London in the Jacobite times, Volume I

by Dr. Doran

BISHOP ATTERBURY.

Secretly, out of the streets, treason was quietly at work.—How early the Jacobites were again actively engaged in London, in pursuit of their purpose, is shown in the fact that Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, was then in correspondence with ‘James III.’ That prince seems to have been impatient at Atterbury’s silence as to how the new project was progressing. ‘I depended upon it,’ said the prelate in his letter of reply, ‘that the best construction would be put upon that silence by one who was well acquainted with the manner in which I was employed,’ The bishop was then in the full strength of his manhood and his intellect. Born in 1662, the son of a country parson, he passed creditably through Westminster and Oxford. He was ordained priest in his 30th year, and was one of the most ‘pushing’ men of his time. When a tutor at the University, he complained to his father of the unsatisfactoriness of his prospects. The father treated his son to both rebuke and counsel. ‘You have only,’ he said, ‘to put your trust in God, and marry a Bishop’s daughter!’ Atterbury did as well by marrying Kate Osborn, daughter of Sir Thomas Osborn, a pretty girl, with a handsome dower of 7,000l.

JACOBITE CONGREGATIONS.

The course taken by Atterbury was known to a few only; but there was strong suspicion against him and Sacheverel. The Whigs sent ‘note-takers’ to write down the remarks made by them in the pulpit, and the muscular Christians and Jacobites flung these reporters into the street. On the last Sunday in May, after the Act of Grace had been issued, Dr. Sacheverel preached at St. Clement’s, in the Strand, ‘a virulent and railing sermon. He was attended,’ according to the Whig papers, ‘by a numerous mob who testified their approbation of his Billingsgate discourse, by huzzaing him to his coach. So that we find other Princes have savage Beasts to govern, besides the Czar of Muscovy.’ It took very little to offend the orthodox Whigs. In July, after the trial of the Earl of Oxford had come to nothing, that nobleman, with his son and brother, attended at Lincoln’s Inn Chapel, and took the sacrament! The clerk was savagely censured, by Whig writers, for selecting the 124th Psalm to be repeated on this occasion, ‘in respect of which,’ say the loyal papers, ‘we refer our readers to their Common Prayer Books,’—where they would find the acknowledgment that the Lord saveth him against whom the wicked combine.—A much more serious affair was the mustering of the drummers of the Guards in front of Lord Oxford’s house, where they beat a point of war, in congratulation of his escape. That they were all locked up in the Marshalsea, on bread and water, was a small penalty for such impudent insubordination.

LIBERTY USED, AND ABUSED.

It was said of the motive which produced the Act of Grace that the king, having nothing to fear, was inclined to be merciful. The messengers’ houses were cleared of ‘the King’s witnesses’ (men who had saved their necks by giving testimony against their old Jacobite comrades)—where they had been in custody, and Jacobite gentlemen captives were removed from the Tower, Newgate, and Marshalsea, to the more tolerable custody of the messengers. Several were persuaded to ask for transportation, and they obtained it as a favour. The ministry had so softened that, hearing Lord Duffus had not wherewithal to subsist handsomely in the Tower, they allowed him three pounds, weekly! They were a little troubled when they found that the prisoners at large resorted publicly to Nonjuring chapels, and that they talked too loudly and insolently in Jacobite coffee-houses. This was not the case with all. One of the Mackintoshes, called ‘the Laird,’ was so touched by the royal clemency, he protested that if another rebellion should ever break out, he would lead a thousand of his clan in support of King George. JACOBITES AT LARGE. On the other hand, one of the Talbots talked so saucily, when the order of release for himself and others came down to Newgate, that he was detained in custody to teach him better manners. So, Dalzell, uncle of Lord Carnwath, who had been condemned to die, but was removed, with others, to wardship under a messenger, was re-committed to the Tower, for ‘impudently frequenting company who talked too freely against the present government, and whose seditious and licentious pamphlets were read and handed about.’ Meanwhile, mobs hailed or hissed Lord Lansdowne when he was released from the Tower, and even the street Whigs refrained from pelting Sir William Wyndham as he crossed Old Palace Yard, after being discharged at the King’s Bench Bar, Westminster. A few called him ‘Flat Nose,’ popular slang for Tory! For the poorer Jacobites at large, and for the political prisoners in custody, raffles were got up, almost exclusively by active and sympathising women, ‘for the use of the unhappy persons in confinement.’ Articles of dress and diet were constantly being sent to these captives, and not unfrequently (and generally by generous and courageous women’s help), a prisoner, from time to time, made his escape.

AN ENTRY IN A CASH BOOK.

The Act of Grace, however, which was dated May 6th, was slow in taking effect—especially in the cases of the peers. It was not till September that a pardon passed the seals—for Lord Duffus. In November, Lords Carnwath and Widdrington, and in December Lord Nairn, pleaded their pardon, on their knees, at the bar of the House of Lords, and were discharged. Provision was made for them, out of their own estates, to Widdrington, 400l.; to Carnwath, 200l.; and to Lord Nairn, 150l. a year. To Lord Duffus, having nothing, nothing was given. Lord Nairn’s case will show how slowly liberty, with confiscation of estates, was effected. When Lord Nairn walked, a comparatively free man, across Tower Hill, in August, to a messenger’s house, he had been in confinement a year and eight months. He was committed to the Tower in December, 1715, and was liberated in August, 1717. During that time, he was obliged to pay 3l. a week for his chamber, and 1l. as wages for the warden who waited on and guarded him. Eleven months more were spent before Lord Nairn got back again to Scotland. He was in London under a sort of surveillance. Six months after his enlargement, he had to appear before the House of Peers, ‘to get up his bail and make his recognizance,’ so that he did not return to his own home till July, 1718, all which cost him about 4,000l. Much of the money went to legal advisers and Court ladies. Lord Nairn set this down in his account book, in this blunt fashion, ‘Gave to Lawyers and Bitches, during that time, 1,500l.’

BISHOP ATTERBURY, THE CHEVALIER’S AGENT.

At the very time Lord Nairn, by effect of the Act of Grace, left the Tower, Atterbury, as his published correspondence now reveals, was conspiring in the interest of James III. To this prince, the bishop addressed a letter from London, in which is the following passage:—‘My actions, I hope, have spoken for me better than any letters could do.… I have for many years past neglected no opportunity (and particularly no advantage my station afforded me) towards promoting the service.… My daily prayer to God is that you may have success in the just cause wherein you are engaged. I doubt not but He will at last grant it, and in such a manner as to make it a blessing not only to your fast friends and faithful servants, but even to those who have been and are still averse to the thoughts of it. God be thanked, their numbers increase daily.… May I live to see that day’ (of success to the Stuarts) ‘and live no longer than I do whatever is in my power to forward it.’