Frightful troops of thin-jawed zealots,
Curs'd enemies to kings and prelates;
and declared that those "champions of religious errors" made London seem
As if the prince of terrors
Was coming with his dismal train
To plague the city once again.
The memory of what the Plague had done in London was still green enough to give bitter force to this allusion.
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Marlborough could have afforded to despise what Hotspur calls the "metre-ballad-mongers," but his pride received a check and chill not easily to be got over. When fairly rid of his enthusiastic followers and admirers he went to the House of Lords almost at once, and took the oaths; but he did not remain there. In truth, he soon found himself bitterly disappointed; not with the people—they could not have been more enthusiastic than they were—but with the new ruling power. Immediately after the death of the Queen, and even before the proclamation of the new sovereign had taken place, the Hanoverian resident in London handed to the Privy Council a letter from George, in George's own handwriting, naming the men who were to act in combination with the seven great officers of State as lords justices. The power to make this nomination was provided for George by the Regency Act. This document contained the names of eighteen of the principal Whig peers; the Duke of Shrewsbury, the Duke of Somerset, and the Duke of Argyll were among them; so, too, were Lords Cowper, Halifax, and Townshend. It was noted with wonder that the illustrious name of Somers did not appear on the list, nor did that of Marlborough, nor that of Marlborough's son-in-law, Lord Sunderland. It is likely that the omission of these names was only made in the first instance because George and his advisers were somewhat afraid of his getting into the hands of a sort of dictatorship—a dictatorship in commission, as it might be called, made up of three or four influential men. The King afterwards hastened to show every attention to Marlborough and Somers and Sunderland, and he soon restored Marlborough to all his public offices. But George seems to have had a profound and a very well-justified distrust of Marlborough. Though he honored him with marks of respect and attention, though he restored him to the great position he had held in the State, yet the King never allowed Marlborough to suppose that he really had regained his former influence in court and political life. Marlborough was shelved, and he already knew it, and bitterly complained of it.
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CHAPTER IV.
THE KING COMES.
[Sidenote: 1714—Hanover]