friends without being sure of a place,
when so many insignificant creatures come in without any opposition.
They say Mr. Strickland is sure at Carlisle, where he never stood
before. I believe most places are engaged by this time. I am very sorry,
for your sake, that you spent so much money in vain last year, and will
not come in this, when you might make a more considerable figure than
you could have done then. I wish Lord Pelham would compliment Mr. Jessop
with his Newark interest, and let you come in at Aldburgh."

On the death of the Queen, the Council, which had assembled at
Kensington Palace, adjourned to St. James's. By the Regency Bill the
administration of the government (in the event of the King being absent
from the realm at the time of his accession to the throne) devolved upon
the holders for the time being of the Great Officers of State: the
Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Thomas Tenison), the Lord Chancellor
(Simon, Lord Harcourt), the Lord President (John, Duke of
Buckinghamshire), the Lord High Treasurer (Charles, Duke of Shrewsbury),
the Lord Privy Seal (William, Earl of Dartmouth), the First Lord of the
Admiralty (Thomas, Earl of Strafford), and the Lord Chief Justice of the
King's Bench (Sir Thomas Parker, afterwards Earl of Macclesfield). Under
another clause of the Regency Act the Sovereign was entitled to nominate
a number of Lords Justices. Baron von Bothmer, the Hanovarian Envoy
Extraordinary to the Court of St. James's, opened the sealed packet
containing the Commission of Regency, drawn up by George after the death
of his mother. The King's nominees were the Archbishop of York, the
Dukes of Shrewsbury,[1] Somerset, Bolton, Devonshire, Kent, Argyll,
Montrose, and Roxborough; the Earls of Pembroke, Anglesea, Carlisle,
Nottingham, Abingdon, Scarborough, and Oxford; Viscount Townshend; and
Barons Halifax and Cowper. Marlborough was not in the Commission, but he
was appointed Captain-General of the Forces.

[Footnote 1: The Commission was, of course, made out before the Duke of
Shrewsbury was given the White Staff, the possession of which made him a
Lord Justice in virtue of his office.]

From The Hague, where he arrived on September 5, 1714, George I sent
authority to Charles, Viscount Townshend, to form a Cabinet, with power
to nominate his colleagues. Townshend took the office of Secretary of
State for the Northern Department, and appointed James Stanhope
Secretary of State for the Southern Dep