Official Secrets

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1 Bolingbroke's Code?

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Bolingbroke's Code?

Swift always enjoyed word play. The Journal to Stella is full of a kind of baby talk they called "little language," but also some anagrams and hidden messages. For example, on Thursday March 7, 1710/11, he writes Stella that "Yes, I understand your cypher, and Stella guesses right, as she always does. He gave me al bsadnuk lboinlpl dfaonr ufaunfbtoy dpionufnad, which I sent him again by Mr. Lewis, to whom I writ a very complaining letter that was shewed him; and so the matter ended."

The secret message is found by taking every second letter in "al bsadnuk lboinlpl dfaonr ufaunfbtoy dpionufnad," which gives, "a bank bill for fufty pound" [sic].

Swift's anagrams in Gulliver's Travels may have originated in a personal or diplomatic cypher used by Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke, to contact his allies and friends after the death of Queen Anne and the fall of the government. Or it may have been employed by the Brothers Club. Swift and Arbuthnot were both members of the Club, also called "The Society", a gathering place for the Tory party established by Bolingbroke in 1711, when he was Secretary of State.

Bolingbroke in 1730

These could be dangerous times, and secret cyphers were often crucial ways to keep in touch with allies and plot against enemies.

Within a month of the Queen's death in 1715, Bolingbroke was dismissed from office, and on March 26, 1715, he escaped to France, disguised as a valet to the French messenger La Vigne. Bolingbroke's arch-enemy Sir Robert Walpole immediately established a Secret Committee of the House of Commons to examine various seized papers, and the result was the impeachment of Bolingboke. That September, in default of surrender, he was charged and "attainted" of high treason, his property was seized and his name was erased from the roll of peers. This was Walpole's revenge for the fact that Bolingbroke had earlier jailed him in the Tower on charges of corruption.

Other colleagues of Bolingbroke like the Duke of Ormonde were forced to flee to France, and Robert Harley, Lord Oxford, was also sent to the Tower of London for a time. In 1716, two Jacobite lords were executed for plotting a return of the Catholic Stuarts to the throne. Bolingbroke had dealings with James Stuart in secret, and was even apppointed his Secretary of State, but soon withdrew when The Pretender refused to renounce his Catholicism and the doctrine of divine right. The death of Louis XIV on September 1 removed the last prop of the falling Jacobite cause. Bolingboke eventually returned to England and supported George I and the Hanoverians. But the taint of his jacobite dealings meant that he would never again hold power.

John Arbuthnot's family had been active Jacobite supporters. In the 1689 Jacobite uprising in Scotland, his brother Robert Arbuthnot joined Bonnie Dundee's army and fought against General Hugh Mackay at the Battle of Killiecrankie. That August the Scottish resistance was crushed at the Battle of Dunkeld and Robert Arbuthnot fled to France. In September, Arbuthnot's father, Rev. Alexander Arbuthnot, refused to sign an oath to the rulers William and Mary who had been victorious over the Jacobites, and he was dismissed from his parish for refusing to conform to the Presbyterian system.

Arbuthnot attended Queen Anne during her last illness, and was with her when she died on August 1, 1714. After her death, and upon the accession of George I, he lost his place at court. He joined friends in France for a time, but eventually returned to England to practice medicine.

Bolingbroke, who had close dealings with France during the Oxford ministry, was not pardoned until 1723. Swift named his best horse in Ireland, "Bolingbroke", because, as he said, he liked to ride him.

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