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.’
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.
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.’
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.