He’s dead, you say—then let him rot;
I am glad the medals were forgot.
I promised him, I own; but when?
I only was the princess then;
And now the consort of a King,
You know, ’tis quite another thing.”
Swift never forgave the Queen’s neglect, and for years, until her death, Caroline was the subject of his sharpest satirical attacks. But his satire failed to move her, any more than his presents and compliments had done. The great dean was left to drag out the remainder of his days in Ireland, embittered by disappointment and darkened by despair. Probably Walpole interposed his veto also. It was felt that such a firebrand was safer in Ireland, and his presence in England might seriously embarrass the Government. No doubt there was something to be said from that point of view. But the way in which those in authority neglected this great genius, until baffled ambition drove him to drink and madness, will ever remain one of the most tragic pages in the history of literature.
Gay, like Swift, also had a grievance against the Queen, though if Swift had any reason on his side, Gay certainly had none. Caroline had frequently showed him kindness when Princess of Wales, and had promised to help him when it was in her power. This promise she redeemed within a few weeks of the King’s accession. She laughingly told Mrs. Howard that she would now take up the “Hare with many friends”—an allusion to one of Gay’s fables—and she offered him the post of gentleman usher to the little Princess Louisa, a sinecure with a salary of £200 a year, which would be equivalent to £400 in the present day. There was little else that the Queen could offer him: the public service was now closed to writers, and as Gay was not in holy orders, he could not be provided for in the Church. This appointment, she thought, would secure him from want, and give him leisure for his pen. But Gay, whose head was quite turned by the adulation of foolish women, not only refused the Queen’s offer, but resented it as an insult. Soon after he was taken up by the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, who were among his kindest friends.
The Duchess of Queensberry was one of the most beautiful and graceful women of her day; she was a daughter of Lord Clarendon, and therefore cousin of the late Queen Anne. She was of a haughty disposition, and considered herself quite equal, if not superior, to the princes of the House of Hanover. The fact that Gay had been slighted (as he considered) by Queen Caroline was enough to make her champion his cause more warmly. Gay soon declared war against the court and the Government in his famous Beggars’ Opera, which teemed with topical allusions and covert political satire. The character of “Bob Booty,” for instance, was understood to be Sir Robert Walpole, and was especially a butt for ridicule. The Beggars’ Opera took the town by storm; it enjoyed not only an unprecedented run in London, but was played in all the great towns of England, Ireland and Scotland. It became a fashionable craze; ladies sang the favourite songs and carried about fans depicting incidents and characters in the piece; pictures of the actress, Miss Fenton, who played the leading part, were sold by the thousand, and songs and verses were composed in her honour; she became a popular toast and a reigning beauty, and finally married the Duke of Bolton, who ran away with her. But the Queen and Walpole resented the covert sarcasm in the play, and when Gay, encouraged by the success of The Beggars’ Opera, wrote a sequel called Polly, and had it ready for rehearsal, the Duke of Grafton, Lord Chamberlain, acting under the orders of the King, who was instigated by the Queen, refused to license the performance. It was said that Walpole was satirized in Polly under a thin disguise as a highwayman, but whatever the reason, the prohibition of the play only made it more popular. If it could not be played it could be read, and every one who had a grudge against Walpole, or the court, bought it when it came out in book form. The Duchess of Marlborough gave £100 for a single copy, and the Duchess of Queensberry solicited subscriptions for it within the very precincts of St. James’s, and at a drawing-room went round the room and asked even the officers of the King’s household to buy copies of the play which the King had forbidden to be played. The King caught her in the act, and asked what she was doing? She replied: “What must be agreeable, I am sure, to one so humane as your Majesty, for I am busy with an act of charity, and a charity to which I do not despair of bringing your Majesty to contribute”. The King guessed what the charity was, and talked the incident over with the Queen, who so resented the duchess’s action, which she rightly guessed was aimed more particularly at herself, that the King’s vice-chamberlain was sent to request her not to appear at court again. The vice-chamberlain’s message was verbal; but the duchess immediately wrote a spirited reply:—
“The Duchess of Queensberry is surprised and well pleased that the King hath given her so agreeable a command as to stay from Court, where she never came for diversion, but to bestow a great civility on the King and Queen; she hopes that by such an unprecedented order as this is, that the King will see as few as he wishes at his Court, particularly such as dare to think or speak truth. I dare not do otherwise, and ought not, nor could have imagined that it would not have been the very highest compliment that I could possibly pay the King to endeavour to support truth and innocence in his house, particularly when the King and Queen both told me that they had not read Mr. Gay’s play. I have certainly done right, then, to stand by my own words rather than his Grace of Grafton’s, who hath neither made use of truth, judgment, nor honour, through this whole affair, either for himself or his friends.”