In 1728, royalty continued to exhibit itself in a manner which, now, seems rather unedifying. On Sundays and Thursdays, in the summer, the city sent curious multitudes to Hampton Court, to see their Majesties dine in public. The sight-seers went freely into the gallery, where a strong barrier divided them from the royalties at table. On all occasions, the pressure against this barrier was immense; on one, it gave way, when scores of ladies and gentlemen were sent sprawling at the foot of the king’s table. Away went perukes and hats; for which there was a furious scramble, with much misappropriation, more or less accidental. While it lasted, king and queen held their sides and laughed aloud, regardless of etiquette, or indeed, of becomingness; but there was provocation to hilarity, when the worshippers were rolling and screaming at the feet of the national idols.

One of the latter showed how little he was prejudiced against Jacobites when they had qualities which outweighed their political defects. Dr. Freind, the Jacobite physician, whom the Prince of Wales had taken to St. James’s from the Tower, was, on the Prince’s accession to the throne, appointed physician to the queen. The doctor did not escape sneers and inuendoes from his old friends. ‘Dr. John Freind,’ writes Mr. Morrice (June, 1728), ‘is a very assiduous courtier, and must grow so more and more every day, since his quondam friends and acquaintances shun and despise him; and whenever he happens to fall in the way of them, he looks methinks very silly.’ ATTERBURY WEARY OF EXILE. Atterbury in exile, on hearing of Freind’s death, in 1728, remarked: ‘I dare say, notwithstanding his station at Court, he died with the same political opinions with which I left him.’ There was a talk in London of Atterbury himself being at least weary of exile. His later letters show some longing to die in his native land; and Walpole seems to have been aware of the fact. In October 1728, Atterbury’s son-in-law, Morrice, wrote to the bishop,—‘I was assured near two months ago, that Sir Robert Walpole had given out that you had entirely shaken off the affair of a certain person,—were grown perfectly weary of that drooping cause, and had made some steps, by means of the Ambassador at Paris, towards not being left out of the General Act of Grace which, it is every now and then talked, will pass the next Parliament; and that you desired above all things to come home, and end your days in your own country.’ The next Parliament, however, was not disposed to lenity.

In the king’s speech, on opening the Session in January, 1729, there was no reference to the Pretender. The king, however, attributed certain delays at the Courts of Vienna and Madrid to ‘hopes given from hence of creating discontents and division’ among his subjects; but if this hope encouraged these foreign Courts, ‘I am persuaded,’ said the king, ‘that your known affection for me, and a just regard for your own honour, and the interest and security of the nation, will determine you effectually to discourage the unnatural and injurious practices of some few who suggest the means of distressing their country, and afterwards clamour at the inconveniences which they themselves have occasioned.’ In the usual reply, the Lords lamented that the lenity of the constitution was daily abused, and that the basest and meanest of mankind ‘escape the infamous punishment due by the laws of the land to such crimes.’ The Commons, after some debate, employed terms equally strong. THE PRINCE OF WALES AT CHURCH. The Heir Apparent used the opportunity to illustrate his fidelity to the Protestant succession. Prince Frederick, to convince all good people of his Protestant orthodoxy, went a round of the London churches. He was accompanied by a group of young lords and gentlemen of good character, and, at this time, his reputation did not suffer by his being judged according to the company he kept. On the occasion of his dissipated church-going, the prince and his noble followers took the Sacrament in public: the doors of the church, whichever it might be, were set wide open, and the church itself was packed by a mob of street Whigs and Tories, who made their own comments on the spectacle, which was not so edifying and impressive as it was intended to be. Fog’s Jacobite paper hinted that a family not a hundred miles from St. James’s was split up with petty domestic quarrelling. The family, indeed, dined together twice a week in public; but people were reminded that outward appearances were exceedingly deceptive,—and sacramental partakings (it was said) proved nothing.

THE MORALS AND MANNERS OF THE TIME.

The papers of the year bear witness to the wickedness and barbarity of all classes of people, of both sexes. Half the highwaymen and footpads were members of his Majesty’s own guards. There was not a street or suburb of London that was free from their violence and villany. Small offences being as much a hanging matter as the most horrible crimes, lawless men found it as cheap to be murderers as petty-larcenists; and all looked to Tyburn as the last scene, in which they must necessarily figure. Three or four of these fellows, behind old Buckingham House, stopped the carriage of the Bishop of Ossory, who was on his way to Chelsea with his son. They took from the prelate’s finger his episcopal ring (of great value), and from his hand what seemed to be a pocket book, but which was a Book of Common Prayer. When the highwayman who held it saw that it was a Prayer Book, he handed it back to the bishop. ‘Had you not better keep it?’ said the prelate. ‘Thank you, no!’ rejoined the Pimlico Macheath, ‘we have no occasion for it at present, whatever may be the case at some time hereafter.’ The time alluded to was the hour of ‘hanging Wednesday,’ at Tyburn, when each patient was provided with a Prayer Book, which he often flung at someone in the crowd of spectators before he was pinioned. There was always a great variety of company at the triple tree in Tyburn field, built to accommodate a score. At a push a couple of dozen could be disposed of on a very busy hanging morning. The sufferers ranged,—from the most brutal murderers, men and women, down to timid pickpockets and shy shoplifters, boys and girls, to all of whom the bloody code of the time awarded the same measure of vengeance. The London mob were almost satiated with Tyburn holidays. It was an agreeable change for them to witness the public military funeral of old Mary Davis, who had served, both as sutler and soldier, in our wars in Flanders. In her later years, Mary kept a tavern in King Street, Westminster, bearing the curious sign of ‘Man’s worst ills.’ The crowd there, and about St. Margaret’s, where she was buried, was as great as at their Majesties’ coronation.

ATTERBURY, ON MIST.

The press prosecutions of this year were few. A vendor of some reprints of former very offensive numbers of Mist’s Journal lost his liberty for a while; and a poor servant girl, for delivering to a caller (who may have been a police agent) an obnoxious pamphlet, was sentenced to imprisonment in Bridewell, there to receive ‘the correction of the house,’—which meant a severe whipping.

No better proof of Atterbury’s sympathy with Mist and the enemies of the established Government can be given than in the following passage, from a letter written at Montpellier, in March, 1729-30. It is addressed to Sempill, who was a favoured resident at the Chevalier’s Court, but really a spy in the service of the Court in London.—‘I shall be concerned if so honest a man as Mr. Mist should have any just cause of uneasiness. His sufferings, that were intended to distress and disgrace him, ought to render him in the eyes of those for whom he suffered, more valuable; and I hope it will prove so that others may not be discouraged.’

THOMSON’S ‘SOPHONISBA.’

During the next ten years Jacobitisin in the capital made no manifestation, but the Whig poets were rather ostentatious in their loyalty; and the royal family patronised them accordingly. For instance, on the last day of February, 1730, Thomson produced at Drury Lane his tragedy, illustrating the virtue of patriotism, namely, ‘Sophonisba.’ The queen herself had attended the full-dress rehearsals, at which crowded audiences were not so much delighted as they were told they ought to be. However, the notice the queen condescended to take of this essay to keep alive the virtue of patriotism, led the author to dedicate it to Caroline. In that dedication the poet informed both Whigs and Jacobites that the queen ‘commands the hearts of a people more powerful at sea than Carthage, more flourishing in commerce than those first merchants, more secure against conquest, and under a monarchy more free than a commonwealth itself.’ In the prologue it was said of Britain,—