An answer was written to the pamphlet by Dr. Brett, in which Hoadley was attacked with violence and bitterness. The King, who objected to Hoadley, asked the Queen what she thought of Brett’s answer, which he had much enjoyed reading, not because of the nature of the controversy, for which he cared little, but because of the personal abuse of a prelate whom he disliked. The Queen, who was very much annoyed at Hoadley’s indiscretion, however much she might agree with his opinions, began to explain her views on the subject of the controversy. But the King cut her short testily, and told her, “She always loved talking of such nonsense and things she knew nothing of;” adding, that “if it were not for such foolish persons loving to talk of those things when they were written, the fools who wrote upon them would never think of publishing their nonsense, and disturbing the Government with impertinent disputes that nobody of any sense ever troubled himself about.” Walpole had evidently entered his protest too, aimed not only at Hoadley but at Mrs. Clayton. The Queen, who made it a rule never to oppose her liege in anything, bowed assent and said: “Sir, I only did it to let Lord Hervey know that his friend’s book had not met with that general approbation he had pretended”.
“A pretty fellow for a friend,” said the King, turning to Hervey, who was standing by. “Pray, what is it that charms you in him? His pretty limping gait?” (and then he acted the bishop’s lameness) “or his nasty, stinking breath?—phaugh!—or his silly laugh, when he grins in your face for nothing, and shows his nasty rotten teeth? Or is it his great honesty that charms your lordship—his asking a thing of me for one man, and, when he came to have it in his own power to bestow, refusing the Queen to give it to the very man for whom he had asked it? Or do you admire his conscience that makes him now put out a book that, till he was Bishop of Winchester, for fear his conscience might hurt his preferment, he kept locked up in his chest? Is his conscience so much improved beyond what it was when he was Bishop of Bangor, or Hereford, or Salisbury (for this book, I hear, was written so long ago)? Or was it that he would risk losing a shilling a-year more whilst there was nothing better to be got than what he had? My lord, I am very sorry you choose your friends so ill; but I cannot help saying, if the Bishop of Winchester is your friend, you have a great puppy and a very dull fellow, and a great rascal for your friend. It is a very pretty thing for such scoundrels, when they are raised by favour so much above their desert, to be talking and writing their stuff, to give trouble to the Government that has shown them that favour; and very modest, and a canting hypocritical knave to be crying, ‘The Kingdom of Christ is not of this world,’ at the same time that he, as Christ’s ambassador receives £6,000 or £7,000 a year. But he is just the same thing in the Church that he is in the Government, and as ready to receive the best pay for preaching the Bible, though he does not believe a word of it, as he is to take favours from the Crown, though, by his republican spirit and doctrine, he would be glad to abolish its power.”[103]
Having delivered himself of this lengthy exordium, the King stopped and looked at the Queen, as much as to say who dare gainsay him. She had not been able to get a word in edgeways, but by smiling and nodding she tried to signify her approval of everything her lord and master said.
This is the only instance on record we have of the King’s direct interest in ecclesiastical affairs, for, during the Queen’s lifetime, Church patronage remained in her hands, and even after her death her expressed wishes were carried out. But when all these were fulfilled, many aspiring divines, since the Queen and Lady Sundon were no longer available, paid their court to the King’s mistress, Madame de Walmoden, afterwards Countess of Yarmouth, and, for the rest of George the Second’s reign, the royal road to bishoprics ran through the apartments of the mistress.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER X:
[97] London Gazette, 27th December, 1729.
[98] Daily Courant, 31st January, 1733.
[99] Sundon Correspondence. The Bishop of Killala to Mrs. Clayton, Dublin, 17th April, 1731.
[100] Ibid., 19th March, 1730.
[101] Sundon Correspondence. The Rev. Charles Chevenix to Lady Sundon, London, 24th November, 1734.