The success was accomplished by a _coupe d'etat_ on Friday, July 30, 1714. The Queen was suddenly stricken with apoplexy. A Privy Council was to meet that morning at Kensington Palace. The Privy Council meeting was composed then, according to the principle which prevails still, only of such councillors as had received a special summons. In truth, the meeting of the Privy Council {41} in Anne's time was like a Cabinet meeting of our days, and was intended by those who convened it to be just as strictly composed of official members. But, on the other hand, there was no law or rule forbidding any member of the Privy Council, whether summoned or not, to present himself at the meeting. Bolingbroke was in his place, and so was the Duke of Ormond, and so were other Jacobite peers. The Duke of Shrewsbury had taken his seat, as he was entitled to do, being one of the highest officers of State. Shrewsbury was known to be a loyal adherent of the Act of Settlement and the Hanoverian Succession. He was a remarkable man with a remarkable history. His father was the unfortunate Shrewsbury who was killed in a duel by the Duke of Buckingham. The duel arose out of the duke's open intrigue with the Countess of Shrewsbury, and the story went at the time that the lady herself, dressed as a page, held her lover's horse while he fought with and killed her husband. Charles Talbot, the son, was brought up a Catholic, but in his twentieth year accepted the arguments of Tillotson and became a Protestant. He was Lord Chamberlain to James the Second, but lost all faith in James, and went over to Holland to assist William of Nassau with counsel and with money. When William became King of England he made Lord Shrewsbury a Privy Councillor and Secretary of State, created him first marquis and afterwards duke, and called him, in tribute to his great popularity, the King of Hearts. He was for a short time British Ambassador at the Court of France, and then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He had flickered a little between the Whigs and the Tories at different periods of his career, and in 1710 he actually joined the Tory party. But it was well known to every one that if any question should arise between the House of Hanover and the Stuarts, he would stand firmly by the appointed succession. He was a man of undoubted integrity and great political sagacity; he had a handsome face, although he had lost one of his eyes by an accident when riding, and {42} he had a stately presence. His gifts and graces were said to have so much attracted the admiration of Queen Mary that if she had outlived the King she would probably have married Shrewsbury. The condition of the political world around him had impressed him with so little reverence for courts and cabinets, that he used to say if he had a son he would rather bring him up a cobbler than a courtier, and a hangman than a statesman. Bolingbroke once kindly said of him, "I never knew a man so formed to