In 1715 the Lord Chancellor acted as High Steward on the trial of the Jacobite Lords, ‘much,’ says Lady Cowper, ‘to my husband’s vexation and mine.’
Lord Winton, one of the prisoners, tried the Lord Steward’s patience so sorely by frivolous delays and impediments to the despatch of business, that Cowper, forgetting his usual equanimity, answered with some harshness, upon which Winton cried out, ‘I hope, my Lords, we are not to have what in my country is called Cowper Justice; that is, hang a man first, and try him afterwards.’ The Lord Steward was too dignified to vouchsafe an answer, but the sally caused some unseemly merriment in Court, and the saying ‘Cowper Justice’ was often quoted in after days by his enemies. He presided on several State trials, that of the ex-Minister Harley, Earl of Oxford, and others. About this period of his career a charge was brought against him of unfairness in the appointment and dismissal of magistrates, but his faithful secretary and expounder, Mary Cowper, came once more to his aid by translating his vindication for the King’s perusal. He writes to her on the subject—
‘My dear, here is the postscript which I hope may soon be turned into French. I am glad to hear that you are well, which upon tryall I find myself too. Dear Rogue, yours ever and always.’
The proceedings were stopped, but the days of Cowper’s public life were numbered. Many intrigues had been at work among his political opponents, to induce, worry, or persuade the Lord Chancellor to vacate the Woolsack, but his wife’s diary lets us completely behind the scenes. She says, ‘My Lord fell ill again, which occasioned a report that he was about to resign; some said he had not health to keep in, others that the Lords of the Cabinet Council were jealous of his great reputation, which was true, for they had resolved to put Chief-Justice Parkes in his place.’ The lady goes on to say that her ‘disputes and arguments were the chief reason of his staying in,’ and how she ‘took three weeks to prevail on her Lord to remain.’ But the friendship that existed between the Prince and Princess of Wales and Lord and Lady Cowper was very disadvantageous to the latter pair, as regarded the favour of the Sovereign, for at this juncture the Royal father and son were at daggers drawn, so that it was difficult for any one to keep friends with both sides. Doubtless worry and perplexity of all kinds tended to increase the indisposition of the Lord Chancellor, for his wife now gave up all idea of pressing him to remain in office. She told him ‘that if it were any pleasure to him she would retire into the country, and never repent the greatest sacrifice she could make.’ And unquestionably it appeared that it would have been a sacrifice, for Mary Cowper was eminently fitted for a Court life, although her patience and forbearance were often sorely tried, as we gather from her diary. It is almost impossible to avoid occasional repetition, as the notices of husband and wife are naturally interwoven, though we have endeavoured to disentangle them.
The Chancellor was beset with importunities to exchange his post for that of President of the Council. He replied he would resign if they found a better man to fill his place, but he would never change the duties of which he could acquit himself with honour for such as he could not perform at all—a resolution we strongly recommend to the consideration of more modern statesmen.
Lady Cowper’s Diary.—‘The Prince says, there is no one in whom he has any confidence but my husband, and the King says Lord Cowper and the Duke of Devonshire are the only two men he has found trustworthy in the kingdom!’ But for all that, there seems little doubt that his Majesty, to whose ear birds of the air carried every matter, was not best pleased with the constant allusions made in conversation between the Prince of Wales and the Lord Chancellor to a future time, and all that was then to be done, when another head would wear the crown. Lord Cowper, writing to his wife from Hertfordshire, excuses himself for not attending Court, ‘as my vacations are so short, and the children require the presence of one parent at least; your sister is prudent, but they do not stand in awe of her, and there was no living till the birch was planted in my room.’—September 1716. The opposition which Lord Cowper offered to a proposed Bill, the passing of which would have made the Prince dependent on his father for income, put the finishing touch to his unpopularity with George I., although the Lord Chancellor wrote a letter (in Latin, the only language they understood in common) to his Majesty, to explain his views.
On the 15th April 1718, Lord Cowper resigned the Great Seal at the same time that he kissed hands on his elevation to an earldom. We cannot resist inserting in this place a tribute which was paid the Minister, though it was not published till after his death: ‘His resignation was a great grief to the well affected, and to dispassionate men of both parties, who knew that by his wisdom and moderation he had gained abundance of friends for the King; brought the clergy into better temper, and hindered hot, over-zealous spirits from running things into dangerous extremes.’ This, be it remembered, was written of one who had gone to his account, of no living patron who could benefit the writer. He now retired to his house at Cole Green, and busied himself in improving and beautifying his gardens and pleasure-grounds. Here he received many congratulations on being (as a protégé of his, one Hughes, a poet, expresses it) ‘eased of the fatigue and burthen of office.’
But, though Lord Cowper had felt the strife and contention of parties to be most irksome, yet he was so accustomed to official life, that he continued to take a deep interest in all the measures that were brought before the country. He strenuously supported the Test and Corporation Acts, and as vigorously opposed Lord Sunderland’s famous Peerage Bill, which proposed that the existing number of English Peers should never be increased, with exception in favour of Princes of the blood-royal, that for every extinction there should be a new creation; and, instead of sixteen elective Scotch Peers, the King should name twenty-five to be hereditary. A glance at the works of Sir Bernard Burke, Ulster King-at-Arms, and his collaborateurs, will be the best proof that Sunderland’s Bill was thrown out. Amongst those who were the most violent in the denunciation of this measure, were the wives and daughters of members in the House of Commons, who were supposed to have been instrumental (as we may believe from more recent experience) in influencing the votes of their relatives. We mention this circumstance as bearing in some degree on our subject. In the beginning of 1722 an incident occurred which was differently construed by the admirers and detractors of the ex-Chancellor.
On the 3d February, the House of Lords having assembled, the absence of the reigning Lord Chancellor, as likewise that of the Lord Chief-Justice, was remarked, and much difficulty arose as to the proceeding of the House. Lord Cowper, most indignant at the defalcation of his successor, moved that the Duke of Somerset, the peer of highest rank present, should occupy the Woolsack, and, on his refusal, further proposed that course to the Duke of Kingston and Lord Lechmere; but the discussion was put an end to by the arrival of the Chancellor, in most undignified and hot haste, full of excuses of having been detained by his Majesty, and of apologies to their Lordships for having kept them waiting. Lord Cowper, and several of his way of thinking, were not so easily appeased, and one of them moved that the House, to show its indignation, should adjourn till Monday next without transacting any further business. The motion was negatived, but Lord Cowper and his friends signed a protest, which went to say, that the excuses which had been alleged seemed inadequate to justify the indignity offered to the House,—‘undoubtedly the greatest council in the kingdom, to which all other councils should give way, and therefore no other business ought to have detained the Chancellor,’ etc.; ‘also, we venture to say, the dignity of this House has not of late years been increasing, so we are unwilling that anything that we consider to be a gross neglect of it should pass without some note on our records.’ We cannot help alluding to this curious circumstance, as it bears so strongly on the state of party feeling at the time, and of Lord Cowper’s individual feelings in particular.
The exiled Royal family had on several occasions applied to him for his support and assistance, and, although he had treated the communications with neglect and refusal, yet his enemies were industrious in setting rumours abroad prejudicial to the ex-Chancellor’s loyalty to the house of Hanover. Layer (afterwards executed for conspiracy) had brought in his name when examined before a Committee of the House of Commons, which was, for the most part, only too ready to listen to any slander against the ex-Minister.