As Vanbrugh shifted his energies to architecture, Congreve likewise turned after 1700 to art forms less scrutinized in terms of morality: music and lyric poetry.83 Both men's diverted careers, however, continued to be bound closely to the political fates of their patrons in the Kit-Cat Club; in the political situation of 1700, those fates seemed extremely uncertain.
I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.
E. M. FORSTER, Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)
THE KIT-CATS CONSIDERED themselves not only urbane but also cosmopolitan sophisticates, looking beyond England's shores culturally and politically, and defining themselves in comparison to other nationalities. Theirs was an outward-facing club, trying to build an outward-facing nation, and trying to stereotype their Tory rivals as old-fashioned, parochial isolationists (despite, paradoxically, the Jacobites' supranational loyalties to the Pope in Rome and the exiled Stuart Court in France). Being ruled by a Dutchman underscored the extent to which England's domestic politics were enmeshed with the struggles between the major Continental powers: France on the one hand and the Habsburg realms on the other. When this clash of empires was temporarily paused after the 1697 peace, several Kit-cats seized the opportunity to expand their education of European languages and politics through travel. Others—Lord Dorset's Boys —continued working on the Continent as a new breed of professional diplomat. For one of them, parliamentary debates about England's international relations would dramatically reveal his betrayal of his fellow Kit-Cats.
The culture wars raging in England at the turn of the century formed the backdrop to more straightforward political confrontations between parties. Spring 1698, for example, saw the Kit-Cats and other Court (Junto) Whigs preparing for a general election at a time when England's Protestants were feeling reprieved from the potential dangers of a Jacobite assassination plot against the King (the so-called Fenwick Affair of 1696) or the spectre of a French invasion (no longer an immediate risk during the peace). The Junto Whigs' power and influence disintegrated alongside this lessening level of public alarm, and the Tories' ambitions rose in inverse proportion. The Junto Whigs therefore knew they had an electoral fight on their hands, despite the fact that they now had the King's backing, William having been deeply angered by the 1697 opposition call for a Disbanding Bill. The Kit-Cat politicians took concerted actions across a number of marginal constituencies. Somers, for example, gifted legal title in Reigate burgages (freehold properties) to his friends, including Congreve, Tonson and several other Kit-Cats, so that they became propertied voters, able to win that seat to his interest. Despite such dubious tactics, however, the Junto lost control of the Commons in July to Harley's alliance of Country Whigs and Tories.
Montagu kept his seat representing the borough of Westminster only after an expensive campaign. On the same night as his embarrassingly narrow victory was announced, so too was the death of his elderly wife, Lady Manchester. This meant the loss of an annual £1,500 (today £142,000) jointure, which automatically transferred to Montagu's stepson. This stepson was another Kit-Cat, also named Charles Montagu, who was exactly the same age as his stepfather, cousin and namesake. He had inherited the title of 4th Earl (later 1st Duke) of Manchester, and is hereafter referred to as ‘Manchester’ to avoid confusion.1
The King was losing patience with Montagu's inability to muster parliamentary support to defend the Court and defeat the Disbanding Bill. Before the election, Montagu had succeeded in raising revenue for the King and army by navigating through the Commons a £2 million flotation of a New East India Company. The Old East India Company, the only major London corporation run by Tories, was forced to invest in the New, which became a rich source of employment and dividends for Montagu's Kit-Cat friends. After the Whig election defeat, however, the Old East India Company took advantage of the King's impatience with Montagu and petitioned for a renewed right to trade. At the same time, a passionately argued pamphlet in favour of disbanding the army, A Short History of Standing Armies, seemed to win the press war over that issue in favour of Harley's opposition. Prior reported from Paris that the Jacobite Court-in-exile at Louis' chateau of St Germain-en-Laye was rejoicing at the prospect of the English army dismantling itself, and in January 1699, the Disbanding Bill passed, despite all Montagu's blocking efforts. To the King's outrage, England's army was required to reduce itself to 7,000 ‘native born’ men. Everything achieved by the Whigs in the first half of the 1690s seemed to be unravelling.
During the long 1698–9 parliamentary session, therefore, the Kit-cat Club was an important forum for holding together the Junto Whig faction while it was under strain, and for monitoring the precarious international situation through its younger members' Continental travels and diplomatic postings. In this context, Montagu encouraged Addison, still a cloistered tutor at Magdalen College, not to enter the Church but instead seek a political or diplomatic career. ‘[H]is Arguments were founded upon the general [de]pravity and the Corruption of Men of Business [i.e. government], who wanted liberal Education,’ recalled Steele. ‘[M]y Lord ended with a Compliment that, however he might be represented as no Friend to the Church, he never would do it any other Injury than keeping Mr Addison out of it.’2
Addison at this time was struggling to reconcile his own worldly ambitions with his father's lessons in Christian humility. He wrote a draft sermon, published many years later as an essay on ‘The Folly of Seeking Fame’, asking whether God's purpose in giving us the ‘passion’ of ambition was to drive forward our ‘sedentary’ souls, and whether ambition is less sinful when it is commensurate with ability: ‘How few are there who are furnished with Abilities sufficient…to distinguish themselves from the rest of Mankind?’3 Ambition for fame, he wrote, is the same instinct that makes us vulnerable to criticism, and the pleasure of fame is inevitably ‘precarious’ because it rests on the fickle and fallible opinion of mortals, rather than God's judgement.
Addison seems to have reconciled his ambition with his conscience by his twenty-seventh birthday, which coincided with the 1699 May Day celebrations at Magdalen. The following morning, Addison caught a coach to London, quitting forever the university where he had lived and worked for over a decade. Through Montagu, Addison received a £200 (over £20,000 today) government stipend to travel and study French. Somers partnered Montagu in supporting Addison's European education, as a letter of thanks from Addison to Somers confirms: ‘I have now for some time lived on the Effect of your Lordship's patronage…The only Return I can make your L[or]d[shi]p will be to apply myself Entirely to my Business and to take such a care of my Conversation that your favours may not seem misplaced.’4
Addison's trip started, in August 1699, on a literal wrong foot, with a fall into the sea as he disembarked at Calais, a succession of ‘dismal Adventures’ (‘lame post-horses by Day and hard Beds at night’) and misunderstandings because of his feeble French. ‘I have encountered as many misfortunes as a Knight-Errant,’ Addison laughed in his first letter back to Congreve, adding that he liked French statues and