25 This indignant letter is dated Nov. 23, 1710.  It produced an apologetic reply from the Archbishop (Nov. 30, 1710), who represented that the letter to Southwell was a snare laid in his way, since if he declined signing it, it might have been interpreted into disrespect to the Duke of Ormond.  Of the bishops King said, “You cannot do yourself a greater service than to bring this to a good issue, to their shame and conviction.”

Letter 10.

1 William Bromley (died 1732) was M.P. for the University of Oxford.  A good debater and a strong High Churchman, he was Secretary of State from August 1713 until the Queen’s death in the following year.

2 Colonel, afterwards Major-General, John Hill (died 1735) was younger brother of Mrs. Masham, the Queen’s favourite, and a poor relation of the Duchess of Marlborough.  He was wounded at Mons in 1709, and in 1711 was sent on an unsuccessful expedition to attack the French settlements in North America.  In 1713 he was appointed to command the troops at Dunkirk.

3 “The footmen in attendance at the Houses of Parliament used at this time to form themselves into a deliberative body, and usually debated the same points with their masters.  It was jocularly said that several questions were lost by the Court party in the menial House of Lords which were carried triumphantly in the real assembly; which was at length explained by a discovery that the Scottish peers whose votes were sometimes decisive of a question had but few representatives in the convocation of lacqueys.  The sable attendant mentioned by Swift, being an appendage of the brother of Mrs. Masham, the reigning favourite, had a title to the chair, the Court and Tory interest being exerted in his favour” (Scott).  Steele alludes to the “Footmen’s Parliament” in No. 88 of the Spectator.

4 See Letter 1, note 3.

5 A Court of Equity abolished in the reign of Charles I. It met in the Camera Alba, or Whitehall, and the room appears to have retained the name of the old Court.

6 See Letter 6, note 2.

7 Swift’s first contribution to the Examiner (No. 13) is dated Nov. 2, 1710.

8 Seduced, induced.  Dryden (Spanish Friar) has “To debauch a king to break his laws.”

9 Freeman (see Letter 9, note 10).

10 “To make this intelligible, it is necessary to observe, that the words ‘this fortnight’, in the preceding sentence, were first written in what he calls their little language, and afterwards scratched out and written plain.  It must be confessed this little language, which passed current between Swift and Stella, has occasioned infinite trouble in the revisal of these papers” (Deane Swift).

11 Trim.  An attack upon the liberties of this corporation is among the political offences of Wharton’s Lieutenancy of Ireland set forth in Swift’s Short Character of the Earl of Wharton.