Constitutional History of England, Henry VII to George II. Volume 3 of 3

by Henry Hallam

[329] Lockhart gives us a speech of Sir William Whitelock in 1714, bitterly inveighing against the elector of Hanover, who, he hoped, would never come to the crown. Some of the whigs cried out on this that he should be brought to the bar; when Whitelock said he would not recede an inch; he hoped the queen would outlive that prince, and in comparison to her he did not value all the princes of Germany one farthing. P. 469. Swift, in "Some Free Thoughts upon the present State of Affairs," 1714, speaks with much contempt of the house of Hanover and its sovereign; and suggests, in derision, that the infant son of the electoral prince might be invited to take up his residence in England. He pretends in this tract, as in all his writings, to deny entirely that there was the least tendency towards jacobitism, either in any one of the ministry, or even any eminent individual out of it; but with so impudent a disregard of truth that I am not perfectly convinced of his own innocence as to that intrigue. Thus, in his "Inquiry into the Behaviour of the Queen's last Ministry," he says, "I remember, during the late treaty of peace, discoursing at several times with some very eminent persons of the opposite side with whom I had long acquaintance. I asked them seriously, whether they or any of their friends did in earnest believe, or suspect the queen or the ministry to have any favourable regards towards the Pretender? They all confessed for themselves that they believed nothing of the matter," etc. He then tells us that he had the curiosity to ask almost every person in great employment, whether they knew or had heard of any one particular man, except professed nonjurors, that discovered the least inclination towards the Pretender; and the whole number they could muster up did not amount to above five or six; among whom one was a certain old lord lately dead, and one a private gentleman, of little consequence and of a broken fortune, etc. (vol. 15, p. 94, edit. 12mo, 1765). This acute observer of mankind well knew that lying is frequently successful in the ratio of its effrontery and extravagance. There are, however, some passages in this tract, as in others written by Swift, in relation to that time, which serve to illustrate the obscure machinations of those famous last years of the queen.

[330] On a motion in the House of Lords that the protestant succession was in danger, April 5, 1714, the ministry had only a majority of 76 to 69, several bishops and other tories voting against them. Parl. Hist. vi. 1334. Even in the Commons the division was but 256 to 208. Id. 1347.

[331] Somerville has a separate dissertation on the danger of the protestant succession, intended to prove that it was in no danger at all, except through the violence of the whigs in exasperating the queen. It is true that Lockhart's Commentaries were not published at this time; but he had Macpherson before him, and the Memoirs of Berwick, and even gave credit to the authenticity of Mesnager, which I do not. But this sensible, and on the whole impartial writer, had contracted an excessive prejudice against the whigs of that period as a party, though he seems to adopt their principles. His dissertation is a laboured attempt to explain away the most evident facts, and to deny what no one of either party at that time would probably have in private denied.

[332] The queen was very ill about the close of 1713; in fact it became evident, as it had long been apprehended, that she could not live much longer. The Hanoverians, both whigs and tories, urged that the electoral prince should be sent for; it was thought that whichever of the competitors should have the start upon her death would succeed in securing the crown. Macpherson, 385, 546, 557 et alibi. Can there be a more complete justification of this measure, which Somerville and the tory writers treat as disrespectful to the queen? The Hanoverian envoy, Schutz, demanded the writ for the electoral prince without his master's orders; but it was done with the advice of all the whig leaders (Id. 592), and with the sanction of the Electress Sophia, who died immediately after. "All who are for Hanover believe the coming of the electoral prince to be advantageous; all those against it are frightened at it." Id. 596. It was doubtless a critical moment; and the court of Hanover might be excused for pausing in the choice of dangers, as the step must make the queen decidedly their enemy. She was greatly offended, and forbade the Hanoverian minister to appear at court. Indeed she wrote to the elector, on May 19, expressing her disapprobation of the prince's coming over to England, and "her determination to oppose a project so contrary to her royal authority, however fatal the consequences may be." Id. 621. Oxford and Bolingbroke intimate the same. Id. 593; and see Bolingbroke Correspondence, iv. 512, a very strong passage. The measure was given up, whether from unwillingness on the part of George to make the queen irreconcilable, or, as is at least equally probable, out of jealousy of his son. The former certainly disappointed his adherents by more apparent apathy than their ardour required; which will not be surprising, when we reflect that, even upon the throne, he seemed to care very little about it. Macpherson, sub ann. 1714, passim.

[333] He was strongly pressed by his English adherents to declare himself a protestant. He wrote a very good answer. Macpherson, 436. Madame de Maintenon says, some catholics urged him to the same course, "par une politique poussée un peu trop loin." Lettres à la Princesse des Ursins, ii. 428.

[334] The rage of the tory party against the queen and Lord Oxford for retaining whigs in office is notorious from Swift's private letters, and many other authorities. And Bolingbroke, in his letter to Sir W. Wyndham, very fairly owns their intention "to fill the employments of the kingdom, down to the meanest, with tories."—"We imagined," he proceeds, "that such measures, joined to the advantages of our numbers and our property, would secure us against all attempts during her reign; and that we should soon become too considerable not to make our terms in all events which might happen afterwards; concerning which, to speak truly, I believe few or none of us had any very settled resolution." P. 11. It is rather amusing to observe that those who called themselves the tory or church party, seem to have fancied they had a natural right to power and profit, so that an injury was done them when these rewards went another way; and I am not sure that something of the same prejudice has not been perceptible in times a good deal later.

[335] Though no republican party, as I have elsewhere observed, could with any propriety be said to exist, it is easy to perceive that a certain degree of provocation from the Crown might have brought one together in no slight force. These two propositions are perfectly compatible.

[336] This is well put by Bishop Willis in his speech on the bill against Atterbury. Parl. Hist. viii. 305. In a pamphlet, entitled "English Advice to the Freeholders" (Somers Tracts, xiii. 521), ascribed to Atterbury himself, a most virulent attack is made on the government, merely because what he calls the church party had been thrown out of office. "Among all who call themselves whigs," he says, "and are of any consideration as such, name me the man I cannot prove to be an inveterate enemy to the church of England; and I will be a convert that instant to their cause." It must be owned perhaps that the whig ministry might better have avoided some reflections on the late times in the addresses of both houses; and still more, some not very constitutional recommendations to the electors, in the proclamation calling the new parliament in 1714 Parl. Hist. vi. 44, 50. "Never was prince more universally well received by subjects than his present majesty on his arrival; and never was less done by a prince to create a change in people's affections. But so it is, a very observable change hath happened. Evil infusions were spread on the one hand; and, it may be, there was too great a stoicism or contempt of popularity on the other." "Argument to prove the Affections of the People of England to be the best Security for the Government," p. 11 (1716). This is the pamphlet written to recommend lenity towards the rebels, which Addison has answered in the Freeholder. It is invidious, and perhaps secretly jacobite. Bolingbroke observes, in the letter already quoted, that the Pretender's journey from Bar, in 1714, was a mere farce, no party being ready to receive him; but "the menaces of the whigs, backed by some very rash declarations [those of the king], and little circumstances of humour, which frequently offend more than real injuries, and by the entire change of all persons in employment, blew up the coals."—P. 34. Then, he owns, the tories looked to Bar. "The violence of the whigs forced them into the arms of the Pretender." It is to be remarked on all this, that, by Bolingbroke's own account, the tories, if they had no "formed design" or "settled resolution" that way, were not very determined in their repugnance before the queen's death; and that the chief violence of which they complained was, that George chose to employ his friends rather than his enemies.

[337] The trials after this rebellion were not conducted with quite that appearance of impartiality which we now exact from judges. Chief Baron Montagu reprimanded a jury for acquitting some persons indicted for treason; and Tindal, an historian very strongly on the court side, admits that the dying speeches of some of the sufferers made an impression on the people, so as to increase rather than lessen the number of jacobites. Continuation of Rapin, p. 501 (folio edit.). There seems, however, upon the whole, to have been greater and less necessary severity after the rebellion in 1745; and upon this latter occasion it is impossible not to reprobate the execution of Mr. Ratcliffe (brother of that Earl of Derwentwater who had lost his head in 1716), after an absence of thirty years from this country, to the sovereign of which he had never professed allegiance nor could owe any, except by the fiction of our law.

[338] Parl. Hist. 73. It was carried against Oxford by 247 to 127, Sir Joseph Jekyll strongly opposing it, though he had said before (Id. 67) that they had more than sufficient evidence against Bolingbroke on the statute of Edward III. A motion was made in the Lords, to consult the judges whether the articles amounted to treason, but lost by 84 to 52. Id. 154. Lord Cowper on this occasion challenged all the lawyers in England to disprove that proposition. The proposal of reference to the judges was perhaps premature; but the house must surely have done this before their final sentence, or shown themselves more passionate than in the case of Lord Strafford.