[74a] Swift’s sister Jane, who had married a currier in Bride Street, named Joseph Fenton, a match to which Swift strongly objected. Deane Swift says that Swift never saw his sister again after the marriage; he had offered her £500 if she would show a “proper disdain” of Fenton. On her husband’s dying bankrupt, however, Swift paid her an annuity until 1738, when she died in the same lodging with Esther Johnson’s mother, Mrs. Bridget Mose, at Farnham (Forster’s Swift, pp. 118–19).
[74b] Welbore Ellis, appointed Bishop of Kildare in 1705. He was translated to Meath in 1731, and died three years later.
[74c] The expression of the Archbishop is, “I am not to conceal from you that some expressed a little jealously, that you would not be acceptable to the present courtiers; intimating that you were under the reputation of being a favourite of the late party in power” (King to Swift, Nov. 2, 1710).
[75] This indignant letter is dated Nov. 23, 1710. It produced an apologetic reply from the Archbishop (Nov. 30, 1710), who represented that the letter to Southwell was a snare laid in his way, since if he declined signing it, it might have been interpreted into disrespect to the Duke of Ormond. Of the bishops King said, “You cannot do yourself a greater service than to bring this to a good issue, to their shame and conviction.”
[76a] William Bromley (died 1732) was M.P. for the University of Oxford. A good debater and a strong High Churchman, he was Secretary of State from August 1713 until the Queen’s death in the following year.
[76b] Colonel, afterwards Major-General, John Hill (died 1735) was younger brother of Mrs. Masham, the Queen’s favourite, and a poor relation of the Duchess of Marlborough. He was wounded at Mons in 1709, and in 1711 was sent on an unsuccessful expedition to attack the French settlements in North America. In 1713 he was appointed to command the troops at Dunkirk.
[76c] “The footmen in attendance at the Houses of Parliament used at this time to form themselves into a deliberative body, and usually debated the same points with their masters. It was jocularly said that several questions were lost by the Court party in the menial House of Lords which were carried triumphantly in the real assembly; which was at length explained by a discovery that the Scottish peers whose votes were sometimes decisive of a question had but few representatives in the convocation of lacqueys. The sable attendant mentioned by Swift, being an appendage of the brother of Mrs. Masham, the reigning favourite, had a title to the chair, the Court and Tory interest being exerted in his favour” (Scott). Steele alludes to the “Footmen’s Parliament” in No. 88 of the Spectator.
[77b] A Court of Equity abolished in the reign of Charles I. It met in the Camera Alba, or Whitehall, and the room appears to have retained the name of the old Court.