Lord Mohun, meanwhile, was carried, by order of General Macartney, to the hackney-coach in which he had arrived, and his body conveyed to his house in Marlborough Street, where, it was afterwards reported, that being flung upon the best bed, his Lady, one of the nieces of Charles Gerrard, Earl of Macclesfield, expressed great anger at the soiling of her new coverlid, on which the bleeding corpse was deposited.[52] General Macartney escaped. It appeared on oath that he had made a thrust at the Duke, as he was struggling with Mohun; and it being generally believed that it was by that wound that the Duke died, an address was presented to her Majesty by the Scottish Peers, begging that she would write to all the kings and states in alliance with her, not to shelter Macartney from justice.[53] A deep and general grief was shown for the death of the Duke of Hamilton. In Scotland mourning was worn, and the churches were hung with black. It was in vain that the Duchess offered a reward of three hundred pounds for the apprehension of Macartney; the murderer had fled beyond seas. The Cavaliers lost, in Hamilton, an ornament to their party, from the strict honour and fidelity of his known character. But the crisis which the unfortunate Duke had in vain endeavoured to avert was now at hand, and the death of Queen Anne brought with it all those consequences which a long series of cabals, during the later disturbed years of the Queen's existence, had been gradually ripening into importance. The Earl of Mar had openly espoused the High-church party in the case of Sacheverel; and he had on that account, as well as from the doubt generally entertained of his fidelity, little reason to expect from the House of Hanover a continuance in office. No sooner had the Queen expired, than those whom Lord Mar had long, in secret, been regarding with interest, expressed openly their disappointment at the result of the last reign. "The accession of George the First," remarks Dr. Coxe, "was a new era in the history of that Government which was established at the Revolution. Under William and Anne the Stuart family can scarcely be considered as absolutely excluded from the throne; for all parties, except the extreme Whigs, looked forward to the possibility of the Stuarts returning to the throne. But, in fact, the Revolution was not completed till the actual establishment of the Brunswick line, which cut off all hopes of a return without a new revolution."[54]