mr. Gay must be the Man.’ On the other hand, a gentleman of
distinguished merit, who lived not far from Chelsea, protested that the
poems could come from no other hand than the judicious translator of
Homer. The wits at St. James’s were of course nearest the mark, and it
is now known, as Mr. Roberts knew then, that these ‘Court Poems,’ ‘The
Basset Table,’ ‘The Drawing-Room,’ and ‘The Toilet’ were from the pen
of that lively lady, Mary Wortley Montague.
[Sidenote: _PRINCESS OF WALES AND LADY KENMURE._]
Another lady, the widowed Viscountess Kenmure, was otherwise engaged
in the stern prose of life. She prepared a petition to the king in
which she prayed that 150_l._ a year might be added to her jointure,
for the education of her children. She asked for that sum out of her
late lord’s confiscated estate. The young widow earnestly prayed for
an interview with the Princess of Wales. When this was made known to
her royal highness, that lady said, ‘I know that she will burst into a
flood of tears and I shall do the same, and I shall not be able to bear
the sight of so much grief as she will bring with her.’ This way of
declining the interview was made known to the viscountess. Lady Kenmure
eagerly replied that, if the princess would only see her, she would
not shed a single tear nor utter one poor sob. Caroline consented.
She not only received Lady Kenmure with cordial sympathy, but after
some conversation, the princess took her by the hand and led her to
the king’s apartments. On presenting her to the sovereign, Caroline
recommended the poor lady to his generous consideration, and she did
this so well that the king not only granted the petition, but made her
a present of 300_l._ The Princess of Wales again took Lady Kenmure by
the hand back to her own apartments, where she added 200_l._ to the
sum given by the king; and finally, she conducted her interesting
visitor to the very foot of the stairs. The papers state that Lady
Kenmure was subsequently heard to say, ‘Good God! are these the people
that have been represented so odious to us, and for rebelling against
whom I have lost my dear husband? Sure, if this had been known, we had
never been so unfortunate!’ The royal example had beneficial influence.
The Duchess of Marlborough collected subscriptions among her lady
friends, and her grace placed fourteen hundred guineas in the widow’s
hands to carry with her back to Scotland.
[Sidenote: _LUXURY IN NEWGATE._]
The execution of Lords Kenmure and Derwentwater, and the sentence
on Lord Wintoun, sobered the spirits in Newgate, where the too
profuse liberality of the outside Jacobites had caused many of the
captive rebels to put off dignity and decency, for riot, revelry, and
licentiousness. The author of the ‘History of the Press Yard’ states,
that they, after a time, lived profusely and fared voluptuously, by
the help of daily visitors, and of sympathisers who sent their money,
but avoided personally appearing. ‘While it was difficult to change a
guinea almost at any house in the street, nothing was more easy than
to have silver for gold, in any quantity, and gold for silver, in
the prison; those of the fair sex, from persons of the first rank to
tradesmen’s wives and daughters, making a sacrifice of their husbands’
and parents’ rings and other precious movables, for the use of those
prisoners.’ The aid was so reckless that forty shillings for a dish of
early peas and beans, and thirty shillings for a dish of fish, with
the best French wine, ‘was an ordinary regale!’
[Sidenote: _GENERAL FORSTER’S ESCAPE._]
During the first ten days of April the Jacobite sympathy was everywhere
manifested for ‘General Forster,’ who was to be tried on the 18th.
On the 11th of the month, Jacobite London was in ecstacy. In every
Jacobite mouth was the joyous acclaim: ‘Tom Forster is off and away!’
The Whigs damned themselves, the Tories, and Pitt, the keeper of
Newgate, that ‘the rascalliest of the crew had broke bonds.’ The
Government shut up Pitt in one of his own dungeons, offered 1,000_l._
for the recovery of the ‘General,’ and ordered strict examination of
all persons at the different sea-ports attempting to leave England.
Forster did not intend to come in the way of such examination. His
escape was well planned and happily executed. His sharp servant found
means to obtain an impression of Pitt’s master-key, from which another
key was made and conveyed to Forster, without difficulty. Pitt loved
wine, and Forster seems to have had a cellar full of it. He often
invited the governor to get drunk on the contents. One night Pitt got
more drunk than usual, finished the wine, and roared for more. Forster
bade his servant to fetch up another bottle. This was the critical
moment. The fellow was long, and Forster swore he would go and see
what the rascal was at. On going, he locked the unconscious Pitt in
the room, and, the way being prepared by his servant, and turnkeys, as
it would seem, subdued by the ‘oil of palms,’ master and man walked
into the street, where friends awaited them. Pitt soon sounded an
alarm, but everything had been well calculated. A smack lay at Holy
Haven, on the Thames, which had often been employed by the Jacobites in
running between England and France. ◆[Sidenote: _A RIDE FOR LIFE._]◆
At midnight two gentlemen, a lady, and a servant arrived in a coach
at Billingsgate, and made enquiries touching this suspicious vessel.
So ran a popular report. The Dogberrys concluded that Forster was
one of these men, and that he was lying hidden by the river side. He
was, however, far off beyond their reach. He was so well served and
so well protected, that by four in the morning he and five horsemen
gallopped into Prittlewell, near Rochford, in Essex. They quietly put
up at an upland ale-house, and sent for a skipper who expected them.
This man, Shipman, took them three miles below Leigh, where a vessel
awaited them. Men and horses were there embarked at noon, and Shipman
accompanied them to France, on which coast they were safely landed. The
joy of the Jacobites was uncontrollable. The Whigs shook their heads
and doubted if such an escape could have been accomplished without
connivance on the part of persons in high places.
Forster’s escape was so easily effected as to almost warrant a
suspicion that, for service rendered, he was allowed to get away.
Others, however, got off from Newgate and the Tower whom the Government
undoubtedly intended to keep there, with Tyburn in view as their utmost
limit abroad. In the old ballad――
Lord Derwentwater to Forster said:――
Thou hast ruin’d the cause and all betray’d,
For thou did’st vow to stand our friend,
But hast prov’d traitor in the end.
Thou brought’st us from our own country,
We left our home and came with thee;
But thou art a rogue and a traitor both,
And hast broke thy honour and thy oath.’
[Sidenote: _THE PRISONERS IN THE TOWER._]
The remaining prisoners and their possible destiny continued to occupy
the public mind. One day, a group of them might be seen on their way
to the Thames, where they were to be shipped for ‘the Carolinas.’ Lord
Carnwath, it was said, would be pardoned, but Lords Widdrington and
Nairn would be transported to the Plantations for seven years, and then
set free on finding bail for their future good behaviour. The captives
in Newgate fought in the court-yard, or laid informations against each
other, while their wives traversed London wearily in search of powerful
friends to liberate them. Great interest was evinced in Lord Wintoun.
This was increased when a morning paper quaintly informed its readers
that ‘as for the Earl of Wintoun, his Counsel having insinuated that he
is not perfect in his Intellectuals, ’tis said he will be confined for
Life!’
The lords, under sentence of death, in the Tower, continued to be
reprieved from time to time. As various alterations in the process
of the trials followed, it was not doubted, ‘Mercurius’ says, ‘but
there had some light been given in return for that grace, by which
further discoveries were made than had been before.’ If this be true,
the baseness of such informers was more detestable than that of the
Rev. Mr. Patten. This man began now to be treated by the public as
a double-dyed rascal; and this treatment urged him to publish his
reasons for turning king’s evidence, in a letter addressed to one of
the Shaftoes, a rebel prisoner in Newgate. The letter is long and very
wide of its pretended purpose. It affects indeed a certain horror of
rebellion against the Church and Throne; and it insinuates that Shaftoe
might do well to follow the example of the writer, who mendaciously
pretended that in becoming a witness against his old confederates, no
promise of pardon or of any advantage was made to him, and that he was
utterly ignorant as to the way in which it might please God that he
should die!
[Sidenote: _PATTEN ON THE PRINCE OF WALES._]
‘I shall mention one particular,’ he says, ‘which has been a matter of
astonishment to me to find out a Falsehood so industriously reported.
I hope it will be so with you when I assure you it was industriously
reported that the Prince of Wales, who was represented to us under
the greatest disadvantages, as to the Shape and Frame of his Person,
is quite the Reverse of all Reflections, for he has really a comely
Appearance, and a Liveliness in his Looks and Gesture, which is very
taking, and speaks a great deal of Goodness. This I beheld with
Admiration at Westminster Hall, when I was present at the Trial of the
Earl of Wintoun.’
Among a batch of 180 Jacobite convicts sent to Maryland, there was
one who was both malefactor and Jacobite. His name was Wriggelsden.
He was such a hater of King George, that he tried to carry off his
Majesty’s plate from the Chapel Royal in Whitehall. The Tory thief
was transported, but the Whig papers in London soon abounded with
complaints that this enemy of kings and men was better off than he
had ever been before. ‘He had got,’ says the News Letter, ‘a cargo of
cutlery ware, and a Mistress like a Woman of Fashion, in rich clothes
and a gold striking watch, with other proper equipage, at Annapolis,
where they live with great show of affluence.’ The Whigs complained
that knaves and traitors should thus flourish. They also complained
that the sentinels at St. James’s Palace neglected to safely guard the
prince and princess; that Tory inn-keepers cursed the king, even on his
coronation-day, and that Nonjurors were not to be trusted, even though
they took the oath of fidelity, like the Rev. Nicholas Zintens, who,
they sneeringly say, ‘took the oath by mere impulse of conscience in
the absence of his wife.’
[Sidenote: _IN AND OUT OF NEWGATE._]
Meanwhile, detachments of Horse Guards patrolled the suburbs, and
delegations of Scotch Presbyterian ministers marched up, day after
day, to St. James’s, to congratulate the king on being securely seated
on his throne. Now and then one of the above guards, yielding to love
of liquor, would drink the Pretender’s health, for a draught of ale,
gratis; and would find himself next day, in Newgate, in the company of
priests whose papers and persons had just been seized by Messengers,
or in the place of rebel-prisoners who had just escaped, or who had
died, as _poor_ captives died, of that loathsome confinement. Captivity
could not tame the bolder spirits. Sunderland, the coffee-house man,
locked up for circulating that inflammatory pamphlet,――‘Robin’s Last
Shift,’――talked more Jacobitism in prison than out of it; while
Flint,――ultra-Jacobite author of the ‘Weekly Remarks,’――wrote more
seditiously in his cell than in his own printing office;――till orders
came down to keep pen, ink, and paper from a man who made such bad use
of them.
[Sidenote: _POLITICS ON THE STAGE._]
As Oxford and Cambridge represented, the first, Tory;――the second, Whig
principles; so Drury Lane Theatre was popular with the Whigs, while
the house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields lay under the suspicion of being
Jacobite. The suspicion probably arose from the fact that, in the days
of Queen Anne, one of the company, the handsome actor, Scudamore, had
often gone to St. Germain as an agent of the London Jacobites. The
Lincoln’s Inn Fields’ players, however, repudiated all grounds for
suspicion against their loyalty. Mrs. Knight, on the occasion of her
benefit, published an address in which she told the Jacobites their
money was as good as that of other people, but that their political
principles were _not_ so good. She told the Whigs that her ‘zeal for
government had been expressed in the worst of times.’ At night, she
delivered an epilogue, in the character she had been playing, ‘Widow
Lockit,’ in which politics were thus introduced into the domain of the
drama:――
Whatever t’other House may say to wrong us,
We have, as well as they, some honest Whigs among us,
Who do our Country’s Enemies disdain,
And hate disloyalty as much as Drury Lane.
But there were dramas elsewhere, as interesting as any on the stage.
[Sidenote: _SIMON FRASER, AS A WHIG._]
On the 28th of April, two travellers arrived in town from the North,
whose arrival caused considerable sensation. One was the young Duke
of Hamilton and Brandon, under the care of his uncle, the Earl of
Selkirk. ‘He was destined for Eton, in order to perfect him for one of
the Universities.’ This boy was met in the northern suburbs by about
a hundred noblemen and gentlemen on horseback, and many more noble
and gentle ladies, in coaches, who escorted his hopeful grace to his
house in St. James’s Square. The second, Simon Fraser, afterwards known
as Lord Lovat, came more privately. The king received that faithful
person, two days later, with condescending cordiality. In every tavern,
it was soon known that his Majesty had spoken highly of Fraser’s
services, and had promised to give him marks of his royal favour. Simon
Fraser, on that day, kissed the hands of the king and the Prince of
Wales, after which the ‘Duke of Argyle took him in his own carriage to
pay visits to the various ministers.’
Early in the month of May, Bishop Atterbury, who had not been quite
three years in possession of the see of Rochester, gave unmistakable
signs as to the way _he_ was going. A large body of the Dutch troops
who had served in Scotland, had marched back to London. They were
thence sent down to Gravesend, where they were quartered, till they
sailed to their own country.
[Sidenote: _DUTCH SERVICE IN GRAVESEND CHURCH._]
They were supposed to be God-fearing men; and they had an undoubtedly
pious commander. This Dutch Colonel, one Saturday in May, waited upon
the Rev. Mr. Gibbons (a curate who had in his sole charge the religious
welfare of the place), and asked him for the use of the Church at eight
o’clock on the Sunday morning, that his men might have the benefit
of attending Divine Service, conducted by their own chaplains. The
service, the Colonel said, would be over long before the hour for the
regular Church of England one to begin.
Worthy Mr. Gibbons asked if, on the march from Scotland, English
clergymen had granted the use of their churches for Dutch services
on the Sundays on which the soldiers had halted. He was assured that
such had been everywhere the case. The curate no longer hesitated. The
Dutch were the king’s faithful Christian allies, and they should have
the church for the good purpose desired,――the more particularly as the
churchwardens sanctioned the whole proceeding.
The Dutch soldiers marched to the old edifice accordingly; joined in
the prayers with soldierly devotion; sat covered during the sermon;
and marched back to their parade ground, to the admiration of nearly
all who saw them. The whole affair was the talk of the town; and the
‘High-fliers’ were furious.
Furious too was the Bishop of Rochester. Shortly after the event,
Atterbury had to officiate at a confirmation at Gravesend. On the
moment of his arrival in the church, he sent for the curate, and
demanded how he had dared to grant the use of the church for the Dutch
service, and why he had not first sent to HIM? ‘My lord,’ said the
curate, ‘Christian charity compelled me; the churchwardens sanctioned
it, and the time, too short to allow for deliberation, did not leave me
the opportunity of applying to your lordship.’
[Sidenote: _AIDS TO ESCAPE._]
Atterbury answered in a high tone and acted with a high hand. He
announced that he himself would preach, and he prohibited the curate
from even reading prayers. The prelate’s sermon so exalted his wrath,
that, at the conclusion, he was not satisfied with this suspension of
Mr. Gibbons from duty, but Atterbury turned the poor clergyman out of
his cure! The bishop, however, was made to feel that he had gone too
far. The record of suspension was erased; the dismissal of Mr. Gibbons
from his cure was followed by his restoration, and it is agreeable to
read that, on the great Thanksgiving Day, he preached in his old church
‘an Excellent, Loyal, and Honest Sermon.’
In London itself, loving hearts and planning heads, outside Newgate,
were doing all that sympathy and cunning could effect, for the relief
of those who were inside. Women lingered about the walls, and men
lounged near, ready to obey any call for the deliverance of the
remaining captives. As this seemed more and more hopeless, an attempt
was made on the virtue of a sentinel. A lady offered him 30_l._ in
hand, and a bill (a very questionable bill) for 500_l._ more, the
former for present aid in setting the prisoners free; the latter to be
cashed when they were beyond recapture. The sentinel’s integrity could
not be overcome. He went and swore to the whole story, before the Lord
Mayor. That official put the governor and subordinates on the watch.
The guard was increased. An unceasing vigilance was enjoined; and the
Jacobite prisoners were looked upon as men doomed to the scaffold, or
to some fate as bad, if not worse. Mackintosh, nevertheless, appeared
to be perfectly at his ease; and the equanimity of the old brigadier
gave hope and courage to such other ‘rebels’ as needed them.
[Sidenote: _SHIFTING OF PRISONERS._]
In the first days of May, the public had promise of fresh excitement.
On the 3rd a Committee of Council examined Mr. Harvey, of Combe.
Finding him recovered from the stab he had inflicted on himself, they
sent him from the custody of a messenger to Newgate. This the public
heard. On the following day, they saw Basil Hamilton, a son of Lord
Nairn, and the Honourable Mr. Howard publicly carried, at mid-day,
from the Tower to the same prison. The day’s spectacle was followed by
another just before twilight. Crowds witnessed the brief march of ten
pinioned prisoners, from the Fleet to Newgate also. The expectation of
their trials following close upon this change in no wise affected the
spirits of the Jacobite captives.
[Sidenote: _BREAKING OUT OF NEWGATE._]
Their arrival within the walls of the latter, ill-kept gaol, was
welcomed in the usual way. Anyone detained there could eat or drink
whatever he could pay for. Gold not being wanting, dainties graced the
board, wine flowed, punch was sent round, and the banquet was not
confined to a single day. At that period, Newgate chaplains drank with
the prisoners and gallantly saw their female visitors to the outer
gate. The practical example of such reverend gentlemen was cheerfully
followed by guardians whose vigilance relaxed under the strength of
good liquor. The prisoners were now allowed indulgences beyond what
was usual. They might cool themselves after their drink, by walking
and talking, singing and planning, in the court-yard, till within an
hour of midnight. Evil came of it. On the night of the 4th, the feast
being over, nearly five dozen of the prisoners were walking about the
press-yard. Suddenly, the whole body of them made an ‘ugly rush’ at the
keeper with the keys. He was knocked down, the doors were opened, and
the prisoners swept forth to freedom. All, however, did not succeed in
gaining liberty. As the attempt was being made, soldiers and turnkeys
were alarmed. The fugitives were then driven in different directions.
Brigadier Mackintosh, his son, and seven others overcame all
opposition. They reached the street, and they were so well befriended,
or were so lucky, as to disappear at once, and to evade all pursuit.
They fled in various directions. Most of them knew where safety lay,
others trusted to chance. About fifteen more got also through the gates
into the street, but seven of them were overtaken and brought back.
Thirty others took a wrong turning, into the keeper’s house, which
was immediately entered by the soldiers who drove the whole of them
into a parlour, where the Jacobites attempted a desperate defence.
The soldiers simply fired into the flurried group. The smell of the
powder was stronger than all other argument. They yielded, were carried
within the gaol, and with the other recaptured fugitives, were not only
heavily ironed, and thrust into loathsome holes, but were treated with
exceptional brutality. This treatment was resorted to by the guardians
to compensate for their own carelessness, and to manifest their good
will for the Government.
[Sidenote: _PURSUIT._]
There was a very prevalent idea that only the richest men had escaped.
Seven of the fifteen who got into the street, but who were not so lucky
as to disappear from pursuit as quickly as Mackintosh and his son, took
a wrong turning into Warwick Court, which had no thoroughfare. As they
were returning, all bewildered, yet eager and furious, they were met by
an armed force, were driven into a corner, and there bound tightly and
escorted back to dark dungeons, heavy fetters, and a certainty of the
halter.
Mackintosh took his own method of enlargement so coolly as to lead to
the conviction that if he was helped from without, he was unobstructed
from within. Four of his companions in flight turned down Newgate
Street and were soon lost in Cheapside. The brigadier and two others
turned in an opposite direction. They ‘went softly and boldly,’ so
contemporary prints record, ‘through the Gates of Newgate, where the
Watch and Guards were set, and passed without any examination.’ It is
added that this occurred because the ‘Constables were not come to
the Watch.’ The Dogberrys were the questioners. The military guard
took into their keeping such suspicious persons as Dogberry and Verges
consigned to their ward.
[Sidenote: _HUE AND CRY._]
Who had got clear off was hardly known till the Lord Mayor and Aldermen
had come down, affrighted, to the gaol, and called over the names.
No answer of ‘here’ came from Brigadier William Mackintosh, from his
son, nor from his brother, John Mackintosh; nor from Robert Hepburn,
Charles Wogan, William Dalmahoy, Alexander Dalmahoy, John Turner, and
James Talbot. There were some others who were of minor importance, and
the deputy keeper (Pitt being a prisoner, under suspicion of favouring
the escape of Forster) took the first step towards repairing a serious
fault, by offering money for the recapture of the brigadier especially,
whose escape, it was thought, was the purchased consequence of money
cautiously invested. The brigadier, or ‘William Mackintosh, commonly
called Brigadier Mackintosh,’ was so well described in the placards set
up, in, and about London by the chief turnkey of Newgate, that we seem
to see the man clearly before us:――‘A tall, raw-boned man, about 60
Years of age, fair Complexioned, Beetle-browed, Grey Eyed, speaks broad
Scotch.’ For his recapture the sum of 200_l._ was offered by Bodenham
Rowse, the turnkey.
[Sidenote: _DOMICILIARY VISITS._]
Old Mackintosh and his son safely reached the Thames, where a boat
received them, and took them on board a vessel, from which they were
landed on the French coast. The brigadier’s brother lost his way,
and after some time, was retaken. The Jacobite bards expressed their
feelings in the words,――
――Old Mackintosh and his friends are fled,
And they’ll set the hat on another head;
And whether they are gone beyond the sea,
Or, if they abide in this country,
Tho’ the King would give ten thousand pound,
Old Mackintosh will scorn to be found.
The king, by advice of his Privy Council, proclaimed in the ‘London
Gazette’ that he expected all his loving subjects to join in
recapturing those audacious prisoners at large. The sum of 500_l._ was
to be the guerdon of him who should deliver any one of the prisoners
to the next justice of the peace,――excepting Brigadier Mackintosh. For
that noble quarry the king offered 1,000_l._
There was hot pursuit, chiefly made at hap-hazard, after the fugitives.
Any gentleman heard of in private lodgings, and keeping pretty close
within them, might reckon on having his apartments invaded by the eager
constables. A gentleman was said to be living very quietly in rooms
in St. Martin’s Lane. A group of informers and officers broke in upon
him, and found him to be Mr. Thomas Harley, the brother of the Earl
of Oxford. Now, the former gentleman had been committed to the Gate
House, and was not known to be at large. The keeper of the Gate House
entertained such a regard for his gentleman-prisoner that he allowed
him to live in private lodgings, with an understanding that he was not
to break bounds, but to be within call. This understanding was further
secured by the presence of a keeper, who probably passed as a servant.
The gaoler justified the course he had taken on the ground that the
poor gentleman was in ill-health. The authorities had nothing to say
against this clemency; but Mr. Harley was ordered back into durance.
[Sidenote: _TALBOT RECAPTURED._]
Another prisoner, the ultra-Jacobite Talbot, found a temporary asylum
in a house in Drury Lane. The Whigs styled it ‘a Popish House.’ In a
day or two he removed to a box-maker’s, in a court in Windmill Street,
at the top of the Haymarket. ‘Talbot, with the white hand,’ loved
drink, as was natural in the alleged son, though illegitimate, of
drunken Dick Talbot, once Earl of Tyrconnel, and Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland. Talbot and the box-maker sent so frequently for considerable
amounts of liquor, to a neighbouring tavern, that mine host expressed
his wonder to the Hebe, who fetched it, as she said, for her master and
for ‘master’s cousin.’ The cousin had come to be a lodger, she added,
but for private reasons she suspected the cousinship. This babble of
this maid-of-all-work awakened the curiosity and the cupidity of her
hearers. The escape of the prisoners, the king’s proclamation, hopes
of reward, flashed into their minds. With a couple of constables they
rushed into the presence of the thirsty tipplers, and had no difficulty
in discovering or in seizing poor Talbot. They carried him before
a Secretary of State, with whose warrant they brought him back to
Newgate. They conveyed the luckless fellow in a sort of brutal triumph.
As soon as the doors of the old prison closed behind him, Talbot was
loaded with double fetters, and was flung into the Condemned Hole,
where he had leisure to curse his outrageous thirst. His captors went
home with the complacent feeling of loyal men who had earned 500_l._ by
bringing a poor devil within reach of the halter.
[Sidenote: _ESCAPE OF HEPBURN OF KEITH._]
John Mackintosh, the brigadier’s brother, was suddenly come upon at
Rochester, where he had safely arrived with the intention of reaching
the coast. Messengers in search of the fugitive Jacobites were often
roughly treated by Jacobite sympathisers. The latter feigned loyalty
to King George, and pretended to see in the messengers some of the
men who had broken prison. This obstruction facilitated the escape of
several fugitives. Accident helped others, of whom Hepburn of Keith
was one. Hepburn’s wife and family lodged near Newgate. They knew of
the attempt that was to be made, and they prepared for it accordingly.
Hepburn, in the rush from prison, was encountered by a turnkey, whom he
overpowered, and he then gained the street. As he was an utter stranger
in the locality, he did not well know what direction to take. He was
afraid to ask his way lest his speech should betray him. He plunged on
therefore, but not altogether at haphazard. He went on till, on that
May night, he saw in a window a plated flagon, well known in his family
as the Keith Tankard. It was the signal that the fugitive would find
safety within. He entered without hesitation, and found himself in the
arms of his wife and children.
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
CHAPTER XI.
(1716.)
[Sidenote: _DAVID LINDSAY._]
[Illustration: Drop-T]here were some of the unfortunate doomed men in
Newgate who had heard ‘the legend of Lindsay,’ an old Jacobite captive
there, and they boasted they would be as true to the cause as Davy
had been. This David Lindsay had been guilty of traitorous visits to
France, but, comprehended within an amnesty, he returned to England,
where, under an Act of William III.’s time, he was tried, convicted,
and sentenced to die. His real offence was his refusal to betray his
confederates in the interest of King James. In spite of the amnesty,
David was carted to Tyburn, serving for an unusual public holiday. When
his neck was in the fatal noose, the sheriff tested David’s courage,
by telling him he might yet save his life on condition of revealing
the names of alleged traitors conspiring at St. Germain or in Scotland
against Queen Anne. David, however sorely tempted, declined to save
his neck on such terms. Thereupon, the sheriff ordered the cart to
drive on; but even this move towards leaving Lindsay suspended did not
shake his stout spirit. All this time the sheriff had a reprieve for
the unnecessarily tortured fellow in his pocket. Before the cart was
fairly from under Lindsay’s feet, it was stopped, or he would have been
murdered. The mob beheld the unusual sight of a man, brought to Tyburn
to be hanged, returning, eastward ho, alive! Whether it had not been
as well for him to have gone through with it while he was about it, is
a nice question. In such case his suffering would have been quickly
ended; whereas, he was closely confined, and nearly starved, in the
most loathsome of the Newgate holes; and at the end of three or four
years was condemned to perpetual banishment from the English dominions.
Lindsay found means to reach Holland, where all other means failed him.
He died there of hunger and exposure, but the fidelity of the poor
Jacobite was remembered in Newgate; and equally unfortunate Jacobites
declared they would be as true as David Lindsay.
On the day after the burst from Newgate, the trials of the Jacobite
rebels, of gentle, and of lower, degree, formed a rare show for the
Londoners. On the 5th of May, seven coaches, carrying prisoners and
armed messengers within, and surrounded by armed guards, set out in
procession from Newgate to Westminster. The streets were thronged to
see them pass. Sympathisers and opponents in the crowd got up fights
in support of their respective opinions. The former cheered lustily.
The populace were at the very height of their enjoyment, when the
procession was suddenly stopped. It then turned and began to retrace
its steps; finally, it became known that the judges at Westminster,
flurried at the escape of so many prisoners the night before, had
postponed arraignments and trials till the 7th, and had sent messengers
with orders for the return of the dismal array to the place from whence
it had come.
[Sidenote: _TRIALS OF REBEL OFFICERS._]
On Monday the 7th were to have been arraigned at the Exchequer Bar, at
Westminster, the Brigadier Mackintosh, Richard Gascogne, Henry Oxburgh,
Alexander Menzies, and John Robertson. The brigadier having otherwise
disposed of himself, Gascogne, said to be six feet eight in height,
was put to the bar. Gascogne pleaded for more time, ‘very modestly,’
in order to find an important witness. This was allowed, but the chief
judge expressed an opinion that applications for putting off trials
were often made with a view of escaping altogether, if possible; and
that the gaolers had better look more sharply after their prisoners.
Fourteen other prisoners were arraigned;[6] they pleaded ‘Not Guilty,’
and Henry Oxburgh was subsequently put upon trial for his life.
Short work was made with some of the accused Jacobites, or these made
short work with the judges. Charles Radcliffe, for instance, when
brought up for trial, declined to plead, and was returned _Guilty_.
Later, the streets were crowded to see the procession of half a dozen
coaches, containing Mr. Radcliffe and eleven others, to Westminster,
where the convicted dozen were condemned to death.
[Sidenote: _COLONEL OXBURGH._]
The trials bore a grim similitude to each other. That of Colonel
Oxburgh was as grim as any that followed. King’s Counsel denounced
rebellion, in general. King’s evidence, like knave Patten and his
fellow knave, Quarter-Master Calderwood, denounced this rebel, in
particular. They swore to his presence and great activity on the rebel
side, to which both rascals had belonged, at Preston. There was no
gainsaying it. Oxburgh’s counsel took exception to his name which,
falsely spelt in the indictment as Oxborough, rendered it invalid. This
catching at a straw was of no avail. They then protested that he was
never in arms. He wore a sword? Yes, every gentleman wore a sword! What
then? Besides he had surrendered upon hopes of mercy. These and other
throwings out of matters of little use to a drowning man, could not
rescue their gentleman-like client. The judge was brief. The jury were
briefer. Speech and reflection were quickly over. Oxburgh was found
_Guilty_, and the judge pronounced the disgusting sentence, hanging,
disembowelling, and quartering, without sparing a word of it. Colonel
Oxburgh stood calm; he was a little pale, but he turned from the jury
with the air of a gentleman, as the gaoler beckoned him away, to his
approaching fate.
[Sidenote: _THE COLONEL AT TYBURN._]
A few days after, on Monday, the 14th of May, Colonel Oxburgh was
executed at Tyburn. From the time he was sentenced till he died, the
gallant soldier behaved with unostentatious bravery. ‘To give the
Colonel his Due,’ says the ‘Mercurius Politicus,’ against which no
charge of sympathy will lie, ‘his Behaviour was very composed, and
though decently Bold, yet very Serious and Religious in his Way. It
is reported,’ adds ‘Mercurius,’ ‘that he fasted the day before his
execution, and that all the prisoners who were Romans did the like
for him; and then sent him word, they would come and visit him, if he
pleased; but he thanked them, and declined it, desiring to be alone in
his preparations. He was drawn in a sledge, with a book in his hand,
on which he fixed his eyes, without once looking up till he came to
the place of execution. When he was in the Cart, he applied himself
immediately to his private devotions; and afterwards delivered the
following paper to the Sheriff.’
The paper here alluded to abounded in sentiments of charity. The
writer died ‘a member of the Holy Roman Catholic Church,’ in charity
with all men, including those who had brought him to this death, for
whom he desired the blessings that he himself had missed. Oxburgh
solemnly declared that his allegiance to James III. was not paid to
that prince as a Catholic, but as his legitimate sovereign. It would
have been rendered as unreservedly had James been a Protestant. He then
expressed, without bitterness, his disappointment that England should
be, as he believed, ‘the only country where prisoners at discretion
are not understood to have their lives saved.’ Finally, he prayed for
unity and happiness among Englishmen, whose only objects, he trusted,
would soon be, the glory of God and the true interests of the nation.
Noble as the sentiments of this last address of a dying man must be
allowed to be, it gave great offence to the Whigs and Hanoverians. An
_ultra_ among both those classes declared that ‘Lord Derwentwater’s
speech and Colonel Oxburgh’s paper, both certainly came out of the same
mint; for they were sent to the printer’s, both written in the same
hand. So that we doubt not but that there is a common speech-maker for
the party, and much good may do him with his office!’ In examining
the two addresses, the ultra Whig says he is doing no wrong to the
English peer or to the brave soldier, but that he is only dealing with
a ‘cunning Jesuit.’ The examination of the document extends to more
than five columns of a newspaper, and is in the fierce ultra-Protestant
spirit of the times.
[Sidenote: _A HEAD ON TEMPLE BAR._]
On the evening of this execution, a man was seen, with a small bundle
under his arm, ascending a ladder, to the top of Temple Bar. Arrived
there he took the white cloth from off that which he had carried in it,
and then the men and boys gathered below saw that it was a human head.
The man thrust it on to an upright iron rod, then descended to the cart
which awaited him, and drove away towards Newgate. Next day, idlers
were peering at the head through a glass, and pious ‘Romans’ secretly
crossed themselves and prayed that Heaven would give rest to the soul
of the colonel. ‘And may God damn those who put his head up yonder!’
cried a too zealous Jacobite, who got a month in the Compter for his
outspokenness.
There was not a coffee-house in which Colonel Oxburgh’s paper was not
discussed. In a Tory house in St. Paul’s Churchyard, one guest read the
document aloud to the company, who listened with profound attention.
When the reader came to the part in which the colonel said, that his
life should have been granted to him as he surrendered at discretion,
an old Tory remarked, ‘Had it happened in the good Queen’s time not
a soul of ’em would have suffered!’ He then added with a sigh, ‘But
God preserve the Church!’ A taciturn Whig guest who happened to be in
the room, reported this incident to the papers, as illustrating the
disloyal spirit of the ‘_Jacks_.’
[Sidenote: _MORE TRIALS._]
The trials went on rapidly at the Marshalsea and in Westminster Hall.
The day after Oxburgh was condemned, James Home, said to be a brother,
but really a son of Earl Home, was tried with Mr. Farquharson. The
evidence differed but little, yet the jury seeing that it might lead
them to infer that Farquharson was more certainly forced into the rebel
ranks than Home, found the latter guilty, and acquitted Farquharson.
This Southwark jury accordingly began to be suspected of Jacobite
proclivities by the Whigs, and their ripeness of judgment to be doubted
by ‘my lords.’ In Westminster Hall, the jury went more in accordance
with what were held to be loyal principles. Mr. Menzies was tried there
on May 11th. It was shown that he was with the rebels, from Perth
to Preston; but no overt act could be proved against him. Menzies,
undoubtedly, tried to escape from the Jacobites who held him, and he
was so holden probably, because he had openly spoken in favour of King
George. He certainly never was in action. It was urged against him
that he had not persisted in making attempts to escape; but, it was
answered, that those who failed in such attempts were cruelly treated.
The law was pressed more cruelly against him now. The judges ruled that
his appearance among rebels, although he exercised no command, nor
shared in any hostilities, was high treason. The obsequious jury found
accordingly, and this poor gentleman was sentenced to death.
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE JURYMEN._]
Jacobite construction of law and judicial leaning had its turn at the
Marshalsea on the 12th. Two Douglases, with Maclean, Scrimshire, and
Skeen, retracted the plea of ‘not guilty,’ which they had made when
they were arraigned, and now pleaded ‘guilty,’ throwing themselves
on the king’s mercy. It was beginning to be understood that such
acknowledgment would save the lives of the less prominent Jacobites,
though it might not win their liberty. Two others, Ferguson and Innes,
stood stoutly to the plea which they had made on the day of their
arraigning. They asserted, and their assertion was sustained by very
good evidence, that their presence with the rebels was involuntary;
their action, the result of force applied against them. The jury
acquitted both gentlemen. Then arose a shout and a joyous disorder in
court. Numerous Jacobite gentlemen eagerly pressed forward, some to
shake hands with, others to embrace, the so-called unwilling friends of
James III. The bench was naturally indignant with audience and jury.
Two of the noisiest offenders were seized and brought up to suffer for
their offences. One, a Lambeth tallow-chandler (waiting, it was said,
on a summons to be a juryman), was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment
and a fine of 100_l._ The second offender, a looking-glass maker’s son,
on London Bridge, was condemned to the same term of imprisonment and
half the amount of fine.
[Sidenote: _TOWNELEY AND TILDESLEY._]
On May 15th, two important trials attracted universal interest. The
accused persons were gentlemen of great estate in Lancashire, namely,
‘Towneley of Towneley,’ and ‘Tildesley of the Lodge.’ The evidence
was very damaging against both. On the king’s side it was proved that
Towneley headed the troops called by his name, in a red waistcoat and
with a blunderbuss. His butler, coachman, and postillions rode in that
troop. He joined at Preston, of his own free will, and might have left
it whenever he chose up to the time of its being invested. The badness
of the cause of both prisoners was shown by an attempt made to bribe
the king’s witnesses to get out of the way. There was also a Tildesley
troop, and although Mr. Tildesley was never seen at the head of it,
he was seen with his sword drawn, and it was certain that he dined in
Preston with rebel officers, and drank rebel toasts.
[Sidenote: _THEIR TRIALS._]
For Towneley, it was alleged that he first fled from his own house
to avoid the militia, and that in his flight he was taken by rebels
and kept under constraint in Preston, whither he had sent horses
and servants for safety. This statement was treated with scorn by
the king’s counsel, especially the idea of his flying _from_ the
king’s forces to find refuge with traitors. The answer to this――that
a Romanist under suspicion was exposed to loss of property and
freedom――was but a poor one. It was more successfully established that
the man in the red waistcoat who rode at the head of the Towneley
troop, blunderbuss in hand, was one Leonard. It was reasonably
suggested that the rebel leaders called troops by the names of wealthy
landowners, to give dignity to those companies; and that, in such
cases, the consent of the gentlemen was not asked. For Tildesley, Sir
George Warrender swore that he was an inoffensive person, not given
to speak against King George. Tildesley’s housekeeper deposed that
he was carried away from his residence by rebel forces, against his
inclination; and the owner of the house in Preston where Tildesley
lodged, testified that he had expressed dissatisfaction at the manner
of his coming there. Further, that female attire had been prepared,
and a horse was about to be hired, in order to enable him to escape.
This statement elicited an observation from the opposite side, to the
effect that, doubtless, when the fatal end of the affair at Preston
was imminent, very many of the rebels would have been glad to have had
disguises and horses to facilitate their escape. The prisoners were
tried separately. The judge, in both cases, summed up vigorously for
a conviction. The jury, after half an hour’s consideration, found
Towneley ‘not guilty.’ They hardly considered at all in Tildesley’s
case, but acquitted him at once. The Jacobites in court shouted! The
judge could hardly contain himself for indignation. Mr. Baron Montague
protested that all good subjects would be lost in amazement at finding
that rebels, who ought to be convicted, could actually find favour.
The angry baron pointed out, not without force, that five men who had
followed Towneley and Tildesley into making war against the king,
had been hanged for it in the country, and yet the two who had drawn
them into it, were allowed to escape! Such a jury was no longer to be
trusted with the lives of alleged traitors, and that judicial body was
ignominiously discharged.
[Sidenote: _THEIR ACQUITTAL._]
Friends and enemies were alike amazed at these verdicts. Joy possessed
the one, rage affected the others. The two Jacobite gentlemen left
the court with their friends, and went through Southwark in a sort
of delirious ecstacy. On the following day, says ‘Mercurius,’ ‘Mr.
Towneley gave a handsome Treat among his Friends, as a Testimony of his
Thankfulness for his Deliverance, and sent a good sum of money to be
distributed among the poor Men in Prison for Debt, in the Marshalsea,
where he had been confined.’
Towneley very wisely considered that, acquitted as he was, he might
not be as safe in England as abroad. Consequently, he rode out of
London one morning in June, after taking leave of the friends who
accompanied him to the outskirts. He made quietly for France, and had
got undisturbed into Sussex, when he was arrested and brought before
a magistrate. As Towneley of Towneley showed he had a right to ride
in whatever direction he listed, and the country Minos could not deny
it, the great and thrice lucky Lancashire Jacobite continued his ride,
unmolested, towards the coast.
[Sidenote: _THE CHAPLAIN AT TOWNELEY HALL._]
The Towneleys continued to ignore King George. In the fourth Report of
the ‘Historical Manuscripts Commission,’ published in 1874, record is
made of a MS., now among the papers of Colonel Towneley of Towneley
Hall, Burnley, endorsed, ‘Baptisms and Anniversaries’――the memorandum
book of the priest who acted as family chaplain. The most interesting
entries are the ‘intentions’ of the masses which the priest celebrated,
from May 1706, to the 31st December, 1722. Among these, frequent
mention is made of masses celebrated ‘pro Rege nostro Jacobo!’ King
James was honoured in similar manner by many a Jacobite chaplain.
[Sidenote: _JUSTICE HALL AND CAPTAIN TALBOT._]
The theory that if a man was seen among rebels (although he might be
there only by force laid upon him, and did not avail himself of every
opportunity to escape, but by his presence abetted and comforted
them)――he was guilty of high treason, prevailed with the jury assembled
at Westminster on the 11th. They had to try separately, Mr. Hall, of
Otterburn, a county magistrate, and Robert Talbot who served as captain
of a troop of four-and-twenty horse, the whole way from Kelso to
Preston. Hall proved clearly that as he was riding home from Alnwick,
he and his man were surrounded and carried off by mounted rebels.
The ‘man’ himself deposed that, after they were carried to the rebel
head-quarters, his master rode about at pleasure. Patten swore that
Hall of Otterburn, moved about as freely as that ordained knave did
himself. In Robert Talbot’s case, two of his own troopers swore away
the life of their old captain by their testimony, which saved their
own necks. They swore, however, to what was true. In Robert Talbot’s
case there was no doubt. He had been a dangerously active Jacobite.
Poor Hall had been merely passive, and he protested that he was no
Jacobite at all, but a loyal supporter of the king on the throne. Both
were found guilty. Talbot did not pretend to have anything to say why
sentence of death should not be passed on him. ‘He had drawn the wine,’
he remarked, ‘and now he must drink it.’ Justice Hall pleaded that he
was in a strange place, friendless, and tried by a new law which he
did not understand. If time were given him, he could prove that his
principles were sound, and that he had never been disaffected to the
Government. Time was refused. Justice Hall and Captain Robert Talbot
were condemned to be hanged.
[Sidenote: _GASCOGNE’S TRIAL._]
On the 17th Richard Gascogne was put to the bar. He had travelled over
England, plotting, planning, collecting material and storing it away,
with a view of dethroning King George. Gascogne’s spirit, astuteness,
courage, restless activity, and unselfishness, made him almost the head
and front of the rebellion. The king’s counsel curiously remarked that
‘there were some evidences (witnesses) of his, under their own hands,
as would put the matter out of all doubt, but that there were some
reasons which rendered it not so proper yet to divulge those evidences,
but which would, however, be produced when time served.’
Patten then appeared to further merit the mercy which had been
extended to him, by aiding in the taking away of another man’s life.
His testimony was of the usual quality: he had seen Gascogne busily
and hotly engaged, a fierce Jacobite partisan. Patten’s fellow knave,
Calderwood, also appeared. When the ex-quartermaster stepped into the
box, Dick Gascogne probably felt a ray of hope beginning to beam upon
him; for Calderwood had called upon his old comrade in Newgate a day
or two before, and told him that he, Calderwood, could depose nothing
of importance against him. The prisoner was struck with amazement,
therefore, when the pardoned Jacobite now swore that, at Preston,
Gascogne sat as a member of the Council of War. The latter protested
down to his dying hour that he did not even know the house in which the
council assembled.
[Sidenote: _THE DUCHESS OF ORMOND._]
Great interest was given to this trial by the appearance in court of
the Duchess of Ormond and Lady Emily Butler, the duke’s sister. There
was a great gathering outside to see the wife of the ‘once illustrious’
Ormond pass into Westminster Hall to give evidence in behalf of the
Jacobite prisoner. Chairs were placed for them in court. They were
both sworn, and their testimony was given in order to weaken that
of a gentleman named Wye, who seems to have been a secret agent in
the pay of the Government. Wye deposed that he once saw the prisoner
in a room at the Duchess of Ormond’s when the duchess was present,
and also ‘a gentleman dressed very fine, in laced scarlet clothes,’
whom he afterwards knew as Mr. Charles Cotton,――one of the criminated
Jacobites. Wye must have been in the duchess’s closet in the character
of a Jacobite himself. He deposed that on Gascogne being introduced,
he stated that he had just come from France, that he had seen the duke
six days previously at Bayonne, in good health, and that King James
and his grace would soon be in England. The duchess called for a map
to note the locality; and then asked Gascogne if the report was true
that there had been found on Sir William Wyndham ‘letters of dangerous
consequences?’ Gascogne did not know, but he said that, if Sir William
carried such letters, he deserved to be whipped like a school-boy; and
that if he were really in custody, the whole design was ruined, and
that above a hundred gentlemen would be compromised, as they waited for
his signal to bring forward eight or nine thousand men, of whom he was
to be the leader.
[Sidenote: _GASCOGNE’S DEFENCE._]
Gascogne vehemently denied what Wye had sworn to, and ‘to which he
stuck close in general with great assurance.’ The duchess supported
Gascogne with calm dignity. The hostile counsel could neither break
down her self-possession, nor get the better of her woman’s wit. Sir
William’s name, she said, was doubtless mentioned when Mr. Gascogne
and the other gentleman were in her closet. Bayonne? ‘Well, that
place might also have been referred to.’ As to the raising of an
insurrectionary force, and as to other particulars, she could remember
nothing of them,――nay, on being hard-pressed, her grace affirmed that
she ‘could almost be positive there were no such things said.’ Lady
Emily Butler deposed, generally, that what the duchess had said, was
true, and that her own knowledge went no further. ‘It seemed possible,’
says ‘Mercurius,’ ‘that some affairs of a very great consequence might
at that time employ her grace’s thoughts, so that she might not exactly
remember or observe all that passed.’
Gascogne, against whom a warrant had been issued, on Wye’s information,
as long ago as the 2nd of November, tried to damage that worthy’s
reputation. Wye rejoined that he could have deposed to many particulars
that would have damaged Gascogne’s reputation, but ‘he chose to omit
them because he would not aggravate things against him.’ Things,
indeed, were grave enough. Gascogne struggled against them as long as
he could. In vain he endeavoured to show that he had gone from Bath
northward without any intention of joining the Jacobite army, and that
he was ultimately arrested by some of its soldiers and carried to
head-quarters. Once there, however, he could not deny that he was well
received, well entertained, and actively employed by General Forster.
The usual result followed. Found guilty, he had to listen to all the
horrible details of the sentence of death in cases of high treason. He
suffered with becoming dignity. In a paper, handed to the sheriff, he
gently complained of――and he heartily forgave――the witnesses who had
brought him to death by false testimony. In modest terms he expressed
an uncommon ardour or zeal in his duty to his ‘most injured and royal
sovereign, King James III.’ Gascogne added, ‘My loyalty descended to
me from my ancestors, my father and grandfather having had the honour
to be sacrificed in doing their duties to their kings, Charles I. and
James II.’ Gascogne gloried in being a Roman Catholic. The paper ended
by an expression of thankfulness to God ‘for enabling me to resist the
many temptations I have had frequently in relation to a Gentleman, upon
whose account, I presume, they have taken my life, because I would not
concur to take _his_ life.’
[Sidenote: _CHRISTIAN FEELING._]
The ‘Weekly Journal,’ referring to this paper, charitably remarked that
Roman Catholics who died on the gallows generally died with a lie in
their mouths! Living Jacobites and Tories, the public were informed,
lied as impudently as their dying partisans. It was a Tory lie to say
that Gascogne might have saved his life, and have had 1,000_l._ and
a commission, by telling all he knew and betraying his cause. The
‘Weekly’ did not think such information was wanting. ‘We know enough,’
says the good Christian, ‘to hang him and others of his stamp.’
[Sidenote: _FRACAS IN A COFFEE-HOUSE._]
At the Smyrna coffee-house, St. James’s, Mr. Cole, having read the
report of Gascogne’s trial, turned to a friend, as he laid it down, and
remarked on the Duchess of Ormond’s evidence, that it was well for her
this had happened under so mild a Government as that in England. In
any other country, he added, her grace would have been prosecuted as
being, on her own testimony, privy to a design against the Crown.
Mr. Cole was well known to all present as having been English Envoy
at Venice. An Irish Jacobite looked him in the face, while he made a
general remark to the effect that whoever dared hint anything against
the Duke or Duchess of Ormond was a rascal. Mr. Cole remained silent,
as became a man who loved peace, and saw himself in near collision
with a hot-headed individual who was determined to break it. The Irish
gentleman repeated the above remark with such emphasis that Mr. Cole,
compelled to notice it, quietly observed that he had only stated a
point of law grounded upon matter of fact. Whereupon, to use the words
of the ‘Flying Post,’ ‘the blustering Teague grew more insolent at this
generous explanation, told him he was a rascal, and offered to strike
him! But Mr. Cole repelled the blow, kicked him till he drew his sword,
and then wounded and disarmed him!’
At this time the Rev. Mr. Patten served the Whig cause in various
ways; among others, by preaching charity sermons in City churches. For
a season he was an occasional fashionable preacher. Whigs flocked to
look at, if not listen to, the villain. It is wonderful that the London
Jacobites did not pull him out of the pulpit, and break every bone in
his body! This fellow is described as having preached, on one Sunday
in July, in the Church of St. Mildred, Broad Street, ‘an excellent
sermon’ on the text Gal. v. 1, ‘Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty
wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the
yoke of bondage.’
[Sidenote: _JOY AND SORROW IN NEWGATE._]
When some of the accused persons were now to be seen, much at their
ease, in public places, Whigs wondered and Jacobites frowned. The
latter asked what service Lord Scarsdale, Lord Dupplin, Captain
Halstead, and others, had rendered to the Government, which had
admitted them to bail, and thus allowed them to figure in the parks?
In Newgate there were both joy and sorrow. News reached the prisoners
that the old Brigadier Mackintosh had got safely to France. Extra drink
was consumed in honour of the occasion. Some sorrow was felt at the
demise of Charles Radcliffe’s servant, a good fellow whom the sentence
of death could not rob of his cheerfulness. Spotted Fever killed him
and others. Extra drink was again taken in order to defy Spotted Fever.
When intelligence came down that of a batch of prisoners, capitally
convicted, only one or two would be executed, the king’s clemency was
honoured in good liquor. Several rebels, as they walked up and down
the yard, discussed the expediency of pleading guilty, and throwing
themselves on the king’s mercy. Such among them as resolved to take
this course, ordered a bowl of punch, whereby to fortify them in their
resolution.
[Sidenote: _CHIEF JUSTICE PARKER._]
The trial of another great Lancashire Squire, Mr. Dalton, was followed
with immense interest. There were, as usual, numerous groups of
sympathising ladies. There was no new feature in the case. Squire
Dalton pleaded that he was forced into the rebel army, and his friends
swore roundly, to sustain the plea. The clergyman of the parish deposed
to Dalton’s loyalty, inasmuch as the Squire had once uttered some
scruples against the Romish religion. ‘Why,’ bawled Chief Justice
Parker, ‘did you not improve the occasion, and confirm him in his
tendency towards the better faith?’ ‘I did make an Essay that way,’
replied the clergyman, ‘but Mr. Dalton had by that time recovered
himself, and nothing could be done with him.’ Found guilty, he threw
himself on the king’s mercy. Whereupon, Parker assailed the unfortunate
gentleman with reproaches, The judge accused the prisoner of having
‘stuck out’ to the last, and of having given them all the trouble he
possibly could. Mercy was for those who acknowledged guilt, not for
those who denied being guilty, and who were afterwards proved to be so!
This hint moved the next gentleman put to the bar, William Tunstal. He
was anxious to save his lordship all trouble; and therefore he pleaded
_guilty_, and asked for mercy in return. Parker made some joke upon
Tunstal’s king running away, a disgrace to which King George would
never stoop; he then left Tunstal some ray of hope that his life might
be saved.
[Sidenote: _THE SWINBURNES._]
The hope that saving the time of the court by pleading guilty might
perhaps redeem life, if it failed to secure liberty, not only induced
many prisoners to make that plea, but others to withdraw the plea they
had previously put in, of not guilty. James Swinburne had pleaded
not guilty, but he and his friends took a new course. They had so
manipulated the king’s evidence, that the witnesses now stoutly swore
that they believed Swinburne was mad. The Judges, at all events, were
in possession of _their_ senses. They knew nothing about ‘exacerbation
of insanity,’ and cared as little for ‘the mad doctor’ who was said to
have had the prisoner under his care. They wisely remarked that if a
criminal was proved to be mad, his life might be saved, ‘but then it
must be such a madness as showed a total deprivation of reason, which
appeared not the case with the prisoner.’ Swinburne was found guilty,
and the judge sentenced him to death. His brother, Edward Swinburne,
was put to the bar after him. Patten was the chief evidence, and that
rascal coolly deposed:――‘I saw Mr. Edward Swinburne at Wooler, where I
myself joined the rebels. I brought in eighteen men with me; and Mr.
Edward said, I was welcome with my troop, and need not fear being ill
received.’ Patten added other evidence equally condemnatory of himself,
on which, not he, but Edward Swinburne was convicted, and condemned to
be hanged! Mr. Richard Butler was sentenced to the gallows, on similar
testimony!
Meanwhile, they were sent back to various prisons, but most of them to
Newgate.
[Sidenote: _SCOTT’S NEWGATE._]
Scott (in ‘Rob Roy’) has reflected the interior of Newgate at this
time. Sir Hildebrand Osbaldiston with his wounded son John, and the
memory of his other son, Wilfrid, slain at Preston, had an original in
that gloomy prison. The dying John, bequeathing, with his last breath,
his cast of hawks, at the Hall, and his black spaniel bitch called
Lucy, was not without a prototype in that dungeon. So it was with the
religious visit of the chaplain of the Sardinian Ambassador, permission
for which was got with difficulty;――and the dying, less of fear of the
future, than of utter breaking down of mind, heart, and body;――and
the suspicion on the part of the Jacobites as to the intentions that
lay under the proffered kindness of a Whig. The following picture too
appears to be a faithful reflex of the original:――
‘The arm of the law was gradually abridging the numbers of those whom I
endeavoured to serve, and the hearts of the survivors became gradually
more contracted towards all whom they conceived to be concerned with
the existing government. As they were led gradually and by detachments
to execution, those who survived lost interest in mankind, and the
desire of communicating with them. I shall long remember what one of
them, Ned Shafton by name, replied to my anxious enquiry whether there
was any indulgence I could procure him. “Mr. Frank Osbaldiston, I must
suppose you mean me kindly, and therefore I thank you. But, by G――, men
cannot be fattened like poultry, when they see their neighbours carried
off, day by day, to the place of execution, and know that their own
necks are to be twisted round in their turn.”’
[Sidenote: _MOB FEROCITY._]
Several contrived that their turn should not arrive, and, from day to
day, slipped out of Newgate. For the use of persons lucky enough to
get free, a great trade was driven in forged ‘passes,’ which sometimes
brought the forgers to Tyburn. On the other hand, Lord Dupplin, the
Marquis of Huntly, Sir John Erskine, and others, were released, and the
‘Jacks’ recognised them in the streets, with cheers. At the same time,
Lord Duffus was caught and brought in, under uncomplimentary salute
from the Whig mobile. The Tory mobs were ferocious. A serving-girl
had informed the Government of the whereabout of a so-called Jacobite
‘Colonel,’ who was wanted. Some Jacks attacked the house in which the
girl lived, seized her, and flung her to the roaring mob, without. She
would there have had as much mercy as a fox from a pack of hounds,
had she not been ‘risqu’d by some brave loyal gentlemen,’ and some
constables who are described as being ‘very affectionate towards the
government.’
[6] Charles Radcliffe, brother to Lord Derwentwater,
Charles and Peregrine Widdrington, brothers of Lord
Widdrington, John Thornton, Robert Shaw, Thomas
Errington, Phil. Hodgson, Donald Robertson, James and
Edward Swinburne, Angus and William Mackintosh, James
Macqueen, and Alexander Macrudder.
[Illustration: Flowers]
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
CHAPTER XII.
(1716.)
[Illustration: Drop-T]he loyal Whig gentlemen had celebrated
their king’s birthday on May 28th. The Tories were all the more
alert on the following morning to celebrate the anniversary of
King Charles’s Restoration, as they supposed their adversaries
would be too seedy, after their riot and revel, to molest them.
The Jacobites,――emphatically spoken of by the Whig papers as
‘rascals,’――came in from all the parishes, and also from the suburban
country. They appeared in their best, with oaken boughs in their hats,
the women wearing sprigs in their bosoms, and as the leaves were mostly
covered with gold or silver leaf, the same was held (by the Whigs) to
be a proof of malice prepense.
[Sidenote: _FESTIVE FIGHTING._]
In great numbers, the Jacobites paraded the streets, or stood about
in defiant groups, till church-time pealed out, and then the most of
them filed off to various churches and chapels, where they knew sermons
were prepared to their liking. The chief of the ‘High Church Faction’
went to St. Andrew’s, Holborn. Sacheverel, it is to be presumed, had
returned from an excursion he was said to have taken with two ale-house
men the day before, in order to avoid noticing the king’s birthday.
The professed Jacobites, decked with all the insignia worn by the
High-flyers, mostly favoured the chapel, in Scrope’s Court, nearly
opposite. This place was especially crowded, and especial mention is
made of the presence of ‘several men in a genteel habit, booted and
spurred.’ After devotion, dinner; at and after dinner, drinking; and
then a general mustering and marching in the streets, with, in addition
to oaken boughs in their hats, oaken towels, or clubs in their hands.
They were――so say the Whig authors――‘animated as they went along by
Jacobite Trulls, and several Scaramouches, of whom one might be named
not far from a Jacobite Conventicle, only,’ adds the Whig insinuator,
with droll reasoning, ‘he was so much elevated with the spirit of Malt
that he was “Non compos.”’ Of course, they shouted the usual Slogan;
not only complimenting High Church and Ormond, but Sacheverel and
Queen Anne, the latter in the words ‘the Doctor and the Queen!’ The
Whigs describe them as ‘crews of tatterdemallions, blackguardly boys,
wheelbarrow men and ballad-singers;’ but these could not be the same
people who, in the morning, had crowded the churches. The genteel men
in cloaks, boots and spurs, were not to be seen in the streets where
now hell seemed to have broken loose. The ‘street’ Jacks knocked down
all passengers who did not sympathise with them by voice or by carrying
Jacobite tokens. They were furious in denouncing Presbyterians, and
they were proceeding to carry on war against certain chapels, clubs,
and mug-houses, when the ‘loyal societies’ from these houses, and the
gallant Hanoverians from the _Roebuck_ descended to the highway, met
their foes in fair fight, and after an hour of it, scattered all save
those who lay senseless, or who were in the hands of the police. If
there had been any thought of rescuing the Jacobite prisoners that
night, or furthering the Chevalier’s pretensions by the demonstration,
the realisation was prevented by this sort of fiercely civil war,
in which the Whigs took the law into their own hands, and quelled a
sanguinary riot by a sanguinary fight, left the field of battle to be
watched by soldiers who arrived after the victory, and then went home
as modest and harmless as lambs!
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE BOYS._]
It was very observable that among the noisiest and most violent of the
Jacobite mob or army were the ‘Charity School Boys.’ Possibly, they
thought that any change must be the better for them; but moralists
ventured to believe that the benefactors of schools had not founded
them for the furtherance of popery and slavery, which were put down
as among the objects of the rioters. The real criminals were, it was
said, the masters and mistresses of the schools, who ‘poysoned’ the
children with principles which would surely conduct them to Bridewell
or the gallows. However, the writers take courage in the conviction
that the Pope has as little cause to sing _Te Deum_, for the success of
the mobs of London, as for that of his armed rebels who appeared at
Dunblane and Preston.
[Sidenote: _FLOGGING SOLDIERS._]
The presence of the Charity Boys as active fighters and rioters with
the Jacobite mobs, was accounted for naturally enough. They had been
told that the Institute from which they derived so much advantage was
about to be abolished. This tale had been invented by ‘Popish Priests
or Jesuits, who, going in a genteel habit to apple stalls, oyster
women, wheelbarrow folks, and peddling ale-houses, frequented by poor
people, put base, erroneous notions into the heads of the populace,
purely to raise animosities and divisions among the King’s subjects.’
Strong appliances were employed to repress all Tory audacity. It had
been allowable, in former years, to wear oak apples, or sprigs of oak,
in the hat on May 29th. _Now_ the symbol of rejoicing for the Stuart
was construed as being meant offensively to Hanover. This must have
been strongly impressed upon the army, when two soldiers were whipt, in
Hyde Park, almost to death, and were then turned out of the service for
wearing oaken boughs in their hats on this 29th of May!
[Sidenote: _HOADLY IN THE PULPIT._]
While uproar reigned in the streets on that anniversary, King George,
during a part of the day, was quietly sitting in the Chapel Royal,
St. James’s, with a brilliant congregation, some of whom feared God,
and a greater number honoured the king. The faces of all were turned
to the Rt. Rev. Father in God, Benjamin (Hoadly), Lord Bishop of
Bangor. All ears were ready to hear how the preacher would illustrate
the occasion,――the anniversary of the Restoration. The text was 126th
Psalm, v. 3――‘The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are
glad!’ Nothing could well be more appropriate. How the king, however,
could look the preacher in the face while Hoadly was overwhelming
him with flattery is not conceivable. He perhaps smiled when the
bishop described loyalty to Charles II., after the Restoration, as a
thing falsely so-called. The happiest touch was where Hoadly brought
Charles II. and King George together, by Heaven’s decree. Providence,
he intimated, had a great design in hand, when the Restoration was
permitted, which was only the lesser half of that design. The divine
scheme was made complete by the birth of King George on the very
day before that 29th of May, 1660, on which the Restoration was
accomplished. In George, the great work was to culminate, and it was
now concluded. And then, the bishop eulogised the sovereign, who was
perhaps incapable of comprehending a tenth part of the words which
fell from Hoadly’s lips, as a king resplendent by his virtues! The
difference on this point between the two kings being that Charles
loved handsome hussies and George fat ones. Hoadly was not only in
an ecstacy at the present overwhelming happiness, but he was lost in
wonder at the almost excess of felicity which England would experience
in the existence of the descendants of such a virtuous king! The very
contemplation of that future delight was almost too much for him. He
recovered by bewailing the not delightful fact that, beaten as the
Jacobites had been, they were already growing daily more audacious!
[Sidenote: _FLATTERY BY ADDISON._]
This audacity was also noticed by Addison, in the ‘Freeholder.’ ‘It
is impossible,’ he wrote, ‘to reflect with patience on the Folly and
Ingratitude of the Men who labour to disturb the King in the midst
of his Royal Cares and to misrepresent his generous Endeavours for
the Good of his People.’ Under a Stuart, the English people would
be in helpless slavery. Under a king like George, there would be
freedom――perhaps with some dissensions, but, ‘a disturbed Liberty,’ it
had been well said, ‘is better than a quiet Servitude.’ Subsequently,
he praised a healthy despotism, and remarked that under Augustus (the
Whig poets called George ‘Augustus’), Rome was happier than when she
was in possession of her ancient liberty! What a prince Augustus must
be, seeing that when he left Hanover, ‘his whole people were in tears!’
All other monarchs sought his counsel and friendship. No man retired
from his presence but with admiration of his wisdom and goodness.
Addison professed, therefore, to be unable to account for the fact that
his royal client should still suffer under the attacks of malicious
tongues and more malicious pens.
[Sidenote: _ON THE SILVER THAMES._]
There seemed nothing but enthusiasm on the part of the people, at
all events, of the Whigs, when the Prince and Princess of Wales took
the young princesses on the river. The royal barge thus pleasantly
freighted, and quite unguarded, was a familiar object between London
and Greenwich. The Thames was often the scene of more splendid
spectacles than the above. On the 5th of June, the Duke of Newcastle
was the giver of one of those gay and gorgeous entertainments. His
Grace was early afloat in his new barge, pulled by a dozen rowers, in
new liveries. He was soon joined by the Duke of Montague, the Earl of
Carnarvon, and other members of ‘the quality,’ in similar state. Last
of all came the Prince and Princess in royal barges, scarlet and gold,
flags flying, trumpets proclaiming, while cannon and human throats
on the shores roared their rough welcome. As the royal barges glided
into the space left for them within a half-circle of other brilliant
galleys, the Haymarket orchestra, especially engaged, gave to the royal
guests a most harmonious welcome. In the simpler record of this aquatic
festival we are told that ‘There was a very fine cold Treat consisting
of above eighty Dishes, the three principal Barges to be served in
Place,’ whatever that may mean. When twilight descended upon the scene,
the guests, landing, accompanied the Duke of Newcastle to his house at
the north-west corner of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where a magnificent ball
and a sumptuous supper detained them till long after the dawning of
another day.
About this time, the Scottish gentleman, in lodgings in Rathbone Place,
Simon Fraser, who had had public audience of the king, was received by
his Majesty, in private. Fraser of Lovat thus wrote of what passed to
Mr. Duncan Forbes:――
[Sidenote: _TWO PRETTY FELLOWS._]
‘I can tell you, that no man ever spoke freer language to his Majesty
and the Prince than I did of our two great friends, in letting him
know that they did him more service, and were capable to do him more
service, than all those of their rank in Scotland, and it is true. I
hope what I said will be useful, and let it have what effect it will
as to me, I am overjoyed to have occasion to serve the two prettiest
fellows in Europe.’ Lovat spoke of King George as ‘one of the best
men on earth, but strangely imposed upon by certain persons. I hope
it will not be always so,’――While serving the ‘two prettiest fellows
in Europe,’ Lovat did not neglect a prettier,――himself. In one of his
letters to Forbes, in the Culloden papers, he says, ‘If you suffer
Glengarry, Frazerdale, or Chisholm to be pardoned, I will never more
carry a musquet under your command.’ Lovat’s motive is betrayed in
another letter, in which he says: ‘The king has been graciously
pleased to grant me, this very day, a gift of Frazerdale’s Escheat,
and M. Stanhope told me I was so well in his Majesty’s spirit, that
all my enemies are not able to do me harm.’ The crafty rascal is fully
manifested in the following passage: ‘I spoke to the Duke and my Lord
Islay about my marriage, and told them that one of my greatest motives
to that design was to secure them the joint interest of the North. They
are both fully for it, and the Duke is to speak of it and propose it to
the King.’
His Majesty, just then, thinking there was something to be grateful
for, appointed the 7th of June as a Thanksgiving Day, for the glorious
suppression of the late rebellion. Tory parsons tried their best not
to be thankful. Sacheverel suddenly found that St. Andrew’s was out
of repair, and must be immediately shut up, but his more discreet
churchwardens were afraid to support him. They maintained that, in
this case, whatever they thought, the congregation at St. Andrew’s must
at least look thankful, by duly assembling.
[Sidenote: _THANKSGIVING DAY._]
This Thanksgiving Day, being a holiday, the streets were made lively by
the onslaughts of contending factions. The Whigs wore orange-coloured
ribbon cockades, and a bit of laurel in their hats. The Jacobites
sported a scrap of rue or thyme, symbols of their sorrow and of their
hopes as to what Time might bring round to them. The Jacobite women
wore the same emblems, and they were foremost in the fights which
invariably took place when the antagonistic mobs met on the highway.
The Whig papers report the total defeat of their adversaries. ‘They
were thrashed, cut, and wounded to that degree,’ says the facetious
‘Weekly Journal,’ ‘that many of them will have reason to Rue the Time
that ever they met the Whigs, on the 7th of June.’
[Sidenote: _SHERLOCK’S SERMON._]
While they were fighting, Sherlock, Dean of Chichester, was preaching
his Thanksgiving sermon before the House of Commons, in St,
Margaret’s, Westminster. His text was from Psalm cxxii. 6, ‘Pray for
the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.’ The most
remarkable passage in the discourse was one which quietly reasserted
the Sacheverel maxim that resistance to constituted authority is
unrighteous. Sherlock did not mean to tell the senators that the
opposition to James II. was unrighteous. Nevertheless, he says of
those who would rebel on grounds real or imaginary, ‘Where did they
learn that Rebellion is the proper remedy in such cases? The Church
of England has no such doctrine; and if they cannot govern their own
passions, yet in justice to her, they ought not to use her name in a
cause which she ever has and ever will disclaim.’ The dean drew no
ill picture of the public feeling just before the revolution. ‘Oh,
that I had words to represent to the present generation the miseries
which their fathers underwent; that I could describe their fears and
anxieties, their restless nights and uneasy days, when every morning
threatened to usher in the last day of England’s liberty, when men
stood mute for want of counsel, and every eye was watching with
impatience for the happy gale that should save the kingdom, whose
fortunes were reduced so low as to depend upon the chance of wind and
weather.’ After this poor compliment to Providence, Sherlock hinted
at the possible occurrence of another attempt of the Jacobite Prince
to overthrow the established Church and Throne. Private and party
selfishness facilitated such an attempt, but ‘it is as absurd,’ he
said, ‘for a man, under any resentment whatever, to enter into measures
destructive of his country’s peace, as it would be for him to burn the
Title to his Estate, because the Tenant was behind in his rent.’ There
were few of the listeners to this passage who did not feel that if the
words condemned revolution against George I., they equally condemned
(to Jacobite thinking, at least), that which overthrew James II.
The dean was not afraid to say a word in favour of the Nonjurors.
The rashness of some of these persons had involved the whole body in
obloquy. He observed:――‘The principles on which the legality of the
present Establishment is maintained, are, I think, but improperly, made
a part of the present quarrel which divides the nation. There are but
few who have not precluded themselves on this point, those, I mean, who
have had courage and plainness enough to own their sense and forego
the advantages, either of birth or education, rather than give a false
security to the government, which under their present persuasion they
could not make good. To these, I have nothing more to say, than to wish
them what I think they well deserve, a better cause.’
[Sidenote: _BISHOP OF ELY’S SERMON._]
A large concourse of people flocked on this day to Ely House Chapel,
to hear the Bishop’s Thanksgiving sermon; which was preached from
the text,――‘Let them give thanks whom the Lord hath redeemed and
delivered from the hand of the enemy,’ Psalm cvii. 2. The ‘Holbourn’
congregation had to listen to a highly-spiced discourse. Indeed, the
prevailing taste of all the discourses was a sharp attack on Popery,
its ends, and its cruelty in establishing and maintaining them. The
Bishop, Fleetwood, stated that, had the rebellion been successful,
London would have seen the slaughter of the whole of the royal family,
in order to have no other but a Popish succession possible. The most
mischievous and calumnious party cry that he had heard was ‘The Church
in danger!’ ‘I have lived myself,’ he said, ‘in and about this city,
six or seven and twenty years, and been as careful and diligent an
observer how things went with relation to the Church, as I could.’ The
prelate declared that neither in William’s nor Queen Anne’s reign, nor
in the existing one, had there been the slightest foundation for the
cry. There was no such cry during the last three or four years of Queen
Anne’s reign, because there were men then in power at Saint James’s
‘some of the greatest of whom are now actually in the service of the
Pretender.’ When the bishop alluded to the unhappy persons who had
suffered for their active Jacobitism, he let drop words which, somewhat
strange, perhaps, as coming from a Christian prelate, enable us to see
into some of the practice of London hitherto unknown. ‘The marvellous
compassion, the strange and hitherto unpractised charity of public
prayers and tears bestowed upon the few State Criminals that have
fallen of late, by the hands of Law and Justice, this new and unusual
tenderness, I say, was shown rather for their sufferings than their
sins, by such as approve their cause.’
[Sidenote: _KING GEORGE’S RIGHT TO THE THRONE._]
Nothing was more clear than the king’s statement, published soon after
his accession,――that he had succeeded to the crown of his ancestors.
His hereditary right was there proclaimed. The bishop, in his sermon,
told his hearers of many ways in which the king did _not_ ascend
the throne. Among them is this: ‘Nor did he come by what they call
Hereditary Right.’ The king was called, according to the prelate,
by the Nation represented in a free Parliament, ‘not,’ he quaintly
remarked, ‘not by gratitude for any benefits or service past.… He was
called to the Throne by all the Nation, King and Parliament; and also
afterwards by _Queen_ and Parliament, if that will please some people
better.’ When the congregation dispersed, Ely Place was resonant with
the diverse comments such passages were calculated to elicit.
The press was as active as the pulpit, but not exactly in the same way.
[Sidenote: _A NONJURING CLERGYMAN, TO BE WHIPT._]
The Crown messengers in pursuit of copies of the more stingingly
written works, having Nonjuring and Jacobite tendencies, discovered in
Dalton’s printing office copies of the famous pamphlet, ‘_The Shift
Shifted_,’ and in Redmayne’s, the equally offensive work, ‘_The Case of
Schism in the Church of England truly stated._’ In the first matter the
Government could get hold only of the printer, and Dalton was fined,
imprisoned, and sentenced to the pillory. With the ‘Case of Schism,’ it
was different. Justice not only laid hands on the printer, Redmayne,
but on the author, the Rev. Lawrence Howell. Redmayne suffered for
sending forth the libel, but the learned author was more severely dealt
with for writing it. On conviction at the Old Bailey, the reverend
scholar was condemned to three years’ imprisonment, to pay a fine of
500_l._, to be whipped, and to be degraded and stripped of his gown by
the public executioner. To his question, ‘Who will whip a clergyman?
‘the court replied, ‘We pay no deference to your cloth, because you are
a disgrace to it, and have no right to wear it. Besides, we do not look
upon you as a clergyman, in that you have produced no proof of your
ordination, but from Dr. Hickes, under the denomination of Bishop of
Thetford: which is illegal, and not according to the constitution of
this kingdom, which has no such bishop!’ Thereupon, the executioner, in
obedience to command, stepped up to Howell, and stripped Howell’s gown
from off his back, as he stood at the bar.
[Sidenote: _SAVED BY THE BISHOP OF LONDON._]
The Tories generally, and ‘the Nonjurants’ in particular, thought
the sentence severe; and that the Common Sergeant, Duncan Dee, was
sarcastic when he told Mr. Howell that he ought to be obliged to the
king for his great mercy, who might have ordered him to be tried for
High Treason,――and also to _him_, the Common Sergeant, for his lenity
in ‘pronouncing so easy a sentence!’ The whipping was far worse than
hanging; and Mr. Howell was, in fact, likely to be in prison for
life; as, after his three years’ imprisonment, he was condemned to
find security for his good behaviour as long as he lived, himself
in a thousand pounds, and four sureties in five hundred pounds,
each!――Robinson, Bishop of London, at once stepped in to save the
Nonjuror from the most cruel and degrading part of the punishment. At
his intercession, the whipping was not carried into execution. ‘Well,’
cried the coffee-house Whigs, ‘the fellow ought to be hanged!’ The
Nonjurors and the Papists suffered persecution because of him. The
former were arrested wherever they attempted to meet, and the houses
of both were rigorously searched for arms, to the loss of property and
much ruffling of the tempers of indignant womankind.
Mr. Justice Dormer subsequently asserted that Howell’s ‘Case of Schism’
attempted to show that all the clergy and laity who were loyal to King
George were in a state of damnation!――‘_I_ think,’ said Mr. Justice,
‘that the Pretender is about as near to the Crown as this Howell is to
the Church!’
[Sidenote: _THE ROSE IN JUNE._]
June 10th found the Jacobites prepared to celebrate _their_ Prince’s
birthday. The fact that during the preceding week, three of the force
captured at Preston――Dalzell, Ramsay, and Shaftoe――had been condemned
to death, did not prevent the Jacobites at large from procuring a
store of white roses, to be worn ‘in favour’ of James III. According
to the papers, most of these roses were ‘nipped in the bud.’ Yet,
political prisoners in Newgate decked their windows with them, or flung
them to passers by. Other Jacobites walked in the highways with the
emblematic rose in their bosoms, but ‘they met with severe Rebukes.’
‘One of them,’ says the ‘Weekly,’ ‘dressed somewhat like a Gentleman,
was challenged by one of His Majesty’s Officers, near Gray’s Inn Lane,
had his Badge torn from him and was wounded and disarmed.’ Thus,
private war was still kept up, after the public one had been gloriously
concluded. It was more easy for a Whig official to whip a white rose
out of the button hole of a ‘gentle’ Jacobite’s coat, and draw a little
Jacobite blood in the process, than it was to suppress the seditious
sayings and doings of the common people. The streets, lanes, and public
markets of the City were still infested with people singing ballads,
or crying for sale pamphlets and broadsides hostile to the Government,
and, as the Lord Mayor’s proclamation, threatening heavy penalties
against the offenders, says, ‘corrupting the minds and alienating
the affections of his subjects, causing animosities and stirring up
seditions and riots.’ In these riots, blood was shed, especially when
the soldiery appeared on the scene, and the Jacobite mob saluted them
with the exasperating cry of ‘George’s Bull Dogs!’ Private quarrels
on the great political question came to as bloody conclusions. Major
Cathcart and Colonel Gordon fought a fierce fight with swords in
Kensington Gardens, from which neither came out alive. It took the
major six deadly thrusts at his adversary, before he could deliver the
fatal one, but at that moment Gordon ran the major through, and slew
him on the spot.
[Sidenote: _MORE BLOODSHED._]
After the demonstration of the 10th of June was over――in which, it
must be confessed, the Jacobites had the worst of it――the ‘Flying
Post’ thought it would not be amiss to ‘caution the Jacobites of both
sexes, not to appear any more in public with badges of sedition and
rebellion, lest they meet with severer treatment than hitherto.’ The
‘He-Jacobites’ that were ‘drubbed till they eat their rue … are advised
to take care lest the next dose be Hemp or Birch; and the She-Jacobites
ought to be wise, lest they meet with the same fate as some of their
sisters near Charing Cross, who, for insulting gentlemen that wore
orange ribbons, on May 28th, were committed to the care and management
of some of the worshipful Japanners of Shoes, who painted them, they
best know where, with the proper mark of the Beast.’
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE LADIES._]
Addison, in the ‘Freeholder,’ satirised them without mercy. He
ascribed to the Jacobite ladies a want of grace, resulting from
their country life; whereas the Whig ladies, daily in attendance at
Court, possessed a courtly air to which the Jacobite ladies could
never attain! The latter were as raw militia-men compared with the
accomplished soldier in all his glory. Addison accuses the Jacobite
ladies of having a tone of vulgarity and mendacity in the expression
of their disloyal prejudices. Before the ‘beautiful part of creation’
became antagonistic in politics, they were perfect as mistresses of
households, or as maidens worthy of becoming such. But in the present
disturbed times, he describes wives and maidens as mere ‘stateswomen.’
‘Several women of this turn are so earnest in contending for hereditary
right, that they wholly neglect the education of their own sons
and heirs; and are so taken up with their zeal for the Church that
they cannot find time to teach their children the Catechism,’ A
‘pretty bosom heaving with party rage’ is moved by wrong impulses.
‘We sometimes,’ writes Addison, ‘see a pair of stays ready to burst
with sedition; and hear the most masculine passions expressed in the
sweetest voices. I have lately been told of a country gentlewoman,
pretty much famed for this virility of behaviour in party disputes,
who, upon venting her notions very freely in a strange place, was
carried before an honest Justice of the peace. This prudent magistrate,
observing her to be a large black woman, and finding by her discourse
that she was no better than a rebel in her riding-hood, began to
suspect her for my Lord Nithsdale, till a stranger came to her rescue,
who assured him, with tears in his eyes, that he was her husband!’
[Sidenote: _LADIES’ ANTI-JACOBITE ASSOCIATIONS._]
Addison further told the ladies that they must by nature be Whigs,
as were a Jacobite Popish Government to be established, it would be
the vocation of women to be nuns, while all the beaux, officers, and
pretty fellows generally, would be priests or monks, and then celibacy
would be almost universal. The great Essayist approves of various
Ladies’ Associations for the suppression of Jacobitism. At one, there
was an open tea-table, accessible only to Whig gentlemen. At a second,
there was a Basset table, where none but the loyal were admitted to
punt. Young ladies are praised who recognise the doctrine of passive
obedience only in lovers to their mistresses. One Whig nymph hit upon
a way of wearing her commode so seductively, that Tory lovers were
converted at her feet, and Tory damsels imitated the fashion. Another
nymph went abroad in a pearl necklace which, according to the Essayist,
manifested her abhorrence of the Popish fashion of beads. Maids, wives,
and widows, are reviewed at this crisis, and such counsel is given them
as a writer at the beginning of the last century _could_ give without
any imputation of audacity.
A publisher, with a name that bespeaks his being baptized before
the Puritan fire was extinguished――Bezaleel Creak――now sent forth,
from the Bible and Ink-Bottle, in ‘Germain Street, St. James’s,’ a
poem, ‘occasioned by the many Lies and Scandals Dispersed against
the Government, Since the late Rebellion.’ The piece was entitled
‘Rebellious Fame,’ as that allegorical personage was just then given
to report wonders and miracles on land, in the sea, in rivers, and in
the skies, all which――by ‘the Members of the British Society and the
Mugg-Houses about the City of London,’ to whom the book was satirically
dedicated――were said to portend the speedy restoration of the king over
the water to his own again. The doggrel is of the worst sort. The most
descriptive bit in it refers to Lorraine, the Newgate Ordinary, whose
Calendar is called a history which
with pious dread
Is ev’ry Morn by pious Porters read.
Lorraine is told that the greatest rascal in his record is Paul, who
affected piety in Newgate, was having his speech penn’d by non-juring
parsons, and would be turned off, singing.
How decently the Caitiff ends his days,
With Howell’s Rhetorick and Sternhold’s lays.
[Sidenote: _RIOT IN A CHURCH._]
The churches were occasionally as disturbed as the streets at this
troubled period. It was by order of his diocesan that the Rev. Mr.
Hough, a temperate rector of St. George’s, Southwark, dismissed his
ultra-Jacobite curate, the Rev. Mr. Smith, ‘as a clergyman,’ says the
‘Flying Post,’ ‘of the most infamous Morals and outrageous Impudence
against the Government.’ Sunday after Sunday, the rector was hissed
and buffeted by the Tories for this dismissal. On one occasion the mob
tried to stone him, but Mr. Hough escaped in a coach. On each occasion
he was assailed, say the Whig papers, by ‘a vile, rascally, beggarly
mob,’ and it is added that the ‘Rev. but scandalous Smith led the mob
himself to the charge, from St. Sepulchre’s.’ The ‘Postmaster’ quaintly
describes the particulars as being ‘not only dreadful, but shameful.’
On the 23rd of June the Jacobite congregation at St. George the
Martyr, Southwark, were punished by having the chaplain of the Duke of
Newcastle sent down by authority to pray for and preach to them. They
would neither have his prayers nor heed his preaching. During the whole
service the Tories behaved in a most irreverent manner. At its close,
the clergyman’s calm self-possession so exasperated them that they
showed symptoms of using personal violence towards him. Some of his
friends ran off to the Marshalsea to ask the guard there to come to the
rescue. The soldiers arrived just in time to save him from the rough
proceedings of ‘the High Church Mob.’ They hurried him into a coach,
and escorted him to the duke’s house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
[Sidenote: _POPE’S DOUBLE DEALING._]
Pope tells Gay, in June, 1716, ‘I suffer for my religion in almost
every weekly paper. I have begun to take a pique at the Psalms of
David, if the wicked may be credited, who have printed a scandalous one
in my name.’ This might serve to show an anti-romanist illiberality
did we not now know that Pope himself wrote the indecent parody of the
first psalm, of which he complains, and advertised in the ‘Postman’
that he would give a reward of three guineas for the discovery of the
author and publisher. ‘When Mrs. Burleigh,’ says Pope’s editor, Mr.
Elwin, ‘announced that she had the original in his own hand-writing,
he relapsed into silence.’ Pope, in the above letter to Gay, reflects
the views on Church matters which were entertained in the London
coteries and coffee-houses:――‘The Church of Rome, I judge from many
modern symptoms, as well as ancient prophecies, to be in a declining
condition; that of England will in a short time be scarce able to
maintain her own family; so Churches sink as generally as Banks in
Europe, and for the same reason――that religion and trade, that at first
were open and free, have been reduced into the management of Companies
and the roguery of directors.’
[Sidenote: _ADDISON, ON LATE AND PRESENT TIMES._]
[Sidenote: _POLITICAL WOMEN._]
When the Parliament and Addison’s ‘Freeholder’ came to an end together,
the Essay writer boasted of having given the ‘complexion of the times.’
He was sorry that there were men still left who thought they could
never be wrong as long as they opposed a Minister of State; and that
the Government was blamed for severity towards the rebels, when the
friends of the administration rather murmured at too great leniency
being practised towards them. He thought it was a pity, since oak
garlands used to be the reward of those who saved cities, that oak
apples and oaken clubs were the signs and weapons, on one day in the
year at least, of those who would bring destruction on the kingdom.
He deplored the ruffianism of both Whig and Tory mobs, of the women
as well as of the men. It was not so in Charles II.’s time, when men,
instead of declaring their opinions by knocking out one another’s
brains, ‘hung out their principles in different coloured ribbons.’
He traced the brutal violence of the times to the general conceit
which visited all hostile argument with a blow. Children were taught
politics, and to hate each other, before they understood the meaning of
words. Squires came up from the country like dictators from the plough,
and got drunk in praise of the aristocracy. Oyster women concerned
themselves with the abolition of Episcopacy, and cinder wenches were
sticklers for indefeasible right. Addison is alarmed at the novel
establishment of country newspapers. They would make provincial towns
as turbulent and uncomfortable as London. It was some consolation
to him that the very sight of the royal family, particularly of the
pretty princesses, was sufficient to soften many a Jacobite; and,
though Jacobite ladies _would_ distinguish themselves by wearing white
roses――less white, of course, than the bosoms against which they
lay――how much more beautiful were the loyaler ladies who proclaimed
their principles, and excited the most tender sympathies, by fastening
in their hair the simple but significant Sweet William!――a compliment
to William of Nassau.
[Illustration: Lily of the valley]
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
CHAPTER XIII.
(1716.)
[Illustration: Drop-B]ut while the great Essayist revelled in this
social and political banter, earnest tragedy was being enacted
elsewhere. On July 8th the death warrant for the execution of two dozen
Jacobites seems to have been stayed at Court before it went on its
dreadful way. There was such effectual discussion upon it, that the
good souls there snatched twenty-two lives from the hangman. ‘All to
be reprieved,’ says Lady Cowper, ‘but Justice Hall and Parson Paul.’
The Duchess of Shrewsbury pleaded hard for the lives of the whole
four-and-twenty; but the hangman got his allotment of one in the dozen.
[Sidenote: _THE REV. MR. PAUL._]
Patten sketches the incidents of the Rev. Mr. Paul’s first appearance
on the scene. It occurred at Lancaster. Forster, the commander, was at
dinner with Patten in the Recorder of Lancaster’s house. ‘He (Paul)
entered the room in a blue coat, with a long wig and a sword, and Mr.
John Cotton of Cambridgeshire with him. They let him (Forster) know who
they were, and in a flourishing way, made a tender of their services
for the cause, which Mr. Forster accepting, they withdrew. Then Mr.
Forster told Mr. Patten, that the taller of the two gentlemen was a
clergyman and was of St. John’s College in Cambridge, and that he
(Paul) had given him a perfect account of General Carpenter’s marches,
and that he was then at Barnard’s Castle, in the bishoprick of Durham,
that his men and horses were soon fatigued, and the like, all which,’
adds the turncoat Patten, ‘was true enough, though their being so
fatigued did not hinder their march after us.’
The Reverend Mr. Paul, undoubtedly, acted both as spy and messenger.
Before the surrender at Preston, Paul rode away, charged, ‘as he then
said,’ to use Patten’s significant words, ‘with letters, to a noble
lord in Staffordshire and some friends in Leicestershire.’ Paul had a
narrow escape on the road, but it did not lead him to ultimate safety.
He met General Wills, at the head of his troops. By the former, he was
stopped and questioned, but the general, not suspecting that Paul was
one of the rebels, ‘he himself also putting on a contrary face,’ Wills
let him go.
[Sidenote: _A CRY FOR LIFE._]
Mr. Paul had no desire to die a martyr for the Jacobite cause. After
his condemnation, he addressed himself to the great object of saving
his life. He wrote to bishops, archbishops, and ministers. To the Lord
Primate he said he had pleaded _guilty_ only on the advice of his
lawyers, as the surest way to obtain mercy. The Government wished him
to make a clean breast of it, and tell all he knew and all he did after
running away from Preston. But, he observed, ‘what confession the
Court would have from me, I can’t tell. I am sure your Grace would not
have me, for the world, speak more than I know.’ He denied having been
guilty of promoting rebellion, after he left the rebels ‘as fast as I
could.’ He prayed earnestly that his life might be spared, and that
if he were not allowed to spend the remainder of it in England, the
Government might be pleased to send him to the Plantations or anywhere
rather than Tyburn! He protested that since he was in Newgate he had
not prayed for the Pretender, by any name or title; and he humbly
desired his Grace would take him from ‘this nasty prison.’
Writing to the Bishop of Salisbury, Paul spoke of his being
unfortunately at Preston among the rebels; but that he left them
‘upon the first opportunity.’ He asserted that ‘Fear more than
Choice’ had taken him there. He had once the honour to be under the
bishop’s patronage. If the prelate would only get his life spared, he
promised that it should be wholly employed in pouring down abundance
of blessings on King George, the Royal Family, the three kingdoms
generally ‘and the Church in particular.’ In despairing terms, Paul
again turned to the archbishop. Life, only life! The truly repentant
rebel asks for no more. ‘I do not question,’ he said, ‘but that your
gracious temper and compassion will move you to assist one that had
once the honour to be instituted into a Living, in your diocese of
Lincoln, by your Grace.’
[Sidenote: _PAUL AND PATTEN._]
On Monday, July 9th, the poor man again wrote in a fit of abject terror
to the archbishop: ‘The Dead Warrant is come down for Execution
Friday next.’ Then he, as it were, screamed for mercy. Except, being
at Preston, he was entirely innocent of all ‘ill steps,’ and knew of
no designs against King George, beyond that town. ‘The things that are
laid to my charge, namely, the preaching up rebellion, advising my
parishioners to take up arms, and that I preached several seditious
sermons, all these are false, upon the word of a clergyman, as I have
a certificate to prove, for six years, the time of my being at Orton,
handed by most of the parish.’ He begs that he may be ‘saved from that
ignominious death of the halter;’ and he promises a rich return in
prayers for the benefit of all who had done their best to bring him
‘out of these great troubles.’
Between the day on which the last letter was written and the eve of
the day of execution, no better messenger of joy visited poor Paul
than the reverend rascal Patten. This worthy was sent, apparently, to
‘pump’ him, but he brought no promise of mercy for any communications
Paul might make; and accordingly the doomed man, as he wrote to Lord
Townshend, on that terrible eve, simply called Heaven to witness that,
to quote his own words, ‘I carried no letter off from Preston, though
I told Mr. Patten so, which was only a feint, that I might go off; and
if Mr. Patten will do me justice, he can tell you, my Lord, how uneasy
I was when I discovered my rashness.’ His last words were, ‘I once more
crave your Lordship’s kind assistance to procure me my life.’
[Sidenote: _PAUL, A JACOBITE AGAIN._]
This prayer was not heeded. On the following day, crowds witnessed the
journey of both Paul and Hall to Tyburn. Other crowds were to be seen
outside the newspaper office window at Amen Corner, eagerly reading the
original letters of Paul to the Archbishop and Viscount Townshend, by
whom they had been sent into the city, to gratify public curiosity.
Mr. Paul at Tyburn recovered his spirits, and turned Jacobite, again.
He asked pardon of God for having taken oaths of allegiance to an
usurping power.――‘You see by my habit,’ he said to the crowd, ‘that I
die a son, though a very unworthy one, of the Church of England, but I
would not have you think that I am a member of the schismatical church,
whose bishops set themselves up in opposition to those Orthodox Fathers
who were unlawfully and invalidly deprived by the Prince of Orange. I
declare that I renounce that communion, and that I die a dutiful and
faithful member of the Nonjuring church, which has kept itself free
from rebellion and schism; and I desire the Clergy and all members of
the Revolution church to consider what bottom they stand upon, when
their succession is grounded upon an unlawful and invalid deprivation
of Catholic bishops, the only foundation of which deprivation is a
pretended Act of Parliament. The Revolution instead of keeping out
Popery, has let in Atheism.’ As Justice Hall was standing meekly at
Paul’s side, a cowardly Whig ruffian, in the crowd, flung at the doomed
man a stone which reached its aim. The poor gentleman bowed his head
in acknowledgment of the civility, turned to the hangman, and died
without fuss or protest. The Whig press spared him. They did not attack
him as they did Paul.
In July, the king, longing to revisit Hanover, and satisfied that
his throne was now unassailable, took his departure. A few hours
previously, Lady Cowper saw the sovereign, at a drawing-room, ‘in
mighty good humour.’ She wished him a good journey and a quick return;
and, ‘he looked,’ she says, ‘as if the last part of my Speech was
needless, and that he did not think of it.’
[Sidenote: _THE KING IN FLEET STREET._]
A curious encounter took place in Fleet Street, as George I., in a
semi-state coach, with a kingly escort, was on his way to the Tower,
where he was to take water for the continent. The king was met with a
procession of six coaches coming from Newgate. They contained eleven
prisoners with attendants, the former on their way to Westminster,
to receive formal sentence of death. The royal carriage and one in
which was Mr. Radcliffe, with a fellow prisoner, and a ‘servant of
Newgate,’ were the first to meet. The latter drew on one side; those
which followed did the same. The king looked hard at the Jacobites
and passed on, without remark. When the king had gone by, Charles
Radcliffe, seeing that the carriage in which he was seated was drawn
up in front of a tavern, called for a pint of liquor, and he and his
fellow in misfortune drank to the health of King James. If the ‘servant
of Newgate’ got a good pull at the tankard he said nothing about it at
Westminster to aggravate their position or to make unpleasant his own.
[Sidenote: _A READING AT COURT._]
At the council, held by ministers in the evening, it was found that the
king had some cause to dread the perils of his way. ‘At night,’ says
Lady Cowper, ‘Lord Lovat brings a man, called Barnes, to the Council,
who deposed upon oath that two Sulivants, cousins to Sulivant whose
Head is upon Temple Bar, told him that Sulivant’s brother, who is a
Partizan, was to kill the king in a wood between Utrecht and Loo, and
that he was to command a “Party Blue,” which is a cant phrase for fifty
Men.’ ‘The Men were seized,’ says Lady Cowper, and the then Hanoverian
Fraser of Lovat was probably rewarded for his services.
The knowledge of such regicidal designs may have led to a discussion
at Court on the killing of Cæsar, where his slayer, Brutus, found
partisans. One morning, in July 1716, Lady Cowper was reading aloud to
the princess and the ladies, from the works of Madame Deshouillières,
the French ‘tenth muse.’ The reader came upon a passage referring
to Brutus. ‘As much a Whig as I am,’ she says, ‘I cannot come up to
it.’――‘I think Brutus should either have been faithful to Cæsar, or
he should have refused his favours, the baseness of his ingratitude
blackening, in my opinion, all that could be said for his zeal for his
country.’ She evidently had in her mind the people about Court who,
while accepting favour from George, were often serving James. ‘This,’
she says, ‘occasioned a great dispute among us.’
[Sidenote: _SANGUINARY STRUGGLES._]
Turning from Court to Newgate it will be seen that the zeal of some
of the servants of certain of the condemned Jacobite gentlemen sadly
outran their discretion. Mr. Cassidy and a Mr. Carnegie were sentenced
to death. Their valet, Thomas Beau, immediately headed a Jacobite
mob, out of a mere spirit of revenge. After trying their strength in
assaulting Mr. Gosling’s tavern, the Blue Boar’s Head, near Water Lane,
and mercilessly treating the Whig gentlemen there, by whom they were
ultimately repulsed, after much blood was shed on both sides, the Jacks
rushed in a body to that most hateful of all mug-houses, Mr. Read’s, in
Salisbury Court, Fleet Street. Various previous attempts to demolish
this stronghold of thirsty loyalty had been valiantly frustrated, with
much damage to limb, and at serious risk to life. On the last assault,
the ‘Papists and Jacks’ carried their ‘hellish design’ to ultimate but
costly triumph. They smashed the windows, forced an entry into the
lower rooms, and burst open the cellar. They broke up the furniture,
broached the casks, and, filled to the throat with strong liquors,
began to set fire to the premises. The loyal Whig guests discharged
their pieces into the seething crowd. They fought in the passages, and
on the stairs, but they unfortunately lost their standard. The sign of
the house was also triumphantly captured. It was carried at the head of
the besiegers, as they marched away, by Tom Beau. In the _mêlée_ which
occurred at the hottest part of the struggle, many of the rioters were
terribly wounded. One of them, Vaughan, a seditious weaver, to whom
the inside of Bridewell was not unfamiliar, was stretched dead on the
threshold by a shot from the end of the passage of Read’s house. The
Jacks declared that Read was the murderer. The coroner’s jury were as
much divided as the mob and the gentlemen who met at Read’s mug-house,
‘only to drink prosperity to the Church of England, as by law
Establisht.’ Half were for a verdict of wilful murder against Read. The
other half stuck out for justifiable homicide. An adjournment ensued,
to enable each side to sleep, think, and drink over it.
Meanwhile, the husseydom of Fleet Street, a sisterhood rough and
readily named in another way by the papers, sustained the riot in the
Jacobite interest. These nymphs were described quaintly as ‘walking the
streets a nights without impunity by constables.’
[Sidenote: _A JACOBITE JURY._]
At the judicial enquiry, the evidence was against Read, despite his
loyalty. Witnesses swore to the attack, repulse, devastation, robbery
of till and liquor, and also to the fact that Read had deliberately
shot Vaughan as the former stood at his door, and the latter, an
unarmed and innocent victim, as the witnesses with Jacobite bias
described him, was standing doing no harm and thinking no evil, in
front of the attacking force. The coroner’s jury, on reassembling,
proved more Jacobite than ever. They would agree to no other verdict
but that of wilful murder against Read. The coroner refused to receive
this verdict, and while the dispute was pending, private individuals
with Hanoverian sentiments subscribed handsome sums, and awarded
liberal compensation to the owners of mug-houses who had suffered so
much for their integrity and loyalty, and who met only to drink health
to the royal family and ‘good luck to the Church of England by law
establisht.’
[Sidenote: _THE MUG-HOUSES._]
Then arose an individual, the proto-special correspondent. He made a
tour of the mug-houses, chiefly because the Jacobites had accused the
guests of drinking ‘damnation to the Church,’ and similar consummation
to the prelates. This early original correspondent gives testimony to
the contrary. ‘He was struck into an amazement,’ he tells us, ‘at the
piety, charity, courtesy, and good liquor which abounded in all the Mug
houses in London.’ We hear too that some baser sort of Tory would go to
mug-houses to decoy Whig gentlemen by ‘damning and cursing Queen Anne.’
One Adams, a medical student or apprentice, in Lothbury, tried this
game, but he had to ask pardon for it on his knees, and was afterwards
sent to the Compter to digest his humiliation.
At length, the coroner’s jury, again suffering political changes,
declared themselves, seven for wilful murder; five for manslaughter.
The perplexed coroner washed his hands of it, and sent the matter for
decision to the judges at the Old Bailey; when Read narrowly escaped
the gallows; but Beau, and a few others, swung at Tyburn.
[Sidenote: _THE STREET WHIPPING POST._]
To watching the doings of Jacobites at home, was to be added the
trouble ministers had in watching, through their agents, Jacobites
abroad. Our agent, Lord Stair, in Paris, kept the Hon. Charles Cathcart
(afterwards eighth Lord) well advised of what was going on, or was to
be attempted in London. In July, my Lord states that the Duke of Leeds
had left Paris, for Rouen, on his way to England, ‘to put some very
wise project of his own contrivance into execution. The Pretender and
his court have given in to it, and the party in England are ready to
assist him.’ Lord Stair suspected a design upon Sheerness. ‘I thought
it better,’ he adds, ‘to let him go than to stop him.’ The writer left
the ministers in London to do as they pleased with the duke, after he
arrived. The duke escaped, singularly enough. He got drunk in London,
was knocked down and run over by a hackney-coach, and he lay ill in
bed, instead of going about conspiring for James III.
The police, however, was on the alert, the laws were severe, and
ignorant people abounded. One of the acute messengers of the time,
Nightingale, heard two women in the street, crying for sale ‘The whole
trial, examination, conviction, and sentence of Conscience, who was
tried and condemned at Conventicle Hall,’ &c. The messenger charged
them with sedition. He carried them before the next justice of the
peace, and his worship, finding them guilty, sent them forthwith ‘to be
corrected at the next Whipping Post.’ The anti-Jacobite mob delighted
in the cruel spectacle which was there offered to them.
They, and Jacobites generally, were still more delighted at reading
the following matter-of-fact paragraph in all the papers. ‘On Saturday
night’ (the first Saturday in August), ‘between 8 and 9 o’clock, the
Earl of Wintoun made his escape out of the Tower.’ Lord Wintoun, who
was not such a fool as he was taken for, had sawn the bars of his
prison-window, and had oiled the palms of his keeper, and had passed
into the street unmolested. He had a servant, Nicholson, in Newgate
(taken also at Preston), but as the master had freed himself, the
Government kindly liberated the servant, and took their revenge on the
warden of the Tower. They accused him of having connived at the escape
of both Lords Nithsdale and Wintoun; and they dismissed him from the
Tower without allowing him to sell the wardenship, for which he himself
had once given a good price.
[Sidenote: _PATTEN IN ALLENDALE._]
In August, London saw the last not only of Wintoun, but also of
that worthy parson, Patten. In the above month, he shook hands with
his fellows in town, and set off for his old parish in Allendale,
Northumberland. His incumbency had been kept open for him by a
substitute, who resigned as soon as Patten returned to his old
flock. On the Sunday after his arrival, Patten preached to a crowded
congregation; ‘being,’ say the London Whig papers, ‘always well
respected in his parish.’
The most singular sight of all, in August of this year, was at Hampton
Court. While antagonistic mobs kept London in continual perturbation,
the heir to the throne and the Princess of Wales dined in public――to
which spectacle that public was freely admitted, and in such crowds
that the illustrious lady would graciously call upon them so to place
themselves that all present might have their fair share of the
sight. The affability of the royal pair delighted all the spectators.
The papers speak of one citizen of London, hitherto of Jacobite
principles, being so deliciously subdued by it to Whig sentiments
that, on reaching home, he removed the portraits of the Duke of Ormond
and Dr. Sacheverel, from his ‘parlor,’ and showed his contempt for
the originals by ‘removing their likenesses to a remote part of his
establishment.’
[Sidenote: _SCENES AT HAMPTON COURT._]
The Whig and Tory holiday makers who resorted to Hampton Court must
have beheld one of the scenes of the political comedy played by
their royal highnesses, while the king was abroad, with considerable
astonishment. On one occasion, after the public dinner, a gentleman was
as publicly presented. This was Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, who kissed
hands on having obtained the estates formerly belonging to Mackenzie,
as a reward for Simon’s loyalty! There was not so much to surprise in
this as in another presentation. Fraser was (for the nonce) a Whig;
but the second presentation was that of a Jacobite gentleman who had
been recently condemned to death, and was subsequently pardoned. This
Jacobite was the famous Farquharson of Invercauld, who had only just
been set free from the Marshalsea. Lord Townshend led him by the
hand, and presented him to the Prince; the Earl of Bridgewater next
took him, and presented him to the Princess. Spectators were lost in
astonishment, and could not guess what service Invercauld could have
rendered to the ‘Elector of Hanover’ to merit such distinction.
[Sidenote: _BIGOTS ON BOTH SIDES._]
The outspokenness of the Nonjurors at this period grew more audacious
than ever. Their enemies threatened to rout ‘the diabolical wretches’
from their chapels, and the Nonjurors replied, in their papers, with a
‘Come, if you dare!’ The latter prayed for ‘the King,’ without naming
him. On one Sunday, in the chapel in the Savoy, a Whig, at this part
of the service added aloud, ‘_George!_’ Forthwith, a dozen infuriated
Jacks sprung to their feet, exclaimed ‘_James!_’ and with a cry of
‘We’ll George you!’ flourished their sticks, whereupon a battle-royal
ensued, heads were broken, and provocation was given to make many a
subsequent Sunday disgracefully distinguished by the bigots on both
sides. The temper of the times was fatal to the then noted school at
Edmonton, where Mr. Le Hunt received Roman Catholic young gentlemen
from all parts of the world. Foreign families were afraid to send
their sons. The house, indeed, was never molested; but, ‘for want of
encouragement, Mr. Le Hunt was forced to withdraw.’
Later in the autumn, the opening of a Nonjuring chapel in Spital Fields
roused the fury of ‘loyal people.’ The pious and peaceable ‘Weekly
Journal’ hoped that ‘all persons loyally affected to King George will
timely suppress the diabolical society, as they have done the like
seditious assemblies of blind, deluded fools in the Savoy, Scrope’s
Court in Holborn, and in Aldersgate Street;’――where the chapels had
been set on fire, and the congregations beaten and kicked, as they
tried to escape, by the Hanoverian roughs.
[Sidenote: _AT DRURY LANE THEATRE._]
The Jacobites used similar arguments, and found approval for their
application, from grave Tory scholars. A Berkshire vicar, named
Blewberry, preached a sermon in a City church against Queen Anne.
‘The auditors,’ says Tory Hearne, ‘pulled him out of the pulpit.’
Blewberry printed his sermon. ‘’Tis wretched stuff,’ says Hearne, ‘in
commendation of usurpers, for which he deserved to be mobbed as he was.’
In October, Whigs heard with some surprise that Lords Carnwath, Nairn,
and Widdrington were, as the papers put it, ‘allowed the liberty of the
Tower to walk in.’ The public was, subsequently, more concerned with
an incident which took place at the theatre. On the 6th of December,
the Prince of Wales was in his box, at Drury Lane, heeding, as well as
he could, the utterances of Wilks, Booth, Cibber, and Mrs. Oldfield,
when an excited gentleman, named Freeman, endeavoured to pass into
the house. The Grenadiers crossed their bayonets and prevented his
ingress. That Freeman was a mischievous Tory seemed clear enough to
the Guards, when he drew a pistol from his pocket and fired it point
blank into the body of one of the Grenadiers. The shot was heard within
the house, where no one was unmoved but the Prince. Of the ladies,
all who did not indulge in shrieking, went off silently swooning into
gentlemen’s arms. Of the gentlemen, all who were not thus pleasantly
employed, put their hands to their swords. Some drew their weapons and
held them aloft. Others rushed sword in hand into the lobbies, and drew
up there ready for the onslaught of any number of Jacobites. While
this hubbub prevailed, the officer on duty reported the exact state of
things to the Prince. Freeman was a lunatic, the Jacobites were not
rising, and the Prince, in token of his complete satisfaction, sent
out five guineas to the Grenadiers; and the man who was shot into did
not find himself sufficiently hurt to prevent his getting drunk with
his fellows. The _beaux_ who had held the fainting ladies, rather than
draw swords for the Prince, called the next day to make enquiries,
and were to be seen combing their periwigs as they tripped up the
door-steps. ◆[Sidenote: _AFTERNOON CALLS._]◆ The belles received them,
with a laugh on their lips, and the fashionable _guittara_ in their
hands. Highly-spiced compliments passed in the afternoon as the orange
brandy, aniseed, citron and cinnamon waters were handed round with the
tea. The stouter champions took the sack and toast presented to them
on a salver, or were divided between hock with a dash of palm in it, a
glass of noble canary with a squeeze of Seville orange, or a tankard
of cyder, sweetened with a little old mead, and a hard toast. It was
a perspiring time for Running Footmen, who beat the post in carrying
the news of ‘Freeman’s shot’ into the country. The runners are well
described in a comedy of the period, in the query of a gentleman who
encounters one of them, ‘How now, Pumps, Dimity, and Sixty miles a day!
Whose Greyhound are you?’
[Sidenote: _ESCAPE OF CHARLES RADCLIFFE._]
The year ended with a great surprise. Mr. Charles Radcliffe literally
walked out of Newgate without molestation! Wardens and turnkeys saw
a strange gentleman, in a mourning suit and a brown tye-wig, pass
them, and did not question him! This suit and wig were called his
‘disguise;’ but it was no better than a theatrical disguise, which
deceives nobody, not even those who seem to be deceived. Mr. Radcliffe
passed as easily to France as if no one was interested in stopping him.
His old ‘chum’ in the room which they occupied together ‘in the Press
Yard, overlooking the garden of the College of Physicians,’――Basil
Hamilton――did not more easily pass into freedom, under the Act of
Grace, than Charles Radcliffe did under his so-called disguise, and
his resolution not to owe his freedom to the ‘Elector of Hanover.’
The chief wardens lost their places, which they had bought at 200_l._
a-piece, and which they were not allowed to sell; but they probably had
already had their places’ worth from Radcliffe’s friends.
The above dramatic incident was thus simply set down, with additions,
in the newspapers. ‘Charles Radcliffe, Esq., brother to the late Earl
of Derwentwater, made his escape out of Newgate on Thursday last,
December 13, as did a few days before, Mr. James Swinburne out of the
hands of persons who had him in cure for lunacy.’ Gibson of Stonycroft,
Northumberland, less lucky, died of broken heart, in the prison which
he could not ‘break,’ and from which he could not pass on plea of
being mad. Radcliffe, like Wintoun, had all along refused every offer
of royal pardon, a proud, honest, but in Radcliffe’s case, a fatal
refusal. Had he been content to wait in bonds a little longer, he
would have been in the Act of Grace whether he liked it or not. Thirty
years later he pleaded, in vain, the pardon he had scornfully refused,
and the Act, from the application of which he had withdrawn himself.
[Sidenote: _THE STAGE AND PLAYGOERS._]
Considering the critical condition of the country, in 1715 and 1716,
the drama was remarkably backward in outspokenness to support the new
order of things, as well as in suggestiveness through plays or portions
of their dialogue to allude, with friendly intention, to the Jacobite
side. Royal commands were so frequent that actors may have recognized
patrons in the king and his family, and have honoured them accordingly.
As in Charles I.’s time, they were independent as individuals, taking
sides in agreement with their opinions. One poor, obscure player, named
Carnaby, was arrested on a charge of seditious action for the benefit
of the ‘Pretender.’ We lose sight of him under the parting kick of the
Whig papers, that he was a wretch of an actor who unluckily died in
Newgate before he could be taken to Tyburn! On the other hand, when the
prospects of the kingdom were at least gloomily uncertain, there was
a class of individuals who lost no opportunity of being gay. Twice,
within three weeks, the performances at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, were
‘by desire of several Ladies of Quality.’ On one occasion, the ladies
ordered the highly spiced ‘Recruiting Officer;’ on the second occasion,
that comedy of still higher gusto, ‘The Old Bachelor.’ When most men
were, or should have been, bracing themselves to share in, or to meet,
the serious issues that as yet were hidden from them, we find among
the entertainments at Mrs. Thurmond’s benefit――‘A Scaramouch dance by a
Gentleman, for his diversion.’
[Sidenote: _LOYAL PLAYERS._]
It was when the struggle was over that the Stage began to ridicule the
losing side, and Mrs. Oldfield, at Drury Lane, on her benefit night,
spoke a new epilogue to the ‘Man of Mode’ in which the cause of liberty
was recommended to the beauties of Great Britain. It was not till
August, 1716, that in honour of the accession of the House of Hanover,
Doggett, the Drury Lane comedian, gave ‘an Orange-coloured Livery with
a Badge representing Liberty, to be rowed for by Six Watermen that are
out of their time within the year past――they are to row from London
Bridge to Chelsea――it will be continued annually on the same day for
ever.’ This incident gave rise to the still popular operetta of ‘The
Waterman;’ and, with some modifications, the match is still rowed on
the annual first of August.
Christmas cheer gave many Jacobites a courage to which they would
not have given expression at another time, considering how death,
fines, transportation, imprisonment or whipping had been inflicted
on outspoken and more active Jacobites during the year. One John
Humphreys, a lawyer’s clerk, displayed no ordinary audacity in Mr.
Read’s Mug-house, Salisbury Court, Fleet Street, by proposing the
health of James III. For such a Christmas toast, however, he was
carried before a magistrate, who sent him to Newgate, to answer for his
boldness――the last Jacobite victim of the year.
[Sidenote: _AN ANTI-JACOBITE PAMPHLET._]
But this was of small account compared with a much more exasperating
incident. Baker, at the Black Boy, in Paternoster Row, issued many
aggravating pamphlets against the adherents of the king over the water,
but never one which provoked them to such fury as the following:――‘A
true account of the proceedings at Perth; the debates in the Secret
Councils there, and the reasons and causes of the sudden finishing
and breaking-up of the Rebellion. Written by a Rebel. London: printed
by J. Baker, at the Black Boy in Paternoster Row, 1716. 12mo.’ This
‘true account,’ like the Master of Sinclair’s, exposed the conceit,
incapacity and folly of the Jacobite leaders, and left its readers with
a much lower opinion of the cause generally than they had previously
entertained.
[Illustration: Flowers]
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
CHAPTER XIV.
(1717.)
[Illustration: Drop-T]he streets this year were occasionally disturbed,
but violence gradually abated. Now and then there were sorrowful
sights, as exasperating as they were full of sorrow. One of these was
the procession of a hundred chained Preston prisoners from the Savoy
to the lower part of the Thames, where they were embarked to serve
as slaves in the West Indies. Such freight did not invariably reach
its destination. A few months previously, a similar freight of thirty
prisoners, similarly bound, rose upon the crew, got possession of the
vessel, and carried her to France, where they sold the ship and quietly
settled themselves in trade or service. There was a procession of
another sort, from Cheapside to Charing Cross, in January (soon after
the king’s return to England), by torchlight, which, we are told, was
very acceptable to those who saw it. It ended by burning the figures
of Pope, Pretender, & Co., at the latter place, after which the mob
drank his Majesty’s health. Thereupon, the officers at the windows of
Young Man’s coffee-house ‘returned thanks,’ and civilians at other
windows followed with similar speeches! All anniversaries did not pass
so happily, because the Whigs were the most readily irritated.…. A
man with an oak apple in his hat, on May 29th, walked the causeway in
danger of a broken head, and a too audacious fellow mounting a turnip
was certain to be knocked down, as insulting King George (who had
threatened to turn St. James’s Park into a turnip ground), unless the
bearer of the audacious symbol took the initiative, with confederates,
and knocked down those who looked at him too angrily. Ruffianism was
not confined to the common folk afoot. There is record of a gentleman
leaping from his chariot to tear a white rose from the bosom of a
Jacobite young lady, on the Pretender’s birthday――and, after lashing
her with his whip, flinging the poor girl to a Whig mob to be stript
pretty well naked, but a body of more gallant Jacks rushed in and
escorted the young lady home.
[Sidenote: _BISHOP ATTERBURY._]
Secretly, out of the streets, treason was quietly at work.――How early
the Jacobites were again actively engaged in London, in pursuit
of their purpose, is shown in the fact that Atterbury, Bishop of
Rochester, was then in correspondence with ‘James III.’ That prince
seems to have been impatient at Atterbury’s silence as to how the new
project was progressing. ‘I depended upon it,’ said the prelate in his
letter of reply, ‘that the best construction would be put upon that
silence by one who was well acquainted with the manner in which I was
employed,’ The bishop was then in the full strength of his manhood and
his intellect. Born in 1662, the son of a country parson, he passed
creditably through Westminster and Oxford. He was ordained priest in
his 30th year, and was one of the most ‘pushing’ men of his time.
When a tutor at the University, he complained to his father of the
unsatisfactoriness of his prospects. The father treated his son to both
rebuke and counsel. ‘You have only,’ he said, ‘to put your trust in
God, and marry a Bishop’s daughter!’ Atterbury did as well by marrying
Kate Osborn, daughter of Sir Thomas Osborn, a pretty girl, with a
handsome dower of 7,000_l._
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE CONGREGATIONS._]
The course taken by Atterbury was known to a few only; but there
was strong suspicion against him and Sacheverel. The Whigs sent
‘note-takers’ to write down the remarks made by them in the pulpit,
and the muscular Christians and Jacobites flung these reporters into
the street. On the last Sunday in May, after the Act of Grace had
been issued, Dr. Sacheverel preached at St. Clement’s, in the Strand,
‘a virulent and railing sermon. He was attended,’ according to the
Whig papers, ‘by a numerous mob who testified their approbation of
his Billingsgate discourse, by huzzaing him to his coach. So that we
find other Princes have savage Beasts to govern, besides the Czar
of Muscovy.’ It took very little to offend the orthodox Whigs. In
July, after the trial of the Earl of Oxford had come to nothing,
that nobleman, with his son and brother, attended at Lincoln’s Inn
Chapel, and took the sacrament! The clerk was savagely censured, by
Whig writers, for selecting the 124th Psalm to be repeated on this
occasion, ‘in respect of which,’ say the loyal papers, ‘we refer
our readers to their Common Prayer Books,’――where they would find
the acknowledgment that the Lord saveth him against whom the wicked
combine.――A much more serious affair was the mustering of the drummers
of the Guards in front of Lord Oxford’s house, where they beat a point
of war, in congratulation of his escape. That they were all locked up
in the Marshalsea, on bread and water, was a small penalty for such
impudent insubordination.
[Sidenote: _LIBERTY USED, AND ABUSED._]
It was said of the motive which produced the Act of Grace that the
king, having nothing to fear, was inclined to be merciful. The
messengers’ houses were cleared of ‘the King’s witnesses’ (men who
had saved their necks by giving testimony against their old Jacobite
comrades)――where they had been in custody, and Jacobite gentlemen
captives were removed from the Tower, Newgate, and Marshalsea, to the
more tolerable custody of the messengers. Several were persuaded to ask
for transportation, and they obtained it as a favour. The ministry had
so softened that, hearing Lord Duffus had not wherewithal to subsist
handsomely in the Tower, they allowed him three pounds, weekly! They
were a little troubled when they found that the prisoners at large
resorted publicly to Nonjuring chapels, and that they talked too loudly
and insolently in Jacobite coffee-houses. This was not the case with
all. One of the Mackintoshes, called ‘the Laird,’ was so touched by the
royal clemency, he protested that if another rebellion should ever
break out, he would lead a thousand of his clan in support of King
George. ◆[Sidenote: _JACOBITES AT LARGE._]◆ On the other hand, one of
the Talbots talked so saucily, when the order of release for himself
and others came down to Newgate, that he was detained in custody to
teach him better manners. So, Dalzell, uncle of Lord Carnwath, who had
been condemned to die, but was removed, with others, to wardship under
a messenger, was re-committed to the Tower, for ‘impudently frequenting
company who talked too freely against the present government, and
whose seditious and licentious pamphlets were read and handed about.’
Meanwhile, mobs hailed or hissed Lord Lansdowne when he was released
from the Tower, and even the street Whigs refrained from pelting Sir
William Wyndham as he crossed Old Palace Yard, after being discharged
at the King’s Bench Bar, Westminster. A few called him ‘Flat Nose,’
popular slang for Tory! For the poorer Jacobites at large, and for the
political prisoners in custody, raffles were got up, almost exclusively
by active and sympathising women, ‘for the use of the unhappy persons
in confinement.’ Articles of dress and diet were constantly being sent
to these captives, and not unfrequently (and generally by generous
and courageous women’s help), a prisoner, from time to time, made his
escape.
[Sidenote: _AN ENTRY IN A CASH BOOK._]
The Act of Grace, however, which was dated May 6th, was slow in taking
effect――especially in the cases of the peers. It was not till September
that a pardon passed the seals――for Lord Duffus. In November, Lords
Carnwath and Widdrington, and in December Lord Nairn, pleaded their
pardon, on their knees, at the bar of the House of Lords, and were
discharged. Provision was made for them, out of their own estates,
to Widdrington, 400_l._; to Carnwath, 200_l._; and to Lord Nairn,
150_l._ a year. To Lord Duffus, having nothing, nothing was given.
Lord Nairn’s case will show how slowly liberty, with confiscation of
estates, was effected. When Lord Nairn walked, a comparatively free
man, across Tower Hill, in August, to a messenger’s house, he had been
in confinement a year and eight months. He was committed to the Tower
in December, 1715, and was liberated in August, 1717. During that time,
he was obliged to pay 3_l._ a week for his chamber, and 1_l._ as wages
for the warden who waited on and guarded him. Eleven months more were
spent before Lord Nairn got back again to Scotland. He was in London
under a sort of _surveillance_. Six months after his enlargement, he
had to appear before the House of Peers, ‘to get up his bail and make
his recognizance,’ so that he did not return to his own home till
July, 1718, all which cost him about 4,000_l._ Much of the money went
to legal advisers and Court ladies. Lord Nairn set this down in his
account book, in this blunt fashion, ‘Gave to Lawyers and Bitches,
during that time, 1,500_l._’
[Sidenote: _BISHOP ATTERBURY, THE CHEVALIER’S AGENT._]
At the very time Lord Nairn, by effect of the Act of Grace, left the
Tower, Atterbury, as his published correspondence now reveals, was
conspiring in the interest of James III. To this prince, the bishop
addressed a letter from London, in which is the following passage:――‘My
actions, I hope, have spoken for me better than any letters could do.…
I have for many years past neglected no opportunity (and particularly
no advantage my station afforded me) towards promoting the service.…
My daily prayer to God is that you may have success in the just cause
wherein you are engaged. I doubt not but He will at last grant it, and
in such a manner as to make it a blessing not only to your fast friends
and faithful servants, but even to those who have been and are still
averse to the thoughts of it. God be thanked, their numbers increase
daily.… May I live to see that day’ (of success to the Stuarts) ‘and
live no longer than I do whatever is in my power to forward it.’
On the other hand, to cultivate loyalty and gain popularity, the Prince
and Princess of Wales continued to make the Thames their highway, in
summer time. They made frequent voyages to Putney and Hampton Court,
and did not forget to propitiate those who were worth the trouble of
it. Oxford, for the most part, hated the royal Hanoverian family. On
one of these water excursions, the Princess, meeting an Oxford barge,
went on board. She ate of the barge meat and bread, and drank out of
the bargemen’s bowl. To each of the men, she gave two guineas. The men,
after arriving at Oxford, went through the city with tokens in their
hats; ‘and,’ says Hearne, ‘carrying their bowl to Balliol College, were
made drunk there, by the care of Dr. Baron, our Vice-Chancellor.’
[Sidenote: _MORE PROSECUTIONS._]
Notwithstanding these amenities, those in authority were conscious that
danger threatened ‘the happy establishment,’ and their ‘messengers’
were kept actively employed. In the course of this year a messenger and
constables entered a house in Plough Yard, Fetter Lane, and arrested
one of the inmates. His name was Francia, and he passed for a Jew
and general dealer. Letters and papers were seized in his room. They
treated of business in such a way as to read also very like treason,
at least, they could be so interpreted. Francia was carried before
Lord Townshend, Secretary of State. He and Mr. Harvey of Combe were
charged with holding traitorous correspondence with Alban Butler of
Cambray, and the Duke d’Aumont. Francia seems to have been, at once,
pressed to give evidence against Harvey. At the interview with Lord
Townshend, the latter put in Francia’s hand five guineas. The Secretary
said it was done out of charity. Francia looked on it as a bribe. He
took the money, and as he failed to be as communicative as it was at
first hoped he would be, Francia was committed to Newgate. At his
trial, he challenged nearly every juryman on the panel. One of them
was a Sir Dennis Dutry, latinized on the usual list as ‘Dionysius,’
which, Francia insisted, was not Latin for Dennis, but the Chief Baron
declared that it _was_, and, after many other frivolous objections were
disposed of, the trial proceeded; Francia pleading ‘Not Guilty.’
[Sidenote: _TRIAL OF FRANCIA._]
Jekyll, in opening the case, used a singular expression with regard to
the rebellion of ‘15, which, he said, ‘was not publicly known till his
Majesty _was pleased_, in July, to acquaint the public with the coming
invasion.’ The letters and papers seized in Francia’s lodgings referred
to business transactions, under which form the rebellion was clearly
to be understood. The prisoner’s defence was that he was an alien,
born at Bordeaux, in 1675, and owed no allegiance to King George, but
also, that he had practised no treason against him. The main feature
of the defence was that Francia was accused because he had refused
to bear false evidence against Harvey, for which purpose Townshend
had given him money. One Mary Meggison swore that being in the same
room in Newgate, with Francia, she heard an agent of the Government
press Francia to swear Harvey’s life away. If the agent did not see
her it was because the room was ‘the Lion’s den’ and was as ‘dark as
pitch.’ Lord Townshend swore by all his great gods, that he had been
moved solely by compassion when he put the five guineas into Francia’s
hands,――partly, however, also, as it would seem, because Francia, when
he was first brought before my Lord, had made some disclosures, and
had sworn to the truth of them on a Hebrew book――produced in court.
‘Ah!’ said Mr. Hungerford, the Jew’s counsel, taking up the book, ‘I
understand a little Hebrew. This is a book to pray by――not swear by. It
is a collection of Jewish prayers and rituals, I believe taken out of
Maimonides. You had better send it to the learned Montfaucon in Paris;
he is compiling some critical observations on the Eastern languages.’
What purpose that might have served does not appear. The only
important circumstance was that the Secretary of State swore vehemently
one way; the Jew, as vehemently in an opposite direction; and that the
Jury believing Francia――acquitted him accordingly.――The subsequent
jollity in Fetter Lane, and Jacobite resorts, generally, showed that
Francia, be he what he might, was not a supporter of ‘the Elector of
Hanover.’
[Sidenote: _PATTEN’S ‘HISTORY OF THE LATE REBELLION.’_]
Support came from other quarters――from the Press and from the
Stage;――from Mr. Patten, the priest, and Colley Cibber, the player. In
literature, undoubtedly, _the_ book of the year, 1717, was the Rev.
Mr. Patten’s ‘History of the late Rebellion. With original papers and
characters of the principal noblemen and gentlemen concerned in it.’
Baker and Warner’s shop, the _Black Boy_, in Paternoster Row, was beset
with parties purchasing, or with footmen sent to purchase, copies. The
ex-Jacobite knave who wrote it had the impudence to dedicate it to the
Generals Carpenter and Wills. He quite as impudently gave assurance
to the world, that it was to ‘their prudent management and unshaken
bravery,’ at Preston, ‘animated by the Justice of the CAUSE,’ that the
defeat of the Rebels (‘unfortunate Gentlemen, whose principles were
once my own,’ but ‘some of which kept themselves warm in a Chimney
Corner during the Heat of the Action’) was to be attributed.
[Sidenote: _SLANDER AGAINST THE JACOBITES._]
Of the fate of those who perished on the scaffold he speaks
unfeelingly. Of others, he asserts that they did not hesitate to bribe
all who would take their money, ‘and by that means, not unfrequently
gained their ends.’ And to this assertion, the frocked rascal adds the
following precious remark:――‘It may be said, in the Face of Heaven,
that fairer Trials were never allowed, at least, to Men who so little
deserved it.’――The critics in the coffee-houses and taverns must have
felt the regret they may have feared to express, that the Reverend
Robert Patten had not also had a trial and an issue in accordance with
his deserts.
Patten especially hated these tavern and coffee-house critics. In his
book, he is never weary of depreciating such Jacobites. He wrote of
them summarily and contemptuously in 1717, as ‘a party who are never
right hearty for the Cause, till they are mellow, as they call it,
over a bottle or two.… They do not care for venturing their carcasses
any further than the Tavern. There indeed, with their _High Church and
Ormond_! they would make men believe, who do not know them, that they
would encounter the greatest opposition in the world, but after having
consulted their pillows, and the fumes a little evaporated, it is to
be observed of them that they generally become mighty tame, and are
apt to look before they leap; and, with the snail, if you touch their
houses they hide their heads, shrink back, and pull in their horns. I
have heard Mr. Forster say he was blustered into this business by such
people as these, but that, for the time to come, he would never again
believe a drunken Tory.’
[Sidenote: _PATTEN’S DETAILS._]
Patten’s narrative greatly amused the Londoners, who were the first
to read it. He delights in it, in speaking sarcastically of the
Clergy, whether they were High-flyers or of the lower-soaring party.
He describes the perplexity into which he, and other parsons with
the Jacobite army, put simple country vicars and their curates by
requiring them to pray for ‘James III., Mary, Queen Mother, and all
the dutiful branches of the Royal Family!’ Some clerics modestly
declined and handed their churches to Patten or his colleague, Buxton.
Others, simply refused, but sat in church, and while Patten, in the
pulpit, prayed for James, they made mental protest which was taken as
acquiescing. Patten confesses that he himself preached genuine Jacobite
sermons. One of the strongest against King George was on the text,
Deut. XXI., 17, ‘The right of the first-born.’ Patten so well served
the Hanoverian Right, after he came to London, that the king could not
hang him, as he deserved. This cleric seemed even to be sorry at the
escape of some of his confederates who did _not_ turn king’s evidence.
There was Edward Tildesley, the Papist who was acquitted by the jury of
the Marshalsea, ‘though,’ says the scandalised Patten, ‘it was proved
that he had a troop and entered Preston at the head of it with his
sword drawn. _But his sword had a Silver Handle!_’ In another instance,
he seems to turn unconsciously to his Jacobite proclivities, and
probably there was many a laugh in the Jacobite Walk, in the Park, over
Patten’s story of one Mr. Guin, who went into all the churches on the
way of the march, where Patten served as chaplain, ‘and scratched out
his Majesty King George’s name, and placed the Pretender’s so nicely
that it resembled print very much, and the alteration could scarce be
perceived.’
[Sidenote: _DOWNRIGHT SHIPPEN._]
An idea still prevailed, with ministers, that loyalty could be secured
by binding it by an oath. One of the curious sights of the year was the
assembling, by summons, of a thousand Middlesex tavern-keepers in front
of Hicks’s Hall, where announcement was made to them that, in future,
no licence would be granted save to those who had taken the oath of
allegiance before the justices of the various parishes. Later in the
year, a justice of the peace and a posse of constables pounced upon Dr.
Welton (the Jacobite ex-rector of Whitechapel), and his Non-conformist
congregation, in their place of meeting. There were about 250 Nonjurors
present. The constables interrupted the service, and proceeded to
administer the oath. Many indignantly refused to take it, and these
were arrested on the spot, or were ordered for trial, by a justice, who
allowed them their bail.
[Sidenote: _SHIPPEN, ON GEORGE I._]
In this year occurred the famous incident in the House of Commons――on
occasion of the king asking a grant of money to provide against a
Swedish invasion. Downright Jacobite Shippen felt as others felt, that
the demand was for English money to be applied to the defending of
Hanover. Shippen opposed the reception of the message, on the ground
of want of detailed information. He added that such a proceeding was
unparliamentary, and that it was to be regretted that the king was as
ignorant of parliamentary rules as he was of the English language. A
committee, however, was formed, which, by a majority of 15, proposed
a grant of a quarter of a million; but the question, when submitted
to the House, was carried by four votes only――153 to 149. This almost
compensated the Jacobites for what they had suffered this year by
Bishop Hoadly’s ‘Preservative against the Principles and Practices of
the Nonjurors.’ The High Church priesthood took some little comfort
from it, too. The bishop’s sermon on ‘My kingdom is not of this world,’
had seemed to deny them all temporal power. It led to the famous
Bangorian Controversy which ultimately deprived Convocation, for ever,
of being actively mischievous. The Nonjuring preachers were violent in
their pulpits. And the Nonjurors were out-done in Parliament by that
outspoken member, Shippen.
In December, the king opened Parliament with a speech, which the
‘Downright’ representative treated as that of his ministers. He
discussed it and the measures recommended in it, with the utmost
freedom. ‘We are,’ he said, ‘at liberty to debate every proposition
in it, especially those which seem rather calculated for the meridian
of Germany than of Great Britain. ’Tis the only infelicity of his
Majesty’s reign, that he is unacquainted with our language and
constitution; and ’tis therefore the more incumbent on his British
ministers to inform him that our government does not stand on the
same foundation with his German dominions, which (by reason of their
situation and the nature of their constitution) are obliged to keep
up standing armies in time of peace.’――Lechmere, Solicitor-General,
moved that the words be taken down, and the speaker of them be sent to
the Tower. Shippen would not retract anything he had uttered against
maintaining an army of sixteen thousand men in time of peace. A
majority of 175 to 81 sent him to the Tower.
Shippen’s speech was delivered on December 4th. Two days later, an
attack against the disaffected party was made from the stage. The
assailant was Colley Cibber; his weapon was the comedy, which he
adapted from Molière’s ‘Tartuffe,’ and called ‘The Nonjuror.’ The town
was in a ferment, and it would be difficult to say which faction was
the more excited.
[Sidenote: _CIBBER’S ‘NONJUROR.’_]
A glance at the dedication of ‘The Nonjuror’ to the king will not be
superfluous. It will throw light on more than one illustration of this
Jacobite time. Cibber addresses the king as ‘Dread Sir,’ and calls
himself ‘the lowest of your Subjects.’ He justifies his political
comedy as a proof ‘what honest and laudable uses may be made of the
Theatre, when its performances keep close to the true purpose of its
Institution. It may be necessary,’ he says, ‘to divert the sullen and
disaffected from busying their brains to disturb the happiness of a
government which (for want of proper amusements) they often enter into
wild and seditious schemes to reform.’ Colley then reminds the king
that the stage was never suppressed in England ‘but by those very
people that turned our Church and Constitution into Irreligion and
Anarchy.’ The Jacobites (by the way) might readily accept this remark,
seeing the ‘people’ who overset Church and King, and established
Irreligion and Anarchy, were the ‘Whigs’ of that day who slew the royal
grandfather of that ‘Chevalier whom the Jacobites of the present time
hoped to set up as their lawful king. Cibber professed to have made
these Jacobites ridiculous, in ‘The Nonjuror,’ in order to make them
ashamed of their cause! He affected to deplore that this loyal work had
nobody better than ‘a Comedian’ for its author. In such an undertaking
by such a low personage, his wise Majesty might discern an ‘unlicensed
boldness.’ Yet, the undertaking exposes ‘rebellious and unchristian
tenets.’――Colley takes further comfort in the following Cibberian
style: ‘Nay, I have yet a further hope, that it has even discovered the
strength and number of the _Misguided_ to be much less than may have
been artfully insinuated, there being no Assembly where People are so
free and so apt to speak their minds as in a crowded Theatre; of which,
Your Majesty may have lately seen an instance in the insuppressible
Acclamations that were given on your appearing to honour this Play with
your Royal presence.’
[Sidenote: _DEDICATION TO THE KING._]
That was on the first night. The ‘irrepressible acclamations’ of the
packed audience were still living in their echoes when the curtain rose
for the Prologue. The king smiled when the house laughed aloud at the
threat it contained that the play would treat the Jacobites roughly.
Good breeding ne’er commands us to be civil
To those who wish our Nation at the devil!
The Whig faction thoroughly enjoyed the allusions to the Nonjuring
parson, who rallied his flock in close back-rooms, reigned
the patriarch of blind lanes and alleys, and who fulminated
excommunications from London garrets. When the play began, Mrs.
Oldfield and Booth, by their exquisite acting, almost made both
factions overlook the political allusions.
[Sidenote: _SIGNIFICANT PASSAGES._]
The passages which excited the greatest enthusiasm included the
following: _Colonel Woodville’s_ allusion to the Nonjuring pamphlet,
‘The Case of Schism,’ and his comment, ‘I have seen enough of that
in _The Daily Courant_, to be sorry it is in any hands but those of
the common Hangman.’ Next, _Maria’s_ remark to her brother: ‘Why, you
look as if the Minority had been likely to have carried a Question.’
When the _Colonel_ notices to _Wolf_ that, in prayer, the latter (a
Nonjuring clergyman, nearly a Romanist) never _names_ the Royal family,
the answer stirred much laughter: ‘That’s only to shorten the service,
lest, in so large a family some few, vain, idle souls might think it
tedious; and we ought, as it were, to allure them to what’s good, by
the gentlest, easiest manner we can.’ The laughter was louder still in
the subsequent words, ‘But, why, Sir, is _naming_ them so absolutely
necessary, when Heaven, without it, knows the true intention of our
hearts?’――And the Jacobites themselves may have ventured on murmuring
approbation at _Wolf’s_ words, ‘Power, perhaps, may change its hands,
and you, ere long, as little dare to speak your mind as I do!’ But the
Whigs had their turn when the _Colonel_ exclaimed, ‘Traitor! but that
our Laws have chains and gibbets for such villains, I’d this moment
crackle all thy bones to splinters.’ No doubt the laughter was at its
loudest when the _Colonel_ read the list of _Dr. Wolf’s_ expenses,
on behalf of the Jacobite interest, which list had fallen from the
Nonjuror’s pocket. It ran to this effect:――
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE OUTLAY._]
Laid-out at several times for the secret service of His M.…
May 28. For six baskets of Rue and Thyme 0 18 0
“ 29. Ditto. Two cart-loads 2 0 0
June 10. For two bushels of white roses 1 10 0
“ Ditto. Given to the bell-ringers of
several parishes 10 15 0
“ To Simon Chaunter, Parish Clerk,
for his selecting proper staves
adapted to the day 5 7 6
“ For lemons and arrack sent into
Newgate 9 5 0
(At the last _item_ the _Colonel_ observes: ‘Well, while they drink it
in Newgate, much good may it do them!’)
June 10. Paid to Henry Conscience, Juryman,
for his extraordinary trouble
in acquitting Sir Preston Rebel
of his indictment 53 15 0
“ Allow’d to Patrick Mac Rogue, for
prevailing with his comrade to
desert 4 6 6
“ Given as Smart Money to Humfrey
Staunch, cobler, lately whipt
for speaking his mind of the
government 3 4 6
June 10. Paid to Abel Perkin, newswriter,
for several seasonable paragraphs 5 0 0
Aug. 1. Paid to John Shoplift and Thomas
Highway for endeavouring to
put out the enemy’s bonfire 2 3 0
Aug. 2. Paid the Surgeon for sear cloth
for their bruises 1 1 6
[Sidenote: _ADVANTAGES OF CLAMOUR._]
The above really includes much of what was then going on in the London
of that Jacobite time. According as the dates marked Hanoverian or
Stuart anniversaries, so was the outlay for material of a hostile or
pleasant nature, rue or roses, oaken-boughs or putting out of Whig
bonfires, punch for Jacobite prisoners in Newgate, and money for aid
to various sorts of traitors. In a later passage, _Sir John Woodville_
(a Jacobite) objects, however, to the employment of dissolute and
abandoned fellows for whom the pillory and gallows seem to groan. To
which objection, _Dr. Wolf_ answers with this remarkable introduction
of party politics, on the stage: ‘’Tis true, indeed, and I have often
wish’d ’t were possible to do without them; but in a multitude all men
won’t be Saints, and then again, they are really useful; nay, and in
many things that sober men will not stoop to.… They serve, poor men, to
bark at the Government in the open streets, and keep up the wholesome
spirit of Clamour in the common people;――and, Sir, you cannot conceive
the wonderful use of Clamour; ’tis so teasing to a Ministry; it makes
them wince and fret, and grow uneasy in their posts.… Ah! many a
comfortable point has been gain’d by Clamour; ’tis in the nature of
mankind to yield more to that than to Reason. E’en Socrates himself
could not resist it, for, wise as he was, yet you see his wife Xantippe
carried all her points by Clamour. Come, come, Clamour is a useful
monster, and we must feed the hungry mouths of it, it being of the last
importance to us that hope to change the Government, to let it have no
quiet.’
[Sidenote: _POLITICAL ALLUSIONS._]
One may fancy the glances that went up to the royal box on the
king’s nights, when the above words were emphasised; and the smiles
among the Jacobite ladies, when _Wolf_ paid the following compliment
to their White Rose fidelity: ‘To give them their due, we have no
Spirits among us like the Women; the Ladies have supported our Cause
with a surprising constancy. Oh! there’s no daunting them even with
ill-success! They will starve their very Vanities, their Vices, to
feed their Loyalty! I am informed that my good Lady, Countess of
Night-and-day, has never been seen in a new gown, or has once thrown a
die at any of the Assemblies, since our last general Contribution.’ And
once more the house must have rung with derisive laughter when _Wolf_,
alone on the stage, sneered at Jacobite Sir John, in the popular
phrase, as an idiot for supposing ‘that a Protestant church can never
be secure till it has a Popish Prince to defend it.’
Allusions of kingly clemency to repentant rebels were not wanting in
the play, but the most audacious passage in it was this sketch of
_Wolf_, in which the audience recognised a portrait of Patten. ‘He went
with us, Madam, none so active in the front of Resolution, till Danger
came to face him; then, indeed, a friendly fever seized him, which, on
the first alarm of the king’s forces marching towards Preston, gave him
a cold pretence to leave the town’.…
[Sidenote: _INCENSE FOR THE KING._]
The political passages were skilfully enough worked into the dramatic
story. With them, there was no lack of incense for the king or
prince to savour. The daintiest dish of this sort was to be found
in _Heartly’s_ account of the interview of the pardoned Jacobite,
_Charles_, with his Hanoverian father. ‘The tender father caught him in
his arms, and, dropping his fond head upon his cheek, kissed him and
sigh’d out, _Heaven protect thee!_ Then gave into his hand the _Royal
Pardon_, and, turning back his face to dry his manly eyes, he cried,
“Deserve this Royal Mercy, and I’m still thy _Father_!” The grateful
youth, raising his heart-swoll’n voice, reply’d, _May Heaven preserve
the Royal Life that gave it!_’ Some could sympathise, others would
laugh at this, but how great Augustus looked as he listened, supposing
he understood it, is quite beyond conjecture.
[Sidenote: _A LECTURE FROM THE STAGE._]
The Jacobites took it for satire in disguise, and the Whigs, after
applauding, got their opportunity for a roar when _Sir John_ expressed
his satisfaction at _Heartly_ having been born the year before the
Revolution, as he might, in consequence, be taken for a ‘regular
Christian’; and the roar was not less when this Jacobite, _Sir John_,
was described as a man who, ‘Name to him but _Rome_ or _Popery_, he
startles, as at a Monster, but gild its grossest Doctrines with the
Stile of _Catholick English_, he swallows down the poison, like a
cordial!’ After this fling at the disloyal Ritualists of that day
no more religious or political allusions were made to delight or
exasperate portions of the audience, till _Heartly_ delivered the last
speech, which took the form of a little political lecture, as thus:
‘Give me leave to observe that, of all the arts our enemies make use of
to embroil us, none seem so audaciously preposterous as their insisting
that a Nation’s best security is the Word of a Prince whose Religion
indulges him to give it, and at the same time, obliges him to break
it. And, though perhaps in lesser points our politick disputes won’t
suddenly be ended, methinks there’s one Principle that all Parties
might easily come into, that no change of Government can give us a
blessing equal to our Liberty;’ and then the too eager applause of the
audience was hushed to hear the tag,――
Grant us but this and then of course you’ll own,
To guard that Freedom, GEORGE must fill the Throne.――
On uttering which words, Mr. Wilks, as _Heartly_, bowed to the king.
Amid the peals of applause that followed, Mrs. Oldfield swept down the
stage to speak the epilogue. It was less indecent than such pieces
usually were, and it half apologised for building a play on modern
politics. At the same time it justified the proceeding, and claimed
merit for ‘executing it with good feeling’:――
Even Rebels cannot say,
Though vanquished, they’re insulted in this play!
[Sidenote: PUBLIC FEELING.]
They did, however, both say and feel it. There was not a Tory, whether
play-goer or otherwise, who ever forgave Cibber for this assault on his
principles. Cibber however had no lack of supporters.
‘Last night,’ says Read’s ‘Weekly,’ ‘the comedy called “The Nonjuror”
was acted at His Majesty’s Theatre in Drury Lane, which, very naturally
displaying the villainy of that most wicked and abominable crew, it
gave great satisfaction to all the spectators.’
In the ‘Apology for his Life,’ Cibber gives a just reason for the
scarcity of outspoken opposition to his partisan comedy which had
a first run of eighteen consecutive days. ‘Happy was it for this
_play_ that the very Subject was its Protection. A few Smiles of
silent Contempt were the utmost Disgrace that on the first Day of its
appearance it was thought safe to throw upon it. As the Satire was
chiefly employed upon the Enemies of the Government, they were not
so hardy as to own themselves such by any higher Disapprobation or
Resentment.’ The Jacobites attacked him in other ways. They accused
him of stealing a previous adaptation of Molière’s ‘Tartuffe,’ and the
following advertisement showed the spirit of the accusation: ‘This
day is published a translation of Molière’s “Tartuffe, or the French
Puritan,” by Medbourne, in which may be seen the plot, characters,
incidents, and most part of the language of “The Nonjuror.”’
[Sidenote: _ATTERBURY’S OPINION._]
While this piece was being played, Atterbury, in a letter to Mar,
describes the London Jacobites as ‘sitting silent and quiet, and
pleasing themselves with the odd management here at home, without
raising any expectations from abroad. And in the present situation of
affairs I am glad they do not, for our domestic divisions and folly are
sufficient for the present to keep up men’s spirits without being told
that certain relief is near at hand.… What they see here pleases them
so much that they can wait with a little patience for what they do not
see or hear.’ And so ended the year of the Act of Grace.
[Illustration: Flower and leaves]
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
CHAPTER XV.
(1718.)
[Illustration: Drop-T]he Jacobite rage aroused by ‘The Nonjuror’ (so
‘damned a play,’ Pope called it) seemed to increase even after the
novelty had worn off. Cibber’s bitterest foe in the press was Mist’s
‘Weekly Journal.’ On the 4th February, 1718, this ultra-Jacobite
paper contained the following paragraph: ‘Yesterday, died Mr. Colley
Cibber, late Comedian of the Theatre Royal, notorious for writing “The
Nonjuror.”’ Upon this, Cibber pleasantly says, in his ‘Apology’:――‘The
compliment in the latter part, I confess I did not dislike; because
it came from so impartial a Judge; and it really so happened that the
former part of it was very near being true; for I had that very day
just crawled out, after having been some weeks laid up by a Fever:
However, I saw no use in being thought to be thoroughly dead, before my
Time, and therefore had a mind to see whether the Town cared to have me
alive again. So the play of the “Orphan” being to be acted that Day,
I quietly stole myself into the part of the _Chaplain_, which I had
not been seen in for many years before. The Surprize of the Audience
at my unexpected Appearance on the very Day I had been Dead in the
News, and the Paleness of my Looks seem’d to make it a Doubt, whether
I was not the Ghost of my real Self Departed; But when I spoke, their
Wonder eas’d itself by an Applause, which convinced me they were then
satisfied that my Friend _Mist_ had told a _Fib_ of me.’
But there was at this period a tragedy in contemplation which drew the
public interest far away from Cibber and his comedy. It is necessary to
go back a year or so, in order the better to understand the principal
actor.
[Sidenote: _A YOUTHFUL JACOBITE._]
In the year 1711, there was a pupil at the Latin school in Salisbury,
who was remarkable for his ‘fine parts.’ His name was James Sheppard.
His late father had been a glover in Southwark. His uncle, Dr.
Hinchcliffe, took the father’s place, and provided for this promising
boy. The lad was excessively fond of reading; and, in order to catch
an intelligent young fellow for the Jacobite cause, some Salisbury
Nonjurors thrust upon him their party pamphlets, which the boy read and
re-read till he became more Jacobite than the writers. Perilous stuff,
so thought Dr. Hinchcliffe, and he took the too earnest student from
the Latin school, and bound him apprentice to a Liverpool coach-painter.
[Sidenote: _A WOULD-BE REGICIDE._]
In 1715, Liverpool was as much excited as London by the question
between the king regnant and the king claimant. Young Sheppard was
gloomy and silent. The fray fought out adversely to the Jacobites, and
the executions of the next year chafed his temper. Among his fellows,
he let drop the fearful words that it might be a good thing _to kill
the king_. He was counselled, if he would not go to the gallows, not to
give tongue to such possibilities, for the future. The matter sank deep
into his mind. Sheppard thought much and wrote much, and at last, he
disappeared from Liverpool.
Shortly after, it was early in 1718, a quiet-looking young man left a
letter at the City dwelling of a Nonjuring minister, named Leake. He
would call for an answer, he said, in a day or two. The minister was
nearly lost in fear and horror when he read this monstrous epistle from
a stranger. The writer spoke of the ‘discontents’ of the nation; and
suggested that they might be remedied by removing _Prince_ George, and
putting ‘_our_ king’ in his place. This could be done, said the writer,
without much bloodshed! The young maniac then stated that if Leake
would pay Sheppard’s journey to Italy, and furnish him with a letter
to King James, he would undertake to bring the king secretly into the
country, and to smite the usurper in his palace. It was, he said, ‘easy
to cut the thread of human life.’ If he succeeded, King James could
publicly appear. If he failed, the king might still lie safely hiding.
Sheppard promised that, if he himself were taken, no amount of torture
should extract from him a single word damaging to the sacred cause. He
was ready to suffer the cruelest death, the best preparation for which,
he thought, would be the reception of the Sacrament daily from the
hands of a Priest, ignorant of his design.
[Sidenote: _A FIGHT IN NEWGATE._]
To be found in possession of such a letter was a hanging matter.
Leake dropped it at once into the flames, and then hurried to Sir
John Fryer, a magistrate, who severely reprimanded him for destroying
such an important document, and ordered the arrest of the enthusiast.
Before the magistrate, in presence of the Secretary of State, and at
his trial, at the Old Bailey, the speech and general carriage of young
Sheppard were most becoming. When Leake tried to repeat the contents
of the fatal letter, Sheppard calmly prompted or corrected him. The
latter wrote it out from memory, and it agreed, literally, with a
draft discovered among the prisoner’s papers. He was, of course, found
_Guilty_; and when the Recorder urged him to ask mercy of the king,
Sheppard replied, ‘I cannot hope for mercy from a King whom I cannot
own!’
Between judgment and execution, this brave but erring boy of seventeen,
lay in Newgate. Paul Lorraine, the Ordinary, and a Nonjuring minister,
one Orme, fought for spiritual possession of him. ‘He is of my flock!’
said the Newgate chaplain. ‘He is not of your communion,’ retorted
the Nonjuror. ‘_You_ are a rebel rascal!’ rejoined Paul. ‘_You_ are a
canting hypocrite!’ cried the other reverend gentleman. At which words,
they flew at each other and were in the midst of a furious stand-up
fight, when discreet turnkeys rushed in, and separated the combatants.
[Sidenote: _UP THE HILL TO TYBURN._]
On the day of execution, six persons suffered at Tyburn. In the
morning, Ferdinando, Marquis of Paleotti, had the honour of hanging
alone, out of compliment to his rank. He was the brother of the Duchess
of Shrewsbury, and the murderer of his valet, whom he had slain, in a
fit of passion, on some trivial provocation. The Duchess tried hard
to get her brother beheaded, and the Prince and Princess of Wales
called on her to express their regret that they could not turn the king
from his determination that the Marquis should be hanged――an infamous
way of death for a Marquis, as it would degrade every relative he
had at foreign courts. Paleotti was hanged accordingly, and he died
becomingly, as a gentleman should. Had he only lived as decently, he
would never have gone to Tyburn at all.
[Sidenote: SCENE AT TYBURN.]
Later in the day, St. Patrick’s Day, 1718, two carts went up Holborn
Hill, to Tyburn. In one sat young Sheppard, in calm, unostentatious
bearing, as much of a gentleman as Paleotti. Four companions, doomed
to die at the same tree, rode, pale and silent, hustled together, in
the other cart. One of them was a burglar; the second, a highwayman;
the third was a young lad who had taken to thieving as a profession;
and the fourth was a younger girl who had stolen some finery to the
value of one pound sterling! These, however, attracted only a passing
attention. All eyes were turned more intently towards Sheppard. All
Jacobite hearts sympathised with him on his dolorous way to death.
Women looked down upon him from the windows, tenderly and tearfully,
that one so young, and handsome, and well-endowed, should die so early,
and in such dreadful manner. The Whig ‘mobile’ assailed him with
insulting shouts. But Sheppard was not moved by it. His dignity was not
even ruffled by the renewed contest in the cart of the Newgate chaplain
and the Nonjuror. Each sought to comfort or confound the culprit,
according to his way of thinking. Once more, the messengers of peace
got to fisticuffs, but as they neared Tyburn, the Nonjuror kicked Paul
out of the cart, and kept by the side of Sheppard till the rope was
adjusted. Then he boldly, as those Jacobite Nonjurors were wont, gave
the passive lad absolution for the crime for which he was about to pay
the penalty; after which he jumped down to have a better view of the
sorry spectacle, from the foremost rank of spectators.
The general belief was that Sheppard was perfectly sane; but there was
a general conviction that the boy’s assertion of the hopelessness of
expecting mercy at the hands of a king whom he could not own, afforded
a sublime opportunity (for showing that mercy) which the sovereign had
thrown away. As nobody was the worse for the young Jacobite’s design,
his pardon would have shown that King George knew how to triumph over
his own passions; ‘but,’ says an audacious Jacobite contemporary, ‘the
Great seldom forgive offences committed against themselves.’
Sheppard left a letter and a ‘speech,’ written, it was said, by
Orme, which were printed privately, and circulated, in spite of the
Government. The boy’s portrait was as secretly and extensively sold,
equally in spite of the authorities; and the ministry, having nothing
better to do, settled an annuity of 200_l._ a year on the Nonjuror,
Leake, for discovering the treason, and clapped the other Nonjuror,
Orme, into Newgate, for absolving the traitor. Orme’s chief offence lay
in his being the author of the ‘last dying speech,’ in which the crime
was justified. ‘Mr. Orme’s friends,’ said the sarcastic Whig papers,
‘are very apprehensive that he will shortly have to prepare a speech
for himself!’
[Sidenote: _A JACOBITE TOAST._]
Neither severity nor sarcasm could subdue the Jacobite spirit. In the
Jacobite taverns a new health was drunk with loud cheers:――‘To Miss
Clarke!’ This was the name of a pretty girl, in Sunderland, who had
boldly drunk King James’s health, in a mixed company. She was called
to account for it, of course; but she was only lightly fined, and
several of the justices kissed her, as she passed in front of the
bench, on her way out of court. Thence came the health, given in London
coffee-houses, ‘to Miss Clarke and her friend,’ as Jacobite revellers
lifted their punch to their lips, and winked one eye as they went
through this performance. Both eyes subsequently glittered with delight
when Orme was liberated unconditionally, as no case could be made out
against him.
One of the consequences of Sheppard’s crime was to suggest murder to
another hot-headed fanatic, of the opposite faction. His name was
Bowes. To revenge the design of Sheppard to murder King George, Bowes
offered to one of the ministers to go to Italy and murder the so-called
King James. He was properly shut up as a madman.
[Sidenote: _SATIRICAL PAMPHLET._]
Pamphleteers, on their side, were as active as men of darker designs.
Some little insight into London manners is afforded by one of their
works, published this year, entitled ‘The Necessity of a Plot; or,
Reasons for a Standing Army. By a Friend to K.G.’ It is, of course,
a satirical pamphlet. Among the good or bad reasons for having a
permanent force is the one noticed in the following paragraph: ‘I
do not conceive where our youth of spirit could be so well educated
as in a Military School. The laudable accomplishments of a Fine
Gentleman are there so suddenly acquired that a Fellow who but just
throws off a private person’s Livery, to wear that of the King’s,
commences immediately a most accomplished Beau. He can swear with as
good a grace, talk as rationally against Jesus Christ, the Church, and
Parsons, as if he had served an Apprenticeship at the Grecian.’
[Sidenote: _LOVAT ALREADY SUSPECTED._]
This pamphlet, provoking in both style and subject, affected a
reverence for the king, so finely expressed that the satire beneath
it was ungraspable by the law. There were some members of the House
of Commons, it remarks, who were bold enough to assert that there was
disaffection in this country. The writer suggests that it was only
disaffection to the German language, morals, custom, and ladies. The
king himself might be called ‘the Delight of Mankind,’ if people
chose――as Titus had been called by an earlier people. Was not the king
the darling of those who welcomed him with shouts, plays, balls, and
bacchanals? How disloyal it was to oppose his wish for a standing army!
Did the thinking people of London reflect on the danger which Russia
was becoming to us? Russia was said to be far off. Not at all; she was
next door to us. She was near to Sweden, which was next to Norway,
which was only a few days’ sail from Scotland, which _might yet prove
to be but a week’s march from London_. Therefore, let a standing army
be raised, and the people be made to pay for it. Dull people! Why,
there was already peril looming from Scotland. Brigadier Mackintosh’s
ghost had been seen in the Highlands, and Rob Roy (whose name was thus
familiar to the Londoners of 1718) was moving about uncontrolled, as
if he were undisputed lord of Scotland. The pamphlet-writer suggests
that a standing army should not only be raised, but be kept standing
in daily array, as if Mackintosh and Rob Roy were at the gates of St.
James’s! Then, as for Scotland, why not let Lord Lovat have 30,300
men to keep it safe? The character of Simon Fraser was thoroughly
understood by the Paternoster-row pamphleteer, although Lovat had been
thorough Whig and Hanoverian in the late rebellion. Let him have the
men, says the ‘Friend to K.G.’ ‘From Lovat’s principles and dexterity,
I think him almost capable of everything. Besides,’ the laughing
coffee-house readers were told, ‘a Gentleman is coming from France who
will give you reasons enough for keeping up a standing army.’ This was
the first intimation to the Londoners that Bolingbroke might possibly
be recalled.
[Sidenote: _HEARNE ON ECHARD’S ‘ENGLAND.’_]
This clever pamphlet supported the cause which Shippen advocated,
but in another way. That offender was then suffering a very mild
imprisonment. His Jacobite friends supplied him with all the luxuries
that money could purchase. A boat from France was freighted with wine
for him, but it was run down in the Thames, and the precious liquid was
lost. When downright Shippen was released at the end of the Session,
jubilant sympathisers escorted him to the Strand; and there was a levee
at his house in Norfolk Street, as crowded as the opposing levees of
the king and his son put together.
The wrathful old Jacobites were certainly wanting in reason. Even wise,
liberal, or politic actions were decried by that disappointed faction.
In April, 1718, Echard published in London his ‘History of England.’ It
was dedicated to the king, who in return sent the author three hundred
guineas. ‘I suppose,’ said Hearne, ‘’t is a most roguish, whiggish
thing, much such as what Kennet writes. I have not read it,’ added the
Jacobite; ‘such writers ought to be laid aside. Yet I hear that Dr.
Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, mightily commends this Echard’s “Church
History.” But Prideaux is a great Whig himself, though a good scholar.’
Even Hearne allowed that Echard had a good pen; but he tempered the
slight concession by the remark that Echard never looked into, much
less followed, original authors.’
[Sidenote: _ATTERBURY CONSPIRING._]
All this while secret but busy plotting was going on. Atterbury, in
correspondence with the Chevalier and his Court, thus alludes (in a
letter to Mar, June, 1718) to one of the go-betweens of that Court
and the Deanery at Westminster. This agent passed by the name of
‘Johnson,’ but he was the Nonjuror Kelly, and he is thus described
by the Bishop:――‘He has been far from meddling here, or venturing to
enter with me into matters foreign to what I apprehend to have been
the design of sending him. If he mistook my thoughts upon a certain
occasion … I will take effectual care that he shall mistake them
no more.’ After speaking of his ‘natural indisposition towards a
correspondence of this kind, especially at a juncture when so many,
and such malicious, eyes are upon me,’ he laments want of wisdom and
unity among the Jacobites around him, but he adds: ‘God grant that our
deliverance may not be so far off!’
In another document, written no doubt at the Deanery, Westminster, the
patriotic bishop reviewed the general condition of things in London,
and concluded by declaring that nothing would be done there unless an
invading force came hither, ‘from France, Spain, or Sicily!’
[Sidenote: _THE BISHOP’S VIEW OF THINGS._]
The time, he thought, was favourable, and he gave his reasons in the
following picturesque sketch of city, court, and administration:――
‘_June_, 1718.――Informations are sometimes officiously given
concerning transactions on foot; but no effectual care is taken to
discover the men or the measures by which they are carried on; nor do
those whose peculiar business it is to search into these things, seem
at all to concern themselves in them, though they are forced now and
then to commit and examine a person (upon particular information given)
and then dismiss him, without any hurt done or light gained by that
means. Hearne’ (the pseudonym for King George) ‘in the meantime is
soothed up with new pleasures and new Mistresses. English Ladies and
a Garden take up all his time, and his indolence and ignorance of his
affairs are more remarkable than ever; and this sense of life is not
casual, but plainly contrived for him. Should any accident happen, they
who manage under him have no refuge; their heads must answer for what
they have conceived and done, and perhaps without any formal process of
Law, vengeance would be taken of them. Nor could they have any methods
of saving themselves but by a voluntary exile, should they have time
enough to get away upon such an occasion. They seem to take no single
step towards avoiding this storm, as the fastest friends of the present
Settlement have been all along gradually removed and disgraced; so are
some of them even now, that still continue in the service, far from
receiving the encouragements they have promised themselves.’
[Sidenote: _THE ROYAL FAMILY ON THE ROAD._]
The king kept none the more private, nor protected himself any the
more, for any troubles that were seriously threatening. There seemed
really to be in him the ignorance or indifference described by
Atterbury. Early in July the king drove from Kensington to sup with
the Duke of Kingston, at Kingston House, Acton. At three o’clock on
the following morning he was cheerily trotting home in his ponderous
carriage, daylight breaking on him, as he passed the men hanging in
chains on the gibbet at Shepherd’s Bush. There is something more lively
in another royal incident. One evening during the summer, the young
Princesses left London for Hampton Court. Nearly the whole way they
were singing French and Italian songs, and as the ‘Lady-governess’
ordered the coachman to drive slowly through the crowds that lined the
road, the pretty incident and the implied confidence in the public
loyalty delighted the people, and rendered the princely vocalists as
safe as if they had been in their father’s drawing-room.
Nevertheless, there was much uneasiness in this same July, 1718, as to
the temper of the army. It was not only that a drunken soldier would
now and then shout for King James in the street, but that sergeants and
men met in taverns, and talked or plotted treason against King George.
Some of these latter, as they passed handcuffed through the Strand to
the Savoy prison, were hissed by the Whigs and cheered by the Tories.
Early in July the ‘Scottish regiment of Foot Guards’ was paraded in the
Park, and the Articles of War were read aloud to them, at the head of
every company. This was the regiment most suspected of faithlessness,
and whose members had been most watched. At this parade persons
attended ‘incognito in Hackney Coaches,’ as the newspapers state, to
identify any of the men whom they might have seen at private meetings
held with treasonable ends in view. The spies failed to identify any;
and when the significant War Articles had been read with distinct
emphasis, the regiment marched, in sullen silence, out of the Park.
[Sidenote: _MILITARY DIFFICULTIES._]
Later in the year, the public had the not too cheering spectacle of
the 3rd Regiment of Guards having the oath of allegiance administered
to them at the drumhead. Subsequently came an order that such of the
gentlemen of the 4th troop of Horse Guards (commanded by the Earl of
Dundonald) as followed trades, should abandon such lay occupations
within three months, or dispose of their posts. This strange order
becomes easier to understand, when it is remembered that ‘gentlemen’
is the word still applied to the whole regiment; and that, in 1718,
Government did not like the practice of the soldier being half the day
a civilian. Some solace was awarded to the army generally for various
restrictions. Pay was advanced to 5_s._ a week; and clothes were to
be furnished, as in the last Charles’s days, without deductions. This
Stuart practice did not satisfy the perverse soldier. Two or three
times a week, privates who had talked in too laudatory terms of King
James, or who had deserted King George, were to be seen by thousands
of spectators in the Park, undergoing the severe punishment――some
of running, other of walking, the gauntlet. In either case the
flagellation was severe. In October, when it was thought expedient to
reform several regiments, which were accordingly ordered to be ‘broke,’
some men and, it is said, a whole regiment at Nottingham, refused to
lay down their arms. Great discretion was required to tide smoothly
over these perils.
[Sidenote: _SCENES AT COURT._]
There was, however, no appearance of any sense of peril at Court,
where gaiety with a certain amount of quaintness prevailed. The people
who attended there were of a mixed quality. On the little Duke of
Gloucester’s birthday, Lord Lovat was to be seen bearing the sword
of state before the king, to the Royal Chapel. On a levee day, the
pushing, preaching, loyal, reverend Charles Lambe, with all the sermons
he had preached against traitors, during the rebellion, printed in
one volume, laid them at the king’s feet, kissed the king’s hand, and
got nothing by his motion. On another levee day, Colley Cibber was at
Court, holding daintily a printed copy of ‘The Nonjuror,’ opened at the
dedication, which he presented, kneeling, to his Majesty, who gave him
his hand to kiss, and promised him a ‘purse’ for his work. Colley got
the purse with a couple of hundred guineas in it. On a drawing-room
day, a stranger courtier stood in the royal presence, namely, a woman
who had journeyed from Lanark, under the impulse of a ‘longing’ to
kiss the royal hand. This inclination was gratified, and, imprudently,
a gift was added of twenty guineas, to take the lady home again――a
circumstance which greatly moved sundry other wives in the same
direction. When the Rev. Mr. Peploe, of Preston, who had stuck to his
Hanoverian principles, while the Jacobites lorded it, in that town,
made his appearance at Court, Whig zeal described the king as waxing
merry, not to say witty. His Majesty is reported to have remarked that,
‘_Peep low_ should look high.’ Loyal people laughed at the joke, but
Mr. Peploe laughed with better reason, on being appointed Warden of
Manchester College. He was afterwards made Bishop of Carlisle. On a
later occasion, Colonel Oughton was to be seen, pulling a shy private
of the 2nd Foot Guards, through the press, to the front of the throne,
where the man was duly presented to his Majesty, with a copy of an
ode which he had written on ‘Liberty.’ He was the first soldier who
obtained preferment, not on professional, but on literary, grounds.
[Sidenote: _A SCENE IN ‘BEDLAM.’_]
After receptions like the above, the king usually honoured some Whig
nobleman with his company, at dinner or supper――fearless, though the
air was full of sinister reports. The Prince and Princess of Wales, on
their parts, did not want for mirth. They went to see the mad folk in
‘Bedlam,’ and had especially good sport with a demented creature who
thought herself a queen, and who solemnly married them to each other,
amid royal bursts of questionable laughter.
Throughout the year the Nonjurors continued to be harassed by the
Government. Their chapels were pointed out by the Whig press to the
mob, for destruction. Sometimes the pulpit was protected by a burly
butcher or two. No man was admitted who did not wear a black ribbon at
his button-hole. Every woman was suspected who came to divine service
without a black necklace. Loyal officials, notwithstanding, would
force their way in, tender the oath of allegiance to the congregation,
and arrest all those who declined to take it, unless they could show
they had been already sworn. When a report was circulated that the
Nonjurors had ‘some design’ afoot, the Whig press piously hoped they
‘might all be blasted, like their departed brother, _Sheppard_!’
[Sidenote: _A WHIG WHIPT._]
One at least of these pious loyalists came to grief himself. His name
was Burridge. He was editor (‘writer’) or sub-editor (‘corrector’) of
one of the three ‘Weekly Journals’――that one which had for its second
name ‘The British Gazetteer.’ Loyal and pious Burridge got so drunk in
a tavern as to lose all control over his tongue. He let it loose in
the utterance of inexpressibly horrible blasphemies, for which he was
indicted and found guilty. Loyal as he was, Burridge did not escape.
His own paper very coolly recorded that he had, on such a morning, been
whipt from the New Church in the Strand to Charing Cross, and then
sent to prison for a month, there further to remain till he had paid
a fine of 20_s._ The ‘Jacks’ were jubilant, and cheered lustily when
the hangman ‘laced’ the poor wretch’s back with his whip, as Burridge
passed at the cart’s tail slowly along the Strand. These ‘Jacks’
who gloried in seeing a blasphemous Whig thus mauled were not very
religious people themselves. There was complaint being constantly made
that Jacobites who went through the formality of attending church――and
particularly the ladies――made a practice of laughing, sneering, or
otherwise showing their contempt, whenever the king and royal family
were prayed for.
[Sidenote: _TREASON IN THE PULPIT._]
One of the tumultuous Jacobite incidents of the year was the passage
of the Rev. Mr. Bisse, of Bristol, from the Western Road to the house
of the messenger who had him in custody, at the cost of 6_s._ 8_d._
daily, for his keep. Bisse, in the spring of the year, had preached a
sermon to an ultra-Jacobite congregation, from this suggestive text,
Psalm xciv. 20-23: ‘Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship
with thee, which frameth mischief by a law? They gather themselves
together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent
blood. But the Lord is my defence, and my God is the rock of my
refuge. And He shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall
cut them off in their own wickedness: yea, the Lord our God shall cut
them off.’ The sermon proved to be more directly audacious than the
text was suggestive. Bisse impressed upon his hearers that God hated
usurpations, although, as _they knew_, he permitted them. God had
allowed an usurpation of now thirty years’ duration in England, where,
he said, there had been neither laws nor parliament since James II.’s
days. He is reported to have added: ‘The present possessor is obliged
to unite with Turks, infidels, and heretics, to save his bacon!’ The
treason was as malicious as the expression of it was vulgar. Messengers
were sent down to arrest Bisse, on whom they laid hands on the
following Sunday, in church. But the Jacobite congregation arose, they
beat and repulsed the messengers, and they triumphantly rescued their
pastor!
[Sidenote: _MORE TREASON._]
The offender, however, was in a short time arrested. A crowd assembled,
to cheer or hiss him, on his way to the messenger’s house, in Charles
Street, Westminster. Between Bisse’s various examinations, he seems to
have been a prisoner at large――but bound to return to custody, nightly.
He abused the liberty, if there be truth in the charge, that at this
period he preached in a Nonjuring chapel, to this text from Ezekiel
xxi. 25-27: ‘And thou, profane wicked prince of Israel, whose day is
come, when iniquity shall have an end, Thus saith the Lord God; Remove
the diadem, and take off the crown: this shall not be the same: exalt
him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn,
overturn it: and it shall be no more, _until he come whose right
it is_; and I will give it him!’ Such was the ring of the Jacobite
metal; and Bisse, in his defence, asserted that he was only a humble
instrument in God’s hands, giving forth the sound which God impelled.
This Jacobite uttered those sounds in churches in three separate
counties. He was found guilty in Somersetshire, Wiltshire, and
Buckinghamshire; and the Court of King’s Bench condemned him to stand
twice in the pillory; to be imprisoned for four years, to pay a fine
of 500_l._, and to find sureties to the amount of 2,000_l._ for his
good behaviour during life. Bisse stood in the pillory at the Royal
Exchange and at Charing Cross. The Whigs complained that he was held
so loosely, he could withdraw his head when he pleased. Favoured by the
Jacobite hangman, Bisse was protected by a Jacobite mob. A collection
was made for him on the spot; and people in carriages who did not
contribute liberally were roughly handled. Women flung flowers on to
the scaffold. A single individual who ventured to make an observation
aloud, of a Whiggish quality, was compelled to ask Bisse’s pardon
on his knees. For the rudely, out-spoken priest, the affair was an
ovation, and Defoe remarked, in the ‘Whitehall Evening Post,’ that Mr.
Bisse did not bear himself too modestly.
[Sidenote: _JACOBITES IN THE PILLORY._]
Similar scenes took place when another Jacobite, Harrison, stood in
the pillory, at Whitechapel, for sedition. He stood at ease, he was
protected from all assault and insult, and, according to the Whig
papers, ‘Non-resisting ladies supplied him with money or brandy.’
Other offenders, felonious and political, were summarily got rid
of. A Mr. Forward, a London merchant, offered to transport all the
convicts of England to the Transatlantic Plantations, at 4_l._ a head.
The Government offered him 3_l._ for each; and, at that price, whole
ship-loads of ruffians, but with some honest fellows among them, were
cast into slavery, for indefinite periods.
The light penalty of the pillory had no deterring effect on some
ministers. On the 5th of November, the Rev. Mr. Milborne preached at
St. Ethelburg’s, London, and he traced all the present miseries of the
Church to that abominable anniversary, but whether his conclusion was
based on the fact that the gunpowder plot had failed, or William’s
invasion of England had succeeded, Mr. Milborne did not say.
[Sidenote: _THE KING AT THE PLAY._]
Although London Jacobitism was not wanting in malice and menace in
this and the preceding year, the king and royal family maintained a
dignified indifference. George I. was the most exposed to peril, but
he met it like a man. He frequently went to the theatre, not in a
bullet-proof carriage densely surrounded by cavalry, but in a sedan
chair, some members of the Court being conveyed in similar vehicles.
Such vehicles were easily assailed; an ‘ugly rush,’ pet phrase of
the modern demagogue, might have overturned the king, and put him
‘out of the story,’ as the Sagas say, in a minute; but he encountered
nothing worse than a distant word of chaff, which was perhaps not
audible, or, if so, not understood. In this way, he was carried, in
a November night, 1718, to see ‘The Orphan,’ unmolested; and he went
in the same conveyance, and in equal comfort and security, in the
same perilous month, to the ‘Little Theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields’,
where he laughed over ‘Le Maître Etourdi,’ and fairly ‘roared’ at ‘Les
Fourberies d’Arlequin,’ but he understood those farces better than he
did Otway’s loftier tragedy.
[Sidenote: _DANIEL DEFOE._]
There remains to be noted a most remarkable illustration of these
Jacobite times, in connection with the celebrated Daniel Defoe, the
Ministry, and the London press. Five letters written by Defoe, in the
first half of this year, were discovered in the State Paper Office, a
few years ago. They are inserted, in ‘Notes and Queries, 3rd Series,
vol. vi., p. 527-9.’ They are addressed to some official in the
Secretary of State’s Office, for the information of his superiors.
From these startling documents, sad truths are to be gathered.
They make the strange revelation that the author of the ‘True-Born
Englishman’ was in the secret service of the Government under whose
resentment he was supposed to be suffering. He was giving information
of ‘traitorous pamphlets’ to Lord Sunderland. By Lord Chief Justice
Parker’s recommendation to Lord Townshend’s Ministry, Defoe had been
employed on ‘a little piece of secret service,’ which won for him
the subsequent favour of Lord Stanhope. Under Townshend, Defoe, the
once ultra-Whig, appeared in the disguise of a Tory. He became chief
proprietor of the ‘News Letter,’ a Jacobite paper very hostile to the
Ministry. He took out all its sting, to the satisfaction of his secret
employers, by writing mild Toryisms in it himself, and striking out
all that was vigorous and damaging to ministers, in articles sent in
by contributors. At a later period Lord Sunderland retained Defoe in
the same questionable employment and rewarded him in the same manner as
Lord Townshend had done. ‘With his Lordship’s approbation,’ says Defoe,
‘I introduced myself in the disguise of a translator of the “Foreign
News,” to be so far concerned in this paper of _Mist’s_, as to be able
to keep it within the circle of a secret management, also prevent the
mischievous part of it, and yet neither Mist nor any of those concerned
with him have the least guess or suspicion by whose direction I do
it.’ In this case, Defoe was not a proprietor, therefore should matter
offensive to the Government slip in, despite his watchfulness, Lord
Sunderland is begged to consider whether he has a servant (Defoe)
to reprove, or a stranger to punish! The extent of the dirty work
done by Defoe is to be seen by his remark that the ‘News Letter,’
the ‘Mercurius Politicus,’ and ‘Mist’s Journal’ shall ‘pass as Tory
papers, and yet be disabled and enervated, so as to do no mischief or
give any offence to the Government.’ Subsequently, poor Defoe writes,
‘I am for this service posted among Papists, Jacobites, and enraged
High Tories,――a generation who, I profess, my very soul abhors. I am
obliged to hear traitorous expressions and outrageous words against
his Majesty’s person and Government, and his most faithful servants,
and smile at it all as if I approved it. I am obliged to take all the
scandalous and indeed villainous papers that come, and keep them by me
as if I would gather materials from them, to put them into the news;
nay, I often venture to let things pass which are a little shocking,
that I may not render myself suspected. Thus I bow in the house of
Rimmon.’
[Sidenote: _HIS DIRTY WORK._]
This is pitiable in the extreme. So is Defoe’s occasional expression of
fear lest a paragraph too Jacobitish in flavour, inserted during his
absence, should be laid to his charge. He almost servilely entreats to
be remembered as the Government’s slave who could not help it, but who
is yet worthy of his reward. Besides, ‘it is a hard matter to please
the Tory party, as their present temper operates, without abusing,
not only the Government, but the persons of our Governors, in every
thing they write.’ Nevertheless, as all former ‘mistakes’ of his were
forgiven by his former Ministerial Whig employers whom he served as
a Tory, he trusts for a continuation of favour, which in his Tory
disguise he will constantly endeavour to merit!
[Sidenote: _MIST’S JOURNAL._]
Even Jacobite Mist himself came into an ‘arrangement’ into which
he was frightened by Defoe, as a cautious and prudent Tory. He was
made to see safety in rallying the Whig writers, and in admitting
foolish and trifling things only in favour of the Tories! Mr. Mist
resolved that his paper should in future ‘amuse the Tories but not
offend the Government!’ But for such resolution, Defoe assured him
ruin and a prison would speedily be his inheritance. Correspondents,
in their innocence and ignorance, wrote letters loaded with treason
to the ‘Journal.’ Mist submitted them to Defoe, who put them aside
as improper; and then, without Mist’s knowledge, sent them to the
Government! As for the ‘Journal’ itself, Defoe writes: ‘I believe the
time is come, when the “Journal,” instead of affronting and offending
the Government, may in many ways be made serviceable to the Government,
and I have Mr. Mist so absolutely resigned to proper measures for it,
that I am persuaded I may answer for it.’
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE HOPES._]
Such is a sample of the morality of ‘honest Daniel Defoe,’ in matters
regarding the London press and home politics in those Jacobite times.
The full benefit of what has been said in his defence he is, however,
entitled too: namely, that he was a Whig, that he never ceased to
be a Whig, and that he sincerely supported the Whig cause and Whig
principles while (in the pay of a Whig Government) he passed resignedly
for a Papist, a Jacobite, and a High Tory.
There was undoubtedly much active Jacobitism going on in London,
throughout this year, of which the Government knew nothing, or
despised; probably the latter. They ignored the Cardinal Dubois’s
English mistress who served him as his Intelligencer, and they let the
fashionable French dancing-master, Dubuisson, carry about his kit to
aristocratic houses without molestation, though he was well known to be
an agent of Cardinal Alberoni, the friend of the Stuarts. ‘How it was
they did not hang him,’ says Dubois, in his ‘Mémoires,’ ‘I never could
understand.’
Probably, Dubuisson served the Cabinet at St. James’s better than he
did Alberoni, whose ambitious projects had been checked by the death
of his ally Charles XII. Yet, at the end of the year the Jacobites in
London wore a radiant air. They toasted ‘the Queen’ that was to be,
meaning the Princess Sobieska whom ‘James III.’ was about to marry; and
again drank ‘High Church and Ormond!’ on learning that the duke was
in Spain, preparing with Alberoni for an invasion of England and the
restoration of the rightful king.
[Sidenote: _ART AND POETRY._]
Towards the close of the year, the popular admiration was appealed to
by the uncovering of the equestrian statue of George I., in the Royal
Exchange. Neither loyalty, disaffection, or criticism had much to say
to it. Indeed, criticism, such as it was, alone raised a voice, and
then only with a mild sort of utterance: ‘It was judged by the most
eminent Masters of that Art to be an excellent and accomplished piece
of Work.’ Later in the year, December 15th, when Rowe died, one might
expect to find some Tory sarcasm against that ultra-Whig Poet-Laureate,
who furnished the prologue to ‘The Nonjuror,’ and for whom Nahum Tate
had been displaced. The only expression in reference to the bard who
reverenced Hanover was one of indifference for bards generally. ‘Last
Saturday,’ say all the papers, ‘died Nicholas Rowe, Esq., Poet Laureate
to his Majesty, at his house in King Street, Covent Garden, and is to
be interred in Westminster Abbey, where Cowley, Chaucer, Ben Jonson,
and the rest of those people lie’!!
[Illustration: Leaf design]
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
CHAPTER XVI.
(1719.)
[Sidenote: _THE SKIRMISH AT GLENASHIELS._]
[Illustration: Drop-T]he year 1719 opened with hopes on the part of
the Jacobites which were doomed to be disappointed. The Chevalier had
entered into the schemes of the Spanish Minister, Cardinal Alberoni,
for overturning the English settlement. A landing in Scotland and
an invasion of England were to be the means for re-establishing
the Stuarts. Early in March, groups of Londoners were to be seen
reading the proclamation which offered a reward of 5,000_l._ for
the apprehension of the Duke of Ormond, the destined leader of the
expedition that was to invade England. For catching and delivering
attainted peers of less mark, 1,000_l._ was the sum offered; and
rebel gentlemen beneath the dignity of a peer, were valued at 500_l._
each. The fleet destined to carry out the object of the invaders was
so disabled by tempests, that after struggling from Cadiz to Cape
Finisterre, most of the vessels returned to the former port, and no
one in England enjoyed his anticipated chance of getting 5,000_l._
by capturing Ormond, ‘Captain-General of the King of Spain;’ or
smaller prize for less important men. The Marquis of Tullibardine (the
Jacobite son of the Whig Duke of Athol who came to London) and the
Earls Marischal and Seaforth, did, however, land in Scotland in April,
with about 400 followers, chiefly Spaniards. They were joined by 1,000
Highlanders. On the 10th of June, the Chevalier’s birthday, the three
leaders above named were defeated by General Wightman, at Glenashiels,
but they contrived to escape. The Highlanders dispersed; the Spaniards
surrendered; and therewith the first half of the year ended pleasantly
for King George and his friends.
London lit her bonfires and otherwise illuminated. From Thomas’s press
behind the Royal Exchange was issued a satirical ‘Hymn to the Victory
in Scotland,’ lines from which long hung on the popular tongue. The
Scots and Spaniards were described in doggerel as being thoroughly
beaten, yet escaping, ‘Lost in a fog in sunshine weather.’ The battle
lasted from five a.m. till night, but when the field was won, there
were neither wounded nor slain upon it. ‘Dead and Living fled together,
without the loss of man or gun!’
Such mercy in this fight was shown,
We sav’d men’s lives and lost our own.
After further doggerel and the usual infusion of coarseness, the Grub
Street bard concludes by singing:――
Three hours beaten and none die,
Yet no man knows the reason why,
’Tis very strange ’tween you and I!
[Sidenote: _JUDICIAL CAPRICE._]
London, generally, had contemplated this new rebellion with
indifference. The Government was by turns lenient and severe. It was
thought expedient, one day, to pardon mutinous dragoons; on another, to
be savagely cruel to a soldier who had, in his cups, sworn, sung, or
said, hasty words in favour of King James. Under the windows of King
George’s palace men were thus punished. In Hyde Park, a soldier named
Devenish, was tied nearly naked to a tree, and flogged by fourteen
companies of his own regiment of foot-guards. This torture he underwent
four times, and then he was flung into a hospital to die. A more guilty
offender, Captain Lennard, who had enlisted men for the Chevalier’s
service, for which he might have been hanged, was allowed to transport
himself out of the kingdom, on the promise never to return; and a too
zealous Jacobite gentleman, who expressed to the soldiers at the Tower
his astonishment at their serving an usurper, seems to have got off
with a mere nominal penalty. On the other hand, printers, publishers,
and vendors of papers that exaggerated the numbers of the rebels in
Scotland, were sternly dealt with.
[Sidenote: _ASSAULT ON THE PRINCESS OF WALES._]
The Jacobites failed to keep their temper, even before their hopes were
disappointed. In their eyes it was almost sacrilege for the Prince
of Wales to occupy, even by purchase, the Duke of Ormond’s forfeited
White House at Richmond. When the duke’s confiscated town house in
St. James’s Square was for sale, they went to it like pilgrims to a
shrine, and saw it pass away, for 7,500_l._, to an Irish gentleman,
named Hackett, with unconcealed regret. ‘The Duke of Ormond is in good
health,’ said the Jacobite papers vauntingly. The ‘Post’ scorned the
idea that the duke had died at sea of fear or fever, as was reported
by Whig writers of known veracity. The Jacobite press exasperated the
Jacobites themselves into dangerous speech, and, in one instance, to
dastardly action. On an afternoon in April, the Princess of Wales was
being conveyed in her chair from Leicester Fields to St. James’s. She
was unprotected. A chairman of one of the foreign ambassadors, named
Moor, took advantage of the opportunity, and, like the beast that
he was, he spat three times in the lady’s face before he could be
seized. At his trial the ruffian tried to justify the act for which
he ultimately suffered. Through a dense mass of people, Moor was
whipt from Somerset House to the Haymarket. The mob encouraged the
sufficiently active hangman, as cart, victim, and executioner passed
along, by cries of ‘Whip him!’ ‘Whip him!’ Moor, wearing a cross from
his neck, suffered stolidly; but at the bottom of the Haymarket the
hangman continued to ply his whip till Moor was compelled to cry, ‘God
bless King George!’ for which result the Whig mob hugged and caressed
the hangman as if he had been a public benefactor.
[Sidenote: _THE KING AND HIS LADIES._]
At the palace there was so little alarm at the ‘little rebellion’ in
progress, that the king resolved to leave his kingdom to the care of
Lords Justices, and to go abroad, and to take with him the ungraceful
and disreputable German women, who seldom appeared in the public
highways without feeling the sting of a London epigram. In May, Lord
Howe married Mary Sophia, reputed eldest daughter of the King’s Master
of the Horse, Baron Kielmansegge. But the bride was the daughter of
that Master’s master. The papers, however, only name the young lady’s
mother, and her fortune, 1,500_l._ a year, and 5,000_l._ in cash. On
the day following the wedding, the king, whose interest in the matter
was easily accounted for, wore a favour on the occasion, and had the
newly-married couple to sup with him in the evening. A few days after,
early in the morning, his Majesty was to be seen in a common hackney
chair, being carried to Privy Garden stairs; thence a barge conveyed
him over to Lambeth, where he took coach for Gravesend. Here, the king
and suite went on board a boat, in which he was rowed to the buoy
at the Nore, where the ‘Caroline’ yacht and an escort of men-of-war
awaited him. A few minutes after he had set his foot on the deck of the
yacht, he gave orders that all the nobility who had assembled there
in his honour, should clear out of the ship. Thereupon the Majesty
of England sailed away for Holland, having in attendance or company
Mesdames von der Schulenburg and Kielmansegge, and the ‘Duchess of
Munster, _alias_ Kendal,’ as the papers register that lady, with quite
an Old Bailey air.
[Sidenote: _A SUSPICIOUS CHARITY SERMON._]
Just before the king’s departure, the trustees of the forfeited estates
delivered in an account of Papists’ registered estates, which amounted
to nearly 380,000_l._ The Lords Justices left in charge of the capital
and kingdom were the Archbishop of Canterbury (Wake), and a dozen of
the chief officers of the Crown. They did their office mildly, at a
time when invasion was threatened on one side, but so little-feared
on the other that the king went abroad in May, in perfect confidence
that all would go well at home with 2,500 Dutch auxiliaries to help
his own troops in London. County Magistrates were far more fussy in
acts and suspicions than the Lords Justices. So jealous were Whig
justices at this period, they detected, or suspected, treasonable
purposes even in a charity sermon for a parish school! One Saturday in
this year, 1719, a clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Hendley, and a friend or
two arrived at Chislehurst, Kent, to make preparations for delivering
a sermon in the church there on behalf of the schools of St. Anne’s,
Aldersgate. The intended preacher had the consent of the rector and
the license of the Diocesan, Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester. The
churchwardens and constables ‘smelt a rat.’ Their Jacobite bishop was
credited with hoping to raise money for the Pretender under guise
of alms for charity-children. They swept the whole of the intruders
into the presence of a bench of local magistrates, and charged them
as suspected persons. The Rev. Mr. Hendley pleaded episcopal license
and the rector’s sanction for preaching. ‘We don’t care,’ said one of
the justices, ‘either for bishops, archbishops, or anybody else.’ The
parties were dismissed with a caution not to commit vagrancy in that
parish.
[Sidenote: _RIOT IN CHURCH._]
On the following morning groups of men and women were assembled in
front of St. Ann’s schools, Aldersgate, to see the sample children off.
The best looking and best behaved were carried down to Chislehurst
as warrant that all aids to bring up more of such children would be
well-bestowed. They went off, with masters and friends, joyously, and
they arrived, full of fresh air and gladness, at Chislehurst while
the bells for church were cheerily ringing. The service was conducted
by the rector and curate. The sermon was delivered by Mr. Hendley.
The collection then commenced. Gentlemen began to unbutton their
pockets. The ladies quietly sank back on their cushions, for it was
not the custom, in those days, to ask or to expect them to contribute
at church collections. The eleemosynary cash rattled freely into the
plates, till one of the collectors reached the pew wherein the local
magistrates then sat. When the ‘paten’ was presented to the nearest
of those potentialities, he seized the bearer, overturned the money,
and denounced the whole proceedings as contrary to law. ‘It is only
on behalf of the poor charity children!’ gasped the collector. ‘They
are all vagrants!’ cried one from the magistrates’ pew. ‘They are all
begging for the Pretender!’ cried another. ‘You must stop this!’ said
a third. ‘Proceed with the collection!’ was the command of the rector
from within the communion rails. ‘Go on with your business!’ was the
injunction of the preacher from the pulpit. ‘Do it at your peril!’
shouted the magistrate who had laid hold of the collector and upset
the cash. ◆[Sidenote: _RIOT PROLONGED._]◆ ‘I will come and do it
myself!’ remarked the rector. ‘Do so,’ called the preacher to him, ‘and
someone bring me a prayer-book!’ While the rector was collecting, Mr.
Hendley read the Rubric which authorised the proceeding; after which
he turned to the justices, and, rebuking them for brawling in church,
announced that he should make complaint to the bishop. ‘We care nothing
at all for bishops nor for you,’ was the reply from the magisterial
pew,――‘this matter must and shall be stopped!’ The congregation, Whigs
or Tories, were in favour of contributing. They crowded round the
collector, and some who could not get near enough threw their money
into the plate. Farrington, a magistrate, made a dash at the latter,
but the bearer safely delivered it to the rector within the rails;
and Mr. Hendley having delivered another, both were placed upon the
communion table. Farrington charged fiercely to get within the rails,
but Mr. Hendley warned him that his place was not there, and kept him
back, forbidding him to persist in entering. Thereupon Sir Edward
Bettison and Captain Farrington beckoned to a constable to approach,
and after whispering to him certain instructions, sent him up to the
rails, where, staff in hand, he ordered all present to disperse on
pain of being ‘guilty of riot.’ ‘Gentlemen,’ said the rector to the
justices, ‘the congregation is not dismissed: service is not over; the
prayer for the Church Militant has not been read; the Blessing has not
been given.’ The magistrates murmured ‘Riot.’ The rector rejoined,
‘There is no riot but of your own making!’ Ladies began to grow
frightened as the gentlemen waxed angry; and it was not till after
much more unseemliness of word and action that the money was secured
and the congregation lawfully dismissed. The charity children were
conveyed back to London, delighted with the spectacle and its attendant
sensations. The justices went to dinner, combining business with the
banquet.
[Sidenote: _LIBERTY OF THE PRESS._]
While the rector, preacher, and two or three of the gentlemen who had
brought the Aldersgate children to Chislehurst, were at tea in the
evening, they were all arrested, and brought before the justices, by
whom they were all bound over to appear at the next Maidstone Quarter
Sessions as rioters and vagrants. They duly appeared, the Grand Jury
found ‘no bill,’ and the accused moved to be discharged. The justices
looked on the Grand Jury as pestilent Jacobites, indicted the parties
afresh, and bound them over to appear at the Assizes on the more
serious charge of extortion, conspiracy, fraud, and ‘sedition,’――the
alleged alms being nothing more, as they professed to believe, than a
subscription for the Pretender.
The real interests of the Pretender were being furthered in another
quarter, namely, in some of the London printing-offices, and with an
audacity that was very offensive to the authorities.
[Sidenote: _A CAPITAL CONVICTION._]
The liberty of the press was not for a moment tolerated, although
the last words spoken or written of the hottest-headed Jacobites,
who were hanged, were freely circulated without hindrance. Political
pamphlets were sharply looked after. There was in Aldersgate a
widow, Matthews, with her two sons. The latter carried on for her the
business of printing. All the family were Nonjurors, and the sons were
members of a Jacobite club. The younger son, John Matthews, was then
in his nineteenth year, and he recognised no king but James Stuart. A
Nonjuring family of printers were sure to be subjects of suspicion. The
widow and elder son were themselves fearful of what the indiscretion
of John might bring upon them. Their fear was well founded, for the
young Jacobite, at night, was privately putting in type a treasonable
pamphlet, by a friend, entitled, ‘Out of thy Mouth will I judge thee;
or, the Voice of the People, the Voice of God.’ The elder brother, on
learning this fact, scattered the type, locked up the printing-office,
and gave the key to Lawrence Vozey, the foreman, with the order to
keep young Matthews locked out of the office after the usual working
hours. Lawrence Vozey, however, was a rascal. He allowed the youthful
Nonjuror to go back to his case at night, where he began again to print
the dangerous pamphlet. When the young zealot was well advanced in his
work, Vozey privately laid an information against him, and down came
the police upon the office, smashing and destroying all in their way
by virtue of a general warrant. The obnoxious sheets were found, and
carried off as testimony against the offender. On Matthews’s trial the
law was as severely pressed against him as if he had killed the king
with all the royal family, and he was found _guilty_.
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE FIDELITY._]
The verdict was partly the result of the evidence of his elder
brother George. The Jacobites never forgave this witness; George,
however, was readily forgiven by John, who acknowledged the reluctant
but inevitable truthfulness by which he suffered. When the horrible
sentence――half-hanging, disembowelling, quartering, and burning of
entrails was pronounced, the young lad never blenched. He bowed to the
judges and left the bar. On the following Sunday, all the emotional and
fashionable part of London crowded into the chapel of Newgate, to hear
the Rev. Mr. Skerrit preach the young Jacobite’s condemned sermon. At
the end of the service, Matthews was double ironed and cast into the
‘Condemned Hole.’ Language has not terms to adequately describe the
horrors, which indeed are unutterable, of that worse than Hell. Nothing
at which nature is abhorrent was ever wanting there, to aggravate the
sufferings of the condemned.
It is certain that this Jacobite youth might at least have saved his
life if he would have given up the name of the writer of the pamphlet,
which was known to himself alone. He did, indeed, name two persons
who were beyond reach of capture. One of these was Lewis, the active
but prudent Jacobite agent, the Roman Catholic bookseller in Covent
Garden. The police broke into the house, which was empty. Its owner
was in safe asylum, in Wales, and his whereabout was not known until
after his death. While Lewis was seeking refuge in Wales, a barrister
named Browster died. Matthews is supposed to have named him as
connected with the ‘Vox Populi;’ but there was no dealing with a dead
man. The youth had done what a youth so circumstanced might be pardoned
for doing, as the thought came upon him that life was a sweet thing,
especially to the young, but he refused to give any real information to
the Government; and it was resolved that he should die, and that the
intervening period of life should be made as intolerable as possible.
[Sidenote: _A POLITICAL VICTIM._]
Order was given, by ‘brief authority,’ that he should not be allowed
to see his mother, even for a minute’s leave-taking before death. The
brave boy was, however, too much for ‘brief authority.’ That he might
live to be hanged, it was necessary to take him up from the bottom of
the fetid pit in which he lay, to breathe the less putrid air of the
press-yard. On one of these occasions, when he knew the heartbroken
widow was lingering about the prison-walls, he got to a window which
looked into the street, saw her waiting in hope and anguish, and called
to her, his arms extended through the bars, to come near. They had but
a minute, each to look in the face of the other, yet it was long enough
for him to bid the speechless gazing mother to take comfort, to be of
good cheer, for that her son was fearless and happy. He was then pulled
down by the turnkeys, who had probably been bribed to allow the short
interview which _had_ taken place.
On the night before execution, the prisoners who were to suffer the
next day generally held frightful revelry with friends and other
prisoners, whose lease of life was longer by a week or two. The young
Jacobite captive spent that last night alone with his brother George,
the Rev. Mr. Skerrit, the ordinary _pro tem._ (Paul Lorraine being
dead) occasionally looking in upon them. The two brothers prayed and
comforted each other, and when the morning came, the younger, who was
to suffer death, was the calmer of the two.
[Sidenote: _THREE MORE TO TYBURN._]
Three men traversed that morning the painful way from Newgate to
Tyburn. It was a dreary, wet, November morning, but the streets were
crowded, and from the windows were thrust faces of sympathisers with
one of those three doomed men. The young printer was ignominiously
drawn on a sledge, as one guilty of High Treason. A petty larceny
rascal, a blind man named Moore, who had stolen some mean coverlet from
his shabby lodgings, followed in a cart. A saucy highwayman, named
Constable, went to be hanged in prouder state: he rode in a coach, as
became a gentleman of the road. The sauciness, however, had left him.
The blind thief rolled his sightless orbs, as if he would fain see if
the horrid reality was in truth before him. The young Jacobite was calm
and composed. One account of them quaintly states that ‘they were all
as sorrowful as the circumstances warranted.’
[Sidenote: _A LAST REQUEST._]
When the condemned three had been transferred into the cart beneath
the gallows, Matthews placed a written paper in the hands of someone
near him. The Sheriff, supposing it to be a speech, forbade it to be
read, and snatched it away, that it might not be printed. It proved to
be merely some directions by the young Christian Jacobite, that such
remains as there might be of him after the sentence was executed, might
be buried in St. Botolph’s, Aldersgate.
At the supreme moment, young Matthews, believing that the whole of his
horrible sentence would be executed, said steadily to the hangman at
his side, ‘Grant me one favour; do not burn my heart; a friend will
come for it, I pray you, let him have it away with him.’ The fellow
hurriedly replied that he need not fear, as he was only to be hanged;
and with that grim comfort for the boy, he jumped down from the cart
in which the three patients had been placed beneath the beam, and drew
the vehicle from under them. Thief, highwayman, and young Jacobite were
thus, in the yet new slang phrase of Poet Laureate Rowe, ‘launched into
eternity.’
The sympathy of some of the news writers on this occasion took a
curious turn. ‘The Gentlewoman,’ they said, ‘who tenanted the house
near Tyburn, made ten guineas by letting her windows to spectators;
but, how much more she would have made, but for the heavy rain!’
Truer sympathy was felt by the Jacobites, of course, for the cruelly
fated Matthews. As in October a procession of six-and-twenty Nonjuring
clergymen had gone in public procession from Orrery Street, Red Lion
Square, to St. Andrew’s, Holborn, to bury the Rev. Mr. Maddison, their
brother, so by the side of the grave of young Matthews, at night,
there assembled a large body of sympathisers, by way of demonstration
against those who had flung him to the hangman. ‘Sneaking Jacks,’ was
the civil phrase applied to them; but it behoved them to be prudently
demonstrative.
[Sidenote: _AN APOLOGETIC SERMON._]
On the Sunday after the execution, a clergyman in the parish preached
from 2 Corinthians i. 12, out of the simple words, ‘For our rejoicing
is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly
sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have
had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.’
Out of such simple text and of similar simple comment, the Whig zealots
strove to weave a charge of treason. Text and comment, they said,
justified young Matthews, on the ground that in what he did, he acted
conscientiously.
[Sidenote: _AN INNOCENT VICTIM._]
In what he did, a Government now would see small offence; but the
young Jacobite knowingly ran the risk of death in the doing it. There
was nothing in him of the murderer, but everything of true loyalty
to the prince whom he looked upon as his king. From the time he was
taken, there was no indulgence allowed him as there was to the rebel
lords in 1716. What was necessary to make life even tolerable was
denied to the brave lad who would not betray his Jacobite employer.
Throughout the horrors of the Condemned Hole, horrors that Dante would
not have dreamt of to heighten the terrors of his hell, Matthews
never lost patience or self-control. He was like the young Spartan who
is said to have let the fox eat out his heart rather than betray his
agony by a cry. One hasty word alone fell from him, when the ruffian
turnkey hammered off the convict’s double fetters, on the fatal
morning. The fellow’s hammer fell as often on the Jacobite’s ankles
as on the iron rivetted round them, and this cruelty brought a hasty
word to Matthews’s lips, but he soon possessed his soul in patience
again, and went the way to death in quiet submission. That death was
more ignominious in its form than that suffered by more guilty and,
socially, more noble, offenders. But the young Jacobite underwent his
doom with all the dignity of Derwentwater, all the unostentatious and
manly simplicity of Kenmure.
If you cannot, of your charity, as you pass St. Botolph’s, pray for
the soul of young Matthews the Jacobite, you will not refuse, with
knowledge of why and how he suffered, to give a tender thought to the
memory of the most innocent of the victims of loyalty to the Stuarts.
[Sidenote: _POLITICAL PLAYS._]
For putting partly in type a Jacobite pamphlet, Matthews was no sooner
hanged than printed copies of the ‘Vox Populi’ were to be bought by
those who knew how to go about it. As an example, the judicial murder
of the young printer was useless. Messengers and constables, furnished
with general warrants, sought for copies of the obnoxious work, and if
any were discovered, the occupants of the houses where the discovery
was made, appeared to be more astonished than the police. Even while
Matthews was hanging, a Mrs. Powell boldly sent forth the pamphlet,
from her own press. Everybody thought it delicious to buy what it was
death to print. Mrs. Powell, however, on expressing contrition at the
bar, was only warned to be upon her guard; and when the pamphlet lost
its prestige of being mortal to the printer, it ceased to be cared
for by the public. Persecution did not make the party more loyal.
Party spirit was as bitter as ever. When the Prince of Wales went
on the 7th of November to the Lincoln’s Inn Fields theatre to see
young Beckingham’s ‘Henri IV. of France,’ the Jacobite papers quietly
remarked that the Fleet Street linen-draper’s son showed, in his drama,
how easily a king might be killed, as he passed on the highway, in his
chariot. The Whig papers saw in the play a reflex of the times, and
discerned Popish ecclesiastics putting their heads together in order to
accomplish the sovereign’s murder.
There was, of course, no offence in the play; and if there had been,
penalty was not certain to follow. Law and justice ‘danced the hays’ in
the wildest fashion.
[Sidenote: _INCIDENTS._]
Beckingham’s tragedy at Lincoln’s Inn Fields really had no political
element in it. This was not the case with a tragedy produced four
days later (Nov. 11) at Drury Lane, namely, Dennis’s ‘Invader
of his Country, or the Fatal Resentment.’ It was a mutilation
of Shakespeare’s ‘Coriolanus,’ and Booth was the hero. There is
significance in the fact that neither party made any application of
its speeches or incidents. After three nights the play was shelved,
and Dennis swore in print that Cibber and other actors were ignorant,
incapable, and destitute of all love of country; for the sake of which
and for that of the king, Dennis declared he had constructed the piece.
A sore point with Dennis was that his benefit was fixed for a night,
when a hundred persons who designed to be at the theatre, ‘were either
gone to meet the king, or preparing in town to do their duty to him on
his arrival from abroad.’ When the king, on his arrival, passed through
St. James’s Park, a Nonjuring minister indiscreetly gave uncourteous
expression to his Jacobite thoughts, and found his liberty curtailed,
in consequence.
[Sidenote: _ROYAL CONDESCENSION._]
The latter half of the year was not a cheerful one in London. An
epidemic distemper carried off hundreds, especially young persons.
Women who ventured in the streets in calico gowns had them torn from
their backs by the weavers, who hung the shreds on the gibbets in
the suburbs. For many weeks the Jacobites were busy in collecting
subscriptions for the Spaniards who had surrendered at Glenashiel, and
the Whigs went day after day to the northern road to see the foreign
captives led in to the Savoy, but they were disappointed. There was
something wrong about Lord Forrester’s troop of Horse Guards, the
gentlemen of which were ordered to dispose of their places. Even the
jollity of the time had a demoniacal quality about it; and it was
not edifying to see young gentlemen of large fortunes and ‘coaches
and six,’ distributing gin and brandy to the basket-women in Covent
Garden, and dancing country dances with them ‘under the piazza.’ One
young gentleman, to show his joy at the Jacobite defeat, dressed as
a baker and cried pies and tarts through the whole length of Long
Acre, followed by two of his footmen in laced liveries. This sort of
affability was perhaps the result of example given in higher quarters;
example which set on the same level royal princesses and vendors of
pipkins. On one night in this popularity-hunting year, the Prince
of Wales went to a masquerade in the Haymarket; and the Princess
was carried in a sedan chair into the City, where, as the papers
said: ‘Her royal Highness supped with Mrs. Toomes who keeps a great
china-warehouse in Leadenhall Street.’ The Prince of Wales had so
upheld his popularity by visiting Bartholomew Fair, without ceremony,
seeing the best of the shows, that when he made the first bid for the
Duke of Ormond’s confiscated house at Richmond――6,000_l._――nobody bid
against him. One Jacobite Surrey magistrate had the pluck, however, to
withstand him. The prince announced that, on a certain day, he would
have a bull baited on Kew Green. The justice publicly announced that
he would order the arrest of the chief persons present――on the ground
that the meeting put in peril the public peace; and the Lord Chancellor
(Macclesfield) turned the justice out of the commission! Jacobitism
turned up in various directions, and the pluck of the prince at going
among the populace at ‘Bartlemy Fair’ was to be admired, since, at
Epsom, a Jack lad came close to him, and shouted ‘Ormond and Seaforth
for ever!’――to be sure, the gentlemen near the prince caned the fellow
till their arms grew weary of the work!
[Sidenote: _THE KING’S GOOD NATURE._]
As the year waned through the autumn quarter, the Jacobites upheld the
divinity, as it were, of their king, James, by referring to his having
touched, and healed, by the touching, a score of diseased persons. The
Whigs laughed at the story as fabulous. One Whig lady, following the
example of a predecessor, asserted the divinity in the touch of her
own sovereign, King George, in a singular way. She made known to the
Secretary of State that she was in a condition of health which would
make no progress to any issue, till she had kissed the king’s hand.
The secretary informed the sovereign of this womanish caprice, and the
good-natured monarch laughingly said, she might meet him in the gallery
of St. James’s, and have her wish gratified. She hung two minutes with
her lips to the royal hand, King George looking down on her, the while,
in the greatest good humour. But what the issue was is not noted in
contemporary history.
[Sidenote: _ROB ROY AND THE DUKE OF MONTROSE._]
In this year, the ultra-Whig Duke of Montrose (the first of that
degree), one of the king’s principal Secretaries of State, pleaded
hotly at the Privy Council, at St. James’s, for suppressing the
Jacobite Rob Roy. A halo of romance has been thrown round this Robert
Campbell Macgregor, by which he has acquired a measure of respect
and admiration of which his memory is totally undeserving. He was a
semi-savage, without any principle of honour or honesty; his courage
was that of the wolf; and his sense of loyalty was so unstable that
he was traitor to his own supposed side――the Jacobites――without being
intentionally serviceable to the Hanoverians. Montrose was charged by
the outlaw as having had (at the London Council Board) ‘the impudence
to clamour at Court for multitudes to hunt me like a fox, under
pretence that I am not to be found above ground.’ For this insult to
dignity, Rob circulated a mock challenge, from Argyle to the Duke in
London. It was simply intended to bring him to whom it was addressed,
‘ane High and Mightie Prince, James, Duke of Montrose,’ into contempt.
It was composed in a flow of coarse and vulgar bluster.
[Illustration: Scrollwork]
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
CHAPTER XVII.
(1720-’21-’22.)
[Illustration: Drop-I]n the year 1720 a grave Jacobite game was
a-playing, but it was all below the surface. London street partisanship
seemed to have nearly died out. There was some joyful stir in the
coffee-houses where Jacobites most did congregate, when they read that
the Government at Geneva, by whose order the Earl of Mar had been
seized in that city, had set him free. It was the great South-Sea
Stock bubble-year, when the first of the race of rascal ‘promoters’
on an ultra-gigantic scale of swindling arose, to the utter ruin of
the victims whom they plundered. When the king sailed from Greenwich,
early in the year, on his way to Hanover, and it was discovered that
the lords who went with him, and who were ‘proprietors,’ had _sold_
their stock, there was a ruinous panic. When he returned, in November,
he made a gift to Cambridge of 2,000_l._, towards building a library.
In 1715, he had, at a cost of 6,000_l._, presented that University with
the books of Moore, Bishop of Ely. Dr. Trap’s epigram said, the king
had sent books to Cambridge and cavalry to Oxford, because the former
lacked learning, and the latter failed in loyalty. The answer to this
epigram (by Sir William Brown) was that the gifts were so disposed
because the Tories owned no argument but force; and that Whigs admitted
no force but argument. Jacobite Johnson (who, as Lord Marchmont said,
‘was the first to bring _Whig_ and _Tory_ into a Dictionary), once
remarked, that the reply was the happiest extemporary production he had
ever heard; he, however, confessed that he hated to repeat the wit of a
Whig, urged in support of Whiggism!
[Sidenote: _ATTERBURY’S HOPES._]
The prelatic conspirator at the Deanery in Westminster addressed a
letter to the Chevalier de St. George, in May, which was stuffed with
treason and exultation. Atterbury makes this allusion in it to the
Chevalier’s marriage with the Princess Sobieska.
‘’Tis the most acceptable news,’ he says, ‘that can reach the ear of a
_good_ Englishman. May it be followed every day by such other accounts
as may convince the world that Heaven has at last undertaken your
cause, and is resolved to put an end to your sufferings!’
In another letter of this year, addressed to the King, James III,
Atterbury expresses disappointment that James’s agents in London were
not of noble rank. While measures however were being pursued, ‘I
thought it my part to lie still and expect the Event.’ But he despairs
of the Event occurring speedily: ‘Disaffection and uneasiness will
continue everywhere, and probably increase; the bulk of the nation will
be still in the true interest, and on the side of justice; and the
present settlement will perhaps be detested every day more than it is
already, and yet no effectual step will, or can, be taken here to shake
it.’
[Sidenote: _DEATH OF LAURENCE HOWELL._]
A little later, he ‘is afraid the time is lost for any attempt that
shall not be of force sufficient to encourage people to come in to
it.’ He did not fail to encourage people who were ready to come into
it. When Sacheverel preached a Charity Sermon at Bromley, Atterbury
and a numerous body of High Tory clergy attended, with, as the
Jacobite papers say, ‘A handsome appearance of Nobility and Gentry.’
On the other hand, if a quiet Nonjuror ventured to open a school,
hostile papers denounced him as the evil genius of young people. The
coffee-houses frequented by Nonjurors were pointed out for the rough
attention of the Whig mob. There was grief, with indignation, in those
coffee-houses when news came there of the death of the Rev. Laurence
Howell. He was thrown into Newgate for publishing an explanatory book
on the Nonjurors: ‘The Case of Schism truly stated;’ and in Newgate
he was slowly murdered by the intolerable horrors of the place;
intolerable, at least, to a sensitive and refined nature. ◆[Sidenote:
_IN HYDE PARK._]◆ For the general mob there was a new pleasure, apart
from politics, to be had in Hyde Park. These censors of the time
resorted there to pelt and hiss the ‘South-Sea Bubblers’ who had made
enormous fortunes, and who came to the Ring in offensively magnificent
equipages. The occupants were called by their names, and were told
who their fathers and what their mothers were. The vociferators and
pelters received the Nobility and Quality with cheers, and the Nobility
and Quality sanctioned the ruffianism by laughter, and received the
homage with familiar nods. To abuse any of these great ones was
‘Scan-Mag,’ and brought highly painful consequences. While these scenes
were one day being enacted in the Ring, a soldier of ‘the Duke of
Marlborough’s company’ was being cruelly whipt in another part of the
park, ‘_for abusing Persons of Quality_.’
[Sidenote: _AT BARTHOLOMEW FAIR._]
The only public profession of an insurrectionary spirit this year was
made, where it was to be expected, at Bartholomew Fair, which was then
held in August. There came to the fair, when revelry was at its highest
tide, a Yorkshire ‘squire named More. He was said to be of the blood of
the famous Chancellor of that name. The ‘squire entered the Ram Inn,
in Smithfield, and called for wine. The chambers were so crowded that
he could find no place where to quaff it in comfort, nor the sort of
company whom he cared to ask to make room for him. At length, he espied
a table at which were seated two ‘Gentlemen of the Life Guards,’――a
Captain Cunliffe and one of the same regiment variously described as
‘Corporal Giles Hill,’ and as the Captain’s ‘right-hand man.’ The
‘squire, saluting them, asked their leave to take a seat and drink his
wine at their table. This was readily granted, and no small quantity of
Bartholomew Fair wine seems to have been quaffed. Presently, entered
the Fiddlers, who, after giving some taste of their quality, were
ordered by the Yorkshire ‘squire to play the ‘Duke of Ormond’s March.’
In an instant the room was in an uproar. The Whigs were frantic with
rage and the Jacks with delight. The gentlemen of the Life Guards grew
angry, as they were bound to do; and their anger flamed higher when
the descendant of the Lord Chancellor got to his feet and proposed the
Duke of Ormond’s health. The landlord ran out of the room to escape
being involved in unpleasant consequences. The Life Guardsmen railed
at the Jacobite ‘squire as rogue and knave and liar. More persisted in
giving the treasonable sentiment. ‘The Duke is an honest man,’ said the
wine-flushed ‘squire,――‘let us drink his health.’ ‘You are a rascal
Jacobite,’ cried the ‘right-hand man,’ ‘to propose such a health to
gentlemen who wear his Majesty’s cloth and eat his bread.’ Corporal
and ‘squire clapt their hands to their swords, and in less time than
it takes to tell it, the Life Guardsman’s sword was ten inches deep in
the ‘squire’s body; and the ‘squire himself, after a throe or two, was
lying dead on the floor. The Jacobites swore that the trooper had slain
him before the ‘squire could draw his own sword to defend his life. The
Whigs swore all was done in fair fight, and pointed to the naked sword
lying at More’s side. The Jacks accused them of having taken advantage
of the confusion that prevailed, when the ‘squire fell, to draw his
sword from the scabbard and lay it at his side.――The issue of all was
that Hill was tried and was convicted of ‘Manslaughter.’ His sentence
was ‘to be burnt in the hand;’ but this could be done, on occasions,
with a cold iron; and the loyal soldier was restored, nothing the
worse, to his regiment.
[Sidenote: _STOPPING THE KING’S EXPRESSES._]
The severity of the Government against the outspoken defiances of
the Jacobites does not appear to have silenced many of them. Even
the keeper of the Hounslow toll-bar was not afraid to publish such
seditious principles as Atterbury more prudently kept within the
knowledge of himself and his confederates. One night, a ministerial
messenger,――a mounted post-boy, in fact,――with expresses for Scotland,
rode up to the bar, announced his office, and demanded free and instant
passage. The toll-collector, Hall, refused to accede to either demand.
‘You don’t know,’ said the post-boy, ‘what comes of stopping the king’s
expresses.’ ――‘I care no more for the one than I do for the other!’ was
the disloyal reply of Hall, who actually kept the lad from proceeding
for a couple of hours. When he raised the bar he was reminded of what
would follow, at which he laughed; but he looked solemn enough a little
later, when he stood in the pillory at Charing Cross, and lay for a
fortnight in that Hell upon Earth, Newgate.
The year 1721 began with a burst of spring which terrified nervous
people. ‘Strange and ominous,’ was the comment on the suburban
fields full of flowers, and on the peas and beans in full bloom at
Peterborough House, Milbank. When the carnations budded in January,
there was ‘general amazement’ even among people who cut coarse jokes on
the suicides which attended the bursting of the South Sea bubble. The
papers were quite funny, too, at the devastation which an outbreak of
smallpox was making among the young beauties of aristocratic families.
The disease had silenced the scandal at tea-tables, by carrying off the
guests, and poor epigrams were made upon them. Dying, dead, or ruined,
everyone was laughed at. ‘Among the many persons of distinction,’
say the papers, ‘that lie ill of various distempers, is the Lady of
Jonathan Wild, Esq., Chief Thief-Taker-General to Great Britain. She is
at the point of death at his worship’s house in the Old Bailey.’
[Sidenote: _CIBBER’S REFUSAL._]
On St. Valentine’s day, in this year, at Drury Lane, Cibber reaped
the first fruits of politics grafted on the drama, from the seed he
had sown, in 1717, by his ‘Nonjuror.’ The anti-Jacobite piece, on the
present occasion, was ‘The Refusal, or the Ladies’ Philosophy.’ It
is a poor adaptation of Molière’s ‘Femmes Savantes,’ but it served
its purpose of crying up present Whiggery and crying down the Toryism
of Queen Anne’s reign. Applause or murmurs, according to individual
circumstances, greeted such a provocative passage as this: ‘What did
your courtiers do all the last reign, but borrow money to make war,
and make war to make peace, and make peace to make war; and then to be
bullies in the one and bubbles in the other!’
[Sidenote: _IN STATE TO THE PILLORY._]
This matter, however, was forgotten in the prosecution of Mist, the
proprietor of one of the three Weekly Journals. Mist had dared to
speak sarcastically of King George’s interference on behalf of the
Protestants of the Palatinate. On prosecution for the same, a Whig
jury found him _guilty_, and a Whig judge sentenced the obnoxious
Jacobite to stand in the pillory twice, at Charing Cross and at the
Royal Exchange, to pay a fine of 50_l._, to be imprisoned three months,
and to find unquestionable security for his good behaviour, and the
reform of his paper for seven years! There is no trace of the reform
ever having been begun. Mist and his correspondents made the columns
of his journal crackle with their fun. Jacobite writers complimented
him on his elevation to the pillory as being equal to raising him to
the rank of surveyor of the highways. When the Marshalsea gates opened
for him to proceed to the high position in question, a countless guard
of Jacobites received him, and they preceded, surrounded, or followed
his coach to the Cross and the Exchange. At each place they gathered
about the scaffold, in such numbers, that the most audacious and loyal
of Whigs would not have dared to lift an arm against him. After Mist
had stood his hour in both places, the carefully guarded object of
popular ovation resumed his seat in his coach, escorted by his Jacobite
friends, and cheered by the thundering _hurrahs!_ of the densely-packed
spectators.
The more loyal Whig _mobile_ did not neglect to manifest their own
opinions. They set out from the Roebuck, and attacked the Tory White
Horse, in Great Carter Lane. They had heard that some of Mist’s
servants were carousing there; and, consequently, they gutted the
house, spilt all the liquor they could not drink, and cut off a man’s
nose who attempted to remonstrate with them; all which they felt
justified in doing, as the Jacobite Mist had not been treated in
the pillory, according to his deserts! Meanwhile, the streets were
melodious with street ballad-singers, who made Whigs mad with singing
the ‘New Hymn to the Pillory,’ and with announcing the birth of Charles
Edward at Rome, in December 1720, by the new and popular song, ‘The
Bricklayer’s son has got a Son of his own!’
[Sidenote: _BIRTH OF THE ‘YOUNG CHEVALIER.’_]
Each party resorted to bell-ringing by way of manifestation of their
feelings. On the anniversary, in February, of Queen Anne’s birthday
‘of glorious memory,’ Mist’s Jacobite journal recorded its disgust,
that ‘honest ringers,’ who wanted to ring a peal at St. Mildred’s,
were refused by puritanical Cheapside churchwardens, who spitefully
told them that rather than suffer any ringing, they would cut the
ropes and break the bells! At a later period, in April, the Jacobite
churchwardens had it all their own way. Merry peals came rattling out
from the tower of St. Mary Overy, and from other High Church summits.
It was the turn of the Whig papers to sneer, as they explained that
the ringing was in honour of ‘the Anniversary of the Padlock’s being
taken off from the mouth of a certain Rev. Doctor, now living near
St. Andrew’s, Holborn.’ This refers to Sacheverel’s appointment to
the living of St. Andrews, in April 1713, before the expiration of
the term of three years’ suspension from preaching, to which he had
been condemned. The first sermon he preached there, as Rector, was
published. Forty thousand copies were sold in London alone.
[Sidenote: _GOVERNMENT AND THE JACOBITES._]
London saw the Duke of Gordon go northward, and were not sorry that
he bore with him a pardon for Lochiel, who had been lately stirring
among the Jacobites. Londoners saw the Countess of Mar drive with
cheerful face, from the Secretary of State’s office. They rightly
guessed that she had obtained a letter of license to visit her husband,
abroad. Some uneasiness existed. Sanguine Whigs affected to see ‘the
most hopeful and promising bulwark of the Protestant religion, in the
charity schools,’ and they jeered the Jacobites, in very coarse terms,
on the accounts of the birth of Charles Edward, in the presence of two
hundred witnesses, in Rome. Occasionally a condemned rebel of no note,
who had escaped, might be seen in Cheapside, but he soon disappeared.
He was not molested, he was simply warned to depart. There was a
disposition to get rid of them, and even such a once fierce Jacobite
as ‘Major Mackintosh, brother to the late Brigadier Mackintosh,’ was
discharged from Newgate on his own prayer and showing that ‘he was very
old and altogether friendless.’ The depressed party found consolation
in the fact that the High Church party had gained the elections in
Lincolnshire, Staffordshire, and in the University of Cambridge; but
the cheering of the mob, as the king went to open Parliament, dashed
their hopes again. His Majesty, in spite of mysterious threatening
letters, written anonymously to wondering lords, who gave them up to
the Secretary of State, continued to go about in public without any
show of fear. He went from the Opera, where he had been ‘mightily
taken’ with ‘Rhadamanthus,’ to sup with the Duchess of Shrewsbury,
quite careless at the thought that anyone might assassinate him on the
way. And he stood Godfather in person to ‘Georgiana,’ daughter of the
Duke of Kingston, when moody Jacobites, in solitary lodgings, were
meditating as to where it would be most easy to fall upon and despatch
him. Whigs shook their heads at the lax discipline of the sentinels at
the prince’s house in Leicester Fields. They thought the king was too
generous by half, when he sent Mr. Murphy, one of the gentlemen of his
household, to Berlin, in charge of fifteen overgrown British Guardsmen,
as a _present_ to the ‘Great King of Prussia!’
[Sidenote: _TREASONABLE WIT._]
Undaunted Mist, in his paper of the 29th May, had an article on the
Restoration. It went heartily into a description of the joy which
England must have felt (after being oppressed by an usurper and his
fool of a son) at the restoration of the glorious House of Stuart to
the British throne. But the authorities saw treason in every line of
it, and Mist was brought before the Privy Council. Pressed to give up
the name of the writer, he persistently refused, and did not shelter
himself under a plea of ignorance. He protested, moreover, that there
could be no treason in rejoicing at the overthrow of an usurper, and
the restoration of a legitimate monarch. What could be done with so
crafty a Jacobite? He was sent back to prison, and was cheered as he
went, by a delighted mob, many of whom had just come from the hanging
spectacle at Tyburn; and most of whom, after they had seen Mist
disappear within the gates of his prison, rushed to the Park, to see a
race, ‘fifteen times round,’ contested by a couple of running footmen.
[Sidenote: _RECRUITING FOR THE CHEVALIER._]
The footmen, at least those of Members of Parliament, had ceased to be
partisans. On the Speaker’s birthday, those people buried their and
their masters’ differences in punch. Of that conciliating liquor they
brewed upwards of forty gallons in a trough, and drank it uproariously,
in the Court of Wards, the use of which was granted to them for the
occasion! Meanwhile the Whigs were uneasy. They pointed to the fact
that recruiting was carried on for the Pretender in the obscure Tory
mug-houses; that money had been subscribed and conveyed to Rome as a
gift to the young Charles Edward, and that an Irish gentleman had been
openly drinking, in London and Oxford coffee-houses, the healths of the
Duke of Ormond and James III. It was some consolation to the Whigs that
the offender was arrested and sentenced to be whipped. When he prayed
to be hanged, as a circumstance which might befal an Irish gentleman
without disgracing him, the Whigs roared at the joke,――that he would
be altogether spared as a gentleman, and flogged simply as an Irish
traitor.
A goodly body of Tories, on more solemn purpose, followed Prior to
his grave in the South Cross of Westminster Abbey, on the 25th of
September, 1721. Jacobite Atterbury, Dean of the Abbey, as well as
Bishop of Rochester, was looked for, but he was conspicuous by his
absence. Two days after, the bishop wrote to Pope:――‘I had not strength
enough to attend Mr. Prior to his grave, else I would have done it to
have shew’d his friends that I had forgot and forgiven what he wrote
on me.’ The offence thus condoned lay in the sting of an epigram
purporting to be an epitaph on the prelate, who, for the nonce, was
supposed to be dead. The lines ran thus:――
[Sidenote: _EPIGRAMMATIC EPITAPH._]
Meek Francis lies here, friend. Without stop or stay,
As you value your peace, make the best of your way.
Though at present arrested by Death’s caitiff paw,
If he stirs he may still have recourse to the law;
And in the King’s Bench should a verdict be found,
That, by livery and seizin, his grave is his ground,
He will claim to himself what is strictly his due,
And an action of trespass will straightway ensue,
That you without right on his premises tread,
On a simple surmise that the owner is dead.
That Atterbury was actively engaged this year on behalf of the
Chevalier is now well attested. In April, the bishop in London wrote to
James:――‘Sir, the time is now come when with a very little assistance
from your friends abroad, your way to your friends at home is become
safe and easy.’ Of this there is earnest iteration. Late in December,
James wrote to the bishop a letter which Atterbury received the next
month at the Deanery by a messenger. Atterbury’s king thanked him for
past service, and allured him with a prospect of ‘a rank superior to
all the rest.’ The eventful year was supposed to be at hand.
[Sidenote: _ARREST OF JACOBITES._]
The year was a critical one. The Jacobite press was more audacious than
ever――sure symptom that some peril was at hand. In what it consisted
was notified to the king by the Regent Duke of Orleans,――namely, a
design to seize the king himself, and to restore the Stuarts. Angry
Nonjurors, and still more angry Ultramontanists, accused the Earl of
Mar, and cursed his folly, for having sent, through the ordinary post,
a letter, which was opened in London as a matter of course, and which
contained unmistakable treason. Walpole, with his intricate agencies,
probably knew as much of the design as the Regent and Mar themselves,
and the circle around his intended victims was gradually closing. The
danger was real. It led to the formation of great camps, to various
arrests in the course of the year, and to severe measures against the
Papists. Among those arrested on suspicion of being guilty of treason
were the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Orrery, and Lord North and
Grey, with a Captain Kelly, a Nonjuring priest of the same name, and
a prelate who was, in August, innocently engaged in a correspondence
with Potter, Bishop of Oxford, as to the exact time at which the
several Gospels were written. But it was for less innocent matter that
Atterbury was arrested. There was not a more active agent of James
III. in the kingdom than he, and Kelly, the Nonjuror, was his daring,
crafty, and reckless aide-de-camp.
[Sidenote: _ATTERBURY’S CORRESPONDENCE._]
In the Stuart papers there is a letter, dated April, 1722, in which
Atterbury writes to Mar, expressing his willingness to enter into a
long-interrupted correspondence with Lord Oxford, and ‘upon a better
foot than it has ever yet stood, being convinced that my doing so may
be of no small consequence to the service. I have already taken the
first step towards it, that is proper in our situation, and will pursue
that by others as fast as I can have opportunity, hoping the secret
will be as inviolably kept on your side, as it shall be on this, so
far as the nature of such a transaction between two persons who must
see one another sometimes can pass unobserved. I hope it will not be
expected I should write by post, having many reasons to think it not
advisable for me so to do.’
Outwardly there was a peaceful look, and peaceful thoughts and words,
just where the storm and the thunderbolt were preparing. Atterbury, the
most active Jacobite agent of the time, wrote pious and philosophical
and pharisaical letters, from the Deanery at Westminster, to Pope. ‘I
know not,’ he writes (April 6), ‘how I have fallen into this train of
thinking;――when I sat down to write I intended only to excuse myself
for not writing, and to tell you that the time drew nearer and nearer
to dislodge; I am preparing for it: for I am at this moment building a
vault in the Abbey for me and mine. ’Twas to be in the Abbey, because
of my relation to the place; but ’tis at the West door of it; as far
from Kings and Cæsars as the space would admit of.’ The prophet knew
not the sense of his own prophecy. The despiser of kings and Cæsars
was then plotting to overthrow a king to whom he had sworn allegiance,
and to bring in a Cæsar hot from Rome, and ready to be Rome’s humble
vassal!
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE TRYSTING PLACES._]
In May, when the peril was made known, there was great stir in London
among the adherents of the royal family. The early Jacobites gathered
together in the morning at the Exchange. At noon, groups of them
collected about Temple Bar. The ‘Malignants’ in finer clothes walked
and talked in front of the Cocoa Tree (St. James’s Street) between two
and three. The Temple Garden was the chosen spot of _all_ of them at
night. Hyde Park, and their old Walnut Tree walk there, were deserted
by them as soon as preparations for pitching the camp in that spot
were commenced. A few, however, were to be found there mingling with
Whigs and discussing the aspects of the time. Amid it all, the king,
by Lord Townshend, announced to the Lord Mayor that the Pretender was
projecting an invasion of the kingdom. Mayor and municipality replied
that they were ready to lay down their lives to prevent it. Then
followed a seizure of seditious printers and their apprentices. Papists
and Nonjurors were ordered to withdraw to a distance of ten miles
from London; and these measures having been adopted, the ministers
deemed that the country was in safety. But timid men quoted Steele’s
expression, first made in 1715,――‘Ministers employ a flute when they
should blow a trumpet.’ The louder alarum was soon given. The country
was dotted with camps. The most important of these was pitched in
Hyde Park. It consisted of about one thousand cavalry, of whom more
than half comprised the ‘gentlemen of the Horse Guards.’ The infantry
amounted to about four thousand. There was a reasonable amount of
artillery, and a creditable supply of chaplains, the king having
peremptorily ordered that Divine service should be celebrated _every
day_ at 11 o’clock.
[Sidenote: _THE OFFICERS IN CAMP._]
This order could not have been obeyed by the _petits maîtres_ among
the officers. Perhaps they were exceptional, the Sybarites, whose
tents were little palaces――tapestried and carpeted. Their gorgeously
curtained beds were covered with heavily laced counterpanes. The
military _petit maître_ in the Park rose at ten, took his tea, and
received friends in his dressing-gown till eleven. Then he slowly,
languidly, yet elaborately, adorned himself, and when the world was
sufficiently well aired for his Prettiness to appear in it, he issued
from his retreat, a plumed, powdered, periwigged Adonis――a sword on his
thigh, dice in his pocket, a gold-headed cane attached to one of his
buttons, and a snuff-box, from which his diamonded finger, ever and
anon, gave dust to the nose. The officers gave splendid entertainments
to ladies from Court and ladies from the City. Of these, some took tea,
some preferred ratifia. It was the humour of the belles to conform
as nearly as they could to military fashions, by wearing red cloaks.
These ladies in camp were severely satirised in a pungent pamphlet
called ‘Whipping Tom, or a rod for a proud lady, bundled up in four
feeling discourses, both serious and merry. First, of the foppish mode
of taking snuff. Second, of the expensive use of drinking tea. Third,
of their ridiculous walking in red cloaks, like soldiers. Fourth, of
their immodest wearing of hoop-petticoats. To which is added a new
satire for the use of the Female Volunteers in Hyde Park.’
[Sidenote: _A CAVALRY BISHOP._]
But for military fashion the ladies had an example in no less a person
than the Bishop of Durham. That prelate was the nearly nonagenarian
Nathaniel, Lord Crew, the first bishop of noble birth since the
Reformation. At one of the reviews by the king――gallant spectacle,
when peers and commoners, and illustrious foreigners, gathered round
the sovereign, and ‘the Right Honourable Robert Walpole, the famous
Minister,’ was coming among them, with bevies of semi-military ladies
to soften the scene――the noble old bishop nobly caracolled in the
presence, on a well-trained war-horse, which the right reverend father
in God bestrode in a lay habit of purple, jack-boots, his hat cocked,
and his black wig tied up behind in true military fashion. The ladies
adored the old bishop; they perhaps had some awe of a man who as a boy
had ridden his pony in the park in the days of Charles I. The amazons
having seen him ride away, and gazed at the spectacle of the procession
of royalty, from its position near the walnut trees, to the magnificent
banqueting pavilion, they prepared for the dance, and, oblivious of
politics, ended the day in camp to the stimulating music of the fiddles.
One of the disciplinary regulations seemed harsh to the gayer lads in
arms, namely, the prohibition to ‘lie out of their tents at night,’ but
as the ladies remained late to dance, there was not much to complain of.
[Sidenote: _THE LADIES IN CAMP._]
Never was a Metropolis more merrily guarded. Pope remarks that the
Scythian ladies that dwelt in the waggons of war were not more attached
to the luggage than the modern women of quality were to Hyde Park Camp.
‘The Matrons,’ he writes to Digby, ‘like those of Sparta, attend their
sons to the field, to be the witnesses of their glorious deeds; and the
Maidens, with all their charms displayed, provoke the spirit of the
Soldiers. Tea and Coffee supply the place of Lacedemonian black broth.
The Camp seems crowned with perpetual victory, for every sun that rises
in the thunder of cannon, sets in the music of violins. Nothing is yet
wanting but the constant presence of the Princess to represent the
_Mater Exercitus_!’
While the military were encamped in the Park, the civil authorities
were busy in hunting down traitors. Unlucky Jacobite printers and
their apprentices were dragged from their beds in the middle of the
night, and they thought themselves fortunate if, instead of fine,
imprisonment, or ruin in worse shape, they were admitted to even
heavy bail in the morning. The shops of sword- and gun-makers were
overhauled, and forfeiture of weapons followed detection of sword
blades bearing some questionable motto on them, or of gun-barrels
directed to as questionable localities.
[Sidenote: _WHIG SUSCEPTIBILITY._]
Whigs recognised the bloodthirstiness of the Tories in the stabbing
of honest Mr. Barrett in the Strand, who had recently quitted the
Romish religion for that of King George. For the safety of that royal
person, they were so anxious as to consider with fear the fact that
he occasionally walked for an hour or two together, almost alone, in
Kensington Gardens, and went to dine with his most favoured nobles,
or to the playhouse with its mixed audience, almost unattended. They
were dissatisfied with messengers, assumed to be Jacobites, from whose
custody traitors of mark escaped, as was supposed in return for costly
bribes. They plucked up courage when an Irish papist priest, having
been seized with dangerous papers upon him, was held to such bail as
it was impossible for the wretch to procure. They shook their heads in
displeasure when Colonel Arskine (Erskine) was allowed to go at large,
on the security of his brother, the Earl of Buchan. The hanging of two
Irish soldiers, lately in the Spanish service, Carrick and Mulhoney,
who had come to London to be ready for the outbreak that was preparing,
was perhaps justifiable; but a couple of strange gentlemen could not
take lodgings in St. James’s parish without risk of being arrested;
and ladies unprotected, and having apartments in the same district,
were often invited to give an account of themselves to the nearest
magistrate. The lightest words were strangely perverted; and when the
Rev. Mr. Mussey, in Sacheverel’s old church, St. Andrew’s, Holborn,
preached against the practice of Inoculation, contending factions
thought there might be something in it; but neither party could well
make out _what_!
[Sidenote: _MORE ARRESTS._]
The appearance of the Earl of Oxford once more in public was an event
to be discussed. As Harley walked from his house in Lincoln’s Inn
Fields, holding Harcourt by the arm, there were men who thought as they
gazed that Harley should never have been allowed to leave the Tower.
Treason seemed to lurk in the least likely places. Why had the Lord
Chamberlain so summarily ordered Lady Wentworth to vacate the lodgings
she had been permitted to occupy, at the Cockpit? Simply because
she had allowed disaffected persons to meet there. There had been a
mysterious vessel lying off the Tower, and a going to and fro between
it and Lady Wentworth’s lodgings. The police visited both. They seized
treasonable papers aboard the ship, and they swept the lodgings clear
of all its inmates, including the servants. The former included the
famous Captain Dennis Kelly, his wife, her mother, Lady Bellew (sister
of the Earl of Strafford), and some persons of less note. They were
all about to ship for France, in furtherance of the conspiracy. The
ladies were allowed to go free, but the Captain, with some co-mates in
misery, were fast locked up in the Tower. There, reflection so worked
upon Kelly, that he became fearfully depressed, and petitioned to have
a warder sleep in his room at night, for the company’s sake!
To be going to France was as dangerous as coming from it, for plotting.
In the former case, money was carried to the Jacobite chiefs, raised
here under guise of subscriptions in aid of poor foreign Protestants.
There was a ‘sensation’ in town, when the papers one morning announced
that ‘A certain Person of Quality has been seized in the Isle of
White, upon Account of the Conspiracy, as he was endeavouring to
make his Escape beyond Sea.’ The ‘Person’ was Lord North and Grey of
Rolleston. Whigs saw him go from the Lords’ Committee of Council to
the Tower with approval. They could not see why Charles Boyle, Earl
of Orrery, who had been taken at his seat in Buckinghamshire, should
be permitted to be under arrest in his London mansion in Glass House
Street, though it was garrisoned by thirty soldiers whom he had to
keep. This earl’s subsequent removal to the Tower was a gratification
to loyal minds.
[Sidenote: _ATTERBURY TO POPE._]
On July 30th, Atterbury, not long before his arrest, was indulging in
disquisitions on death, in railing at human greatness, in sneers at the
Duke of Marlborough, lately deceased――a man whose loyalty, like that of
the bishop who was about to bury him――had been paid to two antagonistic
masters. ‘I go to-morrow,’ the prelate tells Pope, ‘to the Deanery; and
I believe I shall stay there till I have said Dust to dust, and shut up
that last scene of pompous vanity.… I shall often say to myself while
expecting the funeral――
O Rus, quando ego te aspiciam! quandoque licebit
Ducere sollicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ!
This gentle sigher after a quiet life was then ready to welcome James
III. to London, and very probably had his eye on the ‘pompous vanity’
of Canterbury.
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
CHAPTER XVIII.
(1722.)
[Sidenote: _THE BISHOP IN THE TOWER._]
[Illustration: Drop-O]n the 24th of August the storm burst on the
prelate’s head. Of this event the public were aware long before the
press reported it. When the report _was_ made, it described the
following scenes of this Jacobite time:――‘On St. Bartholomew’s day
last, in the afternoon, the Right Reverend Dr. Francis Atterbury,
Lord Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster, was committed to
the Tower, on an accusation of High Treason. His Lordship was at
his Deanery of Westminster, when two Officers of the Guards and two
Messengers came to his House and carried him and his papers to a
Committee of Council. At the same time two other Officers and as many
Messengers were despatched to the Episcopal Palace of Bromley, in Kent,
who, with the assistance of a Constable, searched his Lordship’s House
and brought away what Papers they thought proper. John Morrice, Esq.,
the High Bailiff of Westminster, and his lady, the Bishop’s daughter,
were then at his Lordship’s House at Bromley. On Monday last, they
both went to the Tower to enquire after the Bishop’s health, but were
not suffered to see him.’ So spoke the ‘Weekly Journal’ of Saturday,
September 1st. ‘It was on Friday last,’ says another paper, the ‘Post
Boy,’ of August 25th to Tuesday, August 28th, ‘in the afternoon that
the Bishop of Rochester was committed to the Tower; but the Bishop
was not carried to the Tower in his own coach, as some papers have
mentioned.’ The ‘Post Boy’ says that his Lordship went from the
Committee of Council in Whitehall ‘in his own Coach round by Holbourne,
London Wall, &c., attended by a Messenger and Colonel Williamson of
the Guards.’ He was again before the Committee on the following day.
In the Tower, ‘his chaplain, his _valet-de-chambre_ and a footman
are allowed to attend him, but nobody else is permitted to see him.
’Tis said that several letters in his own hand-writing, but signed in
fictitious names, have been intercepted, by which the Government has
made some important discoveries.’ A strong military force from the
camp in the Park was marched through the City to reinforce the Guard
at the Tower. In September the bishop was little likely to break locks
and take flight, being confined to his bed with gout in both hands and
feet. The report that he would be tried by a special commission of Oyer
and Terminer, at the King’s Bench Bar, gained little credit, for the
feeling was very strong that even if he were guilty, the crafty leader
of the Opposition against Walpole, in the Lords, was not likely to have
left any traces of his guilt. The publication of the prelate’s portrait
looking through a grate, with Ward’s seditious verses beneath,
caused much excitement, the confiscation of the portrait, and the
incarceration of the poet.
[Sidenote: _POPE AND ATTERBURY._]
In the Tower the bishop was treated with unusual severity. Pope, in a
letter to Gay (September 11th, 1722), ridicules the rigour observed
with respect to small things: ‘Even pigeon-pies and hogs’-puddings
are thought dangerous by our governors; for those that have been sent
to the Bishop of Rochester are opened and profanely pried into at the
Tower. It is the first time that dead pigeons have been suspected
of carrying intelligence.’ In October, however, means seem to have
been adopted by which the annoyance of ‘prying’ could be avoided. In
a letter to Carlyle (October 26th) Pope says: ‘I very much condole
with my friend whose confinement you mention, and very much applaud
your obliging desire of paying him a compliment at this time of some
venison, the method of which I have been bold to prescribe to Lady
Mary.’
[Sidenote: ‘_THE BLACKBIRD._’]
John Wesley’s elder brother, ‘Sam,’ earnest in his duties as one of the
masters of Westminster School, but still more earnestly hopeful, though
not active, as a High Tory and Jacobite, showed his indignation at his
patron’s incarceration and treatment, in a lively poem called ‘The
Blackbird.’ This pleasant songster’s enemies were nailed to the general
‘barn-door’ as screech-owl, vulture, hawk, bat, and
The noisy, senseless, chattering Pie,
The mere Lord William of the sky.
The poet next disposed of Colonel Williamson:――
The Kite, fit gaoler must be nam’d,
In prose and verse already fam’d:
Bold to kill mice, and now and then
To steal a chicken from a hen.
None readier was, when seized, to slay,
And often to dissect his prey;
With all the insolence can rise
From power when join’d to cowardice.
The captive Blackbird kept his cheer;
The gaoler, anxious, shook with fear,
Lest roguy traitors should conspire
T’ unlock the door or break the wire;
Traitors, if they but silence broke,
And disaffected if they look.
For, by himself, he judg’d his prey,
If once let loose, would fly away.
Conscious of weakness when alone,
He dares not trust him, one to one.
So, every day and every hour,
He shows his caution and his power,
Each water-drop he close inspects,
And every single seed dissects;
Nay, swears with a suspicious rage,
He’ll shut the air out of the cage.
The Blackbird, with a look, replies,
That flash’d majestic from his eyes;
Not sprung of Eagle-brood, the Kite
Falls prostrate, grovelling, at the sight.
A Hero thus, with awful air
(If birds with heroes may compare),
A ruffian greatly could dismay:
‘Man! dar’st thou Caius Marius slay?’
Blasted the coward wretch remains,
And owns the Roman, though in chains.
[Sidenote: _TREATMENT OF ATTERBURY._]
The Jacobite sympathy for Atterbury was, of course, very active.
Hawkers boldly sold seditious songs and broadsheets in his favour,
despite the magistrates. The prelate himself lay day and night in bed
in the Tower, suffering from gout in hands and feet. The Jacobite
barrister, Sir Constantine Phipps, moved for his release, and that
of Kelly, on bail; but the application was refused. On the following
Sunday bills were distributed by active agents through the London
churches, asking the prayers of the congregation for a suffering
captive in bonds. The only favour granted to Atterbury was that he
should have the occasional company of the Rev. M. Hawkins, of the
Tower, to whose companionship the bishop preferred that of the gout.
When the illustrious prisoner was convalescent, he used to sit at a
window of the house in which he was confined, and converse with his
friends who assembled below. It was manifest that mischief might come
of it, but there was meanness in the method taken to prevent it. The
window was nailed up and partly covered with deal boards. The chief
warden of the Tower was censured for allowing Atterbury’s servants to
speak with those of his son-in-law, Mr. Morrice, without the warden
being present. At last, the bishop’s servants were kept as closely
confined as their master.
[Sidenote: _SCENES IN CAMP._]
London was busy with the Tower incidents to talk about, and with the
martial spectacle in the Park, which people daily witnessed. But all
things must have an end; and the camp, which was pitched in May, was
broken up towards the end of October. The gayest times were when the
king visited it, or reviewed the troops. He was popular there, for the
various regiments, foot, horse, and artillery, had, in marching to or
from the ground, to pass through the Mall, and the king invariably
greeted them from his garden wall. He was so pleased with the City
of London artillery, that he ordered 500_l._ to be paid in to their
treasurer. After the reviews held near the camp, the Earl of Cadogan
entertained the monarch and a noble company, either in the earl’s tent
or at his house in Piccadilly. Each banquet cost the host about 800_l._
A costly hospitality was maintained by other commanders. The dinners in
tent given by Colonel Pitt to the Duke of Wharton and other peers were
the subject of admiration. In what sense the Jacobite duke drank the
king’s health, may be easily conjectured. A coarser jollity prevailed
in the booths set up near the camp, and there, a reckless reveller of
the night was, now and then, to be found stark dead on the grass in the
morning.
[Sidenote: _SOLDIERS AND FOOTPADS._]
Wine and politics brought several men to grief. Inspired by the first,
an Ensign Dolben spoke disrespectfully of the king’s Government, and
was cashiered for his recklessness. Some indiscreet wagging of tongues
led to Captain Nicholls and Mr. Isaac Hancocke drawing their swords,
and the Captain passing _his_, up to the hilt, through Hancocke’s
body. As the dead man lay on the ground, someone remarked, he was
worth 300_l._ a year; and for killing so well-furnished a gentleman,
the Captain got off with a slight punishment under a verdict of
manslaughter. Other ‘bloody duels’ are recorded, and the pugnacity of
the gentlemen took a savage character in some of the rank and file.
It was by no means rare to hear of a hackney-coach full of officers
returning at night, through Piccadilly to the camp, being attacked,
brutally used, and plundered by men in disguise, who were at least
suspected of being soldiers. Never were so many footpads northward, in
the direction of Harrow and of Hampstead (which latter place yielded
victims laden with gold on their road from the ‘tables’ at Belsize),
as during the time of the encampment. A Lieutenant, who was entrusted
with 10_l._ subsistence-money, to pay to some men of his (the second)
regiment of Guards, hired a hackney-coach, rather early in the morning,
put the coachman inside, and took the reins himself. He thought by this
means to carry his money safely. The coach, however, was stopped by a
single mounted highwayman in Piccadilly, who bade the inside gentleman
deliver his money or his life. ‘I am only a poor man,’ said the rascal,
‘but the gentleman on the box has 10_l._ in his pocket, a gold watch in
his fob, and a silver-hilted sword under his coat,’――and the highwayman
stripped the young hero of his property, and rode contentedly away, by
Hay Hill.
[Sidenote: _DISCIPLINE._]
In camp itself, there were continual quarrels and savage fights between
brawlers of the horse and foot. The rioters there lost all respect for
their officers. On one occasion, the Earl of Albemarle intervened,
but with so little effect that he was soon seen issuing from the fray
without his hat and wig! Nevertheless, these savage rioters could be
subdued to the melting mood, and weep solemn showers like old Greek
heroes. Detachments from the camp attended Marlborough’s funeral,
in August. As they passed under their old commander’s garden wall in
the Park, many officers and men are said to have burst into tears;
a circumstance which the Whig papers were unanimous in describing
as ‘very remarkable,’ and ‘well worth mentioning.’ A Jacobite
hackney-coachman laid his whip to the shoulders of one of these honest
fellows; and, strangely enough, for all punishment only lost his
license. A fact more ‘remarkable’ than the genuine sympathy of the
soldiers for Marlborough, was that there were Frenchmen in the ranks,
in camp! One of them, named Leman, did, what might have been expected
of him, drank the Pretender’s health, in liquor bought with money
coming to him from King George. Monsieur Leman did not love the latter
any the more for the terrible whipping he received in the Savoy. Other
military offenders ‘ran the gauntlet,’ at the hands and scourges of
their comrades in the Park. The place was not so pleasant as to make
desertions unfrequent. But, deserters, when caught, were summarily
treated. One Tompkins, ‘a jolly young fellow of about twenty,’ say
the newsmongers, was shot for the crime; yet, the practice was not
diminished by the penalty. When the camp was about to break up in
October, the infantry, artillery, cavalry, and the gentlemen of his
Majesty’s horse guards paraded, for the last time. The Earl of Cadogan
inspected the line from right to left; and when it was announced that
he had left a guinea to each troop and company, to drink the king’s
health, cheers, as the news spread, burst forth along the line like
a running fire. Soon after, there was not a soldier left in the Park,
except the bodies of those who had been shot there, and were buried
where they fell.
On the day of the break-up, however, there were Jacobites on the ground
who were contemplating how they could most easily seize the person of
the king, murder the Earl of Cadogan, and restore the Chevalier de
St. George to his rightful place. A few soldiers, having left their
arms behind them, stealthily followed those men to aid them in their
purpose. They went towards Chancery Lane, where however the civil
authorities had long been on the watch before them.
[Sidenote: _CHRISTOPHER LAYER._]
Neither exile nor death on the scaffold, which had followed this
outbreak of 1715-16, quenched the ardour of individual Jacobites. An
enthusiastic candidate for martyrdom was earning the reward of his
unrighteous enthusiasm this year. He was an eminent barrister of the
Middle Temple, named Christopher Layer. He was a man of extreme views.
He hated the Act of Settlement and (it is said) he loved unlovable
women. In order that he might be the Lord Chancellor of James III.,
he was willing to murder, by deputy, George I. Layer went to Rome and
had an interview with ‘the King over the Water.’ The zealot sought
to be permitted to accomplish a revolution which, he said, no one
would understand till it had been carried out successfully. Layer’s
theory was that King George should be seized, which meant murdered, at
Kensington, by hired assassins; that, at the same time, the prince and
princess should be secured, and the ministry be summarily dispatched.
Layer boasted of having the ultra-Papists and Jacobites with him, and
it is certain that, whether James favoured the design or not, Layer
and his confederates met at an inn in Stratford-le-Bow; where Layer
protested that the so-called Prince of Wales should never succeed to
the crown of England.
[Sidenote: _THE PLOT._]
After conspiring at Stratford, and trying to entice soldiers at
Romford, the would-be Chancellor of the Stuart wrote his letters and
despatches at the residence, now of one Dalilah, in Queen Street, now
at that of another in Southampton Buildings! He who would fain have had
the keeping of his king’s conscience could not keep his own secret.
He might have written in comparative secrecy and safety in his own
chambers in the Middle Temple, but he both wrote and prattled in the
presence of two beautiful and worthless women, who, in their turn,
first betrayed and then gave testimony against him. It was subsequent
to one of his examinations before the magistrate by whose warrant
Layer had been arrested, that the Jacobite counsellor was confined in
a messenger’s house. There, he asked for pen, ink, and paper, and to
be left perfectly undisturbed while he wrote out a full confession of
all his treasonable designs. All that he asked was granted; but Layer
devoted his undisturbed time to other objects, and not to confession.
He prepared means for descending from the window of his room into a
yard below. In testing them, he fell on to a bottle rack, by which
he was grievously hurt; yet, not so much but that he was up and off
before the alarmed officials reached the yard. A hot pursuit commenced.
The messenger and his men came upon Layer’s trail at Westminster Ferry,
and finally ran him down at Newington.
[Sidenote: _LAYER AT WESTMINSTER._]
Layer was put in close confinement in the Tower; even his clerks were
placed in the custody of messengers; and his wife was brought to town
from Dover in custody. Previous to his trial, his passage from the
Tower to Whitehall, where the Secretaries of State and the Committee
of Council sat to interrogate him, was one of the sights of London.
The state prisoner was conveyed in a carriage, surrounded by warders,
and preceded and followed by detachments of foot guards. With similar
solemnity he was carried down to Romford, to plead, after a true bill
had been found against him; and then followed, but not immediately, the
last struggle for life.
[Sidenote: _ANTAGONISTIC LAWYERS._]
The case was carried to the Court of King’s Bench, on the 21st of
October, 1722. The accused traitor was brought into court, heavily
chained and fettered. Threats from loyal Whigs assailed him as he
staggered beneath his clanking burthen through Westminster Hall. A
cowardly fellow shouted that Layer, or the plot, must die! Two or three
men, waiting to be summoned on the jury, declared that, if called,
they would hang him! He mentioned these insults in court, and he asked
that he might be allowed to stand free of the grievous bonds which
oppressed him. He would then have his reason clearer, and he might hope
for ‘a fair and tender trial.’ Chief Justice Pratt promised him ‘a
fair and just one,’ but would not order his bonds to be unloosed. The
Attorney-General, Raymond, said, ‘He has as much liberty as is allowed
to prisoners who have tried to escape.’ Yorke, the Solicitor-General,
declared that Layer’s complaints were only made to excite sympathy.
Pratt agreed with both gentlemen. Hungerford, Layer’s chief counsel,
protested that this was the first case of a prisoner from the Tower
coming loaded with irons to plead; and Kettleby, also on his side,
maintained that Layer had a right to stand unshackled before he pleaded
to the charge against his life. This latter barrister tempered his
boldness with a little servility. ‘Having been appointed by your
lordship to defend the prisoner, I will not apologize for the course
I take.’ This was one way of begging the court to excuse that course.
Layer, in pitiful state from painful organic suffering, which was
aggravated by his heavy load of chains, was compelled to stand. The
sympathising ‘gentleman gaoler’ held up his captive’s bonds in his own
hands, to save him from fainting. The charge was then read in Latin,
and Kettleby argued its worthlessness, if not in law, in the badness
of its Latin. ‘It is Latin,’ he said, ‘that may go down in Westminster
Hall, but it would not in Westminster School.’ Similar pointed remarks
came up at the close of long――very long――winded discussions, to which
Sergeant Pengelly, for the Crown, replied by expressing his suspicion
that Kettleby’s objections, made with such pomp and ceremony, probably
meant something else than mere quashing of the indictment; upon which
all the judges, Pratt, Powys, and Fortescue Aland, declared all the
objections groundless; but a world of words was wasted before Layer
could be brought to plead. Ultimately he pleaded _Not Guilty_, and he
was ordered back to the Tower. He asked earnestly to be allowed to have
there the comfort of the company of his wife and sister. In his hour of
great peril, he thought of his two best, truest, and wisest friends.
Pratt sanctioned the companionship of the wife alone. Layer urged that
she would be subject to humiliating search on the part of rude warders
every time she passed to or fro; but that when there were two women,
one might save the other from gross insult. ‘No, no!’ said the Chief
Justice, ‘we must not be too forward in allowing women to go there. We
all remember how an escape from the Tower was managed by women going
thither.’
[Sidenote: _THE TRIAL._]
The trial was opened on the 21st of November. Layer stumbled forward to
his place, still weighed down by irons. Pratt, at the sight, exclaimed,
as if the matter occurred to him for the first time, ‘I will not stir
till the prisoner’s irons are taken off;’――accordingly they fell;
and the next scene in the drama was the calling and challenging the
jury. Layer recognised some of them who had said they would hang him
if they were on the panel, and his ‘challenge for cause’ was allowed.
His right to peremptory challenge was also unquestioned, but almost
invariably when Layer accepted the juror, by remaining silent at the
calling of the name, the Attorney-General struck in with the cry: ‘I
challenge him for the king,’ and the possible Tory or Jacobite was
set aside. ◆[Sidenote: _A FALSE WITNESS._]◆ Every avenue of escape
was as carefully closed by the Whig lawyers. The junior counsel, in
opening the case, asked how the jury could find a man not guilty
who had fled from justice as soon as he was accused. The jury were
told, moreover, that even if it were possible they could not convict
him, they would have ‘to enquire of his goods and chattels;’ thus
forfeiture of estate seems to have followed the mere charge of high
treason! Layer was charged with every possible sort of treason,
but the heaviest and highest included all the rest,――regicide, or
what Layer’s Jacobite friends called ‘securing the person of King
George in safety from the mob.’ Wearg did not go into detail with
much bitterness, and the Attorney-General, who followed, confined
himself to a renewal of circumstances already detailed. He then called
Stephen Lynch, and a very accomplished villain stept into the box with
ostentatious alacrity. He was objected to by Layer as a man who had
confessed to treason, and who was about to give evidence which had
already bought for him a promise of pardon. This was pooh-poohed by
one of the judges. Lynch, he remarked, might speak the truth under
that promise; and suppose he did not, he could not be questioned on
it. Lynch’s evidence showed one side of Jacobite hireling life. He (a
broken-down merchant) had been engaged in affairs, he said, with a Dr.
Murphy, abroad and at home. By Murphy he was introduced to Layer, who
engaged him in a special affair, and paid him money for furthering
the end desired by himself and confederates; or, he and ‘_other
gentlemen_,’ as the witness called them. The means were the enlisting
of discontented soldiers when the camp broke up; seizing the Tower, the
Mint, the Bank, &c.; getting possession of the king and royal family,
and (like the Cato Street conspirators of later days) murdering the
commander-in-chief and ministers whenever the plotters could find them
together. For all these objects ample aid was promised at all the
several points, and much preparation was made, but there was vexatious
delay, which Lynch protested against; and, most singular of all, there
were two or three visits to the house of Lord North and Grey, in Essex,
where the ‘affair’ was discussed; but not a word was said by Lynch, or
asked by counsel on either side, to show what part in the ‘affair’ was
borne by that peer of the realm.
[Sidenote: _A CONFEDERATE._]
Lynch was succeeded by Matthew Plunket, a discharged sergeant, a
confessed traitor, and an avowed purchaser of safety by giving
testimony against the counsellor. According to this witness, he himself
was a simple-minded soldier, who had been beguiled into attending
Sacheverel’s church, in Holborn, and drawn further away from loyalty
by a tippling, insinuating, ‘unjuring parson,’ named Jeffreys. Parson
and sergeant met and drank and concocted treason in half the taverns
of Fleet Street and Drury Lane. The ex-sergeant, having received his
fee, was told that his services would be required in enlisting old
soldiers who could discipline a mob. On yielding consent, Plunket was
introduced to Layer, who encouraged him by the assurance that Lord
North and Grey, an experienced soldier, was the ‘promoter’ of the
enterprise, and that Lord Strafford was deeply engaged in it. Plunket
affected to be scrupulous, like Lynch, on religious grounds. Would not
bringing in the Chevalier be putting a Papist on the throne? What of
that? asked Layer, the usurper who now sits there is a Lutheran. What’s
the difference? The ex-halberdier thought there was none.
The cross-examination was carried on simultaneously by the two
barristers and their client. Neither of them made the slightest
allusion to the peers referred to by Plunket, and all three wandered
from the point at issue.
[Sidenote: _LAYER’S LADIES._]
The next step was to prove the discovery of treasonable papers in
Layer’s handwriting. This proof was established by King’s Messengers,
who, acting on information, made seizure of such papers in a house in
Stonecutter’s Yard, Little Queen Street. Layer had entrusted them to
the keeping of ‘an honest woman named Mason,’ who kept the house with
equally honest ladies in it. He called them ‘love letters,’ said they
were worth 500_l._, and was anxious that his wife should be kept from
all knowledge of them. ‘What’s your trade, mistress?’ asked Kettleby.
‘What’s that to you?’ rejoined the honest woman; with which reply the
learned gentleman seemed satisfied.
[Sidenote: _LAYER’S ‘SCHEME.’_]
Her testimony helped Layer towards the scaffold, for among the papers
was one entitled the ‘Scheme,’ which a Mr. Doyley, in whose office,
many years before, Layer had been a clerk, swore to be in Layer’s
handwriting, to the best of his belief. This most damaging document
bore, by way of epigraph, these words: ‘Au défaut de la force il faut
employer la ruse.’ In detail it gave instructions how the insurrection
was to be begun, carried on, and ended,――from the first summoning of
soldiers in their lodgings, and of drilled mobs, to their various
quarters in and about London, to the insulting direction which bade
‘an officer to go to Richmond, and at the exact hour of 9, to seize on
Prince Prettyman, and bring him away to Southwark.’ The details were
made out as a stage-manager might note down dramatic business, wherein
every actor knows what he has to do, and can find no obstacle in the
doing of it, except from his own dulness. When some comment came to be
made by the Chief Justice on this and on certain correspondence between
Layer and the Pretender, Mr. Hungerford interrupted with ‘I humbly beg
your lordship’s pardon――――,’ but Pratt cut the remark and the maker
of it short by petulantly exclaiming, ‘Sir, if you will not hear me,
you’ll teach me not to hear you!’ After this rebuke, ample proof was
adduced of the intimate relations which existed between the Pretender’s
family and Mr. Layer’s. One instance was, that the exiled prince and
his wife had consented to stand, by proxies, godfather and godmother to
Layer’s daughter. The proxies were Lord North and Grey and the Duchess
of Ormond. The ceremony was privately performed at a china shop in
Chelsea, the minister being, doubtless, what Plunket would have called
‘an unjuring parson.’
[Sidenote: _THE DEFENCE._]
The defence was not badly sustained, especially by Layer himself.
His chief point was that being accused of an overt act of treason
in the county of Essex, if that accusation failed to be proved,
whatever he had done elsewhere was irrelevant. Kettleby too addressed
himself so clearly to this elucidation as to excite the chief judge
to reprehensible pettishness. ‘You have mixed your discourse so,’
cried Pratt, ‘that nobody knows what to make of it!’ The counsel tried
hard to prove that Layer had not even been where Lynch swore he had
committed an act of treason. Mackreth, the host of the ‘Green Man,’ at
Epping, his wife, and John Paulfreeman, their servant, swore positively
that no one resembling Layer had ever been in that house. ‘But,’
said mine host, ‘there was the Duke of Grafton and Lord Halifax came
to my house some time since. The Duke said to me, “Mackreth, you’re
to be hanged.” “Hanged!” said I, “for what?” “You and your friend,
Layer, are to be hanged!” Said I, “I never saw him in all my life.” He
added, “They walked to and fro in the hall.” “What!” said they, “do
you know nothing of this Layer?” “No!” said I, “I don’t, directly nor
indirectly, as I hope to be saved.”’ This characteristic attempt by
great personages to intimidate a witness failed.
[Sidenote: _STRANGE WITNESSES._]
Great interest was next excited by the appearance of Lord North and
Grey, a prisoner from the Tower. He had been captured in the Isle of
Wight, in an attempt to escape to France. He served the Government
rather than Layer, on whose part he was called. Lord North confessed
that Lynch was twice at his house, in Essex; but was rather uncivilly
got rid of the second time. Being pressed as to what passed between
himself, Lynch, and Layer, he answered:――‘It is a little hard for a man
of honour to betray conversation that passed over a bottle of wine, in
discourse.’ Although he said he must submit if ordered to betray, he
was _not_ ordered; and he the more confidently added: ‘As to particular
things, I don’t care to speak of them. I should be sorry to say it,
when it was said in my company and under my roof.’ Having made this
singular speech, Layer’s counsel rejoined with one as singular:――‘We
won’t press it,’――as if my lord’s silence bore less peril to their
client than his outspokenness would bear. At length, said Lord North
and Grey, ‘I must, by your Lordship’s leave, if these gentlemen have no
further to say to me, and your Lordships have no further commands, ask
that I may return to my prison.’ Upon which, Mr. Hungerford, as if he
were glad to be well rid of him, called out, ‘I hope you will make way
there for Lord North and Grey through the crowd!’ It was a turbulent
crowd, and given to ‘tumbling about’ such witnesses as happened to
displease them. This was especially the case with Sir Dennis O’Carroll,
one of many witnesses who swore to the rascal repute of Lynch and
Plunket. ‘It’s a mighty bad character Plunket has,’ said the gallant
knight, ‘I wouldn’t take his evidence to hang a dog!’ ‘And here he
is,’ said Hungerford, ‘trying to hang a Protestant!’ Other witnesses
spoke to the infamous life led by Mrs. Mason; others swore that the
‘Scheme’ was not in Layer’s handwriting, and Layer himself denounced
it as a forgery. He and his counsel argued one after the other in his
defence; he did not trust his case entirely to their idea of conducting
it; and they seemed more pleased than troubled by his interference.
His courage, without the slightest bravado, was beyond all praise. His
course was rather to deny the alleged proof adduced on the trial than
to deny acts which, he contended, were unproved.
[Sidenote: _THE VERDICT._]
The Solicitor-General then, in a manner, rushed at him. When he had
finished his long and blindly furious speech, Kettleby merely said in
reply: ‘I shall not take up much of your Lordship’s time, especially
since your Lordship and Court have been so long and so well entertained
by Mr. Solicitor-General at least two hours, as I have observed by my
watch, but it was impossible for me to think him tedious, though so
late at night.’ Therewith, he seated himself; and a few persons having
been called by the Crown in support of the honesty and virtue of some
of its very questionable witnesses, the Lord Chief Justice summed
up with a cruel sort of equity, and the verdict of _Guilty_, which
followed from an unanimous jury, brought to an end a trial of eighteen
hours’ duration.
[Sidenote: _LAYER’S DIGNITY._]
Sentence was not pronounced till the 27th. The doomed man was brought
from the Tower heavily ironed. The cruelty excited sympathy, but the
Lord Chief Justice said he could not interfere. It was not lawful for
a man to be ironed when on his trial, but this trial was over, and Mr.
Layer was legally in chains. Pity, however, prevailed, and the prisoner
was relieved of the burthen while he pleaded ably but vainly in arrest
of judgment. He made no craven cry for mercy promising abundant
loyalty in return, but he did not affect to look with indifference on
death, and he certainly hoped that his life might be spared. Pratt,
in passing sentence, smote Layer’s counsel as well as their client.
‘Your Counsel,’ he said, ‘have been permitted to say whatever they
thought proper for your service; and I heartily wish I could say they
had not exceeded, that they had not taken a greater liberty than they
ought to have done.’ After this philippic, Pratt pointed out the
happiness of England in possessing such a church, such a constitution,
such laws, such lords and commons, and such a king and royal family.
Not to enthusiastically worship these blessings was, in his eyes,
inexplicable folly. To attempt to overthrow any of them was a criminal
madness worthy of death; and he who had so dared must now die. Layer
was accordingly condemned to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. ‘I will
dare,’ said he, ‘to die like a gentleman and a Christian.’ Whereupon,
he was again ironed, hurried into a coach, and driven off to the Tower.
[Sidenote: _THE JACOBITES IN MOURNING._]
There was another Jacobite ‘wanted’ by the Government. This was Carte,
the Nonjuror. The Government thought it worth while to offer a thousand
pounds for the apprehension of this obnoxious clergyman, but as in
the proclamation to that effect, he was described in exactly opposite
terms to those by which he could possibly be recognised, Carte got
off to France, where he lived under the name of Phillips, till in
the next reign Queen Caroline kindly obtained permission for the
Jacobite scholar to return to England. In the Mall, and at other public
places, the authorised watchers of suspected persons were surprised
to find several of the latter, in mourning. This was accounted for,
when it was known that Princess Sobieska, the mother of her whom the
Jacobites acknowledged as the true Queen of England,――the wife of the
Chevalier――was dead. ‘Chevalier!’ said an enthusiastic handmaid to
a distiller in Fleet Street, ‘I wish all the hairs on my head were
so many dragoons, to fight for the Chevalier!’ That night she lay in
Bridewell, and a day or two after, the poor handmaid was whipped,――into
a more determined Jacobite than ever!
Towards the close of the year, the Tories took their condition joyously
enough. Indeed, Whig and Tory fraternised over the punch-bowl. The
Whig Sir John Shaw entered into drunken frolics with the Tory Duke of
Wharton. A body of tipsy companions, members of Parliament, including
Sir John, tumbled in to a committee of the whole House. ‘We met,’ he
writes to Lord Cuthcart, ‘the Duke of Wharton, as well refreshed as
I. He proposed to survey all the ladies in the galleries. I was for
turning them all up: but he declined. He proposed to knock up Argyle;
but I proposed the king.’ The roysterers did knock up Argyle, and
the loyal Whig Duke received them well. A strong illustration of the
coarseness of the times is to be seen in the circumstance that Sir John
is not ashamed to let his wife know that _he_ had proposed to practise
on the ladies, the ruffianly insult often indulged in by Mohawks,
Bloods, and cowardly muscular gentlemen generally, namely, flinging
their garments over their heads.
[Sidenote: _A JACOBITE PLAYER._]
While the riotous character of the time was thus kept up by such
gentlemen as the Duke and Sir John, the Jacobite feeling among a few
actors of the Lincoln’s Inn Fields theatre was maintained by John
Ogden. He was not a secret agent, like handsome Scudamore, of the
same house, but an outspoken Tory in coffee-houses and elsewhere. He
was too much of a roysterer for an actor who played such serious or
dignified parts as the _Duke de Bouillon_, in Beckingham’s ‘Henry IV.,’
_Northumberland_, _Kent_, _Shylock_, _Mr. Page_, and _Bellarius_,
in Shakespeare’s ‘Richard II.,’ ‘King Lear,’ ‘Merchant of Venice,’
‘Merry Wives of Windsor,’ and ‘Cymbeline.’ Towards the close of the
year, Ogden, being in a tavern, drank King James’s health on his
knees; then, rising, he proposed that the company present should do
the same, and the Tory player drew his sword, in order to enforce the
proposal. At this time, there were always constables on the look-out
for such offenders, and a leash of them on this occasion made a rush
at John Ogden. The player kept them at a distance with his sword, very
unceremoniously damned King George, and urged the constables to follow
his example. Ultimately, John was knocked down and captured. He passed
his Christmas in Newgate, before trial, when he had a narrow escape of
going to Tyburn. Considering how full the air was of plots, Ogden was
not harshly treated. On being found _guilty_, he was sentenced to three
months’ imprisonment, to pay a fine of 50_l._, and to find security for
his good behaviour for three years. He satisfied all the conditions of
law and justice. In the next summer season of Lincoln’s Inn Fields he
made his reappearance as _Prince of Rosignano_ in d’Urfey’s revived
play of ‘Masaniello,’ and he created the part of _Diocletian_ in
Hurst’s tragedy, ‘The Roman Maid.’ He might have been seen studying
both parts as he walked to and fro in the noisy Newgate press-yard.
[Sidenote: _SUSPENSION OF THE ‘HABEAS CORPUS.’_]
After the sham fights in the camp, the hotter contests in Parliament
drew the attention of all London. In October, a Bill for the suspension
of the Habeas Corpus Act, for a whole year, was brought into the House
of Lords, where it passed through all the forms, and was sent to the
Commons, in one day. The Commons passed the Bill. Nineteen peers,
including the Archbishop of York, protested against the suspension for
so long a time of an Act which was the bulwark of the liberties of all
Englishmen; and which was brought in when the detestable conspiracy,
which was the motive for the suspension, had been rendered abortive.
The ministry were of another opinion. In the latter half of October,
the king asked the consent of the peers for the continued detention
of members of the House, namely, the Bishop of Rochester, the Duke of
Norfolk, Lord Boyle (Earl of Orrery), and Lord North and Grey. In the
case of the Duke of Norfolk, the consent was opposed, but was carried
by 60 to 28. Again, nineteen peers protested, on very good grounds.
The Duke was described as being suspected of having committed high
treason, and the protestors held that it was contrary to the rights and
privileges of the House, to detain any member (while a session was in
existence) on suspicion, without the grounds for such suspicion being
communicated to the House. There was probably no ground.
[Sidenote: _ARREST OF PEERS._]
Commoners, naturally, were not treated with more courtesy than peers.
Their houses were invaded by messengers in search of a reason for the
invasion. On a similar search, in November 1722, Mr. Spratt, king’s
messenger, knocked at young Mr. Cotton’s door, in Westminster, and
entered the house with a warrant for his arrest. Cotton received the
unwelcome visitor civilly, and Spratt’s eye, falling on a picture of
a lady, he asked, as if he were interested, whose portrait it might
be? Cotton answered, ‘the Queen’s.’ ‘What Queen’s?’ rejoined the
messenger. ‘The Queen of England’s, the wife of James III.,’ was the
bold reply. ‘You mean,’ observed the officer, ‘the Princess Sobieska.’
‘You may call it what you please,’ returned Cotton, ‘I acknowledge it
as my Queen’s portrait; and if Lord Townshend was to ask me, I should
make the same answer.’ On his trial subsequently, a constable and
two men who supported the messenger, deposed to similar effect; but
Mr. Cotton’s footman gave a modified relation. Their testimony was
that when their master was asked as to the portrait, he replied, ‘You
may call it whose you please!’ Counter-evidence was then adduced to
corroborate the prosecutor’s story, according to which, the messenger
had facetiously called the picture, ‘The portrait of the lady who
married the young gentleman ‘tother side of the water!’ To which Mr.
Cotton, being heated, cried, ‘A plague!――something worse, upon you! Why
do you trouble me? Call it what you please!’
[Sidenote: _LORD CHIEF JUSTICE PRATT._]
Lord Chief Justice Pratt, in summing up, found that the evidence for
the Crown was confirmed rather than contradicted by the witnesses for
the defence, and his lordship suggested a verdict accordingly. When,
after a quarter of an hour’s consultation, the jury returned with the
words ‘Not guilty!’ on the lips of their foreman, the Chief Justice
looked surprised, and the Whig papers, in the course of the week,
clearly thought the jury were as great _Jacks_ as Mr. Cotton himself.
[Sidenote: _LONDON SIGHTS._]
Never was society in London in a worse condition than at this time. In
every class there was a pitiful cynicism, and pitiless savagery, with
open contempt for becomingness in man and woman. A report of a sermon
in the newspapers would be followed by an unutterably filthy epigram.
Essayists claimed to exercise the utmost nastiness of life, and denied
the right of anyone to find fault with it. The monthly executions at
Tyburn were periodical fiendish revels. The newspapers made jokes upon
them; and Newgate convicts who cut their throats to avoid the long
agony in a Tyburn cart, were banteringly censured for disappointing a
public eager for such shows. The doomed man who rode thither pluckily,
was lauded. Much notice was taken of a gentleman highwayman, with many
_aliases_, who was captured in a western county, and who drove up to
Newgate with attendant constables, in his own coach and six. The papers
reminded him, however, that his next ride would be in a cart and two.
The departure of criminals for the Plantations was another sight. It
was always spoken of as the exportation from the storehouse in Newgate
Street of certain merchandise to America. ◆[Sidenote: _AMBITIOUS
THIEVES._]◆ The crowds of young thieves, who, with finer company,
lined the route by which the older ruffians walked from Newgate to
Blackfriars, where the lighter lay which was to convey them to the
ship waiting for them off Gravesend――were spoken of as nice young
shoots that would be transplanted in two or three years. The convicts
walked, slightly guarded, free in limbs, free and foul in tongue, full
of spirits and blasphemy. It was among their gentler acts of felony,
committed on their way, to rob the fine gentlemen who stood near enough
as they passed, of their hats and perukes. They clapped the stolen
property on their own heads, and congratulated themselves that they
would land in America, something like gentlemen. This sort of theft
was a favourite one at the time. A gentleman riding in his chariot, to
court or opera, was not so safe as walking on the highway with a sword
in his hand. A thief, fond of dress, would cut a square in the back
part of the chariot, draw the new wig off the beau’s head, and wear it
proudly at night in presence of his own Sukey Tawdry! Gentlemen, in
defence of their new wigs, were obliged to ride with their backs to
their horses!
[Illustration: Scrollwork]
[Illustration: Decorative banner]
CHAPTER XIX.
(1723.)
[Illustration: Drop-T]he year 1723 found society variously agitated.
There was real terror about the Plot; but among the gayer portion
of society there was but small concern save to know whether Cuzzoni
would come out at the Opera, and whether the racing season would be
affected or not by the conspiracy. The above lady not only came out,
but the king went, attended only by a few gentlemen, to hear the Syren.
Criticism took this form of expression in the London Journals, January
19th, 1723:――
‘His Majesty was at the Theatre in the Haymarket when Signora Cotzani
(Cuzzoni) performed for the first Time, to the Surprise and Admiration
of a numerous Audience, who are ever too fond of Foreign Performers.
She has already jump’d into a handsome Carriage and an Equipage
accordingly. The Gentry seem to have so high a Taste for her fine
Parts, that she is likely to be a great Gainer by them.’
At this very time, the more serious drama was approaching its last act.
[Sidenote: _THE PLOT._]
On the 15th of January, 1723, the House of Commons resolved that a
committee, consisting of such members of the House as were also Privy
Councillors, should examine Layer and his papers, in the Tower, in
order to get to a deeper knowledge of the plot to dispose of the king,
than they yet possessed. In the subsequent report of this committee,
it was stated that the horrible and execrable design had long been
entertained by ‘persons of figure and distinction’ at home as well
as by traitors abroad. Of those at home were Lord Orrery, Lord North
and Grey, Lord Kinoul, Lord Strafford, Sir Henry Goring, and, with
these, Bishop Atterbury, Captain Kelly, Kelly _alias_ Johnson, and one
John Plunkett. Actively or passively, these were all concerned in a
conspiracy for an invasion of the kingdom by a force that was to leave
Spain under the Duke of Ormond, to be joined by a Jacobite force on
the coast and in the capital, and by their united power to destroy the
existing state of things, the royal family included.
The committee complained that Layer would give them no assistance,
but that by prevarications, contradictions, and downright lying, as
they called it, he threw every sort of obstacle in their way. This
threw them back on such papers as they had seized; but these papers,
being partly or wholly in cypher, they had first to construct a key,
and they then assumed that it solved every difficulty. They were
indeed not far wrong, as the Stuart papers have since proved; but all
the interpretations of initial letters, fictitious names, numbers
for words, things or animals for persons, whereby Atterbury, Kelly,
and Plunkett were chiefly implicated, were stoutly denied as being
applicable, and such circumstantial evidence was not only denounced by
the accused, but at a later period was derided by the great satirist of
the day.
[Sidenote: _SATIRE ON THE PLOT._]
Swift, in the sixth chapter of Gulliver’s account of Laputa, gives the
captain’s report, as it was delivered to him by a distinguished Laputan
professor, how to detect the difference between a man who intended to
murder a king, and one who only designed to burn a metropolis. The
captain explained to him the method taken in Tribnia (or Britain), in
matters of high treason. ‘I told him that in the kingdom of Tribnia,
by the natives called Langden, where I had sojourned some time in
my travels, the bulk of the people consisted in a manner wholly of
discoverers, witnesses, informers, accusers, prosecutors, evidencers,
swearers, together with their several subservient instruments, all
under the colours, the conduct, and the pay of ministers of state and
their deputies. The plots in that kingdom are usually the workmanship
of those persons who desire to raise their own characters of profound
politicians; to restore new vigour to a crazy administration; to
stifle, or divert general discontents; to fill their pockets with
forfeitures, and raise or sink the opinion of public credit as either
shall best answer their private advantage. It is first agreed and
settled among them what suspected persons shall be accused of a plot;
then effectual care is taken to secure all their letters and papers,
and put the owners in chains. ◆[Sidenote: _DECYPHERING._]◆ These
papers are delivered to a set of artists very dexterous in finding
out the mysterious meanings of words, syllables, and letters; for
instance, they can discover … a flock of geese to signify a senate;
a lame dog, an invader; the plague, a standing army; a buzzard, the
prime minister; the gout, a high priest; a gibbet, a secretary of
state; … a sieve, a court lady; a broom, a revolution; a mouse-trap, an
employment; a bottomless pit, a treasury; a sink, a court; a cap and
bells, a favourite; a broken reed, a court of justice; an empty ton, a
general; a running sore, the administration. When this method fails,
they have two others more effectual, which the learned among them call
crotchets and anagrams. First, they can decipher all initial letters
into political meanings; thus N shall signify a plot; B, a regiment
of horse; I, a fleet at sea; or, secondly, by transposing the letters
of the alphabet in any suspected paper, they can lay open the deepest
designs of a discontented party. So, for example, if I should say, ‘Our
brother Tom has got the piles,’ a skilful decipherer would discover
that the same letters which compose that sentence may be analysed into
the following words:――“Resist――a plot――is brought home――the tour;” and
that is the anagrammatic method.’
Under this rich satire there is a world of truth. But, as already said,
the committee were not far wrong in interpreting at least some of the
papers in cypher; and the legislature was not unjustified in bringing
in separate Bills of Pains and Penalties against Plunkett, Kelly
(Nonjuror, Jesuit, perhaps both), and Atterbury.
[Sidenote: _PROCEEDINGS AGAINST ATTERBURY._]
When the proceedings against Plunkett, Kelly, and Atterbury were
preliminarily begun in the Commons by motions to the effect that
a devilish conspiracy existed, the Jacobite members were boldly
outspoken. Shippen and Dr. Freind were especially so. They had, indeed,
no shadow of doubt as to the existence of the conspiracy, seeing there
had been one ‘carrying on against the present Settlement ever since the
Revolution;’ but they did not believe in any particular Plot, such as
the alleged one on which the Ministry hoped to obtain Bills of Pains
and Penalties against the above three persons. Against the first two,
the object of the Ministry was attained; and then came the stormy day,
on which the attack was opened against the Bishop of Rochester.
On March 11th, Mr. Yonge, on moving a resolution which laid the crime
of high treason on Atterbury, concluded a violently rabid speech with a
text from Acts i. 20, ‘Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man
dwell therein: and his bishoprick let another take.’ After Sir John
Cope had seconded the motion, all the Jacobites in the House, one after
the other, led by Wyndham, denounced the proceeding. Bromley, Shippen,
Hutcheson, Hungerford, Strangeways, Lutwyche, and Dr. Freind, ridiculed
the idea of prosecuting a man against whom there was no evidence that
was legal or trustworthy. The motion was carried; but the opposition
officered by the Jacobite physician was so fierce and outspoken, that
hardly unexpected consequences speedily followed.
[Sidenote: _DEBATE IN THE COMMONS._]
On March 13th, Sir Robert Walpole informed the House that the king
(empowered by the suspension of _Habeas Corpus_) had ordered Dr.
Freind to be arrested and detained on a charge of high treason, and
the minister asked the House to sanction the act. Shippen and Bromley
opposed this request and the act also, on the ground that nothing was
specified, and that Dr. Freind was committed on accusation unsupported
by oath.
Walpole, Jekyll, and others, maintained the king’s right to arrest
whom he pleased, and under any circumstances; but the former assured
many members near him, in conversation, that the information against
the Doctor was supported by oath. ‘Doctor Freind,’ said Shippen, ‘is a
prisoner for nothing more than what he has said in this House; and the
members, therefore, were deprived of the freedom of speech.’ Walpole,
of course, expressed himself amazed that anyone should for a moment
suppose that any ministry could be capable of so base a thing as to
take up any gentleman for what he said in that House, without any other
reason. Pulteney described the speeches of Freind, in defence of Kelly
and Atterbury, as excuses which one traitor made for another. To which
Shippen with great warmth declared that it was past bearing for a
member to be called a ‘traitor,’ before he was proved to be one. At the
end of it all, a majority of the House justified the king in sending
Freind to the Tower, and expressed a hope that he would keep him there.
[Sidenote: _DEBATE IN THE LORDS._]
The Doctor quietly turned his imprisonment to good purpose, by
producing his ‘De quibusdam Variolarum generibus,’ and laying down the
plan, subsequently carried out, of his famous ‘History of Physic, from
the time of Galen to the beginning of the Sixteenth Century.’
Lords Strafford, Kinnoul, North and Grey, with Atterbury, were
compromised so far as the evidence of the Captain-Lieutenant Pancier
of Cobham’s Dragoons went. He deposed that he had been told by one
Skene that the above peers were concerned in the plot. This took place
when a Committee of the House of Commons visited Layer, under sentence
of death, in the Tower. Plunkett deposed that he had heard Layer say
the same of the Earls Scarsdale, Strafford, and Cowper, Lords Craven,
Gower, Bathurst, and Bingley, all of whom were said to belong to a
seditious company called Barford’s Club. Motions to get Pancier, Skene,
and Plunkett before the House of Peers were made and lost. Lord Cowper
was the only peer who denied the alleged facts by a formal declaration;
he shocked Lord Townshend, moreover, by his ridiculing as a fiction ‘a
horrible and execrable conspiracy.’ Townshend, however, acknowledged
that the peers named were blameless as to the allegations. It was on
this occasion that the Earl of Strafford declared his feelings in a
very lofty manner. ‘I have the honour,’ he said, ‘to have more ancient
noble blood running in my veins than some others; so, I hope I may be
allowed to express more than ordinary resentments against insults
offered to the peerage.’ This vain boast was founded on the fact that
the Wentworths held land in Yorkshire in the Saxon times. But the
Barony, Viscountcy, and Earldom dated only from the reign of Charles
I., in the person of Thomas Wentworth, who was born in Chancery Lane,
in 1593. The later earl, who boasted of the antiquity and the nobility
of his blood, was once rebuked in the House of Lords by Earl Cowper.
Lord Strafford had referred to Marlborough as a general who ‘fomented
war.’ In reply, Earl Cowper remarked, ‘The noble lord does not express
himself in all the purity of the English tongue; but he has been so
long abroad, he has forgotten both the constitution and the language of
his country.’
The jokers had their fun out of this serious matter. Pasquin, in March,
sarcastically congratulated the Ministry on their vigilance and success
in detecting the horrid conspiracy; adding, ‘A great Patriot was heard
last Tuesday night to declare in a public Coffee House, that after
hearing the Report of the Commons, “_no man in his senses would doubt
there had been a_ PLOT. N.B.――He said this without any grimace!”’
[Sidenote: _CONDEMNATION OF PLUNKETT._]
Several weeks elapsed before the first of the three accused persons was
disposed of. It was not till April that the Bill against Plunkett went
through all its legal stages, whereby he was condemned to perpetual
imprisonment, with forfeiture of all his possessions, and in case of
breaking prison, followed by recapture, death, for himself and any who
might aid him.
[Sidenote: _KELLY’S TRIAL._]
Kelly was next brought from the Tower, before the Lords. Like Plunkett
he was so rigorously watched in his prison that two warders were at
his side night and day, and even the use of a knife was prohibited.
There were certain fees to be paid to the Governor for severe duties,
with which the captive would willingly have dispensed; and a rent was
required for his room, the tenancy of which was imposed on him against
his will. For these matters, however, the Government that prosecuted
him furnished him with means.
The Jacobite lawyer, Sir Constantine Phipps, fought his client’s battle
with aggravating pertinacity. He denied the legality of evidence which
consisted, as in Plunkett’s case, of copies of letters, the alleged
originals of which no one but the reporting committee had seen; and
also did he deny the validity of testimony founded on mere hearsay. Sir
Constantine, however, was sharply pulled up by the Lord Chancellor,
who informed him that their Lordships had had full satisfaction of the
truth of the extracts copied from letters, and of the hearsay evidence
on other occasions. Kelly’s friends among the peers attempted to attach
a rider to the Bill, providing that, on his giving good security he
should be permitted to reside abroad. The attempt failed. An extract
from one of the letters addressed to Kelly, and seized when in his
possession, relating to a dog brought from Paris, was supposed to have
reference to Atterbury, and to be very redolent of treason. Phipps
ridiculed this, but Lord Cartaret rose and said: ‘I have received
letters from his Majesty’s Minister in Paris, relating to Kelly’s
procuring a dog in Paris, for some person here.’
[Sidenote: _KELLY’S DEFENCE._]
Kelly delivered a remarkably able speech in his own defence. Its chief
points were a general denial of every charge――a denial that he had ever
employed one Neynoe in treasonable matters. This fellow had himself
been arrested, but was drowned in the Thames in an attempt to escape.
Kelly called on Heaven to witness that he had never been employed by
Atterbury to write letters of any sort; that he had never visited the
bishop privately, nor had ever conversed with him but in company with
other persons. As for the treasonable-looking dog, ‘He was given to
me,’ said Kelly, ‘by a surgeon in Paris;’ he added that the surgeon’s
affidavit could be procured, and, that it was trustworthy was warranted
by the surgeon being the medical attendant of the Minister himself.
‘The dog,’ said the prisoner, ‘was never intended for anybody but who
I gave him to,’ which was true enough. Kelly then complained, but
contemptuously, that creatures of the vilest condition had been hired
as witnesses, and that partly on their testimony, heard in private,
this Bill was founded. Newgate had been swept for evidence-men. A
servant of his own, discharged for grave offence, was sought out and
heard against his master. A man in Government employment, on being
tampered with, had honestly declared that he knew nothing whatever
against the prisoner, Kelly. He was, in consequence, dismissed
from his employment, but was reinstated on dishonestly offering to
bear witness against him. ‘All which,’ said the candid Jesuit in
conclusion, ‘is of a piece with an infamous offer made to myself by
one of the under-secretaries of State, who, the morning after I was
first examined, came to me with a message (as he said) from one of his
superiors, to let me know “That I had now a very good opportunity of
serving myself, and that he was sent to offer me my own conditions.”
And when I declared myself an entire stranger to the conspiracy, and
was sorry to find that noble Lord have so base an opinion of me, he
seemed to wonder that I would neglect so good an occasion of serving
myself; “especially when I might have anything I pleased to ask for.”
What authority that person had for his message, or the rest of his
after-proceedings, I will not pretend to say; but as I have been
ruined and utterly undone by them, I hope your Lordships will take my
sufferings as well as circumstances into consideration, and instead of
inflicting any further pains and penalties on me (as I really am) a
person highly injured, and not a criminal concerned in any transactions
against the government.’
[Sidenote: _SENTENCE ON KELLY._]
Of course the defence availed the speaker nothing. Like Plunkett,
Kelly was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, with forfeiture of all
property. Since their offence was precisely of the same nature as
Councillor Layer’s, it is incomprehensible that their sentences and
fates were not similar.
[Sidenote: _THE KING AT KENSINGTON._]
Among the public, a sensation was kept up. The ‘Plot’ was as much
talked of as Titus Oates’s. Arrests were made, especially of Nonjurors,
ministers, or laymen. Even young ladies could not arrive in London
from France without being subject to a summons to explain the
wherefore to some sapient Justice of the Peace. Judges were furiously
anti-Jacobite. One of these――finding a jury resolute in returning a
verdict of _not guilty_ against a respectable Pall Mall tradesman,
whom two rascally soldiers, unsuccessful in trying to extort money
from him, charged with uttering treasonable words――loaded the jurors
with obloquy, then attempted to cajole them into a loyal verdict,
and failing, ordered their names and addresses to be taken down, and
declared them too infamous to ever have the honour of serving on a jury
again. Persons who had a proper sense of allegiance quite pitied the
king, whom the temper of the times drove into taking care of himself.
Every day he walked in Kensington Gardens, alone, but before beginning
that wholesome exercise, the gardens were thoroughly gone over by
soldiers, and during the promenade, every outlet was strictly guarded.
This done, the king went alone, as he loved to do, and had the gardens
all to himself.
[Sidenote: _ARRESTS._]
Throughout the early part of the year there was an incessant
persecution of Tory printers, pamphlet-writers, and of noisy and
conspicuous Nonjurors. Thus the ‘British Journal’ tells its readers:
‘The late Duke of Buckingham’s Works, in two vols. in quarto, lately
printed by Alderman Barber, were on Sunday last seized by some of his
Majesty’s Messengers, as it is said, because in some parts of these
volumes great Reflections are cast upon the late happy Revolution.’
Later, may be gathered from the ‘Weekly Journal,’ the following
intelligence, likely to painfully stir all Tory hearts:――‘Mr. Matthias
Earbery, a Nonjuring Parson, appeared upon his recognizances, having
lately been taken up for a seditious libel; but he having in the year
1717 been outlaw’d upon an indictment found against him for a most
virulent and traitorous Libel, entitled “The History of the Clemency
of our English Monarchs,” Mr. Attorney-General moved that he might
thereupon be committed, which was order’d by the Court accordingly.
Thus, this Gentleman, regardless of the Mercy and Forbearance of the
Government to him, hath by a base Ingratitude, common to a certain set
of people, brought this upon himself, which one might think should
be a Caution to others not to abuse the great Clemency they daily
meet with.’ The same paper announces the conviction of Redmayne, the
printer, for a ‘scurrilous pamphlet,’ ‘The Advantages accruing to
England from the Hanover Succession.’ Phillips was also convicted
for printing ‘A Second Part of the “Advantages.”’ On the other hand,
persons with too much zeal for the House of Hanover, which they
demonstrated by accusing innocent persons of high treason, and broke
down in endeavouring to substantiate their accusation, were flung into
Newgate by Lord Cartaret with an alacrity which did that Secretary
great credit. One of these was Middleton, a fellow who was so steeped
in perjury that he was set in the pillory, where a mob of both Whigs
and Jacobites killed him. The inquest jury, equally united, brought
in a verdict of ‘accidental strangulation.’ This fate did not deter
others, for the remainder of the year. ‘It is reckoned,’ writes
Swift, ‘that the best trade in London this winter will be that of an
evidence.’ ◆[Sidenote: _PATTEN IN PERIL._]◆ It is curious to find drawn
to town by the atmosphere of treachery and perjury, no less a person
than that Rev. Mr. Patten, who turned King’s evidence in 1716, against
the Preston prisoners. He was taken up in Fleet Street for disorderly
conduct, in pretty disreputable company; and he came to temporary grief
through beating the constable, hectoring the justice, and maintaining,
with a modern ritualistic minister’s contempt for the law, that his
offence was cognizable only in an Ecclesiastical Court!
Previous to Atterbury’s appearance before his Judges, the papers on the
Whig side reported petty details of his life in the Tower, and of the
doings of his chaplains outside of it. In March, the ‘British Journal’
understood that ‘the Rev. Mr. Thomas Moore, Chaplain to the Bishop of
Rochester, now in custody, is charged with secreting a Duty-Bond of
Accounts, kept by William Ward, the bishop’s coachman (who is likewise
in custody), in which book the Times of the said Bishop’s coming in
and going out of Town were set down.’ In another column was given this
exquisite specimen of sermon-reporting in the first quarter of the last
century:――
[Sidenote: _A STRANGE SERMON._]
‘We hear that on Monday last, a certain Bishop’s Chaplain preach’d
a wonderful sermon not far from Somerset House. The subject was,
_Honour the King_――――. The words, _Fear God_, in the same verse, he
had no mind to trouble his Hearers with, and therefore disjoin’d
what the Holy Writer had put together. What was most remarkable in
the odd Composition of the Discourse was the Flow of uncouth Similies
and Comparisons; particularly he compar’d his Majesty’s subjects to
Monkeys pricking and playing with their Tails in China-shops, and by
their Gambols throwing down the Wares. His Majesty himself escap’d not
a Strook of his queer Wit, for he was compar’d to a Surgeon who first
gives Physick before he probes the Wound. He considered, by the By, the
wise Ends of proroguing the Convocation which, he said, are not proper
to be known at present, but would appear to be all very good, in their
Time. We hear the Congregation have desired the favour of him not to
preach there any more.’
Atterbury’s probable doom was made a subject of coarse humour after a
manner which was uproariously approved in Whig coteries. For example,
the ‘British Journal,’ March 23rd, says:――‘What will be the fate of
a certain Prelate is not yet known, but if his fears are of the same
complexion with those that influenced his Sire, he will not be hang’d,
for as ’tis story’d of _him_――he was drown’d as he resolutely cross’d
at a Ferry on Horseback, when Two Pence might have sav’d him. This
he thought a fare too much for Charon.’ At the same time, a tender
treatment was adopted towards some of the other accused persons. Lord
Orrery was said to be ill. A conference of physicians was accordingly
held (by command of the Secretary of State) at the Cockpit, on Lord
Orrery’s health; a result was come to which is indicated in the
following paragraph: ‘On Thursday evening, the Earl of Orrery was
carried privately from the Tower to Whitehall, and admitted to Bail
in a Recognizance of 200,000_l._;――himself in 100,000_l._, and his
Sureties, the Earl of Burlington and the Lord Carlton, in the rest.
His Lordship lay that night at his House in Glass-House Street, near
Piccadilly, and will, as we hear, remove, in a day or two, to his Seat
of Brittall in Buckinghamshire.’
[Sidenote: _TREATMENT OF ATTERBURY._]
On the 4th of April, Atterbury being then at dinner, in the Tower, the
room was suddenly and unceremoniously entered by Col. Williamson (the
Deputy-Lieutenant of the Tower), Mr. Serjeant (the Gentleman Porter),
and two Warders. The Colonel abruptly intimated to Atterbury that he
had come to search him. ‘Show your warrant,’ said the prelate. ‘I
have warrant by word of mouth,’ was the reply; but when the Colonel
was asked from whom he held it, he only declared, on his salvation,
that he had a verbal order from the Ministry, and would name no other
authority. The bishop appears to have been harshly treated, and he was
deprived of everything he possessed. Atterbury immediately petitioned
the House of Lords, and a motion was consequently made, that the
above-named officials should be brought to answer for their conduct
before the House. The motion was lost by fifty-six against thirty-four;
but fifteen of the minority entered a strong protest, on the ground
that the House by its decision seemed to justify the depriving an
accused person of his papers and other means of defence, and the
violence by which the illegal deprivation had been carried out.
[Sidenote: _OGLETHORPE AND ATTERBURY._]
A fair sample of the spirit of that part of the Opposition which could
not be said to be anti-Hanoverian, was afforded by Oglethorpe, a member
of the House of Commons, when, on April 6th, it was proposed that the
Bill against Atterbury should be read a third time, and passed. ‘It is
plain,’ said this gentleman, ‘the Pretender has none but a company of
silly fellows about him, and it was to be feared that if the Bishop,
who was allowed to be a man of great parts, should be banished, he
might be tempted and solicited to go to Rome, and there be in a
capacity to do more mischief by his advice than if he was suffered to
stay in England under the watchful eye of those in power.’ The Bill
passed, nevertheless.
Some days later, Atterbury addressed an earnest letter to Viscount
Townshend. He was thankful (he said) for being allowed to see
his daughter ‘any way;’ but the boon was marred by official
circumstance;――namely, the presence of an officer during the interview.
Father and child had been separated for eight months. By the passing of
the Bill against him, they might be separated for ever. The Jacobite
prelate implored for permission to talk in strict privacy, with one who
was so near and so dear to him.
A little before that letter was written, Sir John Shaw wrote to
his wife some account of what was being done in London against the
Jacobites. He tells, joyfully, how the Whigs carried a bill of Pains
and Penalties in the House against John Plunkett, and how ‘the Torryes
lay by.’ That against Kelly, _alias_ Johnston, had like success. ‘So,
he is like to be a jayl bird for the rest of his days.’ Then comes a
Whig fling at Atterbury. ‘We shall be on the Bishop on Thursday, who
probably will be banyshed.’ While the process was going on in the
Commons, Sir John wrote: ‘I count we shall be done with him to-morrow,
for we sit down sometimes at nine o’clock in the morning, and do not
raise until ten o’clock.’
[Sidenote: _IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS._]
The bishop’s trial before the Lords, if it may be so called, began
on the 9th of April. This was the day on which the Bill of Pains and
Penalties (framed against him on letters which had fallen into the
hands of ministers, or on hearsay and circumstantial evidence) was read
for the first time. The proceedings were of an extraordinary character.
The counsel for the Bill began by proposing to read extracts from
Sir Luke Schaub’s letter to Lord Cartaret (20th April, 1722), which
referred to the ‘plot in general.’ Sir Constantine Phipps, with
characteristic Jacobite energy, opposed the reading of extracts, on the
ground that the name of the informer was not given, and that the peers
ought not to be kept in the dark, on this point. The bishop and his
counsel were removed while this objection was being discussed (as they
were on every similar occasion). The House resolved that it was proper
that such extracts should be read in evidence of the plot, generally.
Thirty-one peers protested against the injustice of such a proceeding.
After Atterbury and his counsel resumed their respective places (the
former at the bar), decyphered renderings of letters in cypher, which
had been opened at the Post Office, and then sent on, were put forward
for reading. Mr. Willes, the decypherer, swore he had interpreted them
by a key. Atterbury insisted that the key should be produced. On a
division, the House decided that it was not expedient to do so; and
against the unfairness of the decision, thirty-three peers entered a
protest. The bill was read a first time, and the House adjourned.
[Sidenote: _THE WHIG PRESS AND THE BISHOP._]
[Sidenote: _STREET INCIDENTS._]
Meanwhile, the Whig press abused the bishop, discussed his guilt in
an affirmative sense, and speculated upon his being hanged or exiled.
The ‘British Journal,’ of April 13th, ridiculed Atterbury’s complaints
against the Deputy Governor of the Tower: ‘At a late rencounter between
a certain Colonel and a certain Prelate, the latter eat up his words;
had there been any harm in what he eat, he would not have run the
Hazard.’ At this same time, certain Jacobite wags had dared, like my
Lord Cowper, to intimate that there had never been any serious plot
at all. ‘A scandalous copy of verses,’ says the ‘London Journal,’
‘burlesquing the discovery of the wicked conspiracy, is being printed
and handed about Town. Strict search is being made after the contrivers
and dispersers of the same.’ Search too was being made for other
offenders. Two or three supposed Dukes of Ormond were captured in
out-of-the-way inns; and not less than three representatives of Mr.
Carte, the Nonjuror, allowed themselves to be taken on the same day by
two eager messengers; only to be dismissed by disappointed Magistrates.
A brace of these officials noisily entered the library of the learned
Royal Society, in search of the grave, but Jacobite librarian, Mr.
Thomas. The nest was warm, but the bird had flown. These were of the
smaller episodes while the bishop’s trial was in progress. Some were
serious enough. The temper of the people altered with the progress of
the day. On successive mornings, the crowd was silent as Atterbury
passed through it in his chariot, strongly guarded, from the Tower to
Westminster Hall. Generally, his friends, close packed, awaited him at
the entrance of the Hall, where, being lame with gout, he was carried
in an easy chair through the Court of Requests and the Painted Chamber,
into the House of Lords. In the evening, on the return to the Tower,
the Jacobite spirit took a rough turn, especially in Fleet Street.
That of the guards there took a rougher, which generally manifested
itself in bayonetting some over-zealous fool. But Mr. Ridout, the great
surgeon, lived in Salisbury Court, close at hand, and he profited by
such accidents.
As soon as Atterbury had taken his place at the bar of the House, on
the day for the second reading of the Bill――in support of the latter,
the examination of one Neynoe before the Privy Council was about to
be read aloud. Here, the prelate at once interfered. Neynoe had been
drowned in the Thames, in attempting to escape from the custody of a
messenger. Atterbury was ignorant as to whether Neynoe was a Jacobite
or an enemy; and he urged his right to ask (what seems a dangerous
question for himself) namely, if Neynoe had ever declared that the Earl
Marischal, under the name of Watson, was in England in the spring of
1722, and had slept several nights at the Deanery in Westminster. The
House resolved that the bishop had no right to put such a question.
[Sidenote: _OPENING OF LETTERS._]
Next, Thouvois, a post-office clerk, deposed as to the letters he had
opened and copied, before forwarding them (with no sign of violation)
to the persons to whom they were addressed. The bishop, who was often
more ready to interfere than his more wary and less impatient counsel,
here pertinaciously claimed to know if the clerk had opened these
letters, by superior authority, and if so, from whom he held the
warrant, and where was that document at the present moment. The wisdom
of a majority of the House declared itself to the effect, that to
accord the bishop’s demand would be highly inconvenient for the public
safety, and was altogether unnecessary for the prelate’s defence.
Thirty-one lords energetically protested against this conclusion.
[Sidenote: _SIR CONSTANTINE PHIPPS._]
At the re-appearance of Willes, the next witness, Atterbury showed more
than ordinary eagerness to grapple with him. Willes quietly asserted
that he had properly decyphered the arrested letters, given to him for
that purpose. ‘Pray, sir,’ said the bishop (who had failed to obtain
the production of the key), ‘will you explain to me your process of
decyphering?’ ‘No, my lord,’ was the reply, ‘I will not. It would
tend to the discovery of my art, and to instruct ill-designing men to
contrive more difficult cyphers.’ The usual majority of the House was
of the same opinion, and their lordships passed on to other matter――the
production of copies of letters written by Kelly (the Nonjuror and
sometime acting secretary to Atterbury), according to, it was said,
the bishop’s dictation or instructions. Sir Constantine Phipps here
saw his chance. He denounced altogether this course, at least till it
could be proved that the prelate had any part whatever in them. The
counsel for the Crown replied that they offered the letters written by
Kelly, not in proof of special particular action, but of a conspiracy
in general. They promised to make special and particular application
of them to the detriment of the bishop, by evidence, at a future stage
of the proceedings. Sir Constantine Phipps demonstrated that such a
course would be one of rank injustice, unless he, on the part of the
‘unfortunate prisoner at the bar,’ was allowed to rebut the application
by both evidence and argument.
On the return to the Tower in the evening, the Jacobite spirit of the
mob was adopted by some of the guard. Four of them, after Atterbury
entered his room, went and drank the ‘Pretender’s health at the
canteen, and smarted for it before the week was out.’
[Sidenote: _THE DEFENCE._]
On the 9th of May, Sir Constantine repeated his protest, whereupon he
was rather summarily bidden to go on with what he had to advance in
his ‘unhappy client’s’ behalf.
Sir Constantine remarked that his task would be all the easier, since
the counsel for the Bill allowed that they had no better reliance than
circumstantial testimony. But the liberty and property of Englishmen
were not to be, and never had been, confiscated by circumstance; and
accused men could be legally tried only by the laws that were in force
when the alleged offence was committed, and not by _ex post facto_
legislation taking form in Bills of Pains and Penalties. Moreover,
Bills of Attainder had never yet been brought against any persons but
those who had hid from, or fled from, justice. The bishop since he had
fallen under vain suspicion, had lived openly, had received company
in his own house, had gone into society, had passed to and fro in the
streets of London, and had followed a course which only the guiltless
and guileless followed. If the Bill by which Sir John Fenwick was
attainted was legal, that very circumstance proved the illegality of
this Bill against the Bishop of Rochester, for this prelate had never
been indicted, nor had ever dallied with the Government, nor promised
to make discoveries which were ever to be, but never were, made; nor
had he bribed the deponents of fatal testimony to withdraw beyond
the kingdom: all which incidents distinguished the Fenwick case. Sir
Constantine was persuaded that the truth of what he advanced would
reach their Lordships’ hearts, and that the majesty of the court would
not allow a blot to fall on the majesty of justice.
[Sidenote: _SPECIAL PLEADING._]
[Sidenote: _EVIDENCE FOR ATTERBURY._]
The punishment sought to be inflicted on his client was in severity
only next to death itself. The bishop’s generous and hospitable way
of life had eminently fitted him for the next world, but had left him
nothing for this. If he were to be driven into a foreign land, he must,
said Sir Constantine, ‘beg upon his crutches or starve.’ The evidence
against him was not good in law, and was therefore inadmissible here.
Copies of letters, but no production of originals; decyphered extracts,
but no proof of correct decyphering; much allegation, but nothing
corroborated――such was the quality of the testimony produced on the
other side, and it was simply worthless. To correspond with attainted
traitors, with treason for a subject, was a capital offence, but to
write to even guilty men on common innocent topics, as it might be
allowed the bishop had done, once or twice, addressing unfortunate
friends, was surely not an evil in a Christian prelate, and it
afforded no evidence that ‘Atterbury had any knowledge of their guilty
designs――invasion of England by foreign troops, occupation of London
and the ports, the seizure of the king and royal family, and the
bringing in the Pretender!’ As Willes had acknowledged his inability to
interpret some of the cyphers, might he not have misinterpreted those
which were supposed to attach guilt to his blameless client? To strike
down and fling to reproach and ruin a man against whom no guilt can
be proved, appeared to Sir Constantine a most grievous circumstance.
After pursuing this line of defence for many hours, the wary counsellor
concluded by saying: ‘If there be a difference between your legislative
and judicial capacity, I submit it――whether your lordships will be
pleased to give that judgment in your legislative capacity, which the
counsel for the Bill do, in my apprehension, admit you could not do in
your judicial. And, therefore, I hope your lordships will be pleased to
reject this Bill (_sic_).’
Mr. Wynne succeeded Sir Constantine; where the latter spoke for
one minute, Mr. Wynne spoke for ten. His speech was, what Serjeant
Woolrych has called it, ‘a bold and elaborate display of the criticism
of evidence,’ with an obstinate insistance on the supposed fact that
harmless terms could not possibly mean hurtful things. The speech
was altogether so able that his envious learned friends asserted he
had stolen all the ideas from the bishop when conversing with him in
the Tower; but this weak invention of the enemy has been effectually
trampled out, and will not rise again.
[Sidenote: _POPE, AS A WITNESS._]
The evidence on the bishop’s side went very briefly to show that there
was iniquity in Government offices in the concocting of testimonies;
that not only handwriting could be, and in fact was, imitated, but that
seals and impressions could be forged, and that the prelate himself
(according to the evidence of his servants) neither received traitors
in his house nor visited them at their own. The most remarkable
witness was ‘Mr. Pope,’ but there was nothing remarkable in the
poet’s testimony. He was nervous, embarrassed, and he blundered in
his phrases. Atterbury had warned Pope, in a letter from the Tower,
April 10th, to this effect: ‘I know not but I may call upon you at
my hearing, to say somewhat about the way of spending my time at the
Dean’ry, which did not seem calculated towards managing plots and
conspiracies. But of that I shall consider.’ Pope replied the same day:
his letter is warm, tender, and full of assurances of a love for his
friend which he can only show in a way which ‘needs no open warrant to
authorise it, or secret conveyance to secure it; which no bills can
preclude, and no king prevent.… You prove yourself, my lord, to know
me for the friend I am; in judging that the manner of your defence
and your reputation by it is a point of the highest concern to me.’
Pope thus described to Spence how he played his part in this Jacobite
episode: ‘Though I had but ten words to say and that on a plain point,
how the Bishop spent his time while I was with him at Bromley, I made
two or three blunders in it, and that notwithstanding the first row of
lords, which was all I could see, were mostly of my acquaintance.’
An attempt was made, through Mr. Erasmus Lewis, of the Secretary of
State’s office (a witness for the bishop), to get at one secret, the
unveiling of which would have served Atterbury materially. Mr. Lewis
was asked what he knew of the ability or habit of one Brocket, a clerk
in that office, in counterfeiting the handwriting of other people?
Two-thirds of the judicial assembly seem to have started with terror
at the audacity of the question; and they speedily resolved that ‘it
was not proper that Mr. Lewis should be examined on any thing relating
to government, which came to his knowledge by being employed in the
Secretary of State’s office.’ Notwithstanding this rebuke, Mr. Lewis
did contrive to let it be known that Brocket was a clever imitator
of handwriting; and it was proved that even from a broken seal of an
opened letter an impression could be taken, from which a new seal could
be engraved. Phipps, in his rejoinder to the prosecuting counsel, dwelt
upon these points. Wynne then took up the theme, and pursued it for
hours, ending his speech with this singular peroration: ‘I hope I may
venture to affirm that there does not now remain the least suspicion of
the charge brought against the bishop; not even the least suspicion of
a suspicion of high treason; not the probability of a probability, nor
the presumption of a presumption.’
[Sidenote: _ATTERBURY’S DEFENCE._]
Undoubtedly the most sensational incident of the whole proceeding was
when Atterbury rose on the 11th of May to speak in his own behalf.
He kept his judges gravely intent for two hours. He introduced much
matter that was little to the purpose, and all the rest was special
pleading. He dared not――at least he did not――boldly assert, ‘I am
guiltless!’ but he urged to this effect, ‘You cannot prove me guilty!’
One sample will be as good as the whole measure.――‘As to that part of
the accusation where it is said the letter to “Jackson” was a letter
to the Pretender, I have nothing to do with it. (!) He that writ that
letter, when known, will best be able, and most concerned, to disprove
it.’ The bishop added, and well might he add, ‘This objection carries
a very odd sound,’ but he maintained that it rested on reasonable
grounds. His reasoning often wandered from the mark, which does not
surprise a reader who is now aware of the bishop’s guilt. At one moment
he asserted there was no proof at all. At another, that there was only
very weak proof――nothing but the hearsay of a hearsay. He alluded to
his bodily infirmities; the insults he had received in the Tower; his
Protestant orthodoxy; the calm, unplotting tenour of his life; and
the probable ruin that revolution would bring down upon him as an
ecclesiastic and a peer of Parliament. If his judges proved severe in
their conclusions, he hoped mercy would be extended to him; but still,
naked he came into the world, and so would go out of it; and whether
the Lord gave or took away, blessed be the name of the Lord!’
[Sidenote: _REJOINDER FOR THE CROWN._]
On the 12th, Reeves and Wreag tore all the bishop’s special pleading
to tatters. The former insisted that every charge had been proved, and
that the bishop’s exalted character and holy function only aggravated
his detestable crime. As to the penalty named in the Bill, of the
intolerable pressure of which Atterbury had complained, almost in
tears, Wreag took up the complaint, and said, ‘I venture to affirm this
is the mildest punishment that ever was inflicted for such an offence.
His life is not touched, his liberty not properly affected. He is
only expelled the society, whose government he disapproved, and has
endeavoured to subvert; and is deprived of the public employment which
that government had entrusted him with. The enjoyment of his life, his
private estate, and his liberty, under any government that may be more
agreeable, is allowed him.’
[Sidenote: _WIT OF LORD BATHURST._]
The debate on the question whether the Bill should then be read a third
time and passed took place on the 15th. Willis, Bishop of Salisbury,
and Gastrell, Bishop of Chester, pressed hardly against their brother
prelate. The Duke of Argyle, the Earls of Peterborough and Cholmondely,
and Lord Findlater, were as hostile as those bishops. On the other
side, Gibson, Bishop of London, spoke in behalf of Atterbury. Earl
Poulett commented upon the extraordinary character of the proceedings,
and the Duke of Wharton, Lords Bathurst, Cowper, Strafford, Trevor, and
Gower, spoke vigorously against the Bill,――the first two especially
distinguished themselves in this way. Lord Bathurst, with vigour equal
to Wharton’s, put forth a vigorous wit of his own. In allusion to the
hostility of some of the bishops to Atterbury, Lord Bathurst remarked,
‘I can hardly account for the inveterate hatred and malice which some
persons bear the learned and ingenious Bishop of Rochester, unless it
was that they were intoxicated with the infatuation of some of the wild
Indians, who fondly believe that they inherit not only the spoils, but
even the abilities of the great enemy whom they kill,’ Nevertheless,
the Bill, by which the bishop was deprived of his estate and function,
and was doomed to perpetual banishment, with _death_ as the penalty of
returning without leave, passed the House. Forty peers in all (nearly
the whole of the minority) protested on various grounds,――irregularity,
illegality, and of conclusions unwarranted by evidence.
[Sidenote: _NEWSPAPER COMMENTS._]
Of the London street scenes enacted during the proceedings there is
this record of two (towards the close of the trial), taken from the
‘Weekly Journal’ of May 18th:――‘The bishop was remanded to the Tower
about five in the evening, attended not only by his Guards, but several
Volunteers, both Whigs and Tories, between whom, near Temple Bar,
there happened a small skirmish to the disadvantage of the latter;
and yesterday his lordship was for the last time carried up to the
House of Lords to hear the King’s Counsel’s reply to his lordship’s
defence; and, being remanded about nine, considerable numbers of both
parties above named met and engaged in a pitched battle, which lasted
with great violence for some time, but ended at last in the utter Rout
and Confusion of those who love the b――――p so well that they would
willingly introduce the Pope to defend and support him. That High
Church is no more, and it is to be hoped it will be a warning to them
how they attempt again to force Nature against Principle.’
[Sidenote: _ATTERBURY AND LAYER._]
An event occurred on the 17th of May, in the Tower, which must have
cast a heavy shadow of gloom on Atterbury and the friends who crowded
to see him before he left his native country for ever. Counsellor Layer
was led out that morning to undergo ignominious death at Tyburn. His
crime was being active in the plot of which Atterbury quietly held
the threads. But Layer was indiscreet, and was condemned by his own
acts and handwriting. Atterbury apparently lived the life of a quiet
scholar, and seems to have taken care that neither word nor handwriting
should ever be so indulged in as to expose him even to suspicion. These
men were equally guilty; but, rather than say,――the prelate deserved to
be hanged with the counsellor, it might be urged that the lawyer might,
in mercy, have been banished with the bishop. Atterbury must have felt
a pang when as good, or as bad, a gentleman as himself began the long
agony from the fortress to Tyburn Field.
[Sidenote: _LAYER ON HOLBORN HILL._]
Counsellor Layer, who had been convicted in November, 1722, was
respited from time to time. Ministers hoped to get disclosures of
importance from him, which he bravely declined to make. What promises
were held out to this obstinate Jacobite in return are not known. At
all events he made none. Some of ‘my lords’ were repeatedly with him,
to urge him to unburthen his mind, but their urging had no effect. On
the 16th of May, 1723, the evening before his execution, the Earls of
Lincoln and Scarborough, and Col. Crosby, were in deep consultation
with him, in the Tower, but Layer remained faithful to those by
whom he had been trusted. There was, indeed, another cause for the
frequent respites. Being an obstinate Jacobite, he would have been sent
sooner to Tyburn, only for the pressure of his distinguished clients’
unsettled affairs. For their sake also, it was said, he was reprieved
from time to time; and among the singular sights of the Tower in
that Jacobite time, not the least singular was that of ‘Counsellor
Layer, with a rope round his neck,’ transacting law business with the
attorneys of his clients, and arranging matters of which he was never
to see the end, yet for which he did not scruple to take the fees. But
then, wine was dear, though plentiful, in prison, and a man condemned
to death did not choose to be inhospitable to the visitors who
sympathised with, still less in this case, to the clients who employed
him. It was observed, however, that the affairs between the clients
and their counsel were never likely to come to a conclusion, and Layer
would not serve the Government by turning traitor. The impatient
authorities at once ordered Layer to ‘travel westward,’ and he rode
up Holborn Hill accordingly. But he rode up like a gentleman who had,
indeed, serious business in hand, but which must not be allowed to
disturb his gentlemanlike self-possession. The Jacobite agent made his
last appearance in public in a fine suit of black clothes full trimmed,
and his new tye wig could not have looked smarter if he had been going
to be married. Seated in a sledge drawn by five horses, he went the
weary way between the Tower and Tyburn. The dignified seriousness of
his self-possession was not mocked by the bitterest of the Whigs who
watched his passage, while many a Jacobite shed tears, yet was proud of
the calm courage with which he bore his dreadful fate. In a carriage
behind the sledge rode two reverend clergymen, Messrs. Berryman and
Hawkins――one of them a Nonjuror, of course. At Tyburn, as the two
stood up in the cart beneath the gallows, there ensued the scene not
uncommon on such occasions. The utmost liberty was given to a man,
about to die, to unburthen his soul in any way he pleased. Layer made
the most of the privilege. He said boldly, but without bluster, that
there was no king but James III.; that the so-called King George was an
usurper; that it was a glorious duty to take up arms for the rightful
sovereign; that there would be no joy in the land till that sovereign
was restored; and that, for his own part, he was glad to die for his
legitimate monarch, King James. Having said which, the Nonjuror gave
the speaker absolution, the people cheered, and the once eminent and
able barrister was soon beyond the reach of further suffering.
[Sidenote: _LAYER AT TYBURN._]
Layer kept the word he had pledged to Colonel Williamson as he was
leaving the Tower. ‘Colonel,’ he said, ‘I will die like a man.’ ‘I
hope, Mr. Layer,’ replied the Deputy-Governor, ‘you will die like a
Christian.’ The Jacobite counsellor fulfilled both hope and promise.
Only a Whig paper or two affected to sneer at the calm courage with
which he met that mortal ignominy at Tyburn.
Within a few hours of the execution, an Old Bailey bard had thrown off
and published the following ‘Sorrowful _Lamentation_ of Counsellor
Layer’s who was Condemned to die at London for High _Treason_,’ and
which is here given as a specimen of the London gutter-and-gallows
poetry in the Jacobite times:――
[Sidenote: _LAMENTATION FOR LAYER._]
Noble Hearts all around the Nation;
――That do hear my wretched Fate,
I’d have you lay by all confusion,
――Do not meddle with the State,
Let my Exit be a warning.
Now unto you both great and small,
My mirth is turned to grief and mourning,
Thus you see poor _Layer’s_ Fall.
A Counsellor I was of late,
And oft I did for Justice plead,
I lov’d both Noble, Rich, and Great,
Till I pursu’d this fatal Deed,
Who by a Woman was betray’d,
And I was apprehended soon,
And now I am arraign’d and cast,
And thus you see poor _Layer’s_ Doom.
At _Westminster_ I took my tryal,
Which lasted 16 Hours long,
While a multitude to hear it,
There into the Court did throng;
While I with Iron Fetters loaded,
For my life did stand to plead,
But no mercy is afforded,
I must suffer for the Deed.
_Christopher Layer_, come and answer,
For what unto your Charge is laid,
For listing Men for the Pretender,
As by witness here is said.
You have been a most rebellious Traytor,
Against our Sovereign Lord the King,
Answer to your Accusation,
Are you guilty of the thing?
I boldly for a while did plead,
And spoke up on my own Defence,
But yet my Case was made so plain,
Guilty was I of the offence,
At four a Clock all in the Morning,
I was then cast for my Life,
And I at Tyburn must expire,
A Grief unto my dearest Wife.
And my Children who lies weeping
For my most unhappy Fate,
I cannot expect no pity,
For the Crime that is so great,
It is best to be at Quiet,
I advise you one and all,
Lest like me it proves your Ruin,
Thus you see poor Layer’s Fall.
For sure this is the Hand of Heaven
Suffers me this Death to die,
For to finish my intention,
I could not expect; for why,
Because for men so bold attempting,
Many here before did die;
But still I could not be at Quiet,
By which I have wrought my Destiny.
I hope my fall will be a warning,
To all that see my fatal End,
My dearest Friends they do me blame,
That I the Nation should offend.
My tender Wife does lie lamenting,
My Children are ready to despair,
I hope that this will be a warning,
To all that see the fall of _Layer_.
When my Body it is Quarter’d,
And my Head expos’d on high,
I hope my fleeting Soul will dwell
With Christ for evermore on high.
Farewel my dearest Wife and Children,
To Heaven I you recommend,
Weep not for me unhappy Creature,
Think not on my fatal End.[7]
[Sidenote: _BOLINGBROKE: ATTERBURY._]
The ballad was yet being said or sung in London, when on June 1st the
metropolis was startled with the news that the ‘late Lord Bolingbroke,’
as the attainted Jacobite peer was called by the Whigs, was about to
be pardoned. ‘_About!_’ shouted a Jacobite paper, in its loudest type,
‘the pardon has already passed the seal.’ But this shout was one of
indignation, for the papers of all hues seem to have agreed that my
Lord Bolingbroke’s pardon was the consequence of services to King
George and the existing Government, with reference to the plot for
upsetting both by establishing the Pretender and a Stuart ministry in
their place.
Another incident occupied the public mind, namely, the sale of
Atterbury’s goods and chattels. Political partisans and votaries
of fashion repaired to the episcopal palace at Bromley, and to the
deanery at Westminster, as to shrines where both could indulge in
their respective sentiments. At the two sales about 5,000_l._ were
realised. ‘There was a remarkable fondness,’ says the ‘London Journal,’
sneeringly, ‘_in some sort of people_, to buy these goods almost at
any rate; but whether from a motive of superstition or party zeal we
know not; but many think both.’ It is true that numerous articles
fetched four times their value; and the Jacobite journals, as well
as the better natured of the opposite faction, acknowledged that the
purchasers naturally desired to have some remembrance of their fallen
friend.
[Sidenote: _ATTERBURY LEAVING THE TOWER._]
Jacobitism ventured to look up in public, before the bishop went into
exile. On the 10th of June, numbers of persons appeared in the streets
wearing white roses. It was like displaying a flag of defiance against
the Government. Whigs who were really loyal to ‘great Brunswick,’ and
who dearly loved a fight, fell upon the white rose wearers, and many a
head was broken in expiation of the offence.
On the 17th of the month, Atterbury received company in the Tower for
the last time. During the whole day there was no cessation of arrivals
of friends of all degrees who came to bid a last and long farewell.
On the following morning, Tuesday, June 18th, which was fixed for
the bishop’s departure, every avenue to the Tower was closed. The
authorities were in fear of a riotous demonstration. The vicinity
was densely crowded. The river was covered with boats. As Atterbury
passed the window where his old acquaintance, Dr. Freind, sat (under
arrest in the old matter of the Plot), the two were allowed to converse
together for a quarter of an hour. In a sedan chair, preceded by the
deputy-governor, and surrounded by warders, the bishop was conveyed to
the King’s Stairs. ‘He was not in a lay habit, as it was reported he
would be,’ says one paper, in censuring mood. ‘He was in a lay habit,
a suit of grey cloth,’ says another journal. A third confirms the
second, but generally adds: ‘He was waited on by two footmen, _more
episcoporum_, in purple liveries.’ Some of the spectators boasted of
the sums that had been raised for him. One sympathising lady had
subscribed 1000_l._, and the total was said to reach six times that
amount. He had many a tender greeting from sympathising women as he
passed. One of the fair enthusiasts went up to his chair and kissed
his hand. She manifested a world of affectionate tenacity, and the
ex-prelate was only just in time to discover that the pretty, tearful
_Jenny Diver_ had quietly drawn a valuable ring off his finger, with
her lips. The ring was saved, but Atterbury consigned her to the
mob who, as the papers remark, followed the usual custom, on such
occasions. They ducked her in the river. Forgiveness would have been a
more appropriate act on the prelate’s part.
[Sidenote: _ATTERBURY ON THE THAMES._]
In that same river lay an eight-oared navy barge, on board of which
he was conveyed with humane and respectful care. The deputy-governor,
and warders, with the Duke of Wharton, two of the bishop’s chaplains,
and other Jacobite friends, accompanied him. His servants, baggage,
and books, were in a barge which followed. Early in the afternoon the
oars were dipped and the barges were steered down stream. A fleet of
deeply-laden boats went in the same direction. In Long Reach lay the
‘Aldborough,’ man-of-war. As the bishop was hoisted up the side in a
cradle, Captain Laurence was at the gangway, ready to receive him. The
boats clustered densely round the ship, and Atterbury with gravity
acknowledged the sympathy. As the officials were about to leave he gave
‘a few guineas’ to the warders; justifying the ‘few’ on the ground of
the many they had received in fees and douceurs from his visitors
during his captivity. He was still in durance, for two messengers had
him in charge till he landed at Calais. There, occurred the well-known
incident. Atterbury and Bolingbroke crossed each other; and the bishop
remarked epigrammatically: ‘We are exchanged!’
[Sidenote: _POPE AND ATTERBURY._]
‘He is gone!’ wrote Pope to Blount (June 27th). ‘He carried away more
learning than is left in this nation behind, but he left us more in the
noble example of bearing calamity well. It is true, we want literature
very much; but, pray God, we do not want patience more, if these
precedents’ (Bills of Pains and Penalties) ‘prevail.’ Pope’s impatience
was at this time natural. When he took final leave of the Jacobite
prelate in the Tower, Atterbury remarked that he would allow his friend
to say that the sentence was a just one, if Pope ever found that the
bishop ‘had any concerns with that’ (the Stuart) ‘family in his exile.’
Atterbury openly and immediately took service in that very family,
where, however, he found little gratitude for his fidelity.
The Duke of Wharton, in his own barge, reached the Tower stairs at
midnight. One of his first acts, the next day, was to appoint as his
chaplain the Rev. Mr. Moore, who had been one of Atterbury’s chaplains,
and who was well-nigh as turbulent a Jacobite as Sacheverel himself.
Pope turned Bishop Atterbury to very good account, pleasurable alike to
the Jacobites who admired the prelate for his politics, if for nothing
besides, and to himself, for another reason. The poet possessed an
original portrait of the Bishop of Rochester, the work of Sir Godfrey
Kneller. There was a contemporary painter, named Worsdale, who had
also been an actor, who had moreover been satirised on the stage, and
who had kept, loved, lived on, and kicked the once celebrated and ever
unfortunate Lætitia Pilkington. Pope got Worsdale to make copies of
Kneller’s portrait of Atterbury, for three or four guineas. ‘And when,’
says Sir James Prior, in his ‘Life of Malone,’ ‘he wished to pay a
particular compliment to one of his friends, he gave him an original
picture of Atterbury.’ Of these original Knellers, Worsdale painted
several.
[Sidenote: _LAYER’S HEAD._]
Atterbury having passed away from the public gaze, there was nothing
more attractive to look at than Layer’s head, which was spiked on
Temple Bar. Whig caricaturists loved to show the hideous sight in a
ridiculous point of view. Jacobites went to the Bar as to a sanctified
shrine of martyrs. There never was a head there that did not seem
to them holy. That of Layer was blown down as Mr. Pearce, of Took’s
Court, a well-known nonjuring attorney and an agent for the nonjuring
party, was passing. He bought the head of him who had picked it up. Dr
Rawlinson, the learned Jacobite antiquary, bought it, at a high price,
from Pearce, kept the skull in his study, and was buried with it in his
hand. But there is a tradition that after the relic had been exhibited
in a tavern, it was buried beneath the kitchen of the house, and the
head of some other person was sold to Rawlinson, as that of Layer!’
Imagine,’ says a note in Nichol’s ‘Literary Anecdotes,’ ‘the venerable
antiquary and his companion waking out of their slumber! How would the
former be amazed and mortified on his perceiving he had been taking to
his bosom, not the head of the counsellor, but the worthless pate of
some strolling mendicant, some footpad, or some superannuated harlot!’
[Sidenote: _THE CO-CONSPIRATORS._]
For some time, Atterbury’s speech in the Lords was cried and sold
in the public streets; whereupon, the faithful magistracy had the
rejoinders made by the counsel for the Crown printed and sold to
counteract the effect. Atterbury’s convicted confederates, Kelly and
Plunkett, were despatched, the first to Hurst Castle; the second, to
Sandown Fort, Isle of Wight. The peers who had been arrested were now
admitted to bail, in 20,000_l._ each, themselves; and four sureties in
10,000_l._! For Lord North and Grey, the Marquis of Caermarthen, the
Earls of Lichfield and Scarsdale, and Lord Gower answered. The sureties
of the Duke of Norfolk were, first, one of the king’s ministers, the
Duke of Kingston, the Earls of Carlisle and Cardigan, and Lord Howard.
There were two gentlemen in the Tower involved in the plot, Thomas
Cochran and Captain Dennis Kelly. Bail was taken for them, the personal
at 4,000_l._, and four sureties in 2,000_l._ The Duke of Montrose,
the Marquis of Caermarthen, Earl Kinnoul, and Mr. Stewart, of Hanover
Square, became responsible for Cochran; and Earl Strafford, Lords
Arundel and Bathurst, with ‘downright Shippen,’ for the Captain, rank
Jacobites, the most of them. Dr. Mead entered into recognisances for
Dr. Freind. It was a noble feeling that prompted the Prince of Wales to
appoint Freind one of his physicians immediately after his liberation.
That the doctor accepted the appointment was bitterly commented on
by the Jacobites, who might have taken some comfort from Prince
Prettyman’s life being now in the Jacobite doctor’s hands!
[Sidenote: _ATTERBURY SERVING THE CHEVALIER._]
Quietly-minded people now looked for quiet times, and hoped that plots
and projects of war and invasion had come to an end. But the Stuart
papers show that Atterbury hoped yet to bring his king to London. In
Brussels, by aid of the Papal Nuncio and one of the Ladies Howard, then
at the head of an English nunnery in Belgium, the Jacobite ex-prelate
secretly kept up a correspondence with James.
[Sidenote: _LETTER FROM ATTERBURY._]
On October 12th, 1723, Atterbury wrote a letter to that prince, in
which was the following passage:――‘I despair not of being in some
degree useful to your service here, and shall be ready to change
my station upon any great contingency that requires it. And I hope
the present counsels and interests of foreign courts may soon
produce such a juncture as may render the activity and efforts of
your friends reasonable and successful.’ Again, in December, the
ex-bishop thus coolly writes of an invasion of England in the Jacobite
interest:――‘Providence, I hope, is now disposing everything towards
it; and, when that happens, let the alarm be given, and, taken as
loudly as it will, it will have nothing frightful in it,――nothing that
can in any way balance the advantages with which such a step will
plainly be attended.’
[7] The above has no date nor printer’s name. That it is
inserted here is owing to the kindness of a gentleman
who has contributed it from his valuable Collection of
old Ballads,――Frederic Ouvry, Esq., President of the
Society of Antiquaries.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
Transcriber’s Note:
This book was written in a period when many words had not become
standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling
variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been
left unchanged. Obsolete and alternative spellings were left unchanged.
Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
this_. Initial drop capital letters at the beginning of chapters
are indicated [Illustration: Drop-X]. Footnotes were renumbered
sequentially and were moved to the end of the chapter in which the
corresponding anchor occurs. Page headers were converted to sidenotes.
Where the text continued for more than a full page, in-line sidenotes
were used, annotated within ◆ mark-up.
Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down, or partially
printed letters and punctuation, were corrected.
The following items were changed:
line 1677 - usual for a Jabobite [Jacobite]
line 3052 - the Whig ‘Eveninig [Evening] Post,’
line 6641 - who appeared at Dumblane [Dunblane]
line 10478 - urged that the [she] would be subject
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON IN THE JACOBITE TIMES ***
Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.
Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.
START: FULL LICENSE
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:
• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation.”
• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
works.
• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
receipt of the work.
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.
This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
