For the purpose of reading such intelligence, the Jacobites opened feverishly the sheet which oftenest satisfied their curiosity. This had to be satisfied with little. Throughout ’56 and ’57 they learnt little more than that the Pope had been ill, and that the Chevalier and the Cardinal drove daily from their villas to leave their names at the dwelling of the Pontiff. Next, that the quaint Jacobite, Sir William Stanhope, had actually had an audience of the Pope, to whom he had presented a gold box full of rhubarb; and reasons were assigned why the contents might prove more useful than the casket. Then, clever English lords had established themselves in great magnificence in Roman palaces, or in villas as magnificent as palaces; and, still more encouraging news for the Cocoa Tree and St. Alban’s coffee-house, the King of Spain had increased the income of Cardinal York by 1,200 crowns yearly, drawn from the revenue of the bishopric of Malaga. On the north side of Pall Mall, and on the lower terrace of the west side of St. James’s Street, or beneath the Walnut tree walk in Hyde Park,—places still much affected by Jacobites, imagination may see them wearing congratulatory looks on the English lords collecting near the Chevalier, and the Spanish monarch contributing money to the Cardinal. If these things were without significance, where should they look for incidents that would bear cheerful interpretation?
HOPES AND INTERESTS.
Then ensued long silence, broken only by brief announcements of archiepiscopal (and other) honours heaped upon Cardinal York, and of splendid dinners in the Quirinal, with Pope and all the Cardinals, strong enough to sit up, as the joyous host and guests. Not a word, however, is to be traced with reference to Charles Edward; nor was it looked for, at the time, by the ‘quality,’ who were contented with ‘the happy establishment.’ On Christmas Day of this year, Walpole wrote: ‘Of the Pretenders family one never hears a word. Unless our Protestant brethren, the Dutch, meddle in their affairs, they will be totally forgotten; we have too numerous a breed of our own to need princes from Italy. The old Chevalier ... is likely to precede his rival (George II.), who, with care, may still last a few years; though I think he will scarce appear again out of his own house.’
But the hopes and the interest of the London Jacobites had to be maintained, and, through the London papers, the hopes and the interest of the adherents of the Stuarts, in the country. The aspirations of such sympathisers were hardly encouraged by an incident of which Walpole made the following note, to Conway, in January, 1759: ‘I forgot to tell you that the King has granted my Lord Marischal’s pardon, at the request of M. de Knyphausen. I believe the Pretender himself could get his attainder reversed, if he would apply to the King of Prussia.’
ILLNESS OF THE OLD CHEVALIER.
In the Chatham Correspondence, it is stated that the King of Prussia had said he should consider it a personal favour done to himself. The pardoning of such an able military Jacobite as Keith, Earl Marischal, indicated that the ‘Elector of Hanover’ considered Jacobitism as dead, or at least powerless. At the same time, the more mysteriously secluded Charles Edward kept himself, the more curiosity there was among ‘curious’ people in London to learn something about him and his designs, if he had any. The apparently mortal illness of the Chevalier de St. George, in May 1760, caused some of the London papers to publish a sort of exulting paragraph, not over the supposed dying Chevalier, but over the fact, announced in the words: ‘We shall soon know where the young Pretender is!’ Of the father’s impending death no doubt was made. Was he not seventy-two years of age? And had he not for thirty years of the time been worn out with anxieties caused by his sons? One saucy paragraph included the saucier remark:—‘He has left his estates, which may be Nothing, to his eldest son, whom many think is Nobody.’ But all this was premature. The old prince did not die this year. George II. did. The grandson of the latter began to reign in October. The Jacobites laughed at his new Majesty’s boast of being born a Briton, for ‘James III.’ was more purely British than he; born in London, and son of a father who was also born in this metropolis, he was less of a foreigner than George III., whose parents were purely German. The Jacobites made the most of this difference; and when such of them as were in Hyde Park saw the king’s horse nearly break his rider’s neck by suddenly flinging him out of the saddle, those spectators probably thought of the results of King William’s fall from horseback, and hoped that heaven was on their side. The newspapers admiringly recorded the presence of mind of the young king, who, though shaken, went to the play the same night, to calm the supposed anxieties of his faithful people.
ACCESSION OF GEORGE III.
Much as Jacobites had railed at the late ‘Elector of Hanover and his bloody son,’ and had devoted both of them to eternal perdition in hell, a sort of serio-comic assurance that their malice was ineffective seems to have been insinuated in the first words of the anthem, set to music by Boyce, for the king’s (or the elector’s) funeral; namely, ‘The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, and there shall be no torment touch them.’ On the first occasion of George III. going to the Chapel Royal (Sunday, November 17th), the Rev. Dr. Wilson took his text from Malachi i. 6, where the prophet speaks of the rebellious spirit and irreligiousness of Israel, a text which Nonjurors, and especially the Nonjuring clergy, might well take to themselves. KING AND PEOPLE. After ‘Chapel’ there was a ‘Court.’ Of the latter, the papers say: ‘By the insolence of the soldiers many persons were not suffered to go into the Gallery. All those that paid for seeing his Majesty were admitted, a practice, it is hoped, will soon be put a stop to.’ The price of admission is not stated; but among those who had gathered about the Park were nearly a thousand tailors, who, rather than stoop to work for five shillings a day, refused to work at all. The newspapers protested that it was a thousand pities a press-gang or two had not been in the Park to sweep these fellows into the ships that lacked men. If they would not work for themselves on liberal wages, they ought to be compelled to serve their country on less. There was no doubt about their bravery, for the London tailors had, not long before, brilliantly distinguished themselves under Elliot, at Gibraltar. The hint of the amiable journalists was acted on, on the Coronation day, in 1761. While the British-born king of a free people, over whom, he said, he was proud to reign, was being crowned (with his young queen) in the Abbey, ruffianly press-gangs were making very free with that people all around the sacred edifice; seizing whom they would; knocking on the head all who resisted; flinging them into vessels on the river, and so despatching them to Gravesend, the Nore, and thence to men-of-war on various stations!
CHARLES EDWARD AT WESTMINSTER.
One visitor is alleged to have been present at this coronation, who certainly was not an invited, nor would he have been a welcome, guest. This visitor is said to have been Charles Edward himself! As he is also credited with two or three earlier visits to London, the question as to the truth of the reports may be conveniently considered here.