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.”’
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.
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.’
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. 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!’