A HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX 



Addison's marriage with the dowager countess of Holland, he had 

 had a retirement near Chelsea, within an easy walk over the fields 

 from Holland House.* 88 His marriage in 1716, though it did not 

 conduce to his happiness, probably facilitated his official advancement. 

 In 1717 he was Secretary of State in Sunderland's ministry, but he 

 retired the following year and died at Holland House in 1719. 



Walpole was much at Chelsea during the reign of George II. 434 

 News of the sudden death of George I reached him there on 14 June, 

 1727. Walpole's fortunes were then passing through a crisis, and his 

 position had been greatly damaged by the invectives of the Opposition in 

 the Craftsman. Thoroughly aware of the importance of first audience 

 with the new king, he is said to have killed two horses in carrying the 

 tidings of the death of George I to his successor at Richmond. 426 Mean- 

 while Walpole's great opponent, Bolingbroke, was settled on the other side 

 of the county, at Dawley near Uxbridge. Here he acted the part of a 

 country gentleman with great spirit, and had his hall painted with rakes 

 and spades 'to countenance his calling it a farm.' 486 All the time he was 

 taking an important though obscure part in politics, leading the attacks 

 on Walpole in the Craftsman. *" In the new reign, while still at 

 Dawley, he wrote the articles signed 'John Trot ' which contained such 

 virulent attacks on Walpole's foreign policy. In 1730 he was working 

 to bring about the combination between the opposition Whigs and the 

 Tories, led by Sir William Wyndham, and in 1733 it was from Dawley 

 that he inspired Wyndham's speeches on the Excise Bill. He did not 

 leave Dawley until he retired altogether from politics to live in France. 



The rebellion of 1715 had not disturbed Middlesex, and that in 

 1745 affected it but little. When the news reached London that 

 the enemy was advancing south, a small army, poorly and hastily 

 equipped, was mustered on Finchley Common, 428 whence the duke of 

 Cumberland travelled to Culloden. The rebellion had this result : that 

 the ensuing elections proved a great victory for the Whigs in Middlesex, 

 owing to the publication of the lists of subscriptions which had been 

 raised for the defence of the kingdom, whereby Jacobite proclivities 

 were rendered only too conspicuous. Sir Roger Newdigate of Hare- 

 field had represented Middlesex since 1741. So high a Tory was he 

 that Horace Walpole speaks of him as a half-converted Jacobite. In 

 1 747 h ma de way for Sir William Beauchamp Proctor. 



In 1780, when the Gordon Riots reduced London to a state of 

 panic, 1 1 ,000 troops were gathered round the City. 429 The Queen's 

 Regiment and the South Hants Militia were quartered on Finchley 

 Common. 430 



At the beginning of the nineteenth century the duke of Orleans 

 settled at Twickenham with the duke of Montpensier and the comte de 



10 Swift, Journ. to Stella, 18 Sept. 1710. '" Gent. Mag. 1737, p. 514. 



" Pinkerton, ffalpoliana, i, 86. " 6 Pope to Swift, 28 June, 1728. 



" Coxe, Memoir of Sir R. Walpok, ii, 344, 571. 4 " H. Walpole, Journ. ii. 



*" Walpole, Journ. ii, 409 ; Ann. Reg. (1780), 3 June. " Lysons, Environs ofLmd. ii, 335. 



54 



