Colonel Wardle was publicly thanked for his disinterested service, in all the principal towns in the kingdom. He did not escape malignity however; and his popularity on the one hand was balanced by persecution on the other, headed by Mrs. Clarke herself. After the lapse of a year or so, she produced a very naughty, brazen-faced book, under the title of “The Rival Princes;”[10] in which most of the gentlemen who had aided in exposing her were more or less libelled. It was a book that could only have been produced by a courtesan, and it, probably, did not do any harm either to Colonel Wardle, or to any of those whose names were involved. Mr. Cobbett’s name appears in it, as having been incited to anger against the Duke, on account of the latter having thought it prudent not to receive Cobbett at dinner, as an opposition writer. Mr. Cobbett thereupon informed his public that he had been introduced to Mrs. Clarke, and was invited to dine with her; but that his wife disapproved of any such questionable acquaintance, and he didn’t go.[11]
It is exceedingly probable that the Royal Family were getting offended with Mr. Cobbett, in spite of his professions of loyalty to the constitution, and his really affectionate references to the king; and it would surprise no one, at this distance of time, to learn that the Prince of Wales and Mr. Perceval were putting their heads together with a view to silencing him. That which brought Mr. Cobbett into the one great trouble of his life happened soon after the above-mentioned events.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Mr. H. Redhead Yorke was a barrister with a love for politics and some ability in political disquisition. He had been imprisoned in York Castle, on account of his writings, in 1794; but had now, in maturer years, become more “loyal.”
[2] Brougham, in his partial way, thought the business “much against him,” and insinuated that the story might have been made to look worse. Vide “Memoirs,” i. 437.
The British Critic, doing penance for its former sins, says, “This is merely a report of certain facts, which it has appeared useful to bring forward at this time,” &c.
[3] “Diary and Correspondence,” ii. 183.
[4] The well-known newsman of Bow Street, Covent Garden. He had been the publisher of the Register since its commencement.
[5] Here are reminiscences of Everley, written nearly twenty years after:—