Queen Anne was now dead,—the last of the Stuart dynasty in this kingdom. Whatever were her failings and her weaknesses as a woman, she has left behind her the character of having loved her people; and she was endeared to them by her purely English birth, her homely virtue of economy, and her domestic unpretending qualities. Her reign had been one of mercy; no subject had suffered for treason during her rule: she had few relations with foreign powers; and when, in her opening speech to the Parliament, she expressed that her heart was "wholly English," she spoke her real sentiments, and described, in that simple touch the true character of her mind.
She was succeeded by a German Prince, who immediately showered marks of his royal favour upon the Whigs; whilst the Tories, who formed so large a party in the kingdom, were alienated from the Government by the manifest aversion to them which George the First rather aimed to evince than laboured to conceal.
The Jacobites differed in some measure from the Tories, inasmuch as the latter were generally well affected to the accession of the Hanoverian family, until disgusted by the choice of the new administration. Dissensions quickly rose to their height; and when the Government was attacked in the House of Commons by Sir William Wyndham, the unusual sounds, "the Tower! the Tower!" were heard once more amid the inflamed assembly.
The spirit of disaffection quickly spread throughout England; the very life-guards were compelled by an angry populace, when celebrating the anniversary of the Restoration of the Stuarts, to join in the cry of "High Church and Ormond!" Lord Bolingbroke had withdrawn to France—treasonable papers were discovered and intercepted on their way from Jacobite emissaries to Dr. Swift, tumults were raised in the city of London and in Westminster, and were punished with a severity to which the metropolis had been unaccustomed since the reign of James the Second. All these manifestations had their origin in one common source,—the deeply concerted schemes which were now nearly brought into maturity at the Court of St. Germains.
The following extract of a letter dated from Luneville, and taken from the Macpherson Papers, shows what was meditated abroad; it is in Schrader's hand.
(Translation.)
"Luneville, June 5th, 1714.
"It is likely the Chevalier St. George is preparing for some great design, which is kept very private. It was believed he would drink the waters of Plombière for three weeks, as is customary, and that he would come afterwards to pass fifteen days at Luneville; but he changed his measures; he did not continue to drink the waters, which he drank only for ten days, and came back to Luneville on Saturday last. He sets out to-morrow very early for Bar. Lord Galmoy went before him, and set out this morning. Lord Talmo, who came lately from France, is with him, and some say that the Duke of Berwick is incognito in this neighbourhood.
"The Chevalier appears pensive,—that, indeed, is his ordinary humour. Mr. Floyd, who has been these five days at the Court of his Royal Highness, told a mistress he has there, that when he leaves her now, he will take his leave of her perhaps for the last time:—in short, it is certain that everything here seems sufficiently to announce preparations for a journey. It is said, likewise, in private, that the Chevalier has had letters that the Queen is very ill. I have done everything I could to discover something of his designs. I supped last night with several of his attendants, thinking to learn something; but they avoid to explain themselves. They only say that the Chevalier did not find himself the better for drinking the waters; that he would now go to repose himself for some time at Bar, until he goes, the beginning of next month, to the Prince De Vandemont's, at Commercie, where their Royal Highnesses will come likewise. They say they do not know yet if they will remain in this country or not; that they will follow the destiny of the Chevalier, and that it is not known yet what it shall be."[194]
When Lord Lovat thus precipitately threw himself once more on the mercy of his country, he could not have been ignorant that the cabals which had long been carried on against the Hanoverian succession, were now shortly to break out in open rebellion; and it was, without doubt, in the hope of profiting in some measure during the confusion of the coming troubles, that he had hastened, at the risk of his life, to England.