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.
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 50l., 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.
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.
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!’
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.
LONDON SIGHTS.