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.
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.’
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.’
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.’