Guiscard’s attempt on the life of Harley. 1711, March.
Antoine de Guiscard was a French adventurer, whose private life had been marked by great profligacy. He had taken an obscure part in the insurrection of the Cevennes—rather as a recruiting agent than as a combatant. In that character he had met with encouragement to raise a refugee regiment in England. Hopes had also been held out to him that a British auxiliary contingent would be landed on the southern coast of France. In the course, however, of some preliminary inquiries into the position of the insurrectionists, it was found that such an invasion would have little chance of any useful result, and the project was abandoned. Meanwhile, a pension of £400 a year had been bestowed on the emissary.
But ere long it was discovered that Guiscard had profited by opportunities, afforded him in the course of the discussions about the proposed expedition, to make himself conversant with many particulars of military and naval affairs, and that it was his habit to send advices into France. Some of his letters were seized. Their writer was arrested on the 8th of March, 1711, and was taken, immediately, before a Committee of the Privy Council.
When examined as to his illicit intercourse with France he persisted in mere denials. At length, one of his letters was shown to him by Harley, and he was closely pressed as to his motives in writing it. He then addressed himself to Secretary St. John, and begged permission to speak with him apart. The Secretary answered, ‘You are here before the Council as a criminal. Whatever you may have to say must be said to all of us.’ The man persisted in refusing to reply to any further questions, unless his request was granted. Seeing that nothing more could then be obtained from him, the Lord President rose to ring the bell for a messenger, that the prisoner might be removed in custody.
At that moment the prisoner pulled a penknife from his pocket, turned towards Harley, near to whom he stood, and stabbed him in the breast. He repeated the stroke, and then rushed towards St. John. But between the prisoner and the Secretary there stood a small table, over which he stumbled. St. John drew his sword, and, with the words ‘The villain has killed Mr. Harley,’ struck at him, as did also the Duke of Ormond and the Duke of Newcastle. Lord Powlett cried out ‘Do not kill him.’ Presently the assassin was in the hands of several messengers, with whom, notwithstanding his wounds, he struggled so desperately that more than one of them received severe injuries. When at length overpowered, he said to Ormond, ‘My Lord, why do you not despatch me?’ ‘That,’ replied the Duke, ‘is not the work of gentlemen. ’Tis another man’s business.’
Harley’s wound was so severe that for several days there was a belief that it would prove mortal. It entailed a lingering illness.[[36]] Before his recovery, his assailant died in prison. The coroner’s inquest ascribed Guiscard’s death to bruises received from one of the messengers who strove to bind him, but Swift tells us that he died of the sword-wounds.
Journal to Stella, pp. 202–214.
That keen observer had seen, long before this attempted assassination, the latent personal jealousies between Harley and St. John. |Harley becomes Lord High Treasurer.| He had recognised in those jealousies the gravest peril of Harley’s government. Guiscard’s crime had now made Harley the most popular man in the country, and it had doubled his favour with the Queen. On his recovery, he received the congratulations of the House of Commons, expressed with more than usual emphasis. |Journals of H. of Commons, 1711. 27 April.| By the Queen he was raised to the peerage (24 May, 1711) as Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer. Five days afterwards (29 May) he was made Lord High Treasurer. |Council Register, Anne, vol. v, p. 249.| His elevation intensified the jealousy of St. John into something which already closely resembled hatred, although years were to elapse before the mask could be quite thrown aside. It is amusing to read the philosophical reflection with which the Secretary sent the news to Lord Ossory:—‘Our friend Mr. Harley is now Earl of Oxford and High Treasurer. This great advancement is what the labour he has gone through, the danger he has run, and the services he has performed, seem to deserve. |St. John to Lord Ossory; 1711, 12 June (Corresp. i, 148).| But he stands on slippery ground, and envy is always near the great to fling up their heels on the least trip which they make.’
The Earl of Oxford had not long obtained the Treasurer’s staff before he received some characteristic exhortations from the Jacobite section of his Tory supporters of the use which he ought to make of it. Atterbury came to him, on the part of some of the Treasurer’s ‘particular friends,’ to acquaint him how uneasy they were that he had neither dissolved the Parliament, nor removed from office nearly so many Whigs as those particular friends wished to see removed. ‘I know very well,’ replied the Earl, ‘the men from whom that message comes, and I am also very sensible of the difficulties I have to struggle with. If, in addition, I must communicate all my measures, it will be necessary for me to assure Her Majesty that I can no longer do her any service.’
Oxford and the October Club.