No doubt there was some satisfaction felt by the Jacobite guests over their cups at the ‘Mourning Bush’ in Aldersgate Street. This sign was originally set up in London by Taylor, the Water Poet, at his tavern in Phœnix Alley, Long Acre, as a token of his principles, after the death of Charles I. He was however compelled to take it down. Another adherent of the Stuarts, Rawlinson, who kept the ‘Mitre’ in Fenchurch Street, put it in mourning, as a testimony of similar opinions. Jacobite Hearne thought the ‘Mourning Mitre’ very appropriate. ‘Rawlinson certainly did right. The honour of the mitre was much eclipsed through the loss of so good a parent of the Church of England. Those rogues say, this endeared him so much to the churchmen, that he soon throve amain and got a good estate.’ It is not to be supposed that the ‘Bush’ in Aldersgate Street was actually craped, or sable-framed, in 1744; but the tradition was kept up that the ‘Bush’ was in mourning, and would continue to be so, till the Stuarts were restored.
LETTER FROM HURD.
Among the persons, on the other hand, who looked upon the threatened coming of Prince Charles Edward as hardly amounting to a bad dream was Mr. Hurd,—subsequently a bishop, but in February, 1744, at Cambridge, looking forward to receive priests orders in May at the hands of Dr. Gooch, Bishop of Norwich, in the chapel of Caius College. The news from London was exciting, and Hurd writes to his friend, the Rev. John Devey, on the 17th of February:—‘Nothing is talked of here but an invasion from the French. The Chevalier is at Paris, and we are to expect him here in a short time. Whatever there may be in this news, it seems to have consternated the Ministry. The Tower is trebly guarded, and so is St. James’s, and the soldiers have orders to be ready for action at an hour’s warning. They are hasting, it seems, from all quarters of the kingdom to London. I saw a regiment yesterday, going through Newmarket. After all, I apprehend very little from this terror. It seems a polite contrivance of the French to give a diversion to our men, and keep the English out of Germany. Let me know what is said in your part of the world.’
PUBLIC FEELING.
Lady Sarah Cowper (in the Correspondence of Mrs. Delany) writes:—‘If it is true that the French design only to draw our troops from Flanders, and facilitate their own conquests abroad, and that the Kingdom of England and our present government may however be safe, I am sure at least that the unhappy wretches already drawn into rebellion, and more that may follow their example, must be sufferers. The distress must fall somewhere, and all humane people must have some share in it.’
Again, some idea of the half-frightened, half-jocular feeling of persons in humbler life (as to invasion) may be gathered from a letter in the same Correspondence (ii. 384), written from Fulham, by a waiting gentlewoman in the service of Mrs. Donnellan, to a friend in the country:—‘I really believe in my heart, Master do not care if the French comes and eats us all up alive. Is there not flat boats, I know not how many thousands, ready to come every day? and when they once set out, they will be with us as quick as a swallow can fly, almost; and when they land we have no body to fight them, because you will not raise your militia. For my part, I dare not go to the Thames, for fear they should be coming; and if I see one of our own boats laden with carrots, I am ready to drop down thinking it one of the French.’
LADY M. W. MONTAGUE.
How difficult it was for English subjects in France to send news to London is exemplified in a letter, written in March, 1744, by Lady Mary Wortley Montague, at Avignon, to her husband, of an interview with the Duke de Richelieu. The latter asked her, ‘What party the Pretender had in England?’ ‘I answered,’ she writes, ‘as I thought, a very small one.’ ‘We are told otherwise at Paris,’ said he; ‘however a bustle at this time may serve to facilitate our other projects, and we intend to attempt a descent; at least, it will cause the troops to be recalled, and perhaps Admiral Mathews will be obliged to leave the passage open for Don Philip.’ The lady thus continues: ‘You may imagine how much I wished to give you immediate notice of this; but as all the letters are opened at Paris, it would have been to no purpose to write it by post, and have only gained me a powerful enemy in the Court of France. In my letter to Sir Robert Walpole, from Venice, I offered my service, and desired to know in what manner I could send intelligence, if anything happened to my knowledge that could be of use to England. I believe he imagined that I wanted some gratification, and he only returned me cold thanks.’
CARTE, THE NONJUROR.
‘Nobody is yet taken up: God knows why not!’ Such is the exclamation of Horace Walpole in a letter to Mann, on the 23rd of February, this year. Government, however, soon began the system of arrest. Colonel Cecil, supposed to be designed for the Chevalier’s Secretary of State, was captured. Papers which were found upon him compromised Lord Barrymore, the Pretender’s general, who, before day-break on a March morning, was arrested by a file of soldiers at his house in Henrietta Street, Cavendish Square. Cecil had previously removed his papers out of harm’s way; but, thinking the danger over, he had resumed possession of them. ‘These discoveries,’ says Horace Walpole, ‘go on but lamely. One may perceive who is not Minister, rather than who is.’ The notorious Carte, who had been taken up under a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, was carried before the Duke of Newcastle. ‘Are you a bishop?’ asked the duke, thinking he might be a Nonjuring prelate. ‘No, my lord duke,’ replied the Nonjuror; ‘there are no bishops in England but what are of your Grace’s own making; and I am sure I have no reason to expect that honour.’ After he was set at liberty, the saucy ‘Westminster Journal’ remarked: ‘Mr. Carte was confined for he knew not what; and discharged for he knew not why.’