The Heart of Mid-Lothian - Penn State University

thing, could often prevent discontent from becoming
hatred, and opposition from exaggerating itself into
rebellion. If by any accident her correspondence with
such persons chanced to be observed or discovered, which
she took all possible pains to prevent, it was represented
as a mere intercourse of society, having no reference to
politics; an answer with which even the prime minister,
Sir Robert Walpole, was compelled to remain satisfied,
when he discovered that the Queen had given a private
audience to Pulteney, afterwards Earl of Bath, his most
formidable and most inveterate enemy.
In thus maintaining occasional intercourse with several
persons who seemed most alienated from the crown,
it may readily be supposed that Queen Caroline had
taken care not to break entirely with the Duke of Argyle.
His high birth, his great talents, the estimation in
which he was held in his own country, the great services
which he had rendered the house of Brunswick in 1715,
placed him high in that rank of persons who were not
to be rashly neglected. He had, almost by his single and
unassisted talents, stopped the irruption of the banded
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force of all the Highland chiefs; there was little doubt,
that, with the slightest encouragement, he could put
them all in motion, and renew the civil war; and it was
well known that the most flattering overtures had been
transmitted to the Duke from the court of St. Germains.
The character and temper of Scotland was still little
known, and it was considered as a volcano, which might,
indeed, slumber for a series of years, but was still liable,
at a moment the least expected, to break out into a
wasteful irruption. It was, therefore, of the highest importance
to retain come hold over so important a personage
as the Duke of Argyle, and Caroline preserved
the power of doing so by means of a lady, with whom,
as wife of George II., she might have been supposed to
be on less intimate terms.
It was not the least instance of the Queen’s address,
that she had contrived that one of her principal attendants,
Lady Suffolk, should unite in her own person the
two apparently inconsistent characters, of her husband’s
mistress, and her own very obsequious and complaisant
confidant. By this dexterous management the Queen