XV. 1727. CHAP. son.* Lady Suffolk was placid, good-natured, and kind-hearted, but very deaf, and not remarkable for wit. Though the King passed half his time in her company, her influence was quite subordinate to that of the Queen; she could obtain from George but little attention and less pay, and at length, weary of a post so unprofitable as that of a favourite without favour, she left him, and withdrew from Court in 1734.† It seemed, however, so difficult to believe that the wife should be always preferred to the mistress, that Lady Suffolk received a large share of homage and solicitation. All the wits in Opposition courted her friendship, and celebrated her perfections. Pope, Gay, Arbuthnot, the eloquent Bolingbroke, and the chivalrous Peterborough, formed a galaxy of genius around her, and she shines in history with a lustre not her own. Even the moody Swift declares, "I know no person of your sex for whom I have so great an esteem ‡,” 66 *Memoirs of Horace Walpole, vol. i. p. 513. + Horace Walpole, and after him Archdeacon Coxe, state that Gay, Swift, and Chesterfield all fell into disgrace at Court by supposing Lady Suffolk's influence to be greater than the Queen's, and leaning only on the former. But the falsehood of these stories and surmises is well shown by the editor of the Suffolk Letters. (See especially his note, vol. ii. p. 84.) All the stories of Horace Walpole are to be received with great caution; but his Reminiscences, above all, written in his dotage, teem with the grossest inaccuracies and most incredible assertions. To Lady Suffolk, November 21. 1730. and even her deafness becomes modesty and merit CHAP. in the graceful lines of Pope.* The despatch from Lord Townshend, announcing the King's death, reached London on the 14th of June. Walpole immediately hastened to the palace of Richmond, where he was told that the Prince, according to his usual custom, had retired to bed for an afternoon slumber. His Highness (so we may call him for the last time) being awakened, at Walpole's desire, started up and made his appearance half-dressed. Walpole knelt down and kissed his hand; but the King was at first incredulous, nor convinced of the truth, until Townshend's letter was produced. The minister then inquired whom his Majesty would be pleased to appoint to draw up the necessary declaration to the Privy Council, fully hoping that the choice would fall upon himself. Compton," answered the King shortly, and Walpole withdrew in the deepest disappointment.t Sir Spencer Compton, the second surviving son of the Earl of Northampton, was chosen Speaker in 1715, and a Knight of the Bath, on the revival of that Order. He and Lord Scarborough had been * After a long panegyric, he concludes: : "When all the world conspires to praise her, "The woman's deaf, and will not hear!" These lines have also been ascribed to Lord Peterborough. + Minutes of Conversation with Mr. Scrope, Coxe's Walpole, vol. ii. p. 519. XV. 1727. XV. CHAP. the chief favourites of the King as Prince of Wales. He was respectable in his private, regular in his 1727. public, character. In the Speaker's chair, where form rather than substance is required, he had fulfilled his duty well, but the seals of office were too heavy for his hands. So little acquainted was he with real business, that when Walpole conveyed to him the King's commands, he avowed his ignorance, and begged Walpole to draw up the Declaration for him. Sir Robert willingly complied, and the Declaration which he wrote was carried by Compton to the King. Seeing the weakness of his rival, Walpole, with his usual sagacity, said to his friend Sir William Yonge, "I shall certainly go out, but let me ad"vise you not to go into violent opposition, as we "must soon come in again." It was not easy (such was the jealousy between them) for any minister of George the First to stand well with the Prince of Wales. Pulteney, moreover, had taken care to repeat, or perhaps to exaggerate, some disrespectful expressions which Walpole had used in 1720.* Yet Sir Robert, on returning to office, had not 66 * According to Pulteney, this conversation passed on the reconciliation in the Royal Family in 1720. Pulteney asked Walpole what terms he had made for the Prince. "To which you answered, with a sneer, Why he is to go to Court again, "and he will have his drums and his guards and such fine things." But said Pulteney, Is the Prince to be left Regent again as he had been when the King left England? "Your (6 answer was this: He does not deserve it. We have done too "much for him, and if it was to be done again, we would not do 66 SO much!" See Pulteney's " Answer to an Infamous Libel." 66 XV. 1727. neglected to found his future, as far as he could CHAP. venture without hazarding his present favour. He had obtained from the King the Garter for Lord Scarborough, and had often gratified with places other personal adherents of the Prince.* Above all, Walpole had now Queen Caroline on his side. He had gained her regard by his attentions, her esteem by his abilities; she perceived that no one could surpass him in financial skill, and that the late King was scarcely mistaken, when he said to her one day in chapel, that Walpole could change stones into gold!t At this crisis also, he fixed and secured her favour, by a well-timed offer to obtain from Parliament a jointure for Her Majesty of 100,000l. a year, while Compton only ventured to propose 60,000l. What better proof could be required that Walpole was fittest for Prime Minister? Under these circumstances, the triumph of Compton endured but a few days. Caroline, without openly opposing the King's resolution, repre sented to him the rashness and danger of dismissing a prosperous and well-established government; she made him acquainted with the incapacity of Compton, in applying for assistance to the very minister whom he displaced; and she added, that Walpole had agreed to carry through the House of Commons an increase of 130,000l. to the Civil List. * Count de Broglie to the King of France, July 24. 1724. + Minutes of Conversation with Mr. Scrope. 182 XV. 1727. 66 66 66 HISTORY OF ENGLAND CHAP. "inclined, and seemed resolved to repair to the Highlands, and make the best stand he could "with such as repaired to him; and this measure "was approved by Lord Inverness, and his other 'subjects attending him, with whom he advised. Upon my inquiring if that Lord was with the King, he shifted giving a direct answer; but being put to it, he said he was not actually present "with him, but kept at a little distance, so as His 'Majesty could send often to him, and have him "when he pleased." * ""* When asked for his opinion in this momentous affair, Lockhart desired to consult Colonel Clephane, a zealous Jacobite, who had taken an active part in the Rebellion of 1715 †, and was now living in exile. The answer of Cameron is another strong proof how rife were cabals and jealousies even at so small a Court as James's. He declined to send for Clephane, who he said was "of the Marrian faction;" and he did not yield till Lockhart had pledged himself for Clephane's honour and fidelity, and had inveighed against the folly of keeping up divisions at a crisis when all hands were needed. Both Clephane and Lockhart agreed, that the project of going over to Scotland, without either a settled scheme or foreign succour, was utterly hopeless, and could serve only to lose the cause and ruin its adherents altogether. It appeared that Inverness and Dunbar, who ad * Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 359. See the first volume of this history, p. 232. |