Lord Chancellor Macclesfield was imprisoned in 1724 for “venality in the discharge of his office.”
We come now to a very serious and important passage in the records of the great fortress, namely, the rebellion of “the Forty-five.” The Scotch were, as we have seen, largely in sympathy with the exiled family. In 1743 a Highland regiment, distinguished for its good order and discipline, mutinied on being ordered to Flanders. They declared that they had received a promise that they should not be sent abroad where they would very likely be brought into warfare with their Jacobite friends. A hundred and nine of them laid down their arms and marched away. Three regiments of dragoons were sent to bring them back; they were sent to the Tower; three were shot, and the others sent to the plantations. This cruel measure produced a most bitter feeling through Scotland, and rendered comparatively easy a fresh endeavour of the Stuarts to re-establish themselves. Twenty years of calm had passed when Charles Edward, “the Young Pretender,” landed in Inverness-shire in July, 1745. His adventures are nowhere better told than in Waverley. He defeated Cope at Prestonpans, marched into England as far as Derby, retreated, was crushed by the Duke of Cumberland at Culloden on April 8, 1746, and the hopes of the Stuarts were at an end for ever. He, as we know, made his escape, but the “rebel lords” who had thrown in their lot with him were brought to the Tower, which had seen no political prisoners for more than twenty years. William Boyd was fourth Earl of Kilmarnock; William Murray, Marquis of Tullibardine, son of the Duke of Atholl, had been pardoned after taking part in the “15”; he now brought a great number of Atholl men at this second rising, gave himself up after Culloden, quite worn out, though he was only fifty-eight; he died in the Tower in a few days. Arthur Elphinstone, sixth Baron Balmerino, had also been pardoned after the “15,” but joined the fresh rebellion, hid himself after Culloden, but was betrayed. There were also Charles Radcliffe, a younger brother of the Earl of Derwentwater, who had perished in 1715, and a few others of little mark. Horace Walpole, writing to Sir Horace Mann, gives a striking account of the trial of the three lords in Westminster Hall. Kilmarnock and Cromarty pleaded guilty, Balmerino not guilty, but he was condemned by the unanimous vote of the peers. He was evidently a man of high character; “the brave, noble old fellow,” Walpole calls him. His calmness, courage, piety in his last days, had a profound effect upon all who were with him. Cromarty was afterwards pardoned. The Gentleman’s Magazine for 1745 gives full details of the execution of the other two on Tower Hill. They died with firm courage. Radcliffe also died on the same scaffold. Somewhat later followed another execution; Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, an utterly unscrupulous political intriguer, and a man whose disreputable life reads like a bad novel. He had what was probably a unique experience, in having been a prisoner in the Bastille in 1702, on the charge of betraying a Jacobite plot to the English Government, and in the Tower for treasonable correspondence with the Pretender. While on his way from his capture in Scotland to the Tower he rested at the White Hart at St. Albans, and there fell in with Hogarth, who there and then made the portrait of him which is now in the National Portrait Gallery, and the engravings of which are so familiar to us. This engraving was made under the superintendence of the painter, and there was such a run upon it, the printing press being always at work, day and night, that for a considerable time he made £12 a day by the sale. Lovat was beheaded on April 9, 1747, and it was the last execution on Tower Hill. There were two more executions from the Tower—Earl Ferrers in 1760 for shooting his steward, and Henry Francis de la Motte, a French spy—but these were both hanged at Tyburn. Lord Ferrers would certainly in our day have been acquitted on the ground of insanity.
A few more names have to be mentioned before we close the history of the Tower as a State prison. John Wilkes, M.P. for Middlesex, was brought in on April 30, 1763, as the author of No. 45 of The North Briton, which was styled in the warrant committing him, “a most infamous and seditious libel.” After argument in the Court of Common Pleas, Chief Justice Pratt decided that the misdemeanour charged against him was “not an offence sufficient to destroy the privilege of a member of Parliament,” and he was immediately liberated (May 3). Alderman Oliver and Sir Brass Crosby, Lord Mayor, were both sent to the Tower in March, 1771, for admitting a man to bail who had, under the Speaker’s warrant, apprehended the printer of the London Evening Post for publishing the debates of the House of Commons. They justified their conduct on the ground of city privileges, and the House against them asserted its authority. They remained immured till Parliament was prorogued in the following July, and were then released; but public opinion was evidently so strong in their favour that the Commons from that time gave in. Lord George Gordon was imprisoned after the riots of 1780, was tried next year, and declared “not guilty.” At the same time the Earl of Pomfret was committed for challenging the Duke of Grafton. In 1794 John Horne Tooke, John Thelwall, Thomas Hardy and others were imprisoned on the charge of high treason. They had distributed the writings of Thomas Paine, and had gone certain lengths in favour of the “Rights of Man,” but repudiated the application of the principles of the French Revolution to England. They were “radicals” in desiring reform, yet were not in favour of general subversion. In fact, they were men who, after raising a cry, were frightened at the logical consequences of it, and settled down into quietude. Chief Justice Eyre tried them with conspicuous fairness, and they were at once pronounced “Not guilty,” to the satisfaction of the spectators.
29. The Moat.
From an engraving after J. Maurer, 1753.
Gardner Collection.
