Probably few politicians have owed quite so large a debt of gratitude to their enemies as that incurred by the Earl of Oxford. His ministry at home had been marked by weaknesses which went perilously near the edge of public calamity. The Peace which was its characteristic achievement abroad had brought with it many real blessings, but they were won at the cost of a large sacrifice of national pride, if not also by some sacrifice of national honour. The wild excesses of his adversaries now gave back to the obnoxious Minister the strength of his best days. |Oxford’s behaviour under trial.| When Pope wrote of him, ‘The utmost weight of ministerial power and popular hatred were almost worth bearing for the glory of so dauntless a conduct as he has shown under it,’ the praise came from a pen which is known to have been employed, now and again, to flatter the great. But it was no flatterer who wrote to Oxford himself—‘Your intrepid behaviour under this prosecution astonishes every one but me, who know you so well, and how little it is in the power of human actions or events to discompose you. I have seen your Lordship labouring under great difficulties and exposed to great dangers, and overcoming both, by the providence of God, and your own wisdom and courage.’ Those words came from one of the shrewdest and most acute observers of human character that have ever lived. They were written after a close and daily intimacy of four eventful years. Oxford, in his day of power, had disappointed Swift of some cherished hopes, which now could never be renewed. The praise of Swift must have been sincere. |Swift’s Correspondence, in Works, by Scott, vol. xvi, pp. 232, 233.| When such a writer, at such a time, goes on to add—‘You suffer for having preserved your country, and for having been the great instrument, under God, of his present Majesty’s peaceable accession to the throne;—this I know, and this your enemies know’—the most prepossessed reader cannot but feel that the absence from the two and twenty articles of impeachment of any charge of plotting against the Hanover succession is alike intelligible and significant.
The Trial. 1717, July.
When Oxford’s imprisonment could be no longer protracted without a trial, the two Houses of Parliament were unable to agree as to the mode of proceeding. It was obvious on all sides that the charge of ‘treason’ would fail. The Lords declared that on the articles imputing treason judgment must be given, before the articles imputing ‘other high crimes and misdemeanours’ could be entered upon. They declared that the attempt of the Commons to mix up the two was ‘a new and unjustifiable proceeding.’ |Lords’ Journals, vol. xx, p. 515, seqq. Commons’ Journals, vol. xviii.| The Commons refused to adduce evidence on the charge of treason, and to take the issue upon that.
State Trials, vol. xv, 1164, seqq.
On the first of July, 1717, the Earl was brought to the bar to hear from the Lord High Steward a declaration that ‘Robert, Earl of Oxford, is, by the unanimous vote of all the Lords present, acquitted of the articles of impeachment exhibited against him, by the House of Commons, for High Treason and other high crimes and misdemeanours, and that the said impeachment shall be and is hereby dismissed.’ Then the Steward said, ‘Lieutenant of the Tower, You are now to discharge your prisoner.’
Oxford’s return to the House of Lords. 1717, July.
On the third of July, the Earl resumed his seat as a peer of Parliament. On the fourth, the Commons resolved to address the King, beseeching him ‘to except Robert, Earl of Oxford, out of the Act of Grace which Your Majesty has been graciously pleased to promise from the throne, to the end the Commons may be at liberty to proceed against the said Earl in a parliamentary way.’ |Journals, vol. xviii, p. 617.| No such proceeding, of course, was taken or intended.
For several years to come Lord Oxford took part, from time to time, in the business of Parliament. He served often on Committees in these final years of his public life, just as he had done during his early years of apprenticeship in the Lower House. In the Lords, as in the Commons, he was listened to with especial deference on points of parliamentary law and privilege.
From time to time, also, the Jacobite agitators, both at home and abroad, made repeated appeals to him, direct or indirect, for countenance and help in their schemes. They had, it seems, a confident hope that the sufferings and the humiliation inflicted on him in the years 1715–1717 must have so entirely alienated him from the reigning House, as now, at all events, to have prepared him to be really their fellow-conspirator, on the first occurrence of a promising opportunity. |Alleged renewal of Correspondence with the Stuart Agents.| How far the Earl listened to such suggestions and persuasions is still, it will be seen, matter of great and curious uncertainty.[[38]]
Domestic Life of Lord Oxford.