Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 66, No. 407, September, 1849

He talks of her as mad: and so far as passion and the thirst of vengeance make people mad, she undoubtedly was so. He speaks of her intended accusations as lies – that is, of course, a convenient expression to use towards them. But what is very clearly at the bottom of all the trepidation, and doubt, and difficulty, is, that she might be able, mad and false as she was, to get facts established which called up very ugly associations with Tyburn and the Grassmarket. A minute incident stated in the common histories of the affair, that Lady Grange planned a journey to London for the purpose of taking her accusation to the fountain-head of political power, is confirmed by this extract. It may easily be believed that, among Grange's official colleagues – some of whom had also their own secrets to keep – the lady's frantic accusations met with little encouragement. The Justice-Clerk referred to in the extract, Adam Cockburn of Ormiston, was, like Grange himself, a great professed light of the church, and what sort of interview he would have held with the furious lady, may be inferred from the character given of him by a contemporary, – "He became universally hated in Scotland, where they called him the curse of Scotland; and when ladies were at cards, playing the nine of diamonds, commonly called 'the curse of Scotland,' they called it the Justice-Clerk. He was, indeed, of a hot temper, and violent in all his measures."25

In the old narratives of the affair, it is stated that Grange felt his position to be the more dangerous, as some letters had been intercepted tending to inculpate him with the Jacobites on the Continent. It is singular that this should also be pretty satisfactorily proved by the present correspondence. It will be remembered that Grange was a brother of the Earl of Mar, whose prominence in the affairs of 1715 had driven him into exile. A strong attachment to this unfortunate man is, on the whole, the most pleasing feature in the character of the more cautious and more fortunate judge. It was natural that the brothers should keep up a correspondence, and quite as natural that Sir Robert Walpole should be particularly anxious to discover what they said to each other. Grange conducted some negotiations with the government for his brother's pardon and restoration, and we find him defeated in his aim, and receiving some very significant hints about the nature of his correspondence.

"Sir Robert told me in wrath that he would have nothing to do with Lord Mar, that he had dealt ill with him, and he should not have his pardon; and he would by no means give me any reason for it, but Lord Townsend did, whom they had stirred up; for he in anger told me Sir Robert had intercepted his letters to me with very odd things in them, injurious to Sir Robert and his friends… Soon after this, Ilay, with cloudy looks, began to make insinuations of some discoveries against me too, and at length told me that Sir Robert said that he had also intercepted bad letters of mine to Lord Mar, but confessed they were not directed to Lord Mar, and neither subscribed by me nor in my hand of write, but that by the contents they knew them to be mine to Lord Mar. I answered that they might assert what they pleased of letters said to be directed to me, and which they owned I had never seen, but that I must know of letters wrote by myself, and that I ever wrote any such was a damned, villainous, malicious lie; and let Sir Robert or any else be the asserter of it, whoever did assert it, was a liar."26

This is a very successful outbreak of virtuous indignation, and does considerable credit to its author, as a pupil of that school of which his dear friend Lord Lovat was the undoubted head.

We cannot help considering that it is a question of some historical interest and importance whether the abduction of Lady Grange was or was not a measure adopted for political reasons, and that the letters before us, by finally deciding the question, throw an important light on the political state of Scotland in the early part of the eighteenth century. If we suppose that the lady was carried under circumstances of such profound mystery, and by the agency of some conspicuous and distinguished personages, to the distant island of St Kilda, merely because she was a lunatic who required to be in custody, we only see that many important and sagacious people were taking a very complex and cumbrous method of accomplishing what might have been done with ease; for in those days, few would have troubled themselves about the wretched woman, if her husband had chosen to keep her in any place of confinement, telling the neighbourhood that she was insane. But when we find that the Jacobite party in Scotland were powerful enough to kidnap a person obnoxious to them, and keep her for nine years in a place to which the laws of the realm and the authority of the crown nominally extended, but where their own power was the real operative authority, we have a very formidable notion of the strength and compactness of the Jacobite union during Walpole's apparently powerful ministry.

The correspondence of Lord Grange admits its reader to a species of confidential intercourse with him, which can scarcely be called agreeable. It exhibits one of the most disgusting of all the moral diseases – the rankling of the arrow of disappointment in the heart of a defeated political schemer. It is not the man of brave and bold designs baffled, or the utopian enthusiast disappointed of the fulfilment of his golden dreams, or the adherent of one absorbing political idea looking at it lying broken to pieces at his feet: in all of these there is a dash of noble and disinterested sentiment, and the politician defeated in his conflict with the world has still the consolation of an honest if mistaken heart, into which he can retire without the sting of self-reproach. But all Grange's disappointments were connected with paltry schemes of personal aggrandisement. Fawn and flatter as he might, Sir Robert Walpole, and his Scottish coadjutor Ilay, knew him and distrusted him, and, when he came to court them, gave him but fair words, and sometimes not even that. With Sir Robert he carried on an unequal war. Believing that he could scourge the minister in parliament, while he was a judge of the Court of Session, he resolved to obtain a seat, and thereupon the all-powerful minister at once checkmated him, by carrying an act to prohibit judges of the Court of Session from holding seats in the House of Commons – it was a less invidious proceeding than the dismissal of his lordship from the bench would have been, and it had the appearance of being dictated by a desire for the public good. Grange preferred the senate to the bench, and resigned his judgeship, but he never achieved political eminence. In the mean time he acquired Dr Johnson's desideratum of an honest hatred towards his enemy, and indeed hatred appears to have been the only honest ingredient in his character. He expressed it so well towards Walpole, that we must quote his confidential opinion of that mighty statesman: —

"An insolent and rapacious minister, who has kept us under the expense of war in time of peace, yet hindered us to fight to vindicate our trade, so grossly violated by Spanish robberies, and when we could have put a stop to it, and corrected them without drawing upon us the arms of any other nation, maintained his hollow and expensive peace by ridiculous contradictory treaties, trying us to take part in all the quarrels of Europe, and sometimes to be on both sides, and at the same time allowing confederacies to go on so powerful, and which we are not of, that now when a war is breaking out we know not where to turn us; laying plots to devour the land by new swarms of officers of the revenue, to put the merchants' stocks in the possession of these vermin, and trade under their power, &c., as by that most damned excise scheme; openly protecting the frauds and villains that plunder the stocks and ruin multitudes, and must sink the kingdom; plundering the revenue, and using all his art, and power, and bribes to stop all inquiry into, or the least amendment of these things, either by parliament or otherwise; openly ridiculing all virtue and uprightness; enhancing all power to himself and his brother, and suffering almost none else to do or know anything; barefaced and avowed bribing of members of parliament and others, and boasting of it; heaping up immense wealth to himself and his most abject profligate creatures of both sexes, while the public treasure and trade of the nation is ruined; suffering and encouraging these locusts to get large bribes, and giving considerable employment at their recommendation, while men of merit and service, and of the best families and interest, are neglected or abused, employing insignificant brutes or the greatest rogues, and favouring almost none but such; maltreating and insulting all whom his rascals and jades complain of. But the list is too long to go through with here."27

Grange thought at one time that he had great claims on Walpole, and Lord Ilay; and he seems to have very diligently performed one class of duties which politicians sometimes think sufficient to establish a claim for reward – he had been an indefatigable petitioner for ministerial favours. We have heard somewhere of a story of a political economist, who during a long walk is pestered by an Irish beggar, who asks his honour just to give him a sixpence, "for the love of God." The economist turns round to argue the matter: "I deny," says he, "that I would be showing my love to the Deity by giving an idle rascal like you money; if you can state any service you have ever done to me worth the sixpence, you shall have it." – "Why, then," says the mendicant thus appealed to, "haven't I been keeping your honour in discourse this half hour?" Such seems to have been the character of Grange's claim on the ministry – he kept them in unceasing "discourse" as a petitioner. Not that he did not profess some claims of another kind. "During all this time," he says, "I ran their errands and fought their battles in Scotland." Nor did he fail sometimes to allude to his services as a religious professor, so ill-requited, that he taunts Ilay with having "already effectually interposed for Tom (now Baron) Kennedy, who had been Queen's advocate, and obnoxious to all the Presbyterian party, which I was not." And how was he rewarded for all this running errands, fighting battles, and being religious enough not to be obnoxious? "Ilay showed me no countenance, and Argyle shunned to see me… He [Ilay] never speaks nor writes to me of any business, but to shame me (as you have seen) about my own: and, these three or four years past, has visibly to all the world drawn off by degrees from all familiarity with me, and has dropped me even from his conversation about trifles or mirth. I could give you many strong instances of this." Here is an incident told with a pathos sufficient to move a whole antechamber to tears: —

"Before I came from London in November last, he bade me wait on Sir Robert at his levee. I told him I had always done so, but was not in the least noticed, or had so much as a smile or a gracious nod from him. But said he, 'I promise you I'll tell him to take particular notice of you, and to assure you of favour, and that he will do for you: which (said his lordship) will make my game more easy when I ask anything for you;' and he bid me come to him that he might carry me to the levee in his coach. This was done, and I set myself in Sir Robert's eye in the front of the crowd that surrounded him, and Ilay was by and looking on. Sir Robert came and went by me without the least regard. Ilay slipt into another room; and, that I might not wait longer in so silly a figure, I made up without being called to the great knight; and told him I came to testify my respect, and ask his commands for Scotland. His answer, with a very dry look, and odd air was, 'I have nothing to say to you, my lord. I wish you a good journey.' I saw Ilay afterwards, and he said there was nothing in it. Sir Robert had only forgot, and I am sure (said he) he will do for you what I desired him."28

In the sequel he exclaims, "Can such usage be bore, even by the spirit of a poor mouse!" – deeming probably that its endurance by a rat was quite out of the question.

It is singular enough to find from these revelations of Lord Grange's character and habits, that while he was plotting the abduction of one mad woman, he was busily engaged in attempting the release of another. Yes, as a first step, he was intending to release her; but there are a few hints, slight in themselves, but wonderfully suggestive when they are associated with his wife's history, showing us that his ultimate intention was to make a second victim. In this scheme he was defeated by a spirit less crafty but more audacious than his own – by no less renowned a person than Lady Mary Wortley Montague, whose name has already been mentioned as "openly blessed" by Lady Grange for her "opposition to our friends," meaning the Jacobites. We have among the papers the history of the baffled attempt – at least one side of the history, and, when shaken free of the dust of Grange's prolix grumblings, it is infinitely amusing. The intended victim in this instance was Lady Mar, Lady Mary's sister, the wife of Grange's brother. Lady Mar was insane, and in some shape or other committed to the guardianship of her sister. There were some pecuniary matters depending on the question of her detention or release, so vaguely hinted at that it is not easy to discover their nature. It would appear that Lady Mar was allowed by the favour of the court, and probably through the interest of her relatives, a jointure of £500 a-year over the estates which were forfeited from her husband. Lord Mar was then living in poverty abroad; and Lord Grange was inclined to think that this sum would be better administered by himself and his friends than by Lady Mary. Looking at the £500 from his own side, he of course saw Lady Mary on the other, and judged that her motives were as parallel to his own as the one jaw of a shark is to the other – so he says, "Lady Mar, they say, is quite well; and so as in common justice she can no longer be detained as a lunatic; but she is obstinately averse to appearing in chancery, that the sentence may be taken off. Her sister probably will oppose her liberty, for thereby she would lose, and Lord Mar in effect gain, £500 yearly: and the poor lady, being in her custody, and under her management, had need to be very firmly recovered, for the guardian may at present so vex, tease, and plague her, that it would turn anybody mad."29

It was believed that if Lady Mar were released from Lady Mary Wortley Montague's influence, means might be taken for so arranging matters that her husband should participate in her jointure. There was another matter, however, in which Grange himself had a more particular prospect of pecuniary advantage. Lady Mar appears to have had a beneficiary interest in a lease of a house in Whitehall, forming part of the royal demesne. An arrangement seems to have been made by which, during her incapacity from insanity, her own term was conveyed to her brother-in-law, Lord Grange, while he at the same time obtained a reversion of the lease in his own favour. He had, it appears, sold his whole interest in the property – both the lease he had obtained from Lady Mar's guardians and his own reversionary interest. He was now, therefore, in endeavouring to procure the release of Lady Mar, on the ground of her restoration to sanity, about to enable her to revoke the transference that had been made to him of her own share in the lease. In his own words, "On Lady Mar's being at freedom, the assignment of her lease to Lord Grange becomes void, and so does the sale he has made of it; and in that sale the lease to Lady Mar was valued at £800 sterling, which will be lost by the avoidance of it." Such is the danger; and now, in a very brief continuation of the quotation, let us observe the way in which it was to be met, for, considering who was the writer, it is really well worthy of observation. "Were Lady Mar in her freedom, in right hands, she would ratify the bargain, but if in her sister's, probably she will not." Such was the plot; she was to be restored to her freedom that she might be put "in right hands," – in hands in which there was no chance of her refusing what might be demanded. But there was a lion in the way, or rather a lioness, as we shall see. Lord Grange's anticipations of Lady Wortley Montague's operations is not the least remarkable of his revelations. It is "the power within the guilty breast" working as in Eugene Aram's dream. What Lady Mary suspected it were difficult to say, but he who ventured to predict her suspicions spoke from his own guilty conscience – spoke as the kidnapper and secret imprisoner. We pray attention to the remarkable expressions with which the following quotation closes: —

"May not an artful woman impose on one in such circumstances, and whose mind cannot yet be very firm? And this is the more to be feared, because at the beginning of her illness the sister said loudly, and oftener than once to Lord Grange himself, that her husband's bad usage had turned her [Lady Mar] mad. Supposing, then, the sister tell and persuade her to this purpose: 'You see your husband's friends quite neglect you. Lord Erskine, though in the place, seldom comes near you. How easy were it for Lord Grange to have made you a visit on hearing you are so well. Surely it became the fellow to pay you that regard, and he would have done it had he any kindness for you; and, if the husband had, he would have laid such commands on his son and brother which they could not have resisted. Now, you may get your freedom, but can you again trust yourself in their hands? Quite separated from your father's and mother's friends, and from your country, locked up in Scotland or foreign parts, and wholly in their power, what can you expect? Your friends here could give you no relief, and you should be wholly at the barbarous mercy of those whose sense get not sufficiently the better of their hatred or contempt, as to make them carry with seeming respect to you till they get you in their power. What will they not do when they have you?"30

Such are Lord Grange's "imaginary conversations" of Lady Mary Wortley – like many others, a more accurate reflection of the thoughts habitually dwelling in the writer's own mind, than of those of the person in whose name they are uttered. And then, in continuation, he paints the formidable effect of the imaginary pleading – "Such things to a woman so lately of a disturbed brain, constantly inculcated by so near a relation whom she only sees, and her creatures, and depends on her entirely for the time – what may they not produce? And if they have their effect, then the consequences are these: the lady being at freedom legally, but de facto still under her sister's absolute government, the bargain about her jointure becomes void, and thereby she (or rather the sister) gets more by £500 sterling yearly, and our friend has nothing at all." Then follows the statement about the lease; and the meaning of the whole is, that Lady Mar, as a free woman, would be entitled to live with her sister, and dispose of her own property, unless she were put in the "right hands" to make her "ratify" any desired bargain.

The interchange of compliments between the parties, when they came to actual conflict, is extremely instructive. "She concluded with rage," says the judge, "that we were both rascals, with many other ridiculous things." But perhaps more people will think her ladyship's penetration was not more ridiculously at fault on this than on other occasions. Horace Walpole left an unfavourable testimony to her treatment of her sister, when he alluded to "the unfortunate Lady Mar, whom she treated so hardly when out of her senses." Pope caught up the same charge in the insinuation —

"Who starves a sister, or denies a debt."

Lord Grange, for his own part, has the merit, when characterising his opponent, of a coincidence with the illustrious poet – at least in the bestowal of an epithet. Every one remembers Pope's —

"Avidien and his wife, no matter which;

For him you call a dog, and her a – ."

It is satisfactory to find, on the most palpable evidence, that Lord Grange had sufficient poetical genius to supply this rhyme, though whether his poetic powers went any farther, we are unable, and perhaps no one will ever be able, to determine.

We must quote, unmutilated, one of Grange's conflicts with Avidien's wife. Though the scene be roughly described, it has an interest, from the unscrupulous vehemence of the principal actors, and the eminence of the little group, who cluster round it like a circle of casual passengers round the centre of disturbance, where the wife and the brother-bacchanalian compete, on the pavement, for the possession of some jovial reveller, whose half-clouded mind remains vibrating between the quiet comforts of home and the fierce joys of the tavern. There is something affecting in the vacillating miseries of the poor invalid – we wonder how much of the cruel contest can be true; for, that it is all true, it is impossible to believe – yet Lady Mary could be violent, and she could be hard, when she was attacked or baffled; and she had a rough and unscrupulous nature to combat with, in the historian of their warfare.

"Lady Mary, perceiving how things were like to go, did what I was always afraid of, and could not possibly prevent: she went in rage to her poor sister, and so swaggered and frightened her, that she relapsed. While she was about that fine piece of work, Lord Erskine happened to go to Lady Mar's; and in his presence Lady Mary continued to this purpose with her sister: 'Can you pretend to be well? Don't you know you are still mad? You shan't get out of my custody; and if Lord Grange and his confederates bring you before Lord Chancellor, I'll make you, in open court, in presence of the world, lay your hand on the Gospel, and swear by Almighty God, whether you can say you are yet well. Your salvation shall be at stake; for, remember, perjury infers damnation – your eternal damnation.' So soon as I was informed of this, I assured my lady (and so did others,) that in law no such oath could be put to, her, and that Lady Mary had only said so to fright her. But so strong was the fright, that nothing we could say was able to set her right again. And Lady Mary, having thus dismounted her came again and coaxed her, and (as I found by diverse instances) strove to give her bad impressions of her family, and everybody but Lady Mary's sweet self. Yet next day Lady Mar went and dined at Mr Baillie's in town, and there saw a deal of company, and behaved very well. And Dr Arbuthnot, who, among others, saw her there, said he thought her very well; and had not the turn happened you will presently hear of, he and Dr Monro (son to Mr Monro who, at the Revolution, was Principal of Edinburgh College, and is now physician to Bedlam,) and Dr Mead, were to have gone to her with me next day and afterwards, that they might have vouched her condition before the chancellor. I believed it best for me not to be at Mr Baillie's, that all might appear as it was, free and natural, and not conducted by any art of mine; only I went thither about seven at night, and found her in a room with Ladies Harvey, Binning, Murray, Lady Grizzel Baillie, and others. She was behaving decently, but with the gravity of one that is wearied and tired. Mr Baillie himself, and the other gentlemen and ladies, (a great many being in the next room,) now and then joined us, and she seemed not in anything discomposed, till the conversation turned on her sister's late insult, which, it was visible, gave a shock to her, and disconcerted her; and when Lady Murray and I went home with her to Knightsbridge, she was so dumpish that she scarcely said one word. When I went to her next day, I saw how strongly Lady Mary's physic wrought, and dissipated her poor returning senses. She had before urged me earnestly to proceed faster than was fit, to get her before the chancellor, and do everything needful for her liberation, that she might go to her husband and family. But now she told me she would not for the world appear before the chancellor, and that neither she nor any other must make oath as to her recovery, (at this time, indeed, it had been a very bold oath); and that she preferred her soul's salvation to all things. And, among other things, she said, what a dismal condition shall I be in if, after all, the chancellor send me back under Mary's government; how shall I pass my time after such an attempt? In short, she was bambouzled, and frighted quite. But that her head was really turned by Lady Mary's threats of damnation, farther appeared by this instance: Lady Grizzel Baillie and Lady Murray having gone to take leave of her, (their whole family is gone to Spa,) when I saw her next day, she gravely told me that Lady Murray was no more her friend, having endeavoured, when taking leave, to deprive her of all the comfort left her – the hope of heaven. And though (said she) I was bred to the Church of England, and she to that of Scotland, yet merely the difference is not so great that she must pronounce me in a state of damnation: and she asked me seriously, what Lady Murray had said to me about her being damned? Never in my life, madam, answered I, did she or any London lady speak to me about salvation or damnation; but I'm sure my Lady Murray loves you as her sister, and heartily wishes your happiness here and hereafter. Then she gave me a sealed letter to Lady Murray, begging me to deliver it and bring an answer. I read it with Lady Murray. It was long, and all expostulatory why she pronounced her to be damned; and said many odd things. Lady Murray's answer was the proper one – short and general, but very kind, which I also delivered; and Lady Mar said no more to me on that head. Before she took this turn, perceiving her so vapourish and easily disconcerted, I would not venture to put the case wholly on perfect recovery, but stated it also as I really thought it – viz., recovered from all that could properly be called lunacy, yet exceeding weak, and apt to be overturned. And I had prepared a memorial in law on that supposition, which I was to have laid before Mr Talbot, solicitor-general, and other counsel, the very day she took this wrong turn; but thereupon stopt altogether. At parting, she appeared to me as one who, fearing to provoke a worse fate by attempting to be better, sat down in a sort of sullen despairing, content with her present condition, which she (justly) called misery. Thus seemed she to be as to any sense that remained with her; but all her sense was clouded, and, indeed, fancies which now perplexed her brain were, like the clouds, fleeting, inconstant, and sometimes in monstrous shapes."31