CHAPTER V

THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE I (1714)

Lady Mary shows an increasing interest in politics--She tries to incite
her husband to be ambitious--Montagu not returned to the new
Parliament--His lack of energy--Correspondence--The Council of
Regency--The King commands Lord Townshend to form a Government--The
Cabinet--Lord Halifax, First Lord of the Treasury--Montagu appointed a
Lord Commissioner of the Treasury--Correspondence--The unsatisfactory
relations between Lady Mary and Montagu.


At the time of the death of Queen Anne Lady Mary began to show an
increased interest in polities, at least in so far as the career of
Montagu was bound up with it. She began to try to persuade her husband
to be, to some extent at least, ambitious. It may be that she was not
happy at the thought of being married to a man who was regarded as a
nonentity. She was always urging him to put his best foot forward.
Sometimes she wrote to him as to a naughty child. "I am very much
surprised that you do not tell me in your last letter that you have
spoke to my Father," she said in August, 1714. "I hope after staying in
the town on purpose, you do not intend to omit it. I beg you would not
leave any sort of business unfinished, remembering those two necessary
maxims, Whatever you intend to do as long as you live do as soon as you
can; and to leave nothing to be done by another that 'tis possible to do