Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 4.djvu/367

A.D. 1716.] be at seven? If they began to fear their constituents towards tte end of the parliament, why should that salutary fear be diminished? On the other hand, the Triennial Bill found able defenders in Mr. Bromley, the late secretary of state, Mr. Shippen, the rising leader of the tories, Mr. Lechmere, lord Guernsey, and Sir Robert Raymond.

But the bill was not zealously supported out of the house by the boroughs, which had so strong an interest in retaining a hold on their members. All that petitioned for the continuance of triennial parliaments were Marlborough, Midhurst, Abingdon, Neweastle-under-Lyne, Horsham, Hastings, Westbury, Cardiff, Petersfield, and Cambridge—few of them of first-class importance. The fact was that the crisis for the change was well chosen, when the country was suffering from the late alarms, and regarded any measure which promised stability of protestant government with favour.

Perhaps the strongest argument against the Triennial Bill is one which was not likely to be much discussed in the house, because it applied to both whig and tory ministries alike — namely, that it had never availed to check the rapacity and corruption of cabinets, which had been as much or more unprincipled under the triennial act as they ever were before. But still this at bottom is no argument against short parliaments; for, if they cannot restrain corrupt ministries, longer ones are not likely to do it; and short parliaments, in times of more extended political knowledge and authority, bear in a very different measure on constituencies to what they did in those days.

When the bill went into committee in the commons, Shippen proposed a clause disqualifying all persons from sitting in parliament who held pensions at pleasure; but Stanhope objected to it as calculated to impede the progress of the bill, but promised to bring in a measure for that purpose, which was accordingly done under the management of Stanhope, Craggs, and Boscawen, and passed on the 8th of June. The Septennial Bill itself was passed on the 26th of April, when the minority amounted only to a hundred and twenty-one votes. One of the most remarkable facts connected with this retrograde legislation was that Somers, then very old and near his end, was said to have exclaimed to lord Townshend on seeing him directly after, that he was glad of the news; that he had never approved of the triennial act, and always considered it as the reverse of what it was intended. This, however, rests only on hearsay, and, if it be true, can only be received as a proof that Somers was now grown superannuated, or otherwise was not the profound statesman which his party had always represented him. That he was one of the ablest and most conscientious men of the time must be admitted; but his conduct in regard to the Partition Treaty showed that he was by no means above the courtly influences of his age.

Whilst parliament was busy with the Septennial Bill, George I. was very impatient to get away to Hanover. Like William III., he was but a foreigner in England; a dull, well-meaning man, whose heart was in his native country, and who had been transplanted too late ever to take to the alien earth. He had brought two or three of his fat mistresses with him, but they could not convert busy and wealthy England into a little, quiet Hanover. Their country was everything in their eyes except a money-getting country, and it was for that one advantage that they tolerated England; they were equally rapacious of money and titles. Madame Schulemberg was in her way very pious, being accustomed to drive round to several Lutheran chapels in one day, and endeavoured to get rid of the sinful nature of her position, being the chief of the king's harem, by privately fostering the delusive idea that she was married to George. For her benefit the post of master of the house, vacated by the duke of Somerset, remained open for several years, that she might appropriate the emoluments. She also sold recommendations to all sorts of places, and made money enormously. Sir Robert Walpole, after the king's death, when he could speak out, declared that she would at any time have sold the king's honour for a shilling to the highest bidder. She was soon made duchess of Munster, and then duchess of Kendal. Next to her was the baroness Kihnansegge, younger, but equally fat and equally rapacious. Amongst George's male favourites were the barons Bothmar and Bernsdorff, Robethon, his private secretary, and several Turks-Mustapha, Mahomet, and others. All these people were so many harpies, insatiable of money, titles, and whatever they could get. Coming from a poor electorate into the English Goshen, they were not only greedy of gain and titles, but were followed by a flight of still poorer and more ravenous vultures than themselves. As William the Dutchman had thrown handfuls of estates at the heads of his Bentineks, Ginckels, and the rest, so these favourites expected nothing less, and were by no means scrupulous as to the means of obtaining them. Nobody could get at the king but through them; and they had the advantage of understanding his language, his tastes, and his weaknesses much better than any Englishman. There was not one of them more avaricious, mischievous, and meddling than Robethon, a man of French origin and ruined fortunes. He was always on the watch about the royal person to seize on advantages for himself, and infuse his poisonous slanders and prejudices against those whom he wished to keep at a distance.

The act of settlement provided that, after the Hanoverian accession, no reigning sovereign should quit the kingdom without permission of parliament. George and his creatures were not content to ask this permission, they insisted that the restraining clause itself should be repealed, and it was accordingly repealed without any opposition — of so little force are any of these ties on monarchs when surrounded by a servile ministry and parliament. There was one difficulty connected with George's absence from his kingdom which council or parliament could not so easily deal with; this was his excessive jealousy of his son. It was no new feeling; it had exhibited itself as strongly at Hanover as it did here. It had been one of the most effective preventives of the prince of Wales coming to England in Anne's time, for the elector had been as averse to his son's going to England as Anne was to see him there. This feeling became hereditary in the family; and all the four princes of Wales which appeared after the Hanoverian accession, ending in George IV., were at violent enmity with their parents or grandparents. "That family," said lord Carteret, one day in full council, "always has quarrelled, and always will