He could fall on this ... down to disgrace, to the end of power.

Maria wanted him to give up, to go to Houghton and forget politics. But how could a man who had once tasted power live without it?

There was Houghton with its treasures; there was riotous living in the country: drink, a heavy table, congenial companions ... and Maria.

But in London there was power and he had known great power.

‘Give up the Excise Scheme,’ said his few friends. But were they friends? They were those who if he fell, would fall with him. So perhaps he must call them his friends.

Give up the Excise Bill! Admit defeat! No. That would be the end. He would betray a weakness. That supreme confidence which had carried him through all his troubles would be lost.

‘I shall not give up the Excise Bill,’ said Walpole.


* * *

‘And this,’ said the Prime Minister addressing a hostile House, ‘is the scheme which has been represented in so terrible a light! This is the monster which was to devour the people and commit such ravages on the whole nation.’

The Opposition was waiting to pounce. The Prime Minister’s own men were looking on with anxiety. He had explained that he had never had any intention to impose a general excise. The only commodities in question had been wine and tobacco. This he wished to introduce because a great deal of taxes were being lost to the nation through smuggling. This he wished to curtail. The House must understand that he had been wickedly ... no ... criminally misrepresented.

Wyndham was on his feet. The Opposition were against any form of excise. The Opposition did not believe in the Prime Minister’s protestations. It denounced the entire measure. It regarded excise in any form as the badge of slavery. ‘At this moment,’ he went on, ‘the people of this City are at the gates of the House. They are waiting eagerly to hear the result of this session. They want to know whether we, the Opposition, have prevailed on the Prime Minister’s indifference to their poverty and want ... whether we have thrown out this wicked measure—which we intend to do.’

Cheers drowned this speech and the sounds of voices could be heard without.

The mob must be thousands strong, thought Walpole.

He did not show his alarm. ‘These sufferers from poverty and want,’ he cried, ‘would seem to be very sturdy beggars.’

Pulteney was on his feet. ‘It moves me to wrath,’ he cried, ‘that the Prime Minister should have such indifference to the plight of the poor as to refer to them as sturdy beggars.’

Sturdy beggars! The phrase was referred to again and again during the debate. It was an unfortunate phrase. Walpole knew that it would be seized, used in the wrong context; that he would never escape from it.

The debate continued; and after thirteen hours no conclusion was reached.

One or two of his supporters suggested that Walpole slip out of the House quietly and cautiously, so that he might not be recognized. The mob was in an ugly mood.


* * *

The last complaint that could be made about the King was that he was a coward. George had never been that. Caroline and he talked continuously of the Excise and what this measure was doing to Walpole. His friends were deserting him after imploring him to drop the unpopular measure. Walpole would have liked to do this, but he could only see that to drop it would so lower his prestige that he would lose his place forever. He would be playing straight into his enemies hands, which was of course exactly what they wanted.

It astonished him, he told Maria, that the two who should be his most faithful friends in this crisis were the King and the Queen.

George’s eyes would fill with tears when he spoke of his Prime Minister. ‘That man has more spirit than any other man I ever knew,’ he said. ‘He is a brave man.’

And bravery was something which George understood and respected.

‘We will stand by him,’ he told the Queen. ‘No matter what happens we will not desert him.’

The Queen was anxious, and when Lord Scarborough requested an interview and she had heard what he had to say she was very alarmed. Richard Lumley, Lord Scarborough, was Lieutenant General of the Army and because he had always been a good friend to her and the King, Caroline knew she could trust him.

His immediate request was to be allowed to resign from his post.

Caroline was horrified. ‘But I couldn’t allow it.’ ‘Madam,’ he told her, ‘there will soon be a revolt in the army.’

‘Oh, no, no,’ cried Caroline. ‘It cannot be as bad as this.’ ‘There will be mutiny, Madam, if the Bill is not dropped.’

‘But you will answer to the King for the army.’

‘I will answer for the army against the Pretender,’ said Scarborough, ‘but not against the excise.’

‘Then,’ said the Queen soberly, ‘in your opinion the only course open to us is to drop the Bill.’

‘It is the only way, Madam.’

‘Yes,’ replied Caroline. ‘It is the only way.’

She went to the King and told him what Scarborough had said. Like her, George trusted Scarborough. If Scarborough said the army was on the edge of mutiny, then that was so.

‘Your Majesty will say that there is no alternative but to drop the Bill,’ said the Queen.

The King nodded. ‘We must send for Sir Robert.’


* * *

Walpole came first to the Queen.

‘We shall drop the Bill,’ he said. ‘There is no other alternative.’

‘I am sorry,’ said the Queen. ‘You have been grossly misrepresented.’

‘I should have foreseen this.’

‘Nonsense! How could you! ‘

‘It is a minister’s task, Madam, to predict the future ... correctly. This Bill in itself would have presented no difficulties had it been allowed to pass through without all the lies and malice which my enemies have attached to it. The Prince’s attitude towards it has inflamed the public the more.’

‘You mean he has set himself on the side of the Opposition?’

‘This is Bolingbroke’s doing. We have constantly heard that the Prince denounces the Bill. Your Majesties and myself have been fearfully maligned. They call this our Bill. I agree with Your Majesty that the Bill must be dropped, but our enemies will not be satisfied with that. They want a scapegoat and I must be that man.’

‘You mean ... resign! ‘

‘It is the only way.’

‘There must be another way and we must find it.’

‘Madam, all know that you and I have worked together. Unless I resign and you dissociate yourself with me and my policies they will attack you too.’

‘The Queen! ‘ cried Caroline almost regally.

‘Madam, the King’s grievance against England is that it is the Parliament who rules ... not him.’

‘And you would resign?’

‘That Your Majesty’s name might not be coupled with mine in this dispute.’

The Queen’s expression was very gentle as she said: ‘I am surprised, Sir Robert Walpole, that you could think me so mean and so cowardly as to allow this to happen. The Bill must be set aside. I see that. But you will remain in your office. This is not the time—indeed is any time the time? ... for running away.’

Sir Robert kissed her hand.

‘Then, Madam, we fight this together?’

‘We fight,’ she said. ‘And, Sir Robert, the King stands with us.’


* * *

London was on the edge of revolt. Never, it was said, in the 1715 revolt did the throne tremble so violently. The Lord Mayor of London supported by all the officials of the City rode through the streets on his way to the Houses of Parliament with a petition against the Bill.

This procession was cheered on its way.

In St James’s the King and Queen talked together. The Queen had asked Lord Hervey, who as well as being her Chamberlain was also a Member of Parliament, to return to the Palace and report to them as soon as a vote against the petition was taken.

She sat in her chair trying to knot to soothe her mind, while the King paced up and down declaring that if this meant they must return to Hanover he would not think that such a bad idea.

They could hear the shouts in the city.

The Queen could not keep her fingers from trembling. She understood more than the King how near London was to revolution.

It seemed hours before Lord Hervey returned to them. He came quietly by means of the private staircase and as soon as Caroline looked at his face she knew how things had gone. Indeed how could she have expected them to go otherwise?

‘So the Opposition was victorious!’ shouted the King. ‘That is true, Your Majesty.’

The King demanded to know how members of the government had voted and when Hervey told him he shouted abuse after each name.

‘Blockhead! Fool! Madman! Puppy! I shall remember them all.’

The Queen shook her head sadly.

‘This,’ she said, ‘is the end of the matter. The Excise Bill will be withdrawn.’

Defeat, she thought. Nothing will be the same again.


* * *

Meanwhile the few friends Walpole had were persuading him not to go out into the streets where the mob was waiting for him because in their mood they would tear him to pieces. No matter that they had misinterpreted his Bill; no matter that he in view of public opinion had withdrawn it; his enemies had whipped up public rage against him and they wanted his blood.

It was true that he had more spirit than most men. Instead of depressing him the situation exhilarated him.

He thought, I’ll beat them yet. I’ll be more powerful than ever before. For that reason he had no intention of risking his life. So he wrapped himself up in a red cloak and went among the crowd.

‘No excise!’ he shouted with the rest. ‘Where’s Walpole? Find Walpole! We’ll show what we will do to that fellow.’

And so he passed unmolested and, reaching his carriage, was taken home.

But that night, effigies were burned all over London. There were two figures, both grossly fat. One a man : the other a woman.

They represented Walpole and the Queen.


* * *

‘We are out of favour,’ said Walpole that night to his mistress. ‘But we shall not remain so. The thing to do now is to make the people forget all about the excise.’

‘And how will you do that?’ asked Maria.

‘I shall have to think about this. It will have to be a grand occasion. We’ll have a royal occasion this time. A wedding would do. That’s it—a royal wedding. We must find a husband for the Princess Anne. She’s getting restive and she’s no longer a very young girl.’

‘Where will you find the husband?’

‘I must give some thought to that but depend upon it, he must be found.’

A Royal Marriage


THE King paced up and down his wife’s apartments, his wig a little awry, his eyes bright with emotion.