2

GEORGE I. PROCLAIMED KING.

[1714. if the queen's death had not occurred, matters would have been in such a state that there would have been nothing to fear for the future. "What a world is this, and how does fortune banter us," writes Bolingbroke to Swift. There was a bold accomplice in Bolingbroke's plots who was not inclined at first to grieve over the caprices of fortune. It is related upon the authority of Dr. Lockier, dean of Peterborough, that, upon the death of the queen, Atterbury urged the immediate proclamation of the Pretender, to which Ormond demurring, the bishop replied with an oath, "we have not a moment to lose." Lockier, who was a personal friend of George I., says, "such a bold step would have made people believe that they [the Jacobites] were stronger than they really were; and might have taken strangely. The late king, I am persuaded, would not have stirred a foot, if there had been a strong opposition; indeed the family did not expect this crown; at least nobody in it, but the old princess Sophia."* Opposition there was none. The Lords Justices issued a proclamation, declaring that the high and mighty prince George, elector of Brunswick Lüneburg, had, by the death of queen Anne, become our rightful and liege lord, king of Great Britain, France, and Ireland. Multitudes crowded round the heralds as they proclaimed the stranger king. Not a voice of dissent was raised. The same afternoon the Parliament met, according to the provision of the Act of Regency. The Lords Justices entered upon their administrative functions. The Peers and the Commons sent congratulations to the new sovereign upon his happy and peaceable accession to the throne, and besought his majesty to give the kingdon the advantage of his royal presence as soon as possible. The Civil List was settled upon the same scale as had been granted to queen Anne. Throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland, no popular discontent was manifested. The title of king George was recognized by France and the other European powers, whether Protestant or Catholic. There was partial dissatisfaction, no doubt, amongst some of that class of politicians whose loyalty was determined by the extent to which their personal interests were expected to be gratified. The name of Marlborough was not found in the list of those nominated to the Regency; and he retired to the country, after having made a sort of triumphal entry into London. Many a solicitation for place and preferment went over to Hanover. But the new king exhibited no eagerness to quit the quiet country where he was respected, and where he had no contests of Whig and Tory to disturb his peace. It was the 18th of September when George, accompanied by his eldest son, landed at Greenwich.

That the new king should have been received with acclamations when he set his foot on English soil was a matter of course. But his personal appearance and demeanour were not calculated to excite any fervid enthusiasm. He was fifty-four years of age. He was below the middle stature. He was shy and awkward. He could not speak English. His public virtues were probably little known to his new subjects. Possessing despotic power, he had governed his Hanoverians wisely and beneficently; and the people shed tears of real grief when he left them. He had no showy qualities. He was unfor tunate in his marriage, and did not win popular respect by the exercise of

# Spence's "Anecdotes," p. 55.

1714.]

SOPHIA, PRINCESS OF ZELL.

the domestic virtues. Every one knew that twenty years before the Elector George Louis was called to the throne of England-that is, in 1694, when he was electoral heir apparent-some terrible tragedy had occurred in the palace of Hanover. Count Philip Königsmark suddenly disappeared. Princess Sophia Dorothea, the wife of the electoral prince, was divorced in a somewhat irregular way, by a court held at Hanover; and was now pining away her life in the castle of Aldhen, with no glimpse of the outer world but the dreary Heath of Lüneburg. "Old peasants, late in the next century, will remember that they used to see her sometimes driving on the Heath-beautiful lady, long black hair, and the glitter of diamonds in it; sometimes the reins in her own hand, but always with a party of cavalry around her, and their swords drawn." Sophia, born princess of Zell, was the mother of George II., who constantly asserted her innocence. Of her imprudence there could be no doubt. Her sad story has furnished abundant matter of controversy. After

Sophia of Zell, wife of George I. (From the Strawberry-Hill Drawing.)

the death of George I., under the floor of the princess's dressing-room, a body was discovered, which was considered to be that of count Königsmark. Horace Walpole, who derived his information from his father sir Robert, assumes that the unfortunate victim of jealousy was there secretly strangled. Later accounts allege that there was a scene of violence and loss of life, in which Königsmark had openly to encounter many persons.

* Carlyle, "Friedrich II. of Prussia," vol. i. p. 34.

"It has at

MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS-PARLIAMENT.

[1714.

length," says the historian of Frederick the Great, "become a certainty, a clear fact, to those who are curious about it. . . . Crime enough is in it, sin and folly on both sides; there is killing too, but not assassination (as it turns out); on the whole there is nothing of atrocity, and nothing that was not accidental, unavoidable;—and there is a certain greatness of decorum on the part of those Hanover princes and official gentlemen, a depth of silence, of polite stoicism, which deserves more praise than it will get in our times."

The unostentatious sovereign, "all dressed in brown, even his stockings," + was not fitted by nature to form for himself a court-party, by which he might in some degree have neutralized the two great parliamentary parties. He had been accustomed to govern a small country through ministers to whom his will was law; and he did not understand the complications which made the king of England in many respects the possessor of a nominal power, whilst the real power was with those called his servants. The novelty of his position is well illustrated by his majesty's account of one of his earliest impressions. He said, "This is a strange country. The first morning after my arrival at St. James's, I looked out of the window, and saw a park, with canals, &c., which they told me were mine. The next day, lord Chetwynd, the ranger of my park, sent me a fine brace of carp out of my canal; and I was told I must give five guineas to lord Chetwynd's servant for bringing me my own carp out of my own canal in my own park." King George was inevitably and completely thrown into the hands of the great Whig party to whose firmness and decision he was indebted for his quiet accession to the throne. It was not a question, as in the early days of king William, whether the government could be best conducted by the union of party leaders, or by one dominant party. George had not the ability, or the ambition, to be in many respects his own minister, as William was. He had to rely upon the chiefs of the party who upheld his parliamentary title to the crown, in opposition to the party who would have clung to the hereditary title. The Chevalier St. George had issued from Lorraine, on the 29th of August, a manifesto, in which he asserted his right to the throne. He had been inactive, he said, "until the death of the princess, our sister, of whose good intention towards us we could not for some time past well doubt; and this was the reason we then sat still, expecting the good effects thereof, which were unfortunately prevented by her deplorable death." Bolingbroke, the chief encourager of those good intentions, was removed from his office of Secretary of State; and the seals were taken from him with some impolitic want of respect. Lord Townshend was appointed in his place; and the other great offices were filled up by leading Whigs. The doubts of Marlborough's fidelity to the Hanoverian succession had been manifested by the omission of his name in the Council of Regency. He was, nevertheless, nominated to his former offices of Captain General and Master of the Ordnance. Trusted, however, he was not; and he justified the suspicions which attached to his proverbial faithlessness by sending, as a loan, a sum of money to the Pretender, just before the unsuccessful issue of the rising of 1715 furnished evidence that the Stuart cause had become in a great degree hopeless.

* Carlyle, "Friedrich II. of Prussia," vol. i. p. 35.

+"Walpoliana."

H. Walpole. "Reminiscences of the Court of George I. and II.”

1715.]

IMPEACHMENTS OF QUEEN ANNE'S LATE MINISTERS.

5

The coronation of the king took place on the 20th of October. The peers of both parties attended the ceremony. In January the Parliament was dissolved, and the writs for a new election were sent out. When the two Houses met on the 17th of March, the preponderance of the Whigs was decidedly manifested. The king opened the Parliament in person; but his speech was read by the lord chancellor. Its tone was moderate and conciliatory. "Let no unhappy divisions of parties here at home divert you from pursuing the common interest of your country." The Address of the Peers contained a passage which excited an animated debate, in which Bolingbroke spoke for the last time. "To recover the reputation of this kingdom in foreign parts" was held to be injurious to the memory of the late queen. The offensive sentence was carried by a large majority. The Address of the Commons was still more pointed against the latter advisers of queen Anne. The Pretender's hopes, it was said, "were built upon the measures that had been taken for some time past in Great Britain. It shall be our business to trace out those measures whereon he placed his hopes, and to bring the authors of them to condign punishment." It was clear that the new possessors of power would not attempt to win over their enemies by conciliation. Oxford, who was probably not so deeply committed as some of his colleagues, patiently awaited the approaching storm. Ormond braved its utmost fury, and openly associated with the most suspected Jacobites. Bolingbroke appeared at Drury-lane Theatre; bespoke a play for the ensuing night's performance; and then fled to France. He soon after became secretary of state to the prince who asserted his right to the crown of England as James III., and to the crown of Scotland as James VIII. On the 9th of April, the Secretary of State, Stanhope, laid a mass of papers on the table of the Commons, which had reference to the peace of Utrecht and the cessation of arms which preceded it. These were referred to a secret committee. On the 9th of June their Report was presented; and then Walpole rose, and impeached Bolingbroke of high treason. The resolution of impeachment was passed without a division. Lord Coningsby then impeached Robert, earl of Oxford, of high treason and other crimes and misdemeanours. This resolution was also carried without a division. On the 21st of June, a similar impeachment of Ormond was decided by a majority of forty-seven. Ormond followed Bolingbroke in his flight to France. Acts of Attainder were immediately passed against both these fugitives. Oxford was impeached at the bar of the Lords, and was committed to the Tower.

During the autumn of 1714 it became manifest that the old High-Church spirit was again stirring up the bitterest party strife. There were riots at Bristol on the night of the king's coronation, when the cry was, " Down with the Roundheads! God bless Doctor Sacheverel!" At Birmingham, Norwich, Reading, and other towns, there were similar disturbances. The elections of the spring of 1715 were conducted with more violent excitement than at any previous period. Mob intimidation was held to be more effective even than bribery. The impeachments of Bolingbroke, Oxford, and Ormond were followed by riots of a really serious character. At Manchester, in June, the meeting-houses of Dissenters were destroyed by a triumphant mob; the prisons were thrown open; the health of king James was openly drunk. In July, tumults of an alarming nature occurred in the Midland counties, espe

RIOTS IN ENGLAND-INSURRECTION IN SCOTLAND.

[1715. cially in Staffordshire, where the dissenters were the universal objects of outrage. The powers of the justice of peace and the constable were quite unequal to cope with these manifestations of the blind fury of the populace. These disturbances gave occasion to the Riot Act, which, with some modifications, continues to be the law of the land.

On the 21st of September the Parliament was adjourned. The royal speech alluded to an event of momentous importance, "the open and declared rebellion which is now actually begun in Scotland." Since the abortive attempt of Prince James Edward to invade Scotland with a French army in 1708,* there had been outward tranquillity; but there was considerable dissatisfaction amongst the Scottish adherents to the national independence, which they held was imperilled by the Union. There had been serious differences, also, between the Presbyterians and the tolerated Episcopalians. The Hanoverian king had been proclaimed at Edinburgh without any manifestations opposed to the triumphant attitude of the Whigs. The Jacobites "were so confounded at this surprising turn of Providence, that they durst not move a tongue against it in public."+ Yet the numerical strength of the scattered supporters of the old dynasty in Scotland was probably greater than that of the sober and industrious inhabitants of towns, who had a natural horror of political convulsions. The Lowland Lairds, a jovial and thoughtless race, having little acquaintance with the real business. of life, and very slight participation in the conduct of public affairs, were ready enough to hiccup out sedition as they drained their punch-bowls to the health of king James. They could enforce military service upon the theory of feudal obedience; but they had lost the power of practically organizing those tenants who were once content to be accounted vassals. On the contrary, in the Highlands there was still in vigour the old clannish spirit, which could readily convert the mountaineers into a formidable army, If the Chiefs of clans could again agree to take part in a general insurrection, they might co-operate with the discontented Lowlanders; and with the aid of the Roman Catholic gentry of the English border counties, the Hanoverian succession might be overthrown by one vigorous blow. Such was the belief that produced the Rebellion of 1715.

Amongst the Scottish nobles who had advocated the Union none had been more zealous than John Erskine, earl of Mar, who came to Edinburgh as Secretary of State in 1706, under the Whigs, and continued to be Secretary under the Tories. His happy art of accommodating himself to circumstances procured him the name of "Bobbing John." In the interval between the death of queen Anne and the arrival of king George in England, the earl of Mar addressed a letter to his new sovereign, in which, as one of his Secretaries of State, he congratulated him upon his happy accession; set forth that his own sincerity and faithfulness were out of dispute, seeing the part he acted "in the bringing about and making of the Union, when the succession to the Crown of Scotland was settled in your majesty's family;" and protested that "your majesty shall ever find me as faithful and dutiful a subject and servant

* Ante, vol. v. p. 335. The reader is requested to correct the typographical error of calling the son of James II. "Charles Edward," instead of James Edward.

Rae, quoted in Burton, vol. ii. p. 87.