The wrathful old Jacobites were certainly wanting in reason. Even wise, liberal, or politic actions were decried by that disappointed faction. In April, 1718, Echard published in London his ‘History of England.’ It was dedicated to the king, who in return sent the author three hundred guineas. ‘I suppose,’ said Hearne, ‘’t is a most roguish, whiggish thing, much such as what Kennet writes. I have not read it,’ added the Jacobite; ‘such writers ought to be laid aside. Yet I hear that Dr. Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, mightily commends this Echard’s “Church History.” But Prideaux is a great Whig himself, though a good scholar.’ Even Hearne allowed that Echard had a good pen; but he tempered the slight concession by the remark that Echard never looked into, much less followed, original authors.’
ATTERBURY CONSPIRING.
All this while secret but busy plotting was going on. Atterbury, in correspondence with the Chevalier and his Court, thus alludes (in a letter to Mar, June, 1718) to one of the go-betweens of that Court and the Deanery at Westminster. This agent passed by the name of ‘Johnson,’ but he was the Nonjuror Kelly, and he is thus described by the Bishop:—‘He has been far from meddling here, or venturing to enter with me into matters foreign to what I apprehend to have been the design of sending him. If he mistook my thoughts upon a certain occasion … I will take effectual care that he shall mistake them no more.’ After speaking of his ‘natural indisposition towards a correspondence of this kind, especially at a juncture when so many, and such malicious, eyes are upon me,’ he laments want of wisdom and unity among the Jacobites around him, but he adds: ‘God grant that our deliverance may not be so far off!’
In another document, written no doubt at the Deanery, Westminster, the patriotic bishop reviewed the general condition of things in London, and concluded by declaring that nothing would be done there unless an invading force came hither, ‘from France, Spain, or Sicily!’
THE BISHOP’S VIEW OF THINGS.
The time, he thought, was favourable, and he gave his reasons in the following picturesque sketch of city, court, and administration:—
‘June, 1718.—Informations are sometimes officiously given concerning transactions on foot; but no effectual care is taken to discover the men or the measures by which they are carried on; nor do those whose peculiar business it is to search into these things, seem at all to concern themselves in them, though they are forced now and then to commit and examine a person (upon particular information given) and then dismiss him, without any hurt done or light gained by that means. Hearne’ (the pseudonym for King George) ‘in the meantime is soothed up with new pleasures and new Mistresses. English Ladies and a Garden take up all his time, and his indolence and ignorance of his affairs are more remarkable than ever; and this sense of life is not casual, but plainly contrived for him. Should any accident happen, they who manage under him have no refuge; their heads must answer for what they have conceived and done, and perhaps without any formal process of Law, vengeance would be taken of them. Nor could they have any methods of saving themselves but by a voluntary exile, should they have time enough to get away upon such an occasion. They seem to take no single step towards avoiding this storm, as the fastest friends of the present Settlement have been all along gradually removed and disgraced; so are some of them even now, that still continue in the service, far from receiving the encouragements they have promised themselves.’
THE ROYAL FAMILY ON THE ROAD.
The king kept none the more private, nor protected himself any the more, for any troubles that were seriously threatening. There seemed really to be in him the ignorance or indifference described by Atterbury. Early in July the king drove from Kensington to sup with the Duke of Kingston, at Kingston House, Acton. At three o’clock on the following morning he was cheerily trotting home in his ponderous carriage, daylight breaking on him, as he passed the men hanging in chains on the gibbet at Shepherd’s Bush. There is something more lively in another royal incident. One evening during the summer, the young Princesses left London for Hampton Court. Nearly the whole way they were singing French and Italian songs, and as the ‘Lady-governess’ ordered the coachman to drive slowly through the crowds that lined the road, the pretty incident and the implied confidence in the public loyalty delighted the people, and rendered the princely vocalists as safe as if they had been in their father’s drawing-room.
Nevertheless, there was much uneasiness in this same July, 1718, as to the temper of the army. It was not only that a drunken soldier would now and then shout for King James in the street, but that sergeants and men met in taverns, and talked or plotted treason against King George. Some of these latter, as they passed handcuffed through the Strand to the Savoy prison, were hissed by the Whigs and cheered by the Tories. Early in July the ‘Scottish regiment of Foot Guards’ was paraded in the Park, and the Articles of War were read aloud to them, at the head of every company. This was the regiment most suspected of faithlessness, and whose members had been most watched. At this parade persons attended ‘incognito in Hackney Coaches,’ as the newspapers state, to identify any of the men whom they might have seen at private meetings held with treasonable ends in view. The spies failed to identify any; and when the significant War Articles had been read with distinct emphasis, the regiment marched, in sullen silence, out of the Park.