Chapter 3

"LOST FOR WANT OF SPIRIT."

[Sidenote: 1714--The Duke of Ormond]

When Bolingbroke found himself in full power he began at once to open the way for some attempt at the restoration of the Stuart dynasty. He put influential Jacobites into important offices in England and Scotland; he made the Duke of Ormond Warden of the Cinque Ports, that authority covering exactly the stretch of coast at some point of which it might be expected that James Stuart would land if he were to make an attempt for the crown at all. Ormond was a weak and vain man, but he was a man of personal integrity. He had been sent out to Flanders to succeed the greatest commander of the age as captain-general of the allied armies there, and he had naturally played a poor and even ridiculous part. The Jacobites in England still, however, held him in much honor, identified his name, no one exactly knew why, with the cause of High-Church, and elected him the hero and the leader of the movement for the restoration of the exiled family. Bolingbroke committed Scotland to the care of the Earl of Mar, a Jacobite, a personal friend of James Stuart, and a votary of High-Church. It can hardly be supposed that in making such an appointment Bolingbroke had not in his mind the possibility of a rising of the Highland clans against the Hanoverian succession. But it is none the less evident that Bolingbroke was as usual thinking far more of himself than of his party, and that his preparations were made not so much with a view to restoring the Stuarts as with the object of securing himself against any chance that might befall.

{40}

Had Bolingbroke been resolved in his heart to bring back the Stuarts, had he been ready, as many other men were, to risk all in that cause, to stand or fall by it, he might, so far as one can see, have been successful. It is not too much to say that on the whole the majority of the English people were in favor of the Stuarts. Certainly the majority would have preferred a Stuart to the dreaded and disliked German prince from Herrenhausen. For many years the birthday of the Stuart prince had been celebrated as openly and as enthusiastically in English cities as if it were the birthday of the reigning sovereign. James's adherents were everywhere--in the court, in the camp, on the bench, in Parliament, in the drawing-rooms, the coffee-houses, and the streets. Bolingbroke had only to present him at a critical moment, and say "Here is your king," and James Stuart would have been king. Such a crisis came in France in our own days. There was a moment, after the fall of the Second Empire, when the Count de Chambord had only to present himself in Versailles in order to be accepted as King of France, not King of the French. But the Count de Chambord put away his chance deliberately; he would not consent to give up the white flag of legitimacy and accept the tricolor. He acted on principle, knowing the forfeit of his decision. The chances of James Stuart were frittered away in half-heartedness, insincerity, and folly. While Bolingbroke and his confederates were caballing and counselling, and paltering and drinking, the Whig statesmen were maturing their plans, and when the moment came for action it found them ready to act.

[Sidenote: 1714--The Council at Kensington]

The success was accomplished by a _coupe d'état_ on Friday, July 30, 1714. The Queen was suddenly stricken with apoplexy. A Privy Council was to meet that morning at Kensington Palace. The Privy Council meeting was composed then, according to the principle which prevails still, only of such councillors as had received a special summons. In truth, the meeting of the Privy Council {41} in Anne's time was like a Cabinet meeting of our days, and was intended by those who convened it to be just as strictly composed of official members. But, on the other hand, there was no law or rule forbidding any member of the Privy Council, whether summoned or not, to present himself at the meeting. Bolingbroke was in his place, and so was the Duke of Ormond, and so were other Jacobite peers. The Duke of Shrewsbury had taken his seat, as he was entitled to do, being one of the highest officers of State. Shrewsbury was known to be a loyal adherent of the Act of Settlement and the Hanoverian Succession. He was a remarkable man with a remarkable history. His father was the unfortunate Shrewsbury who was killed in a duel by the Duke of Buckingham. The duel arose out of the duke's open intrigue with the Countess of Shrewsbury, and the story went at the time that the lady herself, dressed as a page, held her lover's horse while he fought with and killed her husband. Charles Talbot, the son, was brought up a Catholic, but in his twentieth year accepted the arguments of Tillotson and became a Protestant. He was Lord Chamberlain to James the Second, but lost all faith in James, and went over to Holland to assist William of Nassau with counsel and with money. When William became King of England he made Lord Shrewsbury a Privy Councillor and Secretary of State, created him first marquis and afterwards duke, and called him, in tribute to his great popularity, the King of Hearts. He was for a short time British Ambassador at the Court of France, and then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He had flickered a little between the Whigs and the Tories at different periods of his career, and in 1710 he actually joined the Tory party. But it was well known to every one that if any question should arise between the House of Hanover and the Stuarts, he would stand firmly by the appointed succession. He was a man of undoubted integrity and great political sagacity; he had a handsome face, although he had lost one of his eyes by an accident when riding, and {42} he had a stately presence. His gifts and graces were said to have so much attracted the admiration of Queen Mary that if she had outlived the King she would probably have married Shrewsbury. The condition of the political world around him had impressed him with so little reverence for courts and cabinets, that he used to say if he had a son he would rather bring him up a cobbler than a courtier, and a hangman than a statesman. Bolingbroke once kindly said of him, "I never knew a man so formed to please, and to gain upon the affections while challenging the esteem."

[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 assuredly 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 assistance.

The Duke of Somerset was in many respects the most powerful nobleman 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 _opéra 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 Königsmark, the "Carrots" of Dean Swift. While she was Duchess of Somerset and Queen Anne's close friend, Swift, who {43} hated her, hinted pretty broadly that she was privy to Königsmark's plot to murder Tom Thynne, and the Duchess 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 pass 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'état]

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 title and fortune." But Hervey also says that Argyll was "haughty, passionate, 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 promptitude; 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 illustrious in former reigns, and whose fame sheds a lustre 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 anticipate 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 passage 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 constitution, 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 assembled, 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 passed 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 illustration 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 passion in favor of the prosecution. Coke 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, passed 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 associates." 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 pass 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 entitled to have, because he protected rather than betrayed his old associates, we are free to give him, and it stands a significant illustration 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 Hampshire 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 fashion 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.

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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 document contained the names of eighteen of the principal 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 illustrious 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 dictatorship--a dictatorship 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.

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