A History of the Four Georges and of William IV Volume I Part 2

[Sidenote: 1714--The Dukes of Somerset and Argyll]

Before there was time to get to any of the business of the council the doors were opened, and the Duke of Argyll and the Duke of Somerset entered the room. The Duke of Argyll, soldier, statesman, orator, shrewd self-seeker, represented the Whigs of Scotland; the honest, proud, pompous Duke of Somerset those of England. The two intruders, as they were a.s.suredly regarded by the majority of those present, announced that they had heard the news of the Queen's danger, and that they felt themselves bound to hasten to the meeting of the council, although not summoned thither, in order that they might be able to afford advice and a.s.sistance.

The Duke of Somerset was in many respects the most powerful n.o.bleman in England. But all his rank, his dignity, and his influence, could not protect him against the ridicule and contempt which his feeble character, his extravagant pride, and his grotesquely haughty demeanor, invariably brought upon him. He was probably the most ridiculous man of his time; he had the pomp of an Eastern pasha without the grave dignity which Eastern manners confer. He was like the pasha of a burlesque or an _opera bouffe_. His servants had to obey him by signs; he disdained to give orders by voice. His first wife was Elizabeth Percy, the virgin widow of Lord Ogle and Tom Thynne of Longleat, the beloved of Charles John Konigsmark, the "Carrots" of Dean Swift. While she was d.u.c.h.ess of Somerset and Queen Anne's close friend, Swift, who {43} hated her, hinted pretty broadly that she was privy to Konigsmark's plot to murder Tom Thynne, and the d.u.c.h.ess revenged herself by keeping the Dean out of the bishopric of Hereford. When she died, Somerset married Lady Charlotte Finch, one of the "Black Funereal Finches," celebrated by Sir Charles Hanbury Williams. Once, when she tapped him on the shoulder with a fan, he rebuked her angrily: "My first wife was a Percy, and she never took such a liberty." When he had occasion to travel, all the roads on or near which he had to pa.s.s were scoured by a vanguard of outriders, whose business it was to protect him, not merely from obstruction and delay, but from the gaze of the vulgar herd who might be anxious to feast their eyes upon his gracious person. The statesmen of his own time, while they made use of him, seem to have vied with each other in protestations of their contempt for his abilities and his character. Swift declared that Somerset had not "a grain of sense of any kind." Marlborough several times professed an utter contempt for Somerset's abilities or discretion, and was indignant at the idea that he ever could have made use of such a man in any work requiring confidence or judgment. Yet Somerset, ridiculous as he was, came to be a personage of importance in the crisis now impending over England. He was, at all events, a man whose word could be trusted, and who, when he promised to take a certain course, would be sure to follow it. That very pride which made him habitually ridiculous raised him on great occasions above any suspicion of mercenary or personal views in politics. One of his contemporaries describes him as "so humorsome, proud, and capricious, that he was rather a ministry spoiler than a ministry maker." In the present condition of things, however, he could be made use of for the purpose of making one ministry after spoiling another. When he carried his great personal influence over to the side of the Hanoverian accession, and joined with Argyll and with Shrewsbury, it must have been evident, to men like Bolingbroke at least, that the enterprises of the Jacobites {44} would require rare good-fortune and marvellous energy to bring them to any success.

[Sidenote: 1714--The coup d'etat]

Poetry and romance have shown to the world the most favorable side of the character of John Campbell, Duke of Argyll, who was then at least as powerful in Scotland as the Duke of Somerset in England. Pope describes him as

Argyll, the State's whole thunder born to wield, And shake alike the senate and the field.

Scott has drawn a charming picture of him in the "Heart of Mid-Lothian"

as the patriotic Scotchman, whose heart must "be cold as death can make it when it does not warm to the tartan"--the kind and generous protector of Jeanie Deans. Argyll was a man of many gifts. He was a soldier, a statesman, and an orator. He had charged at Ramilies and Oudenarde, had rallied a shrinking column at Malplaquet, and served in the sieges of Ostend and Lille and Ghent. His eloquence in the House of Lords is said to have combined the freshness of youth, the strength of manhood, and the wisdom of old age. Lord Hervey, who is not given to praise, admits that Argyll was "gallant, and a good officer, with very good parts, and much more reading and knowledge than generally falls to the share of a man educated a soldier, and born to so great a t.i.tle and fortune." But Hervey also says that Argyll was "haughty, pa.s.sionate, and peremptory,"

and it cannot be doubted that he was capable of almost any political tergiversation, or even treachery, which could have served his purpose; and his purpose was always his own personal interest. He changed his opinions with the most unscrupulous prompt.i.tude; he gave an opinion one way and acted another way without hesitation, and without a blush. He was always equal to the emergency; he had the full courage of his non-convictions. He was the grandson of that Argyll whose last sleep before his execution is the subject of Mr. Ward's well-known painting; his great-grandfather, too, gave up his life on the scaffold. He did not want any of the courage of his ancestors; but he was {45} likely to take care that his advancement should not be to the block or the gallows. At such a moment as this which we are now describing his adhesion and his action were of inestimable value to the Hanoverian cause.

When these two great peers entered the council-chamber a moment of perplexity and confusion followed. Bolingbroke and Ormond had probably not even yet a full understanding of the meaning of this dramatic performance, and what consequences it was likely to insure. While they sat silent, according to some accounts, the Duke of Shrewsbury arose, and gravely thanking the Whig peers for their courtesy in attending the council, accepted their co-operation in the name of all the others present. They took their places at the council-table, and St. John and Ormond must have begun to feel that all was over. The intrusion of the Whig peers was a daring and a significant step in itself, but when the Duke of Shrewsbury welcomed their appearance and accepted their co-operation, it was clear to the Jacobites that all was part of a prearranged scheme, to which resistance would now be in vain. The new visitors to the council called for the reports of the royal physician, and having received and read them, suggested that the Duke of Shrewsbury should be recommended to the Queen as Lord High Treasurer. St. John did not venture to resist the proposal; he could only sit with as much appearance of composure as he was enabled to maintain, and accept the suggestion of his enemies. A deputation of the peers, with the Duke of Shrewsbury among them, at once sought and obtained an interview with the dying Queen. She gave the Lord High Treasurer's staff into Shrewsbury's hand, and bade him, it is said, in that voice of singular sweetness and melody which was almost her only charm, to use it for the good of her people.

The office of Lord High Treasurer is now always put into what is called commission; its functions are managed by several ministers, of whom the First Lord of the Treasury is one, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer {46} another. In all recent times the First Lord of the Treasury has usually been Prime-minister, and his office therefore corresponds fairly enough with that which was called the office of Lord High Treasurer in earlier days. It was clear that when the Duke of Shrewsbury became Lord High Treasurer at such a junction he would stand firmly by the Protestant succession, and would oppose any kind of scheming in the cause of the exiled Stuarts.

[Sidenote: 1714--Whigs in possession]

Some writers near to that time, and Mr. Lecky among more recent historians, are of opinion that it was not either of the intruding dukes who proposed that Shrewsbury should be appointed Treasurer. Mr. Lecky is even of opinion that it may have been Bolingbroke himself who made the suggestion. That seems to us extremely probable. All accounts agree in confirming the idea that Bolingbroke was taken utterly by surprise when the great Whig dukes entered the council-chamber. The moment he saw that Shrewsbury welcomed them he probably made up his mind to the fact that an entirely new condition of things had arisen, and that all his previous calculations were upset. He was not a man to remain long dumfounded by any change in the state of affairs. It would have been quite consistent with his character and his general course of action if, when he saw the meaning of the crisis, he had at once resolved to make the best of it and to try to keep himself still at the head of affairs. In that spirit nothing is more likely than that he should have pushed himself to the front once more, and proposed, as Lord High Treasurer, the man whom, but for the sudden and overwhelming pressure brought to bear upon him, he would have tried to keep out of all influence and power at such a moment.

The appointment of the Duke of Shrewsbury settled the question. The crisis was virtually over. The Whig statesmen at once sent out summonses to all the members of the Privy Council living anywhere near London.

That same afternoon another meeting of the council was held. Somers himself, the great Whig leader whose {47} services had made the party ill.u.s.trious in former reigns, and whose fame sheds a l.u.s.tre on them even to this hour--Somers, aged, infirm, decaying as he was in body and in mind--hastened to attend the summons, and to lend his strength and his authority to the measures on which his colleagues had determined. The council ordered the concentration of several regiments in and near London. They recalled troops from Ostend, and sent a fleet to sea.

General Stanhope, a soldier and statesman of whom we shall hear more, was prepared, if necessary, to take possession of the Tower and clap the leading Jacobites into it, to obtain possession of all the outports, and, in short, to act as military dictator, authorized to antic.i.p.ate revolution and to keep the succession safe. In a word, the fate of the Stuarts was sealed. Bolingbroke was checkmated; the Chevalier de St.

George would have put to sea in vain. Marlborough was on his way to England, and there was nothing to do but to wait till the breath was out of Queen Anne's body, and proclaim George the Elector King of England.

The time of waiting was not long. Anne sank into death on August 1, 1714, and the heralds proclaimed that "the high and mighty Prince George, Elector of Brunswick and Luneburg, is, by the death of Queen Anne of blessed memory, become our lawful and rightful liege lord, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith." This "King of France" was lucky enough not to come to his throne until the conclusion of a long war against the King of France who lived in Versailles. The "Defender of the Faith" was just now making convenient arrangements that his mistresses should follow him as speedily as possible when he should have to take his unwilling way to his new dominions.

On August 3d Bolingbroke wrote a letter to Dean Swift, in which he says, "The Earl of Oxford was removed on Tuesday; the Queen died on Sunday.

What a world this is, and how does fortune banter us!" In other {48} words, Bolingbroke tells Swift that full success seemed within his grasp on Tuesday, and was suddenly torn away from him on Sunday. But the most characteristic part of the letter is a pa.s.sage which throws a very blaze of light over the unconquerable levity of the man. "I have lost all by the death of the Queen but my spirit; and, I protest to you, I feel that increase upon me. The Whigs are a pack of Jacobites; that shall be the cry in a month, if you please." No sooner is one web of intrigue swept away than Bolingbroke sets to work to weave a new one on a different plan. Nothing can subdue those high animal spirits; nothing can physic that selfishness; nothing can fix that levity to a recognition of the realities of things. Bolingbroke has not a word now about the cause of the Stuarts; for the moment he cannot think of that. His new scheme is to make out that his enemies were, after all, the true Jacobites; he will checkmate them that way--"in a month, if you please." On the very same day Mr. John Barber, the printer of some of Swift's pamphlets, afterwards an Alderman and Lord Mayor, writes to Swift and tells him, speaking of Bolingbroke, that "when my lord gave me the letter" (to be enclosed to Swift) "he said he hoped you would come up and help to save the const.i.tution, which, with a little good management, might be kept in Tory hands." The chill, clear common-sense of Swift's answer might have impressed even Bolingbroke, but did not.

[Sidenote: 1714--Simon Harcourt]

One among the Tories, indeed, would have had the courage to forestall the Whigs and their proclamation. This one man was a priest, and not a soldier. Atterbury, the eloquent Bishop of Rochester, came to Bolingbroke, and urged him to proclaim King James at Charing Cross, offering himself to head a procession in his lawn sleeves if Bolingbroke would only act on his advice. But for the moment Bolingbroke could only complain of fortune's banter, and plan out new intrigues for the restoration, not of the Stuarts, but of the Tory party--that is to say, of {49} himself. His refusal wrung from Atterbury the declaration that the best cause in England was lost for want of spirit.

Parliament a.s.sembled, and on August 5th the Commons were summoned to the Bar of the House of Lords, and the Lord Chancellor made a speech in the name of the Lords of the Regency. He told the Lords and Commons that the Privy Council appointed by George, Elector of Hanover, had proclaimed that prince as the lawful and rightful sovereign of these realms. Both Houses agreed to send addresses to the King, expressing their duty and affection, and the House of Commons pa.s.sed a bill granting to his Majesty the same civil list as that which Queen Anne had enjoyed, but with additional clauses for the payment of arrears due to the Hanoverian troops who had been in the service of Great Britain. The Lord Chancellor, who had just addressed the House of Lords and the Commoners standing at the Bar, was himself a remarkable ill.u.s.tration of the politics and the principles of that age. Simon Harcourt had been Lord Chancellor in the later years of Queen Anne's life. His appointment ended with her death, but he was re-appointed by the Lords of the Regency in the name of the new sovereign, and he was again sworn in as Lord Chancellor on August 3, 1714, "in Court at his house aforesaid, Lincoln's Inn Fields, _Anno Primo, Georgii Regis_." He was one of the Lords Justices by virtue of his office, and as such had already taken the oath of allegiance to the new sovereign, and of abjuration to James. Lord Harcourt had been throughout his whole career not only a very devoted Tory, but in later years a positive Jacobite. He was a highly accomplished speaker, a man of great culture, and a lawyer of considerable, if not pre-eminent, attainments. He was still comparatively young for a public man of such position. Born in 1660, he entered Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1675, was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1676, and called to the Bar in 1683. He became member of Parliament for Abingdon in 1690, and soon rose to great distinction in the {50} House of Commons as well as at the Bar. He conducted the impeachment of the great Lord Somers, and was knighted and made Solicitor-General by Anne in 1702. He became Attorney-General shortly after. He conducted, in 1703, the prosecution of Defoe for his famous satirical tract, "The Shortest Way with the Dissenters." Harcourt threw himself into the prosecution with the fervor and the bitterness of a sectary and a partisan. He made a most vehement and envenomed speech against Defoe; he endeavored to stir up every religious prejudice and pa.s.sion in favor of the prosecution. c.o.ke had scarcely shown more of the animosity of a partisan in prosecuting Raleigh than Simon Harcourt did in prosecuting Defoe. In 1709-10 Harcourt was the leading counsel for Sacheverell, and received the Great Seal in 1710, becoming, as the phrase then was, "Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of Great Britain." A whole year, wanting only a few days, pa.s.sed before he was raised to the peerage as Lord Harcourt. He acted as Speaker of the House of Lords before he became a peer and a member of the House, and even had on one occasion to express on behalf of the Peers their thanks to Lord Peterborough for his services in Spain. In 1713 he became Lord Chancellor of England. During all this time he had been a most devoted adherent of the Stuarts, and during the later period he was an open and avowed Jacobite. He had opposed strongly the oaths of abjuration which now, as Lord Chief Justice, he had both taken and administered. Almost his first conspicuous act as a member of Parliament was to protest against the Bill which required the oath Of abjuration of James and his descendants, and he maintained consistently the same principles and the same policy till the death of Queen Anne. There can be no doubt that if just then any movement had been made on behalf of the Stuarts, with the slightest chance of success, Lord Chancellor Harcourt would have thrown himself into it heart and soul. Nevertheless, he took the oath of allegiance and the oath of abjuration; he professed to be a loyal subject of the King, {51} whose person and principles he despised and detested, and he swore to abjure forever all adhesion to that dynasty which with all his heart he would have striven, if he could, to restore to the throne of England.

Lord Campbell, in his "Lives of the Lord Chancellors," says of Harcourt, "I do not consider his efforts to restore the exiled Stuarts morally inconsistent with the engagements into which he had entered to the existing Government; and although there were loud complaints against him for at last sending in his adhesion to the House of Hanover, it should be recollected that the cause of the Stuarts had then become desperate, and that instead of betraying he did everything in his power to screen his old a.s.sociates." The cause of the Stuarts had not become, even then, so utterly desperate as to prevent many brave men from laying down their lives for it. Thirty years had to pa.s.s away before the last blow was struck for that cause of the Stuarts which Harcourt by solemn oath abjured forever. Such credit as he is ent.i.tled to have, because he protected rather than betrayed his old a.s.sociates, we are free to give him, and it stands a significant ill.u.s.tration of the political morality of the time that such comparative credit is all that his enthusiastic biographer ventures to claim for him.

[Sidenote: 1714--Lords and Commons]

The House of Lords had then two hundred and seven members, many of whom, being Catholics, were not permitted to take any part in public business.

That number of Peers is about in just proportion to the population of England as it was then when compared with the Peers and the population of England at present. In the House of Commons there were at the same time five hundred and fifty-eight members. England sent in five hundred and thirteen, and Scotland, which had lately accepted the union, returned forty-five. It need hardly be said that at that time Ireland had her own Parliament, and sent no members to Westminster. A great number of the county family names in the House of Commons were just the same as those which we see at present. The Stanhopes, the Lowthers, the Lawsons, the Herberts, the Harcourts, {52} the Cowpers, the Fitzwilliams, the Cecils, the Grevilles; all these, and many others, were represented in Parliament then as they are represented in Parliament now. Then, as more lately, the small boroughs had the credit of returning, mostly of course through family influence, men of eminence other than political, who happened to sit in the House of Commons. Steele sat for Stockbridge, in "Southampton County," as Hamps.h.i.+re was then always called, Addison for Malmesbury, Prior for East Grinstead. There were no reports of the debates, nor printed lists of the divisions. Questions of foreign policy were sometimes discussed with doors strictly closed against all strangers, just as similar questions are occasionally, and not infrequently, discussed in the Senate of the United States at present. The pamphlet supplied in some measure the place of the newspaper report and the newspaper leading article. Some twelve years later than this the brilliant pen of Bolingbroke, who, if he had lived at a period nearer to our own, might have been an unrivalled writer of leading articles, was able to obtain for the series of pamphlets called "The Craftsman" a circulation greater than that ever enjoyed by the _Spectator_. Pulteney co-operated with him for a time in the work. Steele, as we have said, had been expelled from the House of Commons for his pamphlet "The Crisis." The caricature which played so important a part in political controversy all through the reigns of the Georges had just come into recognized existence. Countless caricatures of Bolingbroke, of Walpole, of Shrewsbury, of Marlborough, began to fly about London. Scurrilous ballads were of course in great demand, nor was the supply inadequate to the demand.

[Sidenote: 1714--Malbrouck de Retour]

One of the most successful of these compositions described the return of the Duke of Marlborough to London. On the very day of the Queen's death Marlborough landed at Dover. He came quickly on to London, and there, according to the descriptions given by his admirers, he was received like a restored sovereign returning to his throne. A procession of two hundred gentlemen on {53} horseback met him on the road to London, and the procession was joined shortly after by a long train of carriages. As he entered London the enthusiasm deepened with every foot of the way; the streets were lined with crowds of applauding admirers. Marlborough's carriage broke down near Temple Bar, and he had to exchange it for another. The little incident was only a new cause for demonstrations of enthusiasm. It was a fresh delight to see the hero more nearly than he could be seen through his carriage-windows. It was something to have delayed him for a moment, and to have compelled him to stand among the crowd of those who were pressing round to express their homage. This was the Whig description. According to Tory accounts Marlborough was more hissed than huzzaed, and at Temple Bar the hissing was loudest. The work of the historian would be comparatively easy if eye-witnesses could only agree as to any, even the most important, facts.

Enthusiastic Whig pamphleteers called upon their countrymen to love and honor their invincible hero, and declared that the wretch would be esteemed a disgrace to humanity, and should be transmitted to posterity with infamy, who would dare to use his tongue or pen against him. Such wretches, however, were found, and did not seem in the least to dread the infamy which was promised them. The scurrilous ballad of which we have already spoken was by one Ned Ward, a publican and rhymester, and it pictured the entry of the duke in verses after the fas.h.i.+on of Hudibras.

It depicted the procession as made up of

Frightful troops of thin-jawed zealots, Curs'd enemies to kings and prelates;

and declared that those "champions of religious errors" made London seem

As if the prince of terrors Was coming with his dismal train To plague the city once again.

The memory of what the Plague had done in London was still green enough to give bitter force to this allusion.

{54}

Marlborough could have afforded to despise what Hotspur calls the "metre-ballad-mongers," but his pride received a check and chill not easily to be got over. When fairly rid of his enthusiastic followers and admirers he went to the House of Lords almost at once, and took the oaths; but he did not remain there. In truth, he soon found himself bitterly disappointed; not with the people--they could not have been more enthusiastic than they were--but with the new ruling power. Immediately after the death of the Queen, and even before the proclamation of the new sovereign had taken place, the Hanoverian resident in London handed to the Privy Council a letter from George, in George's own handwriting, naming the men who were to act in combination with the seven great officers of State as lords justices. The power to make this nomination was provided for George by the Regency Act. This doc.u.ment contained the names of eighteen of the princ.i.p.al Whig peers; the Duke of Shrewsbury, the Duke of Somerset, and the Duke of Argyll were among them; so, too, were Lords Cowper, Halifax, and Townshend. It was noted with wonder that the ill.u.s.trious name of Somers did not appear on the list, nor did that of Marlborough, nor that of Marlborough's son-in-law, Lord Sunderland.

It is likely that the omission of these names was only made in the first instance because George and his advisers were somewhat afraid of his getting into the hands of a sort of dictators.h.i.+p--a dictators.h.i.+p in commission, as it might be called, made up of three or four influential men. The King afterwards hastened to show every attention to Marlborough and Somers and Sunderland, and he soon restored Marlborough to all his public offices. But George seems to have had a profound and a very well-justified distrust of Marlborough. Though he honored him with marks of respect and attention, though he restored him to the great position he had held in the State, yet the King never allowed Marlborough to suppose that he really had regained his former influence in court and political life. Marlborough was shelved, and he already knew it, and bitterly complained of it.

{55}

CHAPTER IV.

THE KING COMES.

[Sidenote: 1714--Hanover]

"The old town of Hanover," says Thackeray, "must look still pretty much as in the time when George Louis left it. The gardens and pavilions of Herrenhausen are scarce changed since the day when the stout old Electress Sophia fell down in her last walk there, preceding but by a few weeks to the tomb James the Second's daughter, whose death made way for the Brunswick Stuarts in England. . . . You may see at Herrenhausen the very rustic theatre in which the Platens danced and performed masks and sang before the Elector and his sons. There are the very fauns and dryads of stone still glimmering through the brandies, still grinning and piping their ditties of no tone, as in the days when painted nymphs hung garlands round them, appeared under their leafy arcades with gilt crooks, guiding rams with gilt horns, descended from 'machines' in the guise of Diana or Minerva, and delivered immense allegorical compliments to the princes returned home from the campaign." Herrenhausen, indeed, is changed but little since those days of which Thackeray speaks. But although not many years have pa.s.sed since Thackeray went to visit Hanover before delivering his lectures on "The Four Georges," Hanover itself has undergone much alteration. If one of the Georges could now return to his ancestral capital he would indeed be bewildered at the great new squares, the rows of tall vast shops and warehouses, the s.p.a.cious railway-station, penetrated to every corner at night by the keen electric light. But in pa.s.sing from Hanover to Herrenhausen one goes back, in a short drive, from the {56} days of the Emperor William of Germany to the days of George the Elector. Herrenhausen, the favorite residence of the Electors of Hanover, is but a short distance from the capital.

Thackeray speaks of it as an ugly place, and it certainly has not many claims to the picturesque. But it is full of a certain curious half-melancholy interest, and well fitted to be the cradle and the home of a decaying Hanoverian dynasty. In its galleries one may spend many an hour, not unprofitably, in studying the faces of all the men and women who are famous, notorious, or infamous in connection with the history of Hanover. The story of that dynasty has more than one episode not unlike that of the unfortunate Sophia Dorothea and Konigsmark, her lover. A good many grim legends haunt the place and give interest to some of the faces, otherwise insipid enough, which look out of the heavy frames and the formal court-dresses of the picture-gallery.

[Sidenote: 1714--The entry into London]

On the evening of August 5, 1714, four days after Queen Anne's death, Lord Clarendon, the lately appointed English Minister at the Court of Hanover, set out for the palace of Herrenhausen to bear to the new King of Great Britain the tidings of Queen Anne's death. About two o'clock in the morning he entered the royal apartments of the ungenial and sleepy George, and, kneeling, did homage to him as King of Great Britain. George took the announcement of his new rank without even a semblance of gratification. He had made up his mind to endure it, and that was all. He was too stolid, or lazy, or sincere to affect the slightest personal interest in the news. He lingered in Hanover as long as he decently could, and sauntered for many a day through the prim, dull, and orderly walks of Herrenhausen. He behaved very much in the fas.h.i.+on of the convict in Prior's poem, who, when the cart was ready and the halter adjusted,

Often took leave but seemed loath to depart.

August 31st had arrived before George began his journey to England.

But he did one or two good-natured things {57} before leaving Hanover; he ordered the abolition of certain duties on provisions, and he had the insolvent debtors throughout the Electorate discharged from custody. On September 5th he reached the Hague, and here another stoppage took place. The exertion of travelling from Hanover to the Hague had been so great that George apparently required a respite from September 5th until the 16th. On the 16th he embarked, and reached Greenwich two days after. He was accompanied to England by his two leading favorites--the ladies whose charms we have already described.

For many days after his arrival in London the King did little but lament his exile from his beloved Herrenhausen, and tell every one he met how cordially he disliked England, its people, and its ways.

Fortunately, perhaps, in this respect, for the popularity of his Majesty, George's audience was necessarily limited. He spoke no English, and hardly any of those who surrounded him could speak German, while some of his ministers did not even speak French. Sir Robert Walpole tried to get on with him by talking Latin. Even the English oysters George could not abide; he grumbled long at their queer taste, their want of flavor, and it was some time before his devoted attendants discovered that their monarch liked stale oysters with a good strong rankness about them. No time was lost, when this important discovery had been made, in procuring oysters to the taste of the King, and one of George's objections to the throne of England was easily removed.

There was naturally great curiosity to see the King, and a writer of the time gives an amusing account of the efforts made to obtain a sight of him. "A certain person has paid several guineas for the benefit of Cheapside conduit, and another has almost given twenty years' purchase for a shed in Stocks Market. Some lay out great sums in shop-windows, others sell lottery tickets to hire cobblers' stalls, and here and there a vintner has received earnest for the use of his sign-post.

King Charles the Second's horse at the aforesaid market is to carry double, {58} and his Majesty at Charing Cross is to ride between two draymen. Some have made interest to climb chimneys, and others to be exalted to the airy station of a steeple."

[Sidenote: 1714--"Under which King?"]

The princely pageant which people were so eager to see lives still in a print issued by "Tim. Jordan and Tho. Bakenwell at Ye Golden Lion in Fleet Street." We are thus gladdened by a sight of the splendid procession winding its way through St. James's Park to St. James's Palace. There are musketeers and trumpeters on horseback; there are courtly gentlemen on horse and afoot, and great lumbering, gilded, gaudily-bedizened carriages with four and six steeds, and more trumpeters, on foot this time, and pursuivants and heralds--George was fond of heralds, and created two of his own, Hanover and Gloucester--and then the royal carriage, with its eight prancing horses, and the Elector of Hanover and King of England inside, with his hand to his heart, and still more soldiers following, both horse and foot, and, of course, a loyal populace everywhere waving their three-cornered hats and huzzaing with all their might.

The day of the entry was not without its element of tragedy. In the crowd Colonel Chudleigh called Mr. Charles Aldworth, M.P. for New Windsor, a Jacobite. There was a quarrel, the gentlemen went to Marylebone Fields, exchanged a few pa.s.ses, and Mr. Aldworth was almost immediately killed. This was no great wonder, for we learn, in a letter from Lord Berkeley of Stratton, preserved in the Wentworth Papers, describing the duel, that Mr. Aldworth had such a weakness in his arms from childhood that he could not stretch them out; a fact, Lord Berkeley hints, by no means unknown to his adversary.