The Secretary of State, Craggs, justly accused of having received a bribe from the directors of the company, died of the small pox; his father, the Postmaster-General, took poison. Aislabie was sent to the Tower, and the greater part of his property was confiscated. All the property of the directors was seized, and they were declared forever incapable of holding any public office or of sitting in Parliament. Lord Sunderland had lost considerable sums: "He is a dupe, but not an accomplice," scornfully said even his enemies. He was acquitted, but nevertheless could not preserve his power. Walpole succeeded him as first Lord of the Treasury. Sunderland died on the 17th of April, 1721, some weeks after the general elections, and two months before his illustrious father-in-law, the Duke of Marlborough.
Robert Walpole had finally attained the power which he was to exercise during twenty years, for the repose, if not always for the honor and moral grandeur of his country. Jealous of his authority, to the extent of removing from the circle about the king all those not his friends, and even those of his friends whom he could not control absolutely, he encountered, at the outset, the intrigues of the Jacobites, re-awakened by the general discontent and by the new aspirations which the birth of a son awakened in the Pretender.
A new expedition was prepared under the orders of the Duke of Ormond, and matured and directed from England by a council of five members who conducted the affairs of "King James III." The soul of this little clique was the Bishop of Rochester, Francis Atterbury, indefatigable in his zeal as well as inexhaustible in his resources; sincerely attached to the Protestant faith, but sacrificing all to his political passions, and more occupied in preparing for the landing of the invaders and in fomenting an insurrection during the absence of the king in Hanover, than in the care of his diocese. { 168} When the plot was discovered, the inferior agents were promptly arrested, and the Duke of Norfolk, Lord Orrery, and Lord North, at first imprisoned in the Tower, were soon released: the bishop remained gravely compromised. Walpole resolved to risk a trial. Among the accomplices a young barrister named Layer alone suffered the extreme penalty; the property of some others was confiscated; but public interest concentrated itself upon the bishop, who was kept in close confinement in the Tower.