execute. Few discoveries of either arms or ammunition, however, were made; and, though a serjeant belonging to the castle of Edinburgh, named William Scott, was discovered training some young men in a malt loft, and thrown for a few weeks into prison, he was no sooner liberated, than he was sent for by the gentlemen and ministers of Penpont, with whom he continued, assisting them in training their dependants, till the decease of the queen, after which, the government rewarded him with a pair of colours.* The trying crisis had now, however, arrived with the ministry. The session of parliament had been purposely shortened, in order to allow them to pay undivided attention to the vast project they were pursuing. The daily decaying strength of the queen, too, admonished them to quicken their progress if they meant to be benefited by her assistance. Their principal leaders were Oxford and Bolingbroke, the former, a man of popular manners, and of considerable talents for business, but vacillating in his views, feeble in forming combinations, and tardy in drawing conclusions; too ambitious to be at rest, and too timid to run the risk of new and untried measures; the latter, a scholar and a wit; celebrated for a fine person, a courtly bearing, a free vein of poetry, and beautifully classic speeches; but to judgment, a mere pretender, vain, superficial, sophistical, and silly. A freethinker in religion, and a libertine in morals, he yet, by his zeal for the church, which seemed to know no bounds, and had been particularly displayed in forwarding the schism bill, had attached to him all the Jacobites and the high tories, and his vanity, or his ambition, led him to think he could accomplish singly, what had certainly been too hard for him and his colleague, though in counsel and in effort they had been perfectly united. Oxford had attained his present elevation through the influence of Mrs. Masham, a needy relation of the dutchess of Marlborough, whom she introduced into the queen's service as her tiring woman, and he had carried along with him Bolingbroke, then only Mr. Henry St. John, as an useful auxiliary, * Rae's History of the Rebellion, pp. 41, 43. whom he hoped to serve himself by, and, at the same time, keep in a state of humble dependance. But Mr. St. John had á far higher opinion of his own abilities, than to act in a subordinate capacity any longer than necessity required it, and the weakness of his master, which, though he had no great degree of penetration, he knew enough of the world readily to discover, the nature of the business he was employed to transact, and the good graces of the then medium of political power, Mrs. Masham, which, partly by flattery, and partly by more solid services, he very soon obtained, gave full scope to his ambition, gratified his vanity, and made him little solicitous to conceal those ideas of gigantic superiority that had now taken possession of his whole soul. This, in the nature of things, could not fail to be peculiarly galling to Oxford, who, no doubt, fancied that he was entitled to a far different return, and, if it had been possible for him to have accomplished it, would gladly have reduced his ungrateful dependant, and now rival peer, to plain Mr. St. John, leaving him to find office and influence in the best manner he could. But this was now impossible. St. John had been his principal agent in all the dirty work which the demon of party had led him to undertake. He had negotiated for him—in a very bungling style it is true— by the assistance of Matthew Prior, a man, like himself, of loose morals, but a poet and a wit, those treaties, which at once compromised the interests and the honour of the nation; he was acquainted with all the intrigues carried on with the French king, and his puppet, the pretender, and for Oxford now to have shaken him off, would have been to throw him into the arms of the dreaded whigs, to have encountered an immediate impeachment, and perhaps, to have paid for his imprudence with his head. But Oxford, though he was, from motives of interest, prevented from breaking with his colleague, had not failed to take prudential measures for his own safety, and, probably for fear of the worst, had, from the outset of his career, been averse from driving the whigs to extremity. To the schism bill he was most certainly averse; and, to the purging of the army, as it was called, he showed great reluctance. He had, indeed, all along, incurred no small degree of reproach from the Jacobites, for allowing so many places of trust, to be filled by men avowedly friendly to the protestant succession. Nay, he had again and again gone the length of proffering his best services, and expressing his devout veneration and respect to the illustrious house of Hanover, all which, though in the issue, highly advantageous to the interests of liberty and the aggrandizement of that noble family, did not, in the slightest degree, answer the end he had in view-the preservation of his own power. The artful duplicity of his character he had indulged so long, and exercised so successively upon all parties, that to all he was become alike contemptible. At the court of Hanover, his expressions of veneration and respect were considered as artfully offered to conceal his views, and divert their attention from that quarter where his real services were more effective. The whigs were too sharpsighted to be duped by any thing he could say, and too inveterate to be joined with him in any thing he might do. His associates, sick of his procrastinating policy, and terrified every day on account of the increasing illness of the queen, were resolved, at all events, to act without him, if they could not prevail on her majesty to dismiss him. Her majesty's affection was now, indeed, his only dependance, and that he possessed it at one time, in a very high degree, cannot be doubted; but, even in this quarter, every thing was now against him. The queen was in the dotage of a mortal disease; she was beset by lady Masham, whose affections Oxford had alienated, by his opposition to the grant of a pension, and other emoluments, which that lady was anxious to obtain; and, in return, she lost no opportunity of representing him, as "the most worthless and the most ungrateful of men.”* jesty was also wrought upon by Bolingbroke, with all the arts of courtly cunning which he could command. This crafty and disingenuous politician, artfully affected to develope the intrigues of Oxford with the court of Hanover, and even accused him of caballing with the duke of Marlborough, who appears to have been an object of peculiar terror to her majesty. Habit, however, and the remains of affectionate partiality for the minister Her ma * Vide Swift's Letters. Letter from Lady Masham to Swift, 29th July, who had delivered her from the control of the whigs, together with the natural indecision of her majesty's character, protracted his fall, and it was not till sentence was passed upon him by the courts of Versailles and St. Germains, that she consented, and even then, not without a violent struggle, to dismiss the lord Oxford from her service.* Bolingbroke, full of himself, goaded on by the Jacobites, who now regarded him as the sun of all their hopes, and flattered by Mrs. Masham, the agent of the French court, though concealed under the name of that of St. Germains, with the idea of holding in his hands the destinies of two kingdoms, seems no sooner to have learned the queen's determination with regard to Oxford, than he was eager to have it put in execution, and "it was not long before he found means to let him [Oxford] know, that it would be taken kindly if he would resign." Oxford was, however, far too fond of place and power, and had too much contempt for the person who was supplanting him in the royal favour, to attend to any such innuendo. Accordingly, as he himself informs us, "There being no other method, they were at length obliged to let him know, that it was her majesty's pleasure he should resign."+ In consequence of this notice, Oxford repaired into the presence of the queen, July twentyseventh, 1714, to deliver up his badge of office, when an indecorous altercation ensued between the two principal rivals for power, Oxford and Bolingbroke, which, regardless of their own characters as courtiers of the first rank, or of the royal presence, bowed down with sickness and pain, was continued till two o'clock in the morning, with every circumstance of vulgar insult, and confirmed animosity. In this war of words, however, Oxford appears to have been "These courts [St. Germains and Versailles] finding that Oxford constantly eluded their demands for a restoration, and deceived them by repeated promises, which were never fulfilled, made lord Bolingbroke the agent of their schemes, and the channel of their communications, and hoped through his ministry to gain the object of their wishes. We learn from the authentic history of the duke of Berwick, who managed the secret correspondence with the Stuart party, that this was the real cause of Oxford's removal, and that his disgrace excited the most sanguine hopes of success." Coxe's Life of Marlborough, vol. iii. p. 578. † Secret History of the White Staff. much the greatest proficient, and probably made a very great impression, both on the feelings and the sentiments of the queen. He first expressed to her majesty, the entire satisfaction he felt in laying down "what he never, but with a view to her majesty's interest, enjoyed with any comfort. That the only grief he felt in his removal, was the assurance he had, that those who pretended to succeed him, would embark her in impracticable schemes, which, if her majesty's own wisdom did not prevent, it would be her ruin." He artfully took the whole credit to himself, of having brought her safe through four tempestuous sessions of parliament, and into the view of that general tranquillity of Europe, which he knew had lain so near her heart, and which the men she was about to employ would prevent her subjects from ever enjoying; and while he expressed his full conviction of her majesty's settled resolution to preserve the succession in the house of Hanover, declared it to be unalterably his opinion that the safety of her majesty's person and reign, as well as the peace of her dominions after her decease depended upon preserving that succession inviolable. These statements were certainly admirably calculated for working upon her majesty's fears, out of which, it must be confessed, the best measures of her government had been elicited, and had life and health been prolonged to her majesty, might have been followed with the most beneficial results; but when he turned upon those who, but a few minutes before, had been his brethren in office, and, with that effrontery, which seems to have formed a principal ingredient in his character,* told them plainly how unequal they were to the burden they now pretended to take upon them; how disregardful they were The well known anecdote of Rowe the poet, sets this part of Oxford's character in a very strong light. Nicholas Rowe was a gentleman of fortune originally, at least, equal to Oxford, and, in talents natural and acquired, much his superior, though he never rose to be a minister of state. Having been advised to apply to Oxford for some public employment, Oxford asked him if he understood Spanish? Answering in the negative, he was enjoined by the great man to study it. Having spent six months in acquiring it, the poet returned, thinking himself sure of some honourable situation, Well, said the great man, have you acquired Spanish? Yes, said the poet. Then you will have the pleasure of reading Don Quixote in the original, and it is the best book in the world, was all the reply! |