PATTEN’S DETAILS.
Patten’s narrative greatly amused the Londoners, who were the first to read it. He delights in it, in speaking sarcastically of the Clergy, whether they were High-flyers or of the lower-soaring party. He describes the perplexity into which he, and other parsons with the Jacobite army, put simple country vicars and their curates by requiring them to pray for ‘James III., Mary, Queen Mother, and all the dutiful branches of the Royal Family!’ Some clerics modestly declined and handed their churches to Patten or his colleague, Buxton. Others, simply refused, but sat in church, and while Patten, in the pulpit, prayed for James, they made mental protest which was taken as acquiescing. Patten confesses that he himself preached genuine Jacobite sermons. One of the strongest against King George was on the text, Deut. XXI., 17, ‘The right of the first-born.’ Patten so well served the Hanoverian Right, after he came to London, that the king could not hang him, as he deserved. This cleric seemed even to be sorry at the escape of some of his confederates who did not turn king’s evidence. There was Edward Tildesley, the Papist who was acquitted by the jury of the Marshalsea, ‘though,’ says the scandalised Patten, ‘it was proved that he had a troop and entered Preston at the head of it with his sword drawn. But his sword had a Silver Handle!’ In another instance, he seems to turn unconsciously to his Jacobite proclivities, and probably there was many a laugh in the Jacobite Walk, in the Park, over Patten’s story of one Mr. Guin, who went into all the churches on the way of the march, where Patten served as chaplain, ‘and scratched out his Majesty King George’s name, and placed the Pretender’s so nicely that it resembled print very much, and the alteration could scarce be perceived.’
DOWNRIGHT SHIPPEN.
An idea still prevailed, with ministers, that loyalty could be secured by binding it by an oath. One of the curious sights of the year was the assembling, by summons, of a thousand Middlesex tavern-keepers in front of Hicks’s Hall, where announcement was made to them that, in future, no licence would be granted save to those who had taken the oath of allegiance before the justices of the various parishes. Later in the year, a justice of the peace and a posse of constables pounced upon Dr. Welton (the Jacobite ex-rector of Whitechapel), and his Non-conformist congregation, in their place of meeting. There were about 250 Nonjurors present. The constables interrupted the service, and proceeded to administer the oath. Many indignantly refused to take it, and these were arrested on the spot, or were ordered for trial, by a justice, who allowed them their bail.
SHIPPEN, ON GEORGE I.
In this year occurred the famous incident in the House of Commons—on occasion of the king asking a grant of money to provide against a Swedish invasion. Downright Jacobite Shippen felt as others felt, that the demand was for English money to be applied to the defending of Hanover. Shippen opposed the reception of the message, on the ground of want of detailed information. He added that such a proceeding was unparliamentary, and that it was to be regretted that the king was as ignorant of parliamentary rules as he was of the English language. A committee, however, was formed, which, by a majority of 15, proposed a grant of a quarter of a million; but the question, when submitted to the House, was carried by four votes only—153 to 149. This almost compensated the Jacobites for what they had suffered this year by Bishop Hoadly’s ‘Preservative against the Principles and Practices of the Nonjurors.’ The High Church priesthood took some little comfort from it, too. The bishop’s sermon on ‘My kingdom is not of this world,’ had seemed to deny them all temporal power. It led to the famous Bangorian Controversy which ultimately deprived Convocation, for ever, of being actively mischievous. The Nonjuring preachers were violent in their pulpits. And the Nonjurors were out-done in Parliament by that outspoken member, Shippen.
In December, the king opened Parliament with a speech, which the ‘Downright’ representative treated as that of his ministers. He discussed it and the measures recommended in it, with the utmost freedom. ‘We are,’ he said, ‘at liberty to debate every proposition in it, especially those which seem rather calculated for the meridian of Germany than of Great Britain. ’Tis the only infelicity of his Majesty’s reign, that he is unacquainted with our language and constitution; and ’tis therefore the more incumbent on his British ministers to inform him that our government does not stand on the same foundation with his German dominions, which (by reason of their situation and the nature of their constitution) are obliged to keep up standing armies in time of peace.’—Lechmere, Solicitor-General, moved that the words be taken down, and the speaker of them be sent to the Tower. Shippen would not retract anything he had uttered against maintaining an army of sixteen thousand men in time of peace. A majority of 175 to 81 sent him to the Tower.
Shippen’s speech was delivered on December 4th. Two days later, an attack against the disaffected party was made from the stage. The assailant was Colley Cibber; his weapon was the comedy, which he adapted from Molière’s ‘Tartuffe,’ and called ‘The Nonjuror.’ The town was in a ferment, and it would be difficult to say which faction was the more excited.
CIBBER’S ‘NONJUROR.’
A glance at the dedication of ‘The Nonjuror’ to the king will not be superfluous. It will throw light on more than one illustration of this Jacobite time. Cibber addresses the king as ‘Dread Sir,’ and calls himself ‘the lowest of your Subjects.’ He justifies his political comedy as a proof ‘what honest and laudable uses may be made of the Theatre, when its performances keep close to the true purpose of its Institution. It may be necessary,’ he says, ‘to divert the sullen and disaffected from busying their brains to disturb the happiness of a government which (for want of proper amusements) they often enter into wild and seditious schemes to reform.’ Colley then reminds the king that the stage was never suppressed in England ‘but by those very people that turned our Church and Constitution into Irreligion and Anarchy.’ The Jacobites (by the way) might readily accept this remark, seeing the ‘people’ who overset Church and King, and established Irreligion and Anarchy, were the ‘Whigs’ of that day who slew the royal grandfather of that ‘Chevalier whom the Jacobites of the present time hoped to set up as their lawful king. Cibber professed to have made these Jacobites ridiculous, in ‘The Nonjuror,’ in order to make them ashamed of their cause! He affected to deplore that this loyal work had nobody better than ‘a Comedian’ for its author. In such an undertaking by such a low personage, his wise Majesty might discern an ‘unlicensed boldness.’ Yet, the undertaking exposes ‘rebellious and unchristian tenets.’—Colley takes further comfort in the following Cibberian style: ‘Nay, I have yet a further hope, that it has even discovered the strength and number of the Misguided to be much less than may have been artfully insinuated, there being no Assembly where People are so free and so apt to speak their minds as in a crowded Theatre; of which, Your Majesty may have lately seen an instance in the insuppressible Acclamations that were given on your appearing to honour this Play with your Royal presence.’