Books: The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

H >> Horace Walpole >> The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67

Earl Stanhope was a man of strong and violent passions, and had
dedicated himself to the army; and was so far from thinking of
any other line, that when Walpole, who first suggested the idea
of appointing him secretary of state, proposed it to him, he flew
into a furious rage, and was on the point of a downright quarrel,
looking on himself' as totally unqualified for the post, and
suspecting it for a plan of mocking him. He died in one of those
tempestuous sallies, being pushed in the House of Lords on the
explosion of the South Sea scheme. That iniquitous affair, which
Walpole had early exposed, and to remedy the mischiefs of which
he alone was deemed adequate, had replaced him at the head of
affairs, and obliged Sunderland to submit to be only a coadjutor
of the administration. The younger Craggs, (86) a showy
vapouring man, had been brought forward by the ministers to
oppose Walpole; but was soon reduced to beg his assistance on one
(87) of their ways and means. Craggs caught his death by calling
at the gate of Lady March, (88) who was ill of the small-pox; and
being told so by the porter, went home directly, fell ill of the
same distemper, and died. His father, the elder Craggs, whose
very good sense Sir R. Walpole much admired, soon followed his
son, and his sudden death was imputed to grief; but having been
deeply dipped in the iniquities of the South Sea, and wishing to
prevent confiscation and save his ill-acquired wealth for his
daughters, there was no doubt of his having despatched himself.
When his death was divulged, Sir Robert Owned that the unhappy
man had in an oblique manner hinted his resolution to him.
The reconciliation of the royal family was so little cordial,
that I question whether the Prince did not resent Sir Robert
Walpole's return to the King's service. Yet had Walpole defeated
a plan of Sunderland that @would in future have exceedingly
hampered the successor, as it was calculated to do; nor do I
affect to ascribe Sir Robert's victory directly to zeal for the
Prince: personal and just views prompted his opposition, and the
commoners of England were not less indebted to him than the
Prince. Sunderland had devised a bill to restrain the crown from
ever adding above six peers to a number limited., (89) The actual
peers were far from disliking the measure; but Walpole, taking
fire, instantly communicated his dissatisfaction to all the great
commoners, who might for ever be excluded from the peerage. He
spoke, he wrote, (90) he persuaded, and the bill was rejected by
the Commons with disdain, after it had passed the House of Lords.
(91)

But the hatred of some of the junta at court had gone farther,
horribly farther. On the death of George 1. Queen Caroline found
in his cabinet a proposal of the Earl of Berkeley, (92) then, I
think, first lord of the admiralty, to seize the Prince of Wales,
and convey him to America, whence he should never be heard of
more. This detestable project copied probably from the Earl of
Falmouth's offer to Charles II. with regard to his Queen, was in
the handwriting of Charles Stanhope, elder brother of the Earl of
Harrington: (93) and so deep was the impression deservedly made
on the mind of George II. by that abominable paper, that all the
favour of Lord Harrington, when secretary of state, could never
obtain the smallest boon to his brother, though but the
subordinate transcriber. (94) George I. was too humane to listen
to such an atrocious deed. It was not very kind to the
conspirators to leave such an instrument behind him; and if
virtue and conscience will not check bold bad men from paying
court by detestable offers, the King's carelessness or
indifference in such an instance ought to warn them of the little
gratitude that such machinations can inspire or expect.

Among those who had preferred the service of the King to that of
the heir apparent, was the Duke of Newcastle;, (95) Who, having
married his sister to Lord Townshend, both his royal highness and
the viscount had expected would have adhered to that
connexion-and neither forgave his desertion.-I am aware of the
desultory manner in which I have told my story, having mentioned
the reconciliation of the King and Prince before I have given any
account of their public rupture. The chain of my thoughts led me
into the preceding details, and, if I do not flatter myself, will
have let you into the motives of my dramatis personae better than
if I had 'more exactly observed chronology.- and as I am not
writing a regular tragedy, and profess but to relate facts as I
recollect them; or (if you will allow me to imitate French
writers of tragedy) may I not plead that I have unfolded my piece
as they do, by introducing two courtiers to acquaint one another,
and by bricole the audience, with what had passed in the
penetralia before the tragedy commences?

The exordium thus duly prepared, you must suppose, ladies, that
the second act opens with a royal christening The Princess of
Wales had been delivered of a second son. The Prince had
intended his uncle, the Duke of York, Bishop of Osnaburg, should
with his Majesty be godfathers. Nothing could equal the
indignation of his Royal Highness when the King named the Duke of
Newcastle for second sponsor, and would hear of no other. The
christening took place as usual in the Princess's bedchamber.
Lady Suffolk, then in waiting as woman of the bedchamber, and of
most accurate memory painted the scene to me exactly. On one
side of the bed stood the godfathers and godmother; on the other
the Prince and the Princess's ladies. No sooner had the Bishop
closed the ceremony, than the Prince, crossing the feet of the
bed in a rage, stepped up to the Duke of Newcastle, and, holding
up his hand and fore-finger in a menacing attitude, said, "You
are a rascal, but I shall find you," meaning, in broken English,
"I shall find a time to be revenged."-"What was my astonishment,"
continued Lady Suffolk, "when going to the Princess's apartment
the next morning, the yeOMen in the guard-chamber pointed their
halberds at my breast, and told me I must not pass! I urged that
it was my duty to attend the Princess. They said, 'No matter; I
must not pass that way.'"

In one word, the King had been so provoked at the Prince's
outrage in his presence, that it had been determined to inflict a
still greater insult on his Royal Highness. His threat to the
Duke was pretended to be understood as a challenge; and to
prevent a duel he had actually been put under arrest-as if a
Prince of Wales could stoop to fight with a subject. The arrest
was soon taken off; but at night the Prince and Princess were
ordered to leave the palace, (96) and retired to the house of her
chamberlain, the Earl of Grantham, in Albemarle Street.

(83) It is remarkable, that either the weak propensity of the
Stuarts to popery, or the visible connexion between regal and
ecclesiastic power, had such operation on many of the branches of
that family, who were at a distance from the crown of England, to
wear which it is necessary to be a Protestant, that two or three
of the daughters of the king and Queen of Bohemia, though their
parents had lost every thing in the struggle between the two
religions, turned Roman Catholics; and so did one or more of the
sons of the Princess Sophia, brothers of the Protestant
candidate, George I.

(84) Afterwards George II.

(85) I believe it was a fact, that the poor weak Queen, being
disposed even to cede the crown to her brother, consulted Bishop
Wilkins, called the Prophet, to know what would be the
consequence of such a step. He replied, "Madam, you would be in
the Tower in a month, and dead in three." This Sentence, dictated
by common sense, her Majesty took for inspiration, and dropped
all thoughts of resigning the crown.

*86) James Craggs, Jun, buried in Westminster Abbey, with an
epitaph by Pope. [Craggs died on the 16th of February, 1721.
His monument was executed by Guelphi, whom Lord Burlington
invited into the kingdom. Walpole considered it graceful and
simple, but that the artist was an indifferent sculptor. Dr.
Johnson objects to Pope's inscription, that it is partly in Latin
and partly in English. "If either language," he says, "be
preferable to the other, let that only be used; for no reason can
be given why part of the information should be given in one
tongue, and part in another, on a tomb more than in any other
place or any other occasion: such an epitaph resembles the
conversation of a foreigner, who tells part of his meaning by
words, and conveys part by signs."]

(87) I think it was the sixpenny tax on offices.

(88) Sarah Cadogan, afterwards Duchess of Richmond.

(89) Queen Anne's creation of twelve peers at once, to obtain a
majority in the House of Lords, offered an ostensible plea for
the restrictions.

(90) Sir Robert published a pamphlet against the bill, entitled,
"The Thoughts of a Member of the Lower House, in relation to a
project for restraining and limiting the powers of the Crown in
the future creation of Peers." On the other side, Addison's pen
was employed in defending the measure, in a paper called "The Old
Whig," against Steele, who attacked it in a pamphlet entitled
"The Plebeian."-E.

(91) The effect of Sir Robert's speech on the House," says Coxe,
"exceeded the sanguine expectations: it fixed those who had
before been wavering and irresolute, brought over many who had
been tempted by the speciousness of the measure to favour
introduction, and procured its rejection, by a triumphant
majority of 269 against 177." Memoirs, Vol. i.-E.

(92) James, third Earl of Berkeley. knight of the garter, etc.
In March 1718, he was appointed first lord of the admiralty, in
which post he continued all the reign of George the First. He
died at the castle of Aubigny in France in 1736.]

(93) William Stanhope, first Earl of Harrington of that family.

(94) Coxe states, that such was the indignation which the perusal
of this paper excited, that, when Sir Robert espoused Charles
Stanhope's interest, the King rejected the application with some
expressions of resentment, and declared that no consideration
should induce him to assign to him any place of trust or honour.-
E.

(95) Thomas Holles Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, lord chamberlain,
then secretary of state, and lastly, first lord of the treasury
under George II.; the same King to whom he had been so obnoxious
in the preceding reign. He was obliged by George III. to resign
his post.

(96) "Notice was also formally given that no persons who paid
their respects to the Prince and Princess of Wales would be
received at court; and they were deprived of their guard, and of
all other marks of distinction." Coxe, vol. i. p. 132.-E.

CHAPTER IV.

Bill of Pains and Penalties against Bishop Atterbury-Projected
Assassination of Sir Robert Walpole-Revival of the Order of the
Bath-Instance of George the First's good-humoured Presence of
Mind.

As this trifling work is a miscellany of detached recollections,
I will, ere I quit the article of George I., mention two subjects
of very unequal import, which belong peculiarly to his reign.
The first was the deprivation of Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester.
Nothing more offensive to men of priestly principles could easily
have happened: yet, as in a country of which the constitution was
founded on rational and liberal grounds, and where thinking men
had so recently exerted themselves to explode the prejudices
attached to the persons of Kings and churchmen, it was impossible
to defend the Bishop's treason but by denying it; or to condemn
his condemnation, but by supposing illegalities in the process:
both were vehemently urged by his faction, as his innocence was
pleaded by himself. That punishment and expulsion from his
country may stagger the virtue even of a good man, and exasperate
him against his country, is perhaps natural, and humanity ought
to Pity it. But whatever were the prepossessions of his friends
in his favour, charity must now believe that Atterbury was always
an ambitious, turbulent priest, attached to the House of Stuart,
and consequently no friend to the civil and religious liberties
of his country; or it must be acknowledged, that the
disappointment of his ambition by the Queen's death, and the
proscription of his ministerial associates, had driven on
attempts to restore the expelled family in hopes of realizing his
aspiring views. His letters published by Nichols breathe the
impetuous spirit of his youth. His exclamation on the Queen's
death, when he offered to proclaim the Pretender at Charing Cross
in pontificalibus, and swore, on not being supported, that there
was the best cause in England lost for want of spirit, is now
believed also. His papers, deposited with King James's in the
Scottish College at Paris, proclaimed in what sentiments he died;
and the facsimiles of his letters published by Sir David
Dalrymple leave no doubt of his having in his exile entered into
the service of the Pretender. Culpable -is he was, who but must
lament that so classic a mind had only assumed so elegant and
amiable a semblance as he adopted after the disappointment of his
prospects and hopes? His letter in defence of the authenticity of
Lord Clarendon's History, is one of the most beautiful and
touching specimens of eloquence in our language.

It was not to load the character of the bishop, nor to affect
candour by applauding his talents, that I introduced mention of
him, much less to impute to him -,my consciousnesses of the
intended crime that I am going to relate. The person against
whom the blow was supposed to be meditated never, in the most
distant manner, suspected the bishop of being privy to the
plot-No: animosity of parties, and malevolence to the champions
of the House of Brunswick, no doubt suggested to some blind
zealots the perpetration of a crime which would necessarily have
injured the bishop's cause, and could by no means have prevented
his disgrace.

Mr. Johnstone, an ancient gentleman, who had been secretary of
state for Scotland, his country, in the reign of King William,
was a zealous friend of my father, Sir Robert, and who, in that
period of assassination plots, had imbibed such a tincture of
suspicion that he was continually notifying similar machinations
to my father, and warning him. to be on his guard against them.
Sir Robert, intrepid and unsuspicious, (97) used to rally his
good monitor; and, when serious, told him that his life was too
constantly exposed to his enemies to make it of any use to be
watchful on any particular occasion; nor, though Johnstone often
hurried to him with intelligence of such designs, did he ever see
reason, but once, to believe in the soundness of the information.
That once arrived thus: a day or two before the bill of pains and
penalties was to pass the House of Commons against the Bishop of
Rochester, Mr. Johnstone advertised Sir Robert to be circumspect,
for three or four persons meditated to assassinate him as he
should leave the house at night. Sir Robert laughed, and forgot
the notice. The morning after the debate, Johnstone came to Sir
Robert with a kind of good-natured insult, telling him, that
though he had scoffed his advice, he had for once followed it,
and by so doing preserved his life. Sir Robert understood not
what he meant, and protested he had not given more credit than
usual. to his warning. "Yes," said Johnstone, "but you did; for
you did not come from the House last night in your own chariot."
Walpole affirmed that he did; but his friend persisting in his
asseveration, Sir Robert called one of the footmen, who replied,
"I did call up your honour's carriage; but Colonel Churchill
being with you, and his chariot driving up first, your honour
stepped into that, and your own came home empty."
Johnstone, triumphing on his own veracity, and pushing the
examination farther, Sir Robert's coachman recollected that, as
he left Palace-yard, three men, much muffled, had looked into the
empty chariot. The mystery was never farther cleared up; and my
father frequently said it was the only instance of the kind in
which he had ever seen any appearance of a real design.

The second subject that I promised to mention, and it shall be
very briefly, was the revival of the Order of the Bath. It was
the measure of Sir Robert Walpole, and was an artful bank of
thirty-six ribands to supply a fund of favours in lieu of places.
He meant, too, to stave off the demand for garters, and intended
that the red should be a step to the blue, and accordingly took
one of the former himself. He offered the new order to old
Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, for her grandson the duke, and for
the Duke of Bedford, who had married one of her grand-daughters.
(98) She haughtily replied, they should take nothing but the
garter. "Madam," said Sir Robert coolly, "they who take the bath
will the sooner have the garter." The next year he took the
latter himself with the Duke of Richmond, both having been
previously installed knights of the revived institution.

Before I quit King George I. I will relate a story, very
expressive of his good-humoured presence of mind.

On one of his journeys to Hanover his coach broke. At a distance
in view was the chateau of a considerable German nobleman. The
king sent to borrow assistance. The possessor came, conveyed the
king to his house, and begged the honour of his Majesty's
accepting a dinner while his carriage was repairing; and, while
the dinner was preparing, begged leave to amuse his Majesty with
a collection of pictures which he had formed in several tours to
Italy. But what did the king see in one of the rooms but an
unknown portrait of a person in the robes and with the regalia of
the sovereigns of Great Britain! George asked whom it
represented. The nobleman replied, with much diffident but
decent respect, that in various journeys to Rome he had been
acquainted with the Chevalier de St. George. who had done him the
honour of sending him that picture. "Upon my word," said the king
instantly, "it is very like to the family." It was impossible to
remove the embarrassment of the proprietor with more good
breeding.

(97) At the time of the Preston rebellion, a Jacobite, who
sometimes furnished Sir Robert with intelligence, sitting alone
with him one night, suddenly putting his hand into his bosom and
rising, said, "Why do not I kill you now?" Walpole starting up,
replied, "Because I am a younger man and a stronger." They sat
down again, and discussed the person's information But Sir Robert
afterwards had reasons for thinking that the spy had no intention
of assassination, but had hoped, by intimidating, to extort money
from him. Yet if no real attempt was made on his life, it was
not from want of suggestions to it: one of the weekly journals
pointed out Sir Robert's frequent passing a Putney bridge late at
night, attended but by one or two servants, on his way to New
Park, as a proper place; and after Sir Robert's death, the second
Earl of Egmont told me, that he was once at a consultation of the
Opposition, in which it was proposed to have Sir Robert murdered
by a mob, of which the earl had declared his abhorrence. Such an
attempt was actually made in 1733, at the time of the famous
excise bill. As the minister descended the stairs of the House
of commons on the night he carried the bill, he was guarded on
one side by his second son Edward, and on the other by General
Charles Churchill; but the crowd behind endeavoured to throw him
down, as he was a bulky man, and trample him to death; and that
not succeeding, they tried to strangle him by pulling his red
cloak tight-but fortunately the strings broke by the violence of
the tug.

(98) Wriothesly, Duke of Bedford, had married Lady Anne Egerton,
only daughter of Scroop, Duke of Bridgewater, by Lady Elizabeth
Churchill, daughter of John, Duke of Marlborough. See VOL. I. 8.

CHAPTER V.

Accession of George the Second-Sir Spencer Compton-Expected
Change in Administration-Continuation of Lord Townshend-and Sir
Robert Walpole by the Intervention of Queen Caroline-Mrs. Howard,
afterwards Countess of Suffolk-Her character by
Swift-and by Lord Chesterfield.

The unexpected death of George I. on his road to Hanover was
instantly notified by Lord Townshend, secretary of state, who
attended his Majesty, to his brother Sir Robert Walpole, who as
expeditiously was the first to carry the news to the
successor and hail him King. The next step was, to ask who his
Majesty would please should draw his speech to the
Council. "Sir Spencer Compton," replied the new monarch. The
answer was decisive, and implied Sir Robert's dismission. Sir
Spencer Compton was Speaker of the House of Commons, and
treasurer, I think, at that time, to his Royal Highness, who by
that first command, implied his intention of making Sir Spencer
his prime-minister. He was a worthy man, of
exceedingly grave formality, but of no parts, as his conduct
immediately proved. The poor gentleman was so little
qualified to accommodate himself to the grandeur of the
moment, and to conceive how a new sovereign should address
himself to his ministers, and he had also been so far from
meditating to supplant the premier,(99) that, in his distress, it
was to Sir Robert himself that he had recourse, and whom he
besought to make the draught of the Kin(,'s speech for him. The
new Queen, a better judge than her husband of the
capacities of the two candidates, and who had silently watched
for a moment proper for overturning the new designations, did not
lose a moment in observing to the King how prejudicial it would
be to his affairs to prefer to the minister in
possession a man in whose own judgment his predecessor was the
fittest person to execute his office. From that moment there was
no more question of Sir Spencer Compton as prime-minister. He
was created an earl, soon received the garter, and became
president of that council, at the head of which he was much
fitter to sit than to direct. Fourteen years afterwards, he was
again nominated by the same Prince to replace Sir Robert as first
lord of the treasury on the latter's forced
resignation, but not -.is prime-minister; the conduct of
affairs being soon ravished from him by that dashing genius the
Earl of Granville, who reduced him to a cipher for the little
year in which he survived, and in which his incapacity had been
obvious.

The Queen, impatient to destroy all hopes of change, took the
earliest opportunity of declaring her own sentiments. The
instance I shall cite will be a true picture of courtiers. Their
Majesties had removed from Richmond to their temporary palace in
Leicester-fields(100)on the very evening of their receiving
notice of their accession to the Crown, and the next day all the
nobility and gentry in town crowded to kiss their hands; my
mother amongst the rest, who, Sir Spencer Compton's designation,
and not its evaporation, being known, could not make her way
between the scornful backs and elbows of her late devotees, nor
could approach nearer to the Queen than the
third or fourth row; but no sooner was she descried by her
Majesty than the Queen said aloud, "There, I am sure, I see a
friend!" The torrent divided and shrunk to either side; "and as
I came away," said my mother, "I might have walked over their
heads if I had pleased."

The preoccupation of the Queen in favour of Walpole must be
explained. He had early discovered that, in whatever
gallantries George Prince of Wales indulged or affected, even the
person of his Princess was dearer to him than any charms in his
mistresses; and though Mrs. Howard (afterwards Lady Suffolk) was
openly his declared favourite, as avowedly as the Duchess of
Kendal was his father's, Sir Robert's sagacity
discerned that the power would be lodged with the wife, not with
the mistress; and he not only devoted himself to the
Princess; but totally abstained from even visiting Mrs.
Howard; while the injudicious multitude concluded. that the
common consequences of an inconstant husband's passion 'for his
concubine would follow, and accordingly warmer, if not public
vows were made to the supposed favourite, than to the Prince's
consort. They, especially, who in the late reign had been out of
favour at court, had, to pave their future path to favour, and to
secure the fall of Sir Robert Walpole,
sedulously, and no doubt zealously, dedicated themselves to the
mistress: Bolingbroke secretly, his friend Swift openly, and as
ambitiously, cultivated Mrs. Howard; and the
neighbourhood of Pope's villa to Richmond facilitated their
intercourse, though his religion forbade his entertaining
views beyond those of serving his friends. Lord Bathurst,
another of that connexion, and Lord Chesterfield, too early for
his interest, founded their hopes on Mrs. Howard's
influence; but astonished and disappointed at finding Walpole not
shaken from his seat, they determined on an experiment that
should be the touchstone of Mrs. Howard's credit. They persuaded
her to demand of the new King an Earl's coronet for Lord
Bathurst. She did-the Queen put in her veto, and Swift, in
despair, returned to Ireland, to lament Queen Anne, and curse
Queen Caroline, under the mask of patriotism, in a
country he abhorred and despised.(101)