As news reached town that the rebellion did not grow in the North, and that there was no rising in England to help it, Walpole wrote, ‘Spirit seems to rise in London.’ The king, or as Walpole calls him, ‘the person most concerned,’ took events with heroic imperturbability, or stupid indifference. Charles Edward had repealed the union between England and Scotland. King George believed himself to be, and likely to remain, King of Great Britain, as before. When ministers proposed to him any measures with reference to the outbreak, his Majesty only answered, ‘Pooh! don’t talk to me about that stuff!’ It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that ministers did not summon Parliament. They had nothing either to offer or to notify. The London merchants, on the other hand, were zealous and liberal in opening subscriptions for raising more troops.
VARYING OPINIONS.
In this time of uncertainty, if not trouble, the professional patriot came to the surface in the person of Alderman Heathcote. At a City meeting, that sham Jacobite proposed to supplant a loyal address to the king by a demand for a redress of grievances; ‘but not one man seconded him.’ Walpole, with all his affected indifference and pretence of indifference on the part of the public, betrays the true temper of the metropolis, when he says, ‘We have great hopes the Highlanders will not follow him [Charles Edward] so far [into England], very few of them could be persuaded the last time to go to Preston.’ And something of the general uneasiness may be traced in Walpole’s intimation to Montagu, of his dislike of becoming ‘a loyal sufferer in a thread-bare coat, and shivering in an antechamber at Hanover, or reduced to teach Latin and English to the young princes at Copenhagen. Will you ever write to me in my garret at Herrenhausen?’ With all this simulation of light-heartedness, Walpole writes seriously enough, from Arlington Street, ‘Accounts from Scotland vary perpetually, and at best are never very certain.... One can’t tell what assurances of support they may have from the Jacobites in England ... but nothing of the sort has yet appeared.... One can hardly believe that the English are more disaffected than the Scotch, and among the latter no persons of property have joined them.’ The temper of the Government is also described in a few words: ‘Lord Granville and his faction persist in persuading the king that it is an affair of no consequence; and, for the Duke of Newcastle, he is glad when the rebels make any progress in order to refute Lord Granville’s assertions.’ London was as delighted as Walpole with the naval watch kept in the Channel, and with the spirit of the English nobility adding, or promising to add, regiments to the regular force, to which, however, they gave little or no additional strength. He who had been laughing and calling others laughers, confesses in September that his own apprehensions were not so strong as they had been. ‘If we get over this I shall believe that we never can be hurt, for we never can be more exposed to danger. Whatever disaffection there is to the present family, it plainly does not proceed from love to the other.’
LONDON WIT.
This sense of security was seriously shaken when London got the news of the victory gained by Charles Edward’s army near Preston Pans over General Cope. It was known to ‘the Papists’ on Sunday, but the Government received no official news till Tuesday! ‘The defeat,’ says Walpole, ‘frightens everybody but those it rejoices.’ Then he, who had alternately laughed and trembled, affected the philosopher, and pretended that he could endure without emotion the ruin which he had foreseen. ‘I shall suffer with fools, without having any malice to our enemies, who act sensibly from principle and interest.’ When London found that no advantage was taken of the victory by the victors, London and Walpole resumed their good spirits. The latter referred to the subjoined advertisement as a proof that there was more wit in London than in all Scotland. ‘To all jolly Butchers.—My dear Hearts! The Papists eat no meat on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, nor during Lent! Your friend, John Steel.’ Such wit can hardly have alarmed the Papists, but it may have had something to do with a report which followed,—that they intended to rise and massacre their enemies in London. It was taken seriously. All the Guards were ordered out, and the Tower was closed at seven o’clock. When the murrain among the cattle broke out, it was absurdly said that the Papists had poisoned the pools! The Papists however did send money contributions from London to Charles Edward. It is wonderful that the highwaymen did not intercept the bearers, and make them deliver.
THE PARLIAMENT.
When Parliament met in October, the attendance was thin. The Pretender had threatened to confiscate the property of all Scotch members who should attend, and to make it treason for English members to do so! Yet there were Jacobites present, and they opposed the address as well as the suspension of the Habeas Corpus. A proposal to enquire into the causes of the progress of the Rebellion was shelved by a majority of 194 to 112. Most of the former felt, it is said, ‘the necessity of immediately putting an end to it, and that the fire should be quenched before we should enquire who kindled or promoted it.’
There were many whose fears had been great because of the greatness of the stake. These rejoiced when the Guards left London, roaring as they marched from the parade that they would neither give nor receive quarter. Walpole affirmed that the army adored the duke who was to be their commander. On the other hand, ‘the Calligulisms’ of the Prince of Wales brought on him a general contempt. The working men were, almost without exception, loyal. When there was an idea of the king going to the encampment at Finchley, the weavers offered him a guard of a thousand men. It was in the caricature of the march to Finchley that Hogarth exhibited the baser side of his character. The wrath of the king at the painter’s insult to the defenders of their country was well-founded. The popular feeling was not with the artist. When the prisoners captured in the ‘Soleil’ were brought to London, it was difficult to save them from being cruelly handled. THE RADCLIFFES. Among them was Mr. Radcliffe who had been condemned to death with his brother, Lord Derwentwater, in 1716, and Mr. Radcliffe’s son, who was at first suspected of being Charles Edward’s brother, Henry. This suspicion very nearly cost the young captive his life, more than once, on the road. ‘He said that he had heard of English mobs, but could not conceive they were so dreadful; and wished he had been shot at the battle of Dettingen, where he had been engaged. The father, whom they call Lord Derwentwater, said, on entering the Tower, that he had never expected to arrive there alive. For the young man, he must only be treated as a French captive; for the father it is sufficient to produce him at the Old Bailey, and prove that he is the individual person condemned for the last Rebellion; and so to Tyburn.’ Walpole reflected the general feeling of the metropolis which had been kept so long in a state of suspense, sometimes concealing it under indifference, at others not caring to conceal its own fears.
Noblemen’s servants were not rendered particularly cheerful in October, by a report that they were to be made to serve as soldiers, receiving their pay both as warriors and flunkeys. The soldiery were so ill off, that civilians bestirred themselves for their relief. The Quakers contributed ten thousand woollen waistcoats to keep them warm. The Corporation of London gave them as many blankets and watchcoats. King George, when everything else had been provided, paid for their shoes out of his privy purse!
THE LONDON JACOBITES.