Ayrshire > Volume 2

THE DALRYMPLES OF STAIR 277
The latter had voted for the Bill introduced into the
House of Lords by the second Duke of Marlborough to
make commissions for officers in the Army be for life ;
and the King is reported to have observed that " he
would never let a man keep anything by favour who
had endeavoured to keep it by force." The Ministerial
Peers in Scotland were powerful enough to defeat Stair
for election as a representative Peer, but he went on his
way tenaciously through it all, and in the end he and
his friends had the satisfaction of bringing about the
defeat of Walpole and of seeing him, raised to the dignity
of the Earl of Orford, relegated to private life.
The one great mistake of a purely personal character
that Stair made in this connection was to write to the
Queen a letter which the Chamberlain, Lord Grantham,
delivered into her hands : —
" Madam, I am much distressed as regards myself
at being so unfortunate as to displease you ; I am
still more so as regards your Majesty. Were it in my
power to see your Majesty in the difficult conjuncture
in which we now are in respect to foreign affairs I
might perhaps afford your Majesty some light which
might be useful.
" My disgrace, madam, does not make me forget
the instances of goodness your Majesty has shown to
me. You have many subjects who have better heads,
you have none who have hearts more faithfully and
more disinterestedly attached to the glory or to the
true interest of your Majesty and your House."
Queen Caroline at once had the letter sent to Sir
Robert Walpole, and the Prime Minister showed it to the
King ; and Lord Hervey in his Memoirs remarks that
" all the effect it had on his Majesty was making him
call Lord Stair a puppy for writing it, and Lord Grantham
a fool for bringing it." But while the Earl had thus to
endure all the slings and taunts that opposition to the
Government entailed, he had two material consolations.