London in the Jacobite times, Volume I

by Dr. Doran

CHAPTER IV.

(1715.)

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 50l. 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!

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.

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.

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.’ 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.