It was late in the summer of 1714 that Lord Derwentwater brought the Countess home. Such was his eagerness to return, and hers to make acquaintance with her husband’s cousins, that is to say, with all the gentry of the county, that he started for the north on the very day that his two years expired, namely, on the 10th of July; and, though he travelled with a great company of servants, baggage, and pack-horses, and stopped on the way to see York races, he arrived at Dilston Hall in the first week of August, to the joy and content of his friends and tenants.
As for his brothers, Frank and Charles, they were both in London, but not, I understood, living together, and Charles spending at a great rate, that is to say, above his income; his uncle, Colonel Thomas Radcliffe, was at Douay, where I hope the poor man forgot his imaginary pursuer; the Lady Mary was gone to Durham, where she had a house; and Lady Katharine to live in a convent at St. Germain’s —— honoured no more by the Court of the Prince, who was at Bar-le-Due. Some of the Swinburnes were there to meet the Countess, and Mr. Errington, of Beaufront. Mr. Hilyard also, who was at Blanchland on Lady Crewe’s business, went to Dilston to pay his respects. Tom was still in London, and I was at Bamborough, thirty miles away.
When, however, Mr. Hilyard returned, he informed me of every particular, even of her ladyship’s dress, of which, for a man, he was observant, and made me understand that the Countess had taste, and dressed in the mode.
‘As for my lord,’ said Mr. Hilyard, ‘he looks certainly older, and is fuller in the cheeks than three years ago; but his carriage is the same. Sure there is no other nobleman in the world like unto him. He was so good as to inquire of my welfare, after asking after your own health and his honour’s.’
‘And the Countess?’ I asked.
‘She is little of stature, but vivacious in speech; her age is twenty; her eyes are dark and bright, and she laughs readily. She has the manners of the town, and will prove, I doubt not, remarkable for her ready sallies; and for a lively temper rather than for the dignity which is so conspicuous in some great ladies —— in Lady Crewe, for example. Her own people all declare that she is kindhearted and generous, though quick of speech.’
‘Did my lord seem happy?’ I asked.
‘There was no outward sign of anything but of happiness,’ he told me. ‘They are reported to be lovers still, though they have been married two years and more. All testify that never was a couple more truly fitted for each other, and yet ——’
He stopped short, but I knew very well what was in his mind.
‘And yet, three years ago,’ I said, ‘he was content to look for happiness with another woman. Young men sometimes mistake their hearts. Let us be thankful that, this time, my lord hath made no mistake. Those who remain lovers after two years are certainly married as Heaven intended, and will continue lovers to the end.’
And yet, for my own part, I had never forgotten his image, which was graven on my heart. But he had forgotten; he could show every outward sign of happiness. This, I say, being a feeble woman, I could not choose but feel. Afterwards I learned that a man may be happy, and yet not forget tender passages of old. We women are for ever saying, ‘A man does this, and a man does that,’ making comparisons of ourselves with the other sex, only to find out our own weakness and their strength. ‘A wise man,’ quoth King Solomon, ‘is strong.’ He doth not say that a strong man is wise. Yet methinks a man, because he is strong, may attain unto and reach that Wisdom, which is to the soul (also in the words of Solomon) like honey and the honeycomb, more easily than a woman.
‘I hear also,’ said Mr. Hilyard, ‘that the Countess is red-hot for the Prince; and am sorry to hear it.’
‘Why,’ I replied, ‘surely you would not have her on the other side?
‘Nay; I would have her on the side of safety. Loyalty, faith, and kinship call the Earl into a certain path which is beset with danger. Let Prudence walk beside him, if only to hold him back.’
Of late Mr. Hilyard often spoke thus, showing, though I knew it not, a spirit prophetic. Thus can learning make men foretell the storm, and see clouds to come even in a sky without a cloud. In affairs of State who would have looked for foresight from a simple Oxford scholar of lowly birth? Yet the storm was at hand. The first sign of it came the very next day, namely, the 7th of August, in the year of grace 1714; Mr. Hilyard being in the forenoon on the high-road from which Bamborough lieth distant a mile and a half, or thereabouts, presently saw, making what speed he could along the way (which here is rough and full of furrows, so that to gallop is not easy), a messenger on horseback, who blew a horn as he went, and cried out with a loud voice unto any he met or passed, or saw working in the fields or in the cottage gardens, or at open door, or in farmyards by the wayside, saying:
‘The Queen is dead, good people. Queen Anne is dead!’
With this news in his mouth Mr. Hilyard hastened to tell me.
‘Queen Anne is dead!’ he said, for the fiftieth time. ‘What will they do? Nay, what have they already done? It is a week and more that the Queen is dead. Have they proclaimed the Prince? Is he already sent for? Did the Queen acknowledge him for her successor? Oh that we could hear more! If we knew what they have already done! Why, anything may happen now —— a peaceful succession, a civil war, a rebellion —— what do we know? And here sit I with folded arms, and can do nothing.’
‘You could do nothing,’ I said, ‘if you were in London, except shout in the streets and get knocked on the head.’
It is a strange delusion of every man that the course of events lieth in his own hand, and that if he alone were in the right place to order and direct, all would go well.
‘Nay,’ he replied, ‘to shout in the street would be something. Besides, where pamphlets and verses and lampoons are flying, there could I be of use. At such times, a poet makes others shout.’
Then we began again to guess and to wonder what was going to happen. If the Prince had been acknowledged by his sister for her successor, he would probably have been proclaimed on the day of her death. How did London take it? If that were so, it would fare ill with the great Whig lords, like the Duke of Argyll and others, supporters of King William, Queen Anne, and the Protestant Succession. But as for families like ourselves, who had remained staunch supporters of the rightful heir, there would be a time of fatness.
‘His honour,’ said Mr. Hilyard, ‘cannot expect anything short of an earldom. That is the least that can be given to him.’
‘But,’ I asked, ‘how if the Prince surrounds himself with priests?’
‘Why,’ said Mr. Hilyard, ‘that would not be endured by the City, and a remedy must be found. Else ——’ he looked so resolute that I trembled for his Highness.
‘And what will the Nonconformists say?’
‘As for them,’ he replied, ‘they must sit down and be content. Loyal they will never be. If they are not content, let them follow their grandfathers to America.’
And so on. We made no manner of doubt, after much talking, that the Prince was already proclaimed, and Tom ruffling with the best on the victorious side.
‘Heavens!’ cried Mr. Hilyard, ‘what a sight must it be! The theatres resounding with loyal songs; the houses illuminated; all the brave soldiers drunk; every sour and surly Whig made to put a candle in his windows or have them broken; fighting at every corner; bonfires in every street; oxen roasted whole; conduits running with wine; the City Companies holding high banquet; the universal feasting, singing, and drinking! Not a glum face outside the conventicle. Heigho! What would I not give to be there among them all!’
He then went on to construct the future history of Great Britain and Ireland, in which he allowed the Prince to remain a Catholic, but exacted of him a pledge that his children should be brought up in the bosom of the English Church; he would also be suffered to have about him such priests as were necessary for himself alone, Catholics being excluded from any share in Government, and the Ministry being Protestants; Lord Derwentwater was to be made a Duke; Tom to receive the rank and title of Earl of Bamborough; he himself was to be a permanent Under–Secretary, but I forget of what department —— I think, however, it was of the Navy, because, like all Englishmen, he loved ships, and was ready at any time to prove that the English fleets were being ruined. As for me, I was to be advanced to the rank of Earl’s daughter, and to be styled the Lady Dorothy Forster. An unheard-of prosperity was to reward the whole country for its return to loyalty. Thus, we were to drive the French out of North America, which, from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Pole, was to belong to the English; we were to establish new trading forts along the coast of India, and oust the French from their settlements in the East. We were to turn the Dutch out of the Cape of Good Hope; to extend our trade to China; to occupy the islands newly discovered in the great Pacific Ocean.
‘Why,’ I said, ‘it is a dream of universal conquest.’
‘It is more,’ he went on. ‘We shall establish wherever we go the teaching of the pure Gospel and the Articles of the Church of England; we shall even convert to Protestantism the Irish people, so that they, too, like the rest of the United Kingdom, shall become contented and loyal.’
A thousand other prophecies, projects, and designs he had which I forget or cannot write down, because it makes my head swim only to think of them. Mr. Hilyard’s head was always filled with such inventions, fancies, and imaginations.
Unfortunately, all this beautiful structure of history proved to be only what the French call a Chateau en Espagne, that is to say, a castle in the air, a child’s tower built of cards, a dream of the morning. For in a day or two we heard the choking news that the Elector of Hanover had been proclaimed King without opposition. There were no bonfires for the Prince, no illuminations, no shouting of a loyal mob. The ‘Jacks,’ we heard, were downcast and despairing. At White’s Coffee House the gentlemen looked at each other with blank faces; the Whigs cocked their hats and went with sprightly mien. As for poor Queen Anne, no one, so far as we could hear, seemed to pity her. It is the fate of Kings. In their life-time they are the idols (if they believe all they are told) of their subjects; they are models of virtue and piety; they are endowed by Heaven with genius incomparable; yet when they die no one laments; and the praise is transferred to the successor. Queen Anne is dead. Wherefore, without so much as a ‘Poor Queen Anne!’ throw up caps and shout for the pious and virtuous Prince who is crossing the sea in the Peregrine yacht, no doubt full of love towards his loving subjects.
‘Alas!’ cried Mr. Hilyard, when he had somewhat recovered the blow. ‘To the wise man who hath read history and reflects, the rocks resound with the clashing of arms, and the rivers run with blood.’ He added, one after the other, half a dozen passages from the Latin poets, all of which fortified him in this gloomy opinion.
After this it seemed as if there was no more peace or quietness for us, but for ever disquieting rumours. Mr. Hilyard would ride as far as Alnwick for news, or even to Newcastle. Sometimes Lady Crewe would s............