[Sidenote: 1714—Lord Townshend]
Lord Townshend, the Prime-minister, as we may call him, was not a man of any conspicuous ability. He belonged to that class of competent, capable, trustworthy Englishmen who discharge satisfactorily the duties of any office to which they are called in the ordinary course of their lives. Such a man as Townshend would have made a respectable Lord Mayor or a satisfactory Chairman of Quarter Sessions, if fortune had appointed him to no higher functions. He might have changed places probably with an average Lord Mayor or Chairman of Quarter Sessions without any particular effect being wrought on English history. Men of this stamp have nothing but official rank in common with the statesmen Prime-ministers—the Walpoles and Peels and Palmerstons; or with the men of genius—the Pitts and Disraelis and Gladstones. Lord Townshend had performed the regular functions of a statesman in training at that time. He had been an Envoy Extraordinary, and had made treaties. He was a brother-in-law of Walpole. Just now Walpole and he are friends as well as connections; the time came when Walpole and he were destined to quarrel; and then Townshend conducted himself with remarkable forbearance, self-restraint, and dignity. He was an honest and respectable man, blunt of speech, and of rugged, homespun intelligence, about whom, since his day, the world is little concerned. Such name as he had is almost absorbed in the more brilliant reputation of his grandson—the spoiled child of the House of Commons, as Burke called him—that Charles Townshend of the famous "Champagne Speech;" the Chancellor of the Exchequer, of whom we shall hear a good deal later on, and who, by the sheer force of animal spirits, feather-headed talents, and ignorance, became, in a certain perverted sense, the father of American Independence.
The Second Secretary of State, James, afterwards Earl, Stanhope, was a man of very different mould. Stanhope was one of the few Englishmen who have held high position in arms and politics. He had been a brilliant {100} soldier; had fought in Flanders and Spain; had distinguished himself at Barcelona, even under a commander like Peterborough, whose daring spirit rendered it hard for any subaltern to shine in rivalry; had been himself raised to command, and kept on winning victories until his military genius found itself overcrowed by that of the great French captain, the Duke de Vendôme. His soldier's career came to a premature close, as indeed his whole mortal career did not very long after the time at which we have now arrived. Stanhope was a man of scholarly education, almost a scholar; he had abilities above the common; he had indomitable energy, and was as daring and resolute in the council as in the field. He had a domineering mind, was outspoken and haughty, trampling over other men's opinions as a charge of cavalry treads down the grasses of the field it traverses. He made enemies, and did not heed their enmity. He was single-minded, and, what was not very common in that day, he was free from any love of money or taint of personal greed. He does not rank high either among statesmen or soldiers, but as statesman and soldier together he has made for himself a distinct and a peculiar place. His career will always be remembered without effort by the readers of English history.
[Sidenote: 1714—Coronation of the King]
A new Privy Council was formed which included the name of Marlborough. The Duchess of Marlborough urged her husband not to accept this office of barren honor. It is said that the one only occasion on which Marlborough had ventured to act against the dictation of his wife was when he thus placed himself again at the disposal of the King. He never ceased to regret that he had not followed her advice in this instance as in others. His proud heart soon burned within him when he found that he was appreciated, understood, and put aside; mocked with a semblance of power, humiliated under the pretext of doing him honor.
Much more humiliating, much more ominous, however, was the reception awaiting Oxford and Bolingbroke. From the moment of his arrival, the King showed himself {101} determined to take no friendly notice of the great Tories. Oxford found it most difficult even to get audience of his Majesty. The morning after the King's arrival, Oxford was allowed, after much pressure and many entreaties, to wait upon the Sovereign, and to kiss his hand. He was received in chilling silence. Truly, it was not likely that much conversation would take place, seeing that George spoke no English and Oxford spoke no German. But there was something in the King's demeanor towards him, as well as in the mere fact that no words were exchanged, which must have told Oxford that his enemies were in triumph over him, and were determined to bring about his doom. Even before George had landed in England he had sent directions that Bolingbroke should be removed from his place of Secretary of State. On the last day of August this order was executed in a manner which made it seem especially premature, and even ignominious. The Privy Council, as it stood, was then dissolved, and the new Council appointed, which consisted of only thirty-three members. Somers was one of this new Council, but in name alone; his growing years, his increasing infirmities, and the flickering decay of his once great intellect, allowed him but little chance of ever again taking an active part in the affairs of the State. Marlborough was named a member of it, as we have seen. The Lords Justices ordered that all despatches addressed to the Secretary of State should be brought to them. Bolingbroke himself had to wait at the door of the Council Chamber with his despatch-box, to receive the commands of his new masters.
France, tired of war, recognized the new King of England. The coronation of the King took place on October 20th; Bolingbroke and Oxford were both present. We learn from some of the journals of the day that it had rained on the previous afternoon, and that many of the Jacobites promised themselves that the rain would continue to the next day, and so retard, if only for a few hours, the hateful ceremony. But their hopes of foul weather {102} were disappointed. The rain did not keep on, and the coronation took place successfully in London; not, however, without some Jacobite disturbances in Bristol, Birmingham, Norwich, and other places.
[Sidenote: 1714—Flight of Bolingbroke]
The Government soon after issued a proclamation dissolving the existing Parliament, and another summoning a new one. The latter called on all the electors of the kingdom, in consequence of the evil designs of men disaffected to the King, "to have a particular regard to such as showed a firmness to the Protestant Succession when it was in danger." The appeal was clearly unconstitutional, according to our ideas, but it was made, probably, in answer to James Stuart's manifesto a few weeks before, in which the Pretender reasserted his claims to the throne, and declared that he had only waited until the death "of the Princess, our sister, of whose good intentions towards us we could not for some time past well doubt."
The general elections showed an overwhelming majority for the Whigs. The not unnatural fluctuations of public opinion at such a time are effectively illustrated by the sudden and complete manner in which the majority was transferred, now to this side, now to that. Just at this moment, and indeed for long after, the Whigs had it all their own way. Only a few years ago their fortunes had seemed to have sunk to zero, and now they had mounted again to the zenith. The King opened Parliament in person; the Speech was read for him by the Lord Chancellor, for the very good reason that George could not pronounce English. That Speech declared that the established Constitution, Church and State, should be the rule of his Government. The debate on the Address was remarkable. In the House of Lords the Address contained the words, "To recover the reputation of this kingdom." Bolingbroke made his last speech in Parliament. He objected to these words, and proposed an amendment, with an eloquence and an energy worthy of his best days, and with a front as seemingly fearless as though his fortunes were at the full. He contended that to talk of {103} "recovering" the reputation of the kingdom was to cast a stigma on the glory of the late reign. He proposed to substitute the word "maintain" for the word "recover." His amendment was defeated by sixty-six votes to thirty-three: exactly two to one. In the House of Commons the Address, which was moved by Walpole, contained words still more significant. The Address spoke of the Pretender's attempts "to stir up your Majesty's subjects to rebellion," declared that his hopes "were built upon the measures that had been taken for some time past in Great Britain," and added: "It shall be our business to trace out those measures whereon he placed his hopes, and to bring the authors of them to condign punishment." These words were the first distinct intimation given by the Ministers that they intended to call their predecessors to account. Stanhope stated their resolve still more explicitly in the course of the debate. Bolingbroke sat and heard it announced that he and his late colleague were to be impeached for high-treason. He put on an appearance of serenity and philosophic boldness for a time, but in his heart he had already taken fright. For a few days he went about in public, showing himself ostentatiously, with all the manner of a man who is happy in his unwonted ease, and is only anxious for relaxation and amusement. He professed to be rejoiced by his release from office, and those of his friends who wished to please him offered him their formal congratulations on his promotion to a retirement that placed him above the petty struggles and cares of political life. He visited Drury Lane Theatre on March 26, 1715, went about among his friends, chatted, flirted, paid compliments, received compliments, arranged to attend another performance at the same theatre the following evening. That same night he disguised himself as a serving-man, slipped quietly down to Dover, escaped from thence to Calais, and went hurriedly on to Paris, ready to place himself and his talents and his influence—such as it might be—at the service of the Stuarts.