"I cannot be very sorry for your declining at Newark, being very uncertain of your success; but I am surprized you do not mention where you intend to stand. Dispatch, in things of this nature, if not a security, at least delay is a sure way to lose, as you have done, being easily chose at York, for not resolving in time, and Aldburgh, for not applying soon enough to Lord Pelham. Here are people here had rather choose Fairfax than Jenkins, and others that prefer Jenkins to Fairfax; but both parties, separately, have wished to me you would have stood, with assurances of having preferred you to either of them. At Newark, Lord Lexington has a very considerable interest. If you have any thoughts of standing, you must endeavour to know how he stands affected; though I am afraid he will assist Brigadier Sutton, or some other Tory. Sir Matthew Jenison has the best interest of any Whig; but he stood last year himself, and will, perhaps, do so again. Newdigate will certainly be chose there for one. Upon the whole, 'tis the most expensive and uncertain place you can stand at. Tis surprizing to me, that you are all this while in the midst of your friends without being sure of a place, when so many insignificant creatures come in without any opposition. They say Mr. Strickland is sure at Carlisle, where he never stood before. I believe most places are engaged by this time. I am very sorry, for your sake, that you spent so much money in vain last year, and will not come in this, when you might make a more considerable figure than you could have done then. I wish Lord Pelham would compliment Mr. Jessop with his Newark interest, and let you come in at Aldburgh."
On the death of the Queen, the Council, which had assembled at Kensington Palace, adjourned to St. James's. By the Regency Bill the administration of the government (in the event of the King being absent from the realm at the time of his accession to the throne) devolved upon the holders for the time being of the Great Officers of State: the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Thomas Tenison), the Lord Chancellor (Simon, Lord Harcourt), the Lord President (John, Duke of Buckinghamshire), the Lord High Treasurer (Charles, Duke of Shrewsbury), the Lord Privy Seal (William, Earl of Dartmouth), the First Lord of the Admiralty (Thomas, Earl of Strafford), and the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench (Sir Thomas Parker, afterwards Earl of Macclesfield). Under another clause of the Regency Act the Sovereign was entitled to nominate a number of Lords Justices. Baron von Bothmer, the Hanovarian Envoy Extraordinary to the Court of St. James's, opened the sealed packet containing the Commission of Regency, drawn up by George after the death of his mother. The King's nominees were the Archbishop of York, the Dukes of Shrewsbury,[1] Somerset, Bolton, Devonshire, Kent, Argyll, Montrose, and Roxborough; the Earls of Pembroke, Anglesea, Carlisle, Nottingham, Abingdon, Scarborough, and Oxford; Viscount Townshend; and Barons Halifax and Cowper. Marlborough was not in the Commission, but he was appointed Captain-General of the Forces.
[Footnote 1: The Commission was, of course, made out before the Duke of
Shrewsbury was given the White Staff, the possession of which made him a
Lord Justice in virtue of his office.]
From The Hague, where he arrived on September 5, 1714, George I sent
authority to Charles, Viscount Townshend, to form a Cabinet, with power
to nominate his colleagues. Townshend took the office of Secretary of
State for the Northern Department, and appointed James Stanhope
Secretary of State for the Southern Department. Lord Halifax became
First Lord of the Treasury; Lord Cowper, Lord Chancellor; the Earl of
Nottingham, Lord President; the Marquis of Wharton, Lord Privy Seal; the
Earl of Oxford, First Lord of the Admiralty; the Earl of Sunderland,
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; Robert Walpole, Paymaster-General of the
Forces. As Captain-General Marlborough was in the Cabinet.
Lord Halifax, when making out the Commission of the Treasury, invited his cousin Montagu to be one of the Commissioners, although the latter had not secured a seat in Parliament. "It will be surprizing to add," says Lady Mary, "that he hesitated to accept it at a time when his father was alive and his present income very small; but he had certainly refused it if he had not been persuaded to it by a rich old uncle of mine, Lord Pierrepont, whose fondness for me gave him expectations of a large legacy." Lady Mary, though glad enough that her husband had been given a place, was not over and above delighted that it was one so modest.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu to her Husband
[Enclosed, September 24, 1714.]
"Though I am very impatient to see you, I would not have you, by hastening to come down, lose any part of your interest. I am surprized you say nothing of where you stand. I had a letter from Mrs. Hewet last post, who said she heard you stood at Newark, and would be chose without opposition; but I fear her intelligence is not at all to be depended on. I am glad you think of serving your friends; I hope it will put you in mind of serving yourself. I need not enlarge upon the advantages of money; every thing we see, and every thing we hear, puts us in remembrance of it. If it was possible to restore liberty to your country, or limit the encroachments of the prerogative, by reducing yourself to a garret, I should be pleased to share so glorious a poverty with you; but as the world is, and will be, 'tis a sort of duty to be rich, that it may be in one's power to do good; riches being another word for power, towards the obtaining of which the first necessary qualification is impudence, and (as Demosthenes said of pronunciation in oratory) the second is impudence, and the third, still, impudence. No modest man ever did or ever will make his fortune. Your friend Lord H[alifa]x, R. W[alpo]le, and all other remarkable instances of quick advancement, have been remarkably impudent. The Ministry is like a play at Court; there's a little door to get in, and a great crowd without, shoving and thrusting who shall be foremost: people who knock others with their elbows, disregard a little kick of the shins, and still thrust heartily forwards, are sure of a good place. Your modest man stands behind in the crowd, is shoved about by every body, his cloaths tore, almost squeezed to death, and sees a thousand get in before him, that don't make so good a figure as himself.
"I don't say it is impossible for an impudent man not to rise in the world; but a moderate merit, with a large share of impudence, is more probable to be advanced, than the greatest qualifications without it.
"If this letter is impertinent, it is founded upon an opinion of your merit, which, it if is a mistake, I would not be undeceived in: it is my interest to believe (as I do) that you deserve every thing, and are capable of every thing; but nobody else will believe you if they see you get nothing."