Walpole and the ‘Horrid Conspiracy’

Abstract

Sunderland and Walpole had fielded different candidates in many constitutencies and Sunderland was annotating the returns as they came in, when a bombshell struck the political stage: Sunderland died suddenly on 19 April 1722.¹ The next day Lord Carteret wrote to Dubois with the news and assured him that the close links with France would continue.² Sunderland had been struck with pleurisy two days before, was bled six times, and died at 3 p.m. in the afternoon. Destouches thought there had been only three men in England on whom France could rely completely, Stanhope, Craggs and Sunderland. Now there was none.³ On the day of Sunderland’s death (before he could have received Carteret’s letter), Dubois sent advice by an express to Lord Carteret, through Sir Luke Schaub in Paris, that there was a plot against King George and that the Jacobites had asked the Regent for 4000 men. Dubois did not give the names of those involved, which had been withheld from him.⁴ While Sunderland was alive nothing whatsoever was done to put a stop to the Atterbury Plot. It is equally certain that Dubois said nothing about there being a plot while Sunderland was in office. Assuming that Dubois had been receiving a pension from Stanhope and Sunderland, as all the signs were, he would have been desperate to avoid exposure at the hands of Townshend and Walpole, who had the accounts of Secret Service money.