Henry St. John, 1st Viscount St. John of Bletsoe

“ John entered Parliament as member for Wotton Bassett, the family borough. He acted with the Tories, and became intimate with their leader, Robert Harley. He soon became distinguished as the ablest and most vigorous of the young supporters of the Tory party. He was a handsome man and a brilliant speaker, delighted in by politicians who, according to his own image in the Letter to Windham, “grow, like hounds, fond of the man who shows them game.” He was active in the impeachment of Somers, Montague, the Duke of Portland, and the Earl of Oxford for their negotiation of the Partition Treaties. ”

“ The Tories came in with a large majority under Peel, and among Manners’s friends who were successful in the constituencies, besides Gladstone, were Smythe, afterwards 7th Viscount Strangford, at Canterbury; Baillie-Cochrane, afterwards 1st Lord Lamington, at Bridport; and Disraeli at Shrewsbury. Cherishing many of the ideas of the cavaliers of the 17th century, and full of political and literary ardour, Lord John was soon prominent in the social group which revolved round Lady Blessington. ”

“ During your last Session of Parliament it was expected that the Whigs would attempt to repeal the Occasional Bill. The same jealousy continues; there is, perhaps, foundation for it. Give me leave to ask you upon what principle we argued for making this law, and upon what principle you must argue against the repeal of it. I have mentioned the principle in the beginning of this discourse. No man ought to be trusted with any share of power under a Government who must, to act consistently with himself, endeavour the destruction of that very Government. ”

“ There was a perfect calm and universal submission through the whole kingdom. The Chevalier, indeed, set out as if his design had been to gain the coast and to embark for Great Britain; and the Court of France made a merit to themselves of stopping him and obliging him to return. But this, to my certain knowledge, was a farce acted by concert, to keep up an opinion of his character, when all opinion of his cause seemed to be at an end. ”

“ Is it possible that a man should be wounded with such blunt weapons? Much more than powder was asked for from the first, and I have already said that when the Chevalier came into Scotland, regular troops, artillery, etc., were demanded. Both he and the Earl of Mar judged it impossible to stand their ground without such assistance as these. How scandalous, then, must it be deemed that they suffer their dependents to spread in the world that for want of a little powder I forced them to abandon Scotland! ”

“ He is naturally inclined to believe the worst, which I take to be a certain mark of a mean spirit and a wicked soul. At least, I am sure that the contrary quality, when it is not due to weakness of understanding, is the fruit of a generous temper and an honest heart. Prone to judge ill of all mankind, he will rarely be seduced by his credulity, but I never knew a man so capable of being the bubble of his distrust and jealousy. He was so in this case, although the Queen, who could not be ignorant of the truth, said enough to undeceive him. ”

“ I dare not promise that the sections or members of these essays will bear that nice proportion to one another and to the whole which a severe critic would require. All I dare promise you is that my thoughts, in what order soever they flow, shall be communicated to you just as they pass through my mind, just as they use to be when we converse together on these or any other subjects when we saunter alone, or, as we have often done with good Arbuthnot and the jocose Dean of St. Patrick’s, among the multiplied scenes of your little garden. That theatre is large enough for my ambition. ”

“ His double-trimming character prevailed on him to talk with the Duke of Ormond, but it carried him no farther. I question not but he did, on this occasion, what you must have observed many men to do: we not only endeavour to impose on the world, but even on ourselves; we disguise our weakness, and work up in our minds an opinion that the measure which we fall into by the natural or habitual imperfection of our character is the effect of a principle of prudence or of some other virtue. ”

“ In England he found all things in confusion, the chancellor the actual ruler of the country, unpopular with all, as he had managed to offend all; John aiming at supreme power, and others, such as Geoffrey of York and the justiciars, taking an independent line of their own. Besides the general pacification of the country, he was also to effect an election to the see of Canterbury, which had been vacant since Baldwin's death at Acre. ”

“ At the very time when it is pretended that the Regent treated with the Duke of Ormond on the express condition that I should know nothing of the matter, two persons of the first rank and greatest credit in this Court, when I made the most pressing instances to them in favour of the Chevalier, threw out in conversation to me that I should attach myself to the Duke of Orleans, that in my circumstances I might want him, and that he might have occasion for me. Something was intimated of pensions and establishment, and of making my peace at home. ”

“ It was not long after that another grand feast was held at Brougham Castle in honour of the marriage of its lord, which had been celebrated at Bletso, where the beautiful daughter of Sir John Saint John willingly bestowed her hand on him who, as a simple shepherd, had won a place in her heart.
The only drawback to the happiness of our hero was the consciousness of his neglected education. Unable to read or write, he cared not to mix with the nobles of the court, but preferred living in retirement, and with great simplicity. ”

“ Each individual must, on the contrary, look for the redress of wrongs either to the court of the people of his own district, or to the court of his lord. Royal justice for all (in the modern sense) was simply impossible. The monarchy had no machinery at command for effecting this. The task was a gigantic one, which no Anglo-Saxon King, which not even William I., could possibly have undertaken. No attempt in this direction was made by the Crown until the reign of Henry II., who was placed in a position of unprecedented power, partly by circumstances, but chiefly by his great abilities. ”

“ As to the last, our domestic quiet; even whilst the Chevalier and those of his race concealed their game, we should remain in the most unhappy state which human nature is subject to, a state of doubt and suspense. Our preservation would depend on making him the object of our eternal jealousy, who, to render himself and his people happy, ought to be that of our entire confidence. ”

“ The sum of all his policy had been to amuse the Whigs, the Tories, and the Jacobites as long as he could, and to keep his power as long as he amused them. When it became impossible to amuse mankind any longer, he appeared plainly at the end of his line.
By a secret correspondence with the late Earl of Halifax, and by the intrigues of his brother and other fanatical relations, he had endeavoured to keep some hold on the Whigs. ”

“ Basing in Hampshire, Stanton St.John in Oxfordshire, Bletshoe in the county of Northampton, and Lydiard Tregoze in Wiltshire, both derived from the heiress of Beauchamp in the reign of Henry VI.—have successively been seats of the St.Johns, who have made themselves sufficiently remarkable both for their loyalty and disloyalty in the reign of Charles I., not to mention the ambition and ill-directed abilities of the great Lord Bolingbroke in that of Anne. ”

“ In spite of the incapacity which he displayed in this war, John was sent a little later to govern Ireland (1185) ; but he returned in a few months covered with disgrace, having alienated the loyal chiefs by his childish insolence and entirely failed to defend the settlers from the hostile septs. Remaining henceforth at his father’s side he was treated with the utmost indulgence. But he joined with his brother Richard and the French king Philip Augustus in the great conspiracy of 1189, and the discovery of his treason broke the heart of the old king (see Henry II.) . ”

“ John’s struggle against the barons and Prince Louis (1216) , afterwards King Louis VIII., was the most creditable episode of his career. But the calamitous situation of England at the moment of his death, on the 19th of October 1216, was in the main his work; and while he lived a national reaction in favour of the dynasty was out of the question.
John’s second wife, Isabella of Angoulême (d. 1246) , who married her former lover, Hugh of Lusignan, after the English king’s death, bore the king two sons, Henry III. and Richard, earl of Cornwall ”

“ By the common law [s] , every man may go out of the realm for whatever cause he pleaseth, without obtaining the king's leave; provided he is under no injunction of staying at home: (which liberty was expressly declared in king John's great charter, though left out in that of Henry III) but, because that every man ought of right to defend the king and his realm, therefore the king at his pleasure may command him by his writ that he go not beyond the seas, or out of the realm without licence ”

“ Here I will only observe that if it be hard to conceive how anything so absurd as the pagan theology stands represented by the Fathers who wrote against it, and as it really was, could ever gain credit among rational creatures, it is full as hard to conceive how the artificial theology we speak of could ever prevail, not only in ages of ignorance, but in the most enlightened. ”

“ The King of England and the Prince of Wales had a meeting with King John at Westminster, and John showed himself willing to sign any treaty that was proposed to him. The English demanded that all the country from Calais to the Pyrenees, even Normandy and Anjou, should be given up to them, and that four millions of golden florins should be paid as King John's ransom. ”

“ These three great fiefs were held by Henry and his sons under the king of France as their lord paramount. Long before 1215, John’s bad fortune or incompetence had lost to him these wide continental dominions except the most distant of them all, his mother’s dowry of Aquitaine. His ancestral domains of Anjou and Normandy had been irretrievably lost, but he still retained their empty titles; and in this his son Henry III. followed him, grasping the shadow long after the substance had fled. Entries relating to Gascony frequently appear on the Rolls of Parliament of Edward I. ”

“ The British-American Act is a bundle of compromises put together to bring the provinces together, and not meant to be permanent. If Sir John should live to assist in revising its terms it will be a happy augury of success. At his age he cannot be expected to be fully in accord with the spirit of the rising generation, but his address, his personal influence, his vast knowledge, have always been of eminent service to the State. ”

“ Sometimes it happened that the intelligent foreigner grew critical at Lord John’s expense. Count Vitzthum, for example, laid stress on the fact that Lord John ‘looked on the British Constitution as an inimitable masterpiece,’ which less-favoured nations ought not only to admire but adopt, if they wished to advance and go forward in the direction of liberty, prosperity, and peace. ”

“ John’s connection with England, then, is expressed in two simple words, “Rex Anglie,” no explanation being vouchsafed of how he had acquired this title. Such vindication, indeed, was not called for, as this was no coronation charter, John having already reigned for fifteen years without any serious rival—the claims of Arthur, the son of his elder brother Geoffrey, never having been taken seriously in England. [328] The simple words, “Dei gratia rex Anglie,” may be contrasted with the detailed titles set out in the coronation charters of Henry I. and Stephen respectively. ”

“ Frederick St John, second son of Frederick, second Viscount Bolingbroke, was born on the 3rd of December 1809. He was educated at Midhurst, Sussex, and about 1828 obtained a clerkship in the treasury, but resigned in 1834, in which year he married a lady with some fortune. ”

“ My gracious mother queen, and barons all: Though far unworthy of so high a place, As is the throne of mighty England’s king, Yet John your lord, contented uncontent, Will (as he may) sustain the heavy yoke Of pressing cares that hang upon a crown. My Lord of Pembroke, and Lord Salisbury, Admit the Lord Chatillon to our presence, That we may know what Philip king of France (By his ambassadors) requires of us. Queen Eleanor
Dare lay my hand that Eleanor can guess Whereto this weighty embassade doth tend: If of my nephew, Arthur, and his claim, Then say my son I have not missed my aim. ”

“ Let us not impute such cruel injustice to the all-perfect Being. Let Austin and Calvin and all those who teach it be answerable for it alone. You may bring Fathers and Councils as evidences in the cause of artificial theology, but reason must be the judge ”

“ My answer shall be that the Fathers, ancient and modern, in Councils and out of them, have raised that immense system of artificial theology by which genuine Christianity is perverted and in which it is lost. ”

“ Soon after the king’s departure for the Holy Land it became known that he had designated his nephew, the young Arthur of Brittany, as his successor. John at once began to intrigue against the regents with the aim of securing England for himself. He picked a quarrel with the unpopular chancellor William Longchamp (q.v.) , and succeeded, by the help of the barons and the Londoners, in expelling this minister, whose chief fault was that of fidelity to the absent Richard. Not being permitted to succeed Longchamp as the head of the administration, John next turned to Philip Augustus for help. ”