COLLECTION OF BRITISH AUTHORS. VOL. CLXXIV. THE HISTOEY OF ENGLAND By THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, VOL. III. THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM , THE ACCESSION OE JAMES THE SECOND. THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. COPYRIGHT EDITION. vol. m. LEIPZIG BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ 1849 . CONTENTS OF THE THIRD VOLUME, CHAPTER VII. vagk William, Prince of Orange; his Appearance .... 1 His early Life and Education • •••#••• 2 His Theological Opinions ••••,•• . 3 His Military Qualifications . . • . . • • . 5 His Love of Danger; his bad neallh. Coldness of hisManners andSirength of hisEmotions; hisFriend- ship for Bentinck ......... 8 Mary, Princess of Orange.11 Gilbert Burnet.13 He brings about a good Understanding between the Prince and Princess .17 Relations between William and English Parlies .... 18 His Feelings towards England; his Feelings towards Holland and France. 19 His Policy consistent throughout.24 Treaty of Augsburg; William becomes the Head of the English Opposition ..27 Mordaunt proposes to William a Descent on England; William rejects the Advice.29 Discontent in England after the Fall of the Hydes .... 30 Conversions to Popery; Peterborough; Salisbury ... 31 Wycherley; Tindal; Haines 32 VI CONTENTS. PAGE Dryden.33 The Hind and Panther.35 Change in the Policy of the Court towards the Puritans . . 37 Partial Toleration granted in Scotland ...... 41 Closeting; it is unsuccessful.. 43 Admiral Herbert; Declaration of Indulgence.44 Feeling of the Protestant Dissenters .46 Feeling of the Church of England.. 48 The Court and the Church contend for the Favour of the Puritans 49 Letter to a Dissenter; Conduct of the Dissenters .... 52 Some of them side with the Court; Care; Alsop; Rosewcll • . 55 Lobb; Penn.56 The Majority of the Puritans are against the Court; Baxter; Ilowe 57 Bunyan .. . 58 Kilfin ..60 The Prince and Princess of Orange hostile to the Declaration of Indulgence ..64 Their Views respecting the English Roman Catholics vindicated . 66 Enmity of James to Burnet.72 Mission of Dykvell to England . . 74 Negotiations of Dykvelt with English Statesmen; Danby . . 75 Nottingham ..76 Halifax * 77 Devonshire •••••«•••••• 78 Edward Russell • ..81 Compton; Herbert; Churchill.* 82 Lady Churchill and the Princess Anne.84 Dykvelt returns to the Hague with Letters from many eminent Englishmen.. 87 Zulestein’s Mission.. . . . . 83 Growing Enmity between James and William • , . . 89 Inlluencc of the Dutch Press.90 Correspondence of Stewart and Fagel ...... 91 Casteluiaine’s Embassy to Rome . • . . • . 92 CONTENTS. VII CHAPTER vm. PACK Consecration of the Nuncio at St. James’s Palace; his public Reception.97 The Duke of Somerset.98 Dissolution of the Parliament; Military Offences illegally punished 99 Proceedings of the High Commission; the Universities . . 102 Proceedings against the University of Cambridge .... 104 The Earl of Muigrave .......... 105 State of Oxford.108 Magdalene College, Oxford.Ill Anthony Farmer recommended by the King for President . . 114 Election of the President.115 The Fellows of Magdalene cited before the High Commission; Parker recommended as President; the Charterhouse . 116 The Royal Progress. 118 The King at Oxford; he reprimands the Fellows of Magdalene . 120 Penn attempts to mediate.121 Special Ecclesiastical Commissioners sent to Oxford ... 123 Protest of Hough; Installation of Parker.124 Ejection of the Fellows. 126 Magdalene College turned into a Popish Seminary ... 127 Resentment of the Clergy.128 Schemes of the Jesuitical Cabal respecting the Succession . . 130 Scheme of James and Tyrconnel for preventing the Princess of Orange from succeeding to the Kingdom of Ireland . 132 The Queen pregnant; general Incredulity . . . . . 133 Feeling of the Constituent Bodies, and of the Peers . . . 136 James determines to pack a Parliament.137 The Board of Regulators; many Lords Lieutenants dismissed . 139 The Earl of Oxford.140 The Earl of Shrewsbury.141 The Earl of Dorset '.143 Questions put to the Magistrates.146 Their Answers; Failure of the King’s Plans.147 List of Sheriffs; character of the Roman Catholic Country Gentlemen ... 151 Feeling of the Dissenters.154 Regulation of Corporations.155 I, * VIII CONTENTS. Inquisition in all the Public Departments . Dismission of Sawyer. Williams Solicitor General .... Second Declaration of Indulgence . . . The Clergy ordered to read it ... They hesitate; Patriotism of the Protestant Nonconformists of London . Consultation of the London Clergy .... Consultation at Lambeth Palace .... Petition of the Seven Bishops presented to the King The London Clergy disobey the Itoyal Order . Hesitation of the Government. It is determined to prosecute the Bishops for a Libel They are examined by the Privy Council . They are committed to the Tower .' . Birth of the Pretender. He is generally believed to be supposititious . The Bishops brought before the King’s Bench, and bailed Agitation of the Public Mind .... Uneasiness of Sunderland. He professes himself a Roman Catholic; Trial of the Bish The Verdict; Joy of the People Peculiar State of Public Feeling at this Time . shops CHAPTER IX. Change in the Opinion of the Tories concerning the Lawfulness of Resistance. Russell proposes to the Prince of Orange a Descent on England; Henry Sidney .... Devonshire; Shrewsbury; Halifax; Danby Bishop Compton; Nottingham; Lumley . Invitation to William despatched Conduct of Mary. Difficulties of William’s Enterprise . . 208 CONTENTS. IX PACK Conduct of James after the Trial of Ibe Bishops. 228 Dismissions and Promotions.229 Proceedings of the High Commission; Sprat resigns his Seat . 231 Discontent of the Clergy; Transactions at Oxford .... 232 Discontent of the Gentry.233 Discontent of the Army.231 Irish Troops brought over.235 Public Indignation.23G Lillibullero.210 Politics of the United Provinces.241 Errors of the French King; his Quarrel with the Pope concerning the Franchises.244 The Archbishopric of Cologne.24G Skilful Management of William.24T His Military and Naval Preparations.248 He receives numerous Assurances of Support from England . 249 Sunderland. 251 Anxiety of William; Warnings conveyed to James .... 255 Exertions of Lewis to save James ....... 25T James frustrates them.258 The French Armies invade Germany.260 William obtains the Sanction of the Slates General to bis Expedition .2G2 Schomberg; British Adventurers at the Hague . . . . 2G3 William’s Declaration.265 James roused to a Sense of his Danger.261 His Naval Means. 268 His Military Means.269 He attempts to conciliate his Subjects. 210 He gives Audience to the Bishops.211 His Concessions ill received.212 Proofs of the Birth of the Prince of Wales submitted to the Privy Council.• ... 215 Disgrace of Sunderland. 211 William takes leave of the States of Holland.218 He embarks and sails; he is driven back by a Storm ... 219 His Declaration arrives in England; James questions the Lords . 280 William sets sail the second lime.283 He passes the Straits.284 He lands at Torbay.285 He enters Exeter ..289 X CONTENTS. PACK Conversation of the King with the Bishops.295 Disturbances in London.29T .Men of Rank begin to repair to the Prince ..... 298 Lovelace 299 Colchester; Abingdon.. . 300 Desertion of Cornbury.801 Petition of the Lords for a Parliament ...... 305 The King goes to Salisbury. .307 Seymour; Court of William at Exeter.308 Northern Insurrection.310 Skirmish at Wincanton.312 Desertion of Churchill and Grafton.3H Retreat of the Royal Army from Salisbury.316 Desertion of Prince George and Ormond; Flight of the Princess Anne.317 Council of Lords held by James ....... 320 He appoints Commissioners to treat with William .... 321 The Negotiation a Feint.325 Dartmouth refuses to send the Prince of Wales into France . . 327 Agitation of London; Forged Proclamation.328 Risings in various Parts of the Country.330 Clarendon joins the Prince at Salisbury.332 Dissension in the Prince’s Camp.333 The Prince reaches Hungerford; Skirmish at Reading; the King’s Commissioners arrive at Hungerford.336 Negotiation. 337 The Queen and Prince of Wales sent to France; Lauzun . . 342 The King’s Preparations for Flight.346 Ilis Flight.347 CHAPTER X. The Flight of James known; great Agitation; the Lords meet at Guildhall.348 Riots in London.352 The Spanish Ambassador’s House sacked.353 CONTENTS. XI PACK Arrest of Jeffreys • ••••»••••• 354 The Irish Night.. • 356 The King detained near Sheerness.360 The Lords order him to be set at Liberty.. 305 William’s Embarrassment.366 Arrest of Feversham . • • • ..367 Arrival of James in London 363 Consultation at Windsor. 370 The Dutch Troops occupy Whitehall.373 Message from the Prince delivered to James; James sets out for Rochester.. • 374 Arrival of William at Saint James’s. 375 He is advised to assume the Crown by Right of Conquest . . 377 He calls together the Lords and the Members of the Parliaments of Charles the Second.379 Flight of James from Rochester . 382 Debates and Resolutions of the Lords.383 Debates and Resolutions of the Commoners summoned by the Prince; a Convention called; Exertions of the Prince to restore Order 385 His tolerant Policy ........... 386 Satisfaction of Roman Catholic Powers; Slate of Feeling in France.388 Reception of the Queen of England in France.390 Arrival of Janies at Saint Germains ....... 391 Stale of Feeling in the United Provinces. 393 Election of Members to serve in the Convention .... 394 Affairs of Scotland. 395 State of Parties in England . ..398 Sherlock’s Plan. 400 Sancroft’s Plan. 402 Danby’s Plan ..404 The Whig Plan.406 Meeting of the Convention; leading Members of the House of Commons.408 Choice of a Speaker.410 Debate on the State of the Nation . ..412 Resolution declaring the Throne vacant .... . 414 It is sent up to the Lords.415 Debate in the Lords on the Plan of Regency.416 Schism between the Whigs and the Followers of Danby ... 423 XII CONTENTS. I PAGE Meeting at the Earl of Devonshire’s 420 Debate in the Lords on the Question whether the Throne was vacant; Majority for the Negative; Agitation in London • 421 Letter of James to the Convention. 428 Debates; Negotiations; Letter of the Princess of Orange to Danby. 422 The Princess Anne acquiesces in the Whig Plan .... 430 William explains his Views . . 434 The Conference between the Houses. 433 The Lords yield; new Laws proposed for the Security of Liberty . 425 Disputes and Compromise. 433 The Declaration of Eight. 438 Arrival of Mary. .440 Tender and Acceptance of the Crown.441 William and Mary proclaimed; peculiar Character of the English Revolution. 442 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAPTER VII. The place which William Henry, Prince of Orange Nassau, c ^ ] p - occupies in the history of England and of mankind is so great - 1667 - that it may be desirable to portray with some minuteness the william, strong lineaments of his character. * oi'angs ° f He was now in his thirty-seventh year. But both in body Hi ' >p _ and in mind he was older than other men of the same age. pearance. Indeed it might be said that he had never been young. His external appearance is almost as well known to us as to his own captains and counsellors. Sculptors, painters, and medallists exerted their utmost skill in the work of transmitting his features to posterity; and his features were such as no artist could fail to seize, and such as, once seen, could never be forgotten. His name at once calls up before us a slender and feeble frame, a lofty and ample forehead, a nose curved like the beak of an eagle, and eye rivalling that of an eagle in brightness and keenness, a thoughtful and somewhat sullen brow, a firm and somewhat peevish mouth, a cheek pale, thin, and deeply furrowed by sickness and by care. That pensive, severe, and solemn aspect could scarcely have belonged to a happy or a good-humoured man. But it indicates * The chief materials from which I have taken my description of the Prince of Orange will be found in Burnet’s History, in Temple’s and Gourville’s Memoirs, in the Negotiations of the Counts ofEstrades and Avaux, in Sir George Downing’s Letters to Lord Chancellor Clarendon, in Wagenaar’s voluminous History, in Van Kamper’s Karakterkunde der Vaderlandsche Geschiudenis, and, above all, in William’s own confidential correspondence, of which the Duke of Portland permitted Sir James Mackintosh to take a copy. Macaulay, History. III. ^ HISTORY OF ENGLAND. life and education. chap. ; n a manner not to be mistaken capacity equal to the most 1687 —arduous enterprises, and fortitude not to be shaken by reverses or dangers. His early Nature had largely endowed William with the qualities of a great ruler; and education had developed those qualities in no common degree. With strong natural sense, and rare force of will, he found himself, when first his mind began to open, a fatherless and motherless child, the chief of a great but depressed and disheartened party, and the heir to vast and indefinite pretensions, which excited the dread and aversion of the oligarchy then supreme in the United Provinces. The common people, fondly attached during a century to his house, indicated, whenever they saw him, in a manner not to be mistaken, that they regarded him as their rightful head. The able and experienced ministers of the republic, mortal enemies of his name, came every day to pay their feigned civilities to him, and to observe the progress, of his mind. The first movements of his ambition were carefully watched: every unguarded word uttered by him was noted down; nor had he near him any adviser on whose judgment reliance could be placed. He was scarcely fifteen years old when all the domestics who were attached to his interest, or who enjoyed any share of his confidence, were removed from under his roof by the jealous government. Pie remonstrated with energy beyond his years, but in vain. Vigilant observers saw the tears more than once rise in the eyes of the young state prisoner. His health, naturally delicate, sank for a time under the emotions which his desolate situation had produced. Such situations bewilder and unnerve the weak, but call forth all the strength of the strong. Surrounded by snares in which an ordinary youth would have perished, William learned to tread at once warily and firmly. Long before he reached manhood he knew how to keep secrets, how to baffle curiosity by dry and guarded answers, how to conceal all passions under the same show of grave tranquillity. Meanwhile he made little proficiency in fashionable or literary accomplishments. The manners of the Dutch nobility of that age wanted the grace which was found in the highest perfec- JAMES THE SECOND. 3 tion among the gentlemen of France, and -which, in an inferior degree, embellished the Court of England; and his manners were altogether Dutch. Even his countrymen thought him blunt. To foreigners he often seemed churlish. In his intercourse with the world in general he appeared ignorant or negligent of those arts which double the value of a favour and take away the sting of a refusal. He was little interested in letters or science. The discoveries of Newton and Leibnitz, the poems of Dryden and Boileau, were unknown to him. Dramatic performances tired him; and he was glad to turn away from the stage and to talk about public affairs, while Orestes was raving, or while Tartuffe was pressing Elmira’s hand. He had indeed some talent for sarcasm, and not seldom employed, quite unconsciously, a natural rhetoric, quaint, indeed, but vigorous and original. He did not, however, in the least affect the character of a wit or of an orator. His attention had been confined to those studies which form strenuous and sagacious men of business. From a child he listened with interest when high questions of alliance, finance, and war were discussed. Of geometry he learned as much as was necessary for the construction of a ravelin or a horn- work. Of languages, by the help of a memory singularly powerful, he learned as much as was necessary to enable him to comprehend and answer without assistance everything that was said to him, and every letter which he received. The Dutch was his own tongue. He understood Latin, Italian, and Spanish. He spoke and wrote French, English, and German, inelegantly, it is true, and inexactly, but fluently and intelligibly. No qualification could be more important to a man whose life was to be passed in organizing great alliances, and in commanding armies assembled from different countries. One class of philosophical questions had been forced on his attention by circumstances, and seems to have interested him more than might have been expected from his general character. Among the Protestants of the United Provinces, as among the Protestants of our island, there were two great religious parties which almost exactly coincided with two 1 * CHAP. VII. 1687 . HIs theological opinions. CHAP. VII. HISTORY OP ENGLAND. great political parties. The chiefs of the municipal oligarchy were Arminians, and were commonly regarded by the multitude as little better than Papists. The princes of Orange had generally been the patrons of the Calvinistic divinity, and owed no small part of their popularity to their zeal for the doctrines of election and final perseverance, a zeal not always enlightened by knowledge or tempered by humanity. "William had been carefully instructed from a child in the theological system to which his family was attached, and regarded that system with even more than the partiality which men generally feel for a hereditary faith. He had ruminated on the great enigmas which had been discussed in the Synod of Dort, and had found in the austere and inflexible logic of the Genevese school something which suited his intellect and his temper. That example of intolerance indeed which some of his predecessors had set he never imitated. For all persecution he felt a fixed aversion, which he avowed, not only where the avowal was obviously politic, but on occasions where it seemed that his interest would have been promoted by dissimulation or by silence. His theological opinions, however, were even more decided than those of his ancestors. The tenet of predestination was the keystone of his religion. He often declared that, if he were to abandon that tenet, he must abandon with it all belief in a superintending Providence, and must become a mere Epicurean. Except in this single instance, all the sap of his vigorous mind was early drawn away from the speculative to the practical. The faculties which are necessary for the conduct of important business ripened in him at a time of life when they have scarcely begun to blossom in ordinary men. Since Octavius the world had seen no such instance of precocious statesmanship. Skilful diplomatists were surprised to hear the weighty observations which at seventeen the Prince made on public affairs, and still more surprised to see a lad, in situations in which he might have been expected to betray strong passion, preserve a composure as imperturbable as their own. At eighteen he sate among the fathers of the commonwealth, grave, discreet, and judicious as the oldest among them. At twenty-one, in a day of gloom and terror, he was JAMES THE SECOND. 5 placed at the head of the administration. At twenty-three he chap. was renowned throughout Europe as a soldier and a politician. — He had put domestic factions under his feet: he was the soul of a mighty coalition; and he had contended with honour in the field against some of the greatest generals of the age. His personal tastes were those rather of a warrior than ofj^™ 1 ^- a statesman: but he, like his greatgrandfather, the silentlifici- prince who founded the Batavian commonwealth, occupies a tl0n ’ 4 far higher place among statesmen than among warriors. The event of battles, indeed, is not an unfailing test of the abilities of a commander; and it would be peculiarly unjust to apply this test to William: for it was his fortune to be almost always opposed to captains who were consummate masters of then- art, and to troops far superior in discipline to his own. Yet there is reason to believe that he was by no means equal, as a general in the field, to some who ranked far below him in intellectual powers. To those whom he trusted he spoke on this subject with the magnanimous frankness of a man who had done great things, and who could well afford to acknowledge some deficiencies. He had never, he said, served an apprenticeship to the military profession. He had been placed, while still a boy, at the head of an array. Among his officers there had been none competent to instruct him. His own blunders and their consequences had been his only lessons. “I would give,” he once exclaimed, “a good part of my estates to have served a few campaigns under the Prince of Condd before I had to command against him.” It is not improbable that the circumstance which prevented William from attaining any eminent dexterity in strategy may have been favourable to the general vigour of his intellect. If his battles were not those of a great tactician, they entitled him to be called a great man. No disaster could for one moment deprive him of his firmness or of the entire possession of all his faculties. His defeats were repaired with such marvellous celerity that, before his enemies had sung the Te Deum, he was again ready for conflict; nor did his adverse fortune ever deprive him of the respect and confidence of his soldiers. That respect and confidence he owed in no small measure to 6 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. CHAP. VII. J6S7. his personal courage. Courage, in the degree which is necessary to carry a soldier without disgrace through a campaign, is possessed, or might, under proper training, be acquired, by the great majority of men. But courage like that of William is rare indeed. He was proved by every test; by war, by wounds, by painful and depressing maladies, by raging seas, by the imminent and constant risk of assassination, a risk which has shaken very strong nerves, a risk which severely tried even the adamantine fortitude of Cromwell. Yet none could ever discover what that thing was which the Prince of Orange feared. His advisers could with difficulty induce him to take any precaution against the pistols and daggers of conspirators.* Old sailors were amazed at the composure which he preserved amidst roaring breakers on a perilous coast. In battle his bravery made him conspicuous even among tens of thousands of brave warriors, drew forth the generous applause of hostile armies, and was never questioned even by the injustice of hostile factions. During his first campaigns he exposed himself like a man who sought for death, was always foremost in the charge and last in the retreat, fought, sword in hand, in the thickest press, and, with a musket ball in his arm and the blood streaming over his cuirass, still stood his ground and waved his hat under the hottest fire. His friends adjured him to take more care of a life invaluable to his country; and his most illustrious antagonist, the great Cond^, remarked, after the bloody day of SeneflT, that the Prince of Orange had in all things borne himself like an old general, except in exposing himself like a young soldier. William denied that he was guilty of temerity. It was, he said, from a sense of duty and on a cool calculation * William was earnestly intreated by his friends, after the peace of Ryswick, to speak seriously to the French ambassador about the schemes of assassination which the Jacobites of St. Germains were constantly contriving. The cold magnanimity with which these intimations of danger were received is singularly characteristic. To Bentinck, who had sent from Paris very alarming intelligence, William merely replied, at the end of a long letter of business, — “ Pour les assasins je ne luy en ay pas voulu parler, croiant que c’dtoit au desous de moy.” May d,. 1098. I keep the original orthography, if it is to be so called. JAMES THE SECOND. 7 of what the public interest required that he was always at the chap. post of danger. The troops which he commanded had been — ■ little used to war, and shrank from a close encounter with the veteran soldiery of France. It was necessary that their leader should show them how battles were to be won. And in truth more than one day which had seemed hopelessly lost was retrieved by the hardihood with which he rallied his broken battalions and cut down with his own hand the cowards who set the example of flight. Sometimes, however, it seemed that he had a strange pleasure in venturing his person. It was remarked that his spirits were never so high and his manners never so gracious and easy as amidst the tumult and carnage of a battle. Even in his pastimes he liked the excitement of danger. Cards, chess, and billiards gave him no pleasure. The chase was his favourite recreation; and he loved it most when it was most hazardous. His leaps were sometimes such that his boldest companions did not like to follow him. He seems even to have thought the most hardy field sports of England effeminate, and to have pined in the Great Park of Windsor for the game which he had been used to drive to bay in the forests of Guelders, wolves, and wild boars, and huge stags with sixteen antlers.* The audacity of his spirit was the more remarkable be- His lone cause his physical organization was unusually delicate. From Sanger: a child he had been weak and sickly. In the prime of man- >£ d hood his complaints had been aggravated by a severe attack of small pox. He was asthmatic and consumptive. His slender frame was shaken by a constant hoarse oough. He could not sleep unless his head was propped by several pillows, and could scarcely draw his breath in any but the purest air. Cruel headaches frequently tortured him. Exertion soon fa- * From Windsor he wrote to Benlinck, then ambassador at Paris. “J’ay pris avant hier un cerf dans la forest avec les chains du Pr. de Denm. et ay fait un assez iolie chasse, autant que ce vilain paiis le . ,, March^O. permest. April t 1698. The spelling is bad, but not worse than Napoleon’s. William wrote in better humour from Loo. “Nousavons pris deux gros cerfs, le premier dans Dorewaert, qui est un des plus gros que je sache avoir jamais pris. II porte seize." 1697 . 8 HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. chap. tigued him. The physicians constantly kept up the hopes of — 687 '_ - his enemies by fixing some date beyond -which, if there were anything certain in medical science, it was impossible that his broken constitution could hold out. Yet, through a life which was one long disease, the force of his mind never failed, on any great occasion, to bear up his suffering and languid body, coldness He was born with violent passions and quick sensibilities: manners but the strength of his emotions was not suspected by the strength w orld. From the multitude his joy and his grief, his afiection of his and his resentment, were hidden by a phlegmatic serenity, omotions. ma< i e him p ass f or the most cold-blooded of mankind. Those who brought him good news could seldom detect any sign of pleasure. Those who saw him after a defeat looked in vain for any trace of vexation. He praised and reprimanded, rewarded and punished, with the stern tranquillity of a Mohawk chief: but those who knew him well and saw him near were aware that under all this ice a fierce fire was constantly burning. It was seldom that anger deprived him of power over himself. But when he was really enraged the first outbreak of his passion was terrible. It was indeed scarcely safe to approach him. On these rare occasions, however, as soon as he regained his self command, he made such ample reparation to those whom he had wronged as tempted them to wish that he would go into a fury again. His affection was as impetuous as his wrath. Where he loved, he loved with the whole energy of his strong mind. When death separated him from what he loved, the few who witnessed his agonies trembled for his reason and his life. To a very small circle of intimate friends, on whose fidelity and secrecy he could absolutely depend, he was a different man from the reserved and stoical William whom the multitude supposed to be destitute of human feelings. He was kind, cordial, open, even convivial and jocose, would sit at table many hours, and would His bear his full share in festive conversation. Highest in his ship'for f avour stood a gentleman of his household named Bentinck, Bentinck. sprung from a noble Batavian race, and destined to be the founder of one of the great patrician houses of England. The fidelity of Bentinck had been tried by no common test. It JAMES THE SECOND. 9 was while the United Provinces were struggling for existence against the French power that the young Prince on whom all - their hopes were fixed was seized by the small pox. That disease had been fatal to many members of his family, and at first wore, in his case, a peculiarly malignant aspect. The public consternation was great. The streets of the Hague were crowded from daybreak to sunset by persons anxiously asking hrw his Highness was. At length his complaint took a favoura.. } turn. His escape was attributed partly to his own singular equanimity, and partly to the intrepid and indefatigable friendship of Bentinck. From the hands of Bentinck alone William took food and medicine. By Bentinck alone William was lifted from his bed and laid down in it. “ Whether Bentinck slept or not while I was ill,” said William to Temple, with great tenderness, “I know not. But this I know, that, through sixteen days and nights, I never once called for anything but that Bentinck was instantly at my side.” Before the faithful servant had entirely performedhis task, he had himself caught the contagion. Still, however, he bore up against drowsiness and fever till his master was pronounced convalescent. Then, atlength, Bentinck asked leave to go home. It was time: for his limbs would no longer support him. He was in great danger, but recovered, and, as soon as he left his bed, hastened to the army, where, during many sharp campaigns, he was ever found, as he had been in peril of a different kind, close to William’s side. Such was the origin of a friendship as warm and pure as any that ancient or modern history records. The descendants of Bentinck still preserve many letters written by William to their ancestor: and it is not too much to say that no person who has not studied those letters can form a correct notion of thePrince’s character. He whom even his admirers generally accounted the most distant and frigid of men here forgets all distinctions of rank, and pours out all his thoughts with the ingenuousness of a schoolboy. He imparts without reserve secrets of the highest moment. He explains with perfect simplicity vast designs affecting all the governments of Europe. Mingled with his communications on such subjects are CHAP. vir. 168 T. 10 niSTOKT OF ENGLAND. CHAP. Vli. 1687 . other communications of a very different, but perhaps not of -a less interesting kind. All his adventures, all his personal feelings, his long runs after enormous stags, his carousals on St. Hubert’s day, the growth of his plantations, the failure of his melons, the state of his stud, his wish to procure an easy pad nag for his wife, his vexation at learning that one of his household, after ruining a girl of good family, refused to marry her, his fits of sea-sickness, his coughs, his headaches, his devotional moods, his gratitude for the divine protection after a great escape, his struggles to submit himself to the divine will after a disaster, are described with an amiable garrulity hardly to have been expected from the most discreet and sedate statesman of the age. Still more remarkable is the careless effusion of his tenderness, and the brotherly interest which he takes in his friend’s domestic felicity When an heir is born to Bentinck, “he will live, I hope,” says William, “to be as good a fellow as you are; and, if I should have a son, our children will love each other, I hope, as we have done.”* Through life he continues to regard the little Bentincks with paternal kindness. He calls them by endearing diminutives: he takes charge of them in their father’s absence, and, though vexed at being forced to refuse them any pleasure, will not suffer them to go on a hunting party, where there would be risk of a push from a stag’s horn, or to sit up late at a riotous supper.** When their mother is taken ill during her husband’s absence, William, in the midst of business of the highest moment, finds time to send off several expresses in one day with short notes containing intelligence of her state.*** On one occasion, when she is pronounced out of danger after a severe attack, the Prince breaks forth into fervent expressions of gratitude to God. “I write,” he says, “with tears of joy in my eyes.” f There * March 3. 1679. ** “ Voila en peu de mot le detail de nostre St. Ilubert. Et j’ay eu soin que M. Woodstoc" (Bentinck’s' eldest son) “n’a point esld 4 la chasse, bien moin au soupd, quoyqu’il fut icy. Vous pouvez pourtant croire que de n’avoir pas chassd l’a un peu morlifid, mais je ne l’ay pas ausd prendre sur moy, puisque vous m’aviez dit que vous ne le souhai- tiez pas.” From Loo, Nov. 4. 1691. •*• On the 15th of June, 1688. f Sept. 6.1619. JAMES THE SECOND. 11 is a singular charm in such letters, penned by a man whose C “ I | P- irresistible energy and inflexible firmness extorted the respect icsTT - of his enemies, whose cold and ungracious demeanour repelled the attachment of almost all his partisans, and whose mind was occupied by gigantic schemes which have changed the face of the world. His kindness was not misplaced. Bentinck was early pronounced by Temple to be the best and truest servant that ever prince had the good fortune to possess, and continued through life to merit that honourable character. The friends were indeed made for each other. William wanted neither a guide nor a flatterer. Having a firm and just reliance on his own judgment, he was not partial to counsellors who dealt much in suggestions and objections. At the same time he had too much discernment, and too much elevation of mind, to be gratified by sycophancy. The confidant of such a prince ought to be a man, not of inventive genius or commanding spirit, but brave and faithful, capable of executing orders punctually, of keeping secrets inviolably, of observing facts vigilantly, and of reporting them truly; and such a man was Bentinck. William was not less fortunate in marriage than in friend- p r ’ r ,f,: BS5 ship. Yet his marriage had not at first promised much of domestic happiness. His choice had been determined chiefly 0r ”“ ge ‘ by political considerations: nor did it seem likely that any strong affection would grow up between a handsome girl of sixteen, well disposed indeed, and naturally intelligent, but ignorant and simple, and a bridegroom who, though he had not completed his twenty-eighth year, was in constitution older than her father, whose manner was chilling, and whose head was constantly occupied by public business or by field sports. For a time William was a negligent husband. He was indeed drawn away from his wife by other women, particularly by one of her ladies, Elizabeth Villiers, who, though destitute of personal attractions, and disfigured by a hideous squint, possessed talents which well fitted her to partake his cares. * He was indeed ashamed of his errors, and spared no * See Swift’s account of her in the Journal to Stella. 12 HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VII. 168T. pains to conceal them: but, in spite of all his precautions, Mary well knew that he was not strictly faithful to her. Spies and tale-bearers, encouraged by her father, did their best to inflame her resentment. A man of a very different character, the excellent Ken, who was her chaplain at the Hague during some months, was so much incensed by her wrongs that he, with more zeal than discretion, threatened to reprimand her husband severely. * She, however, bore her injuries with a meekness and patience which deserved, and gradually obtained, William’s esteem and gratitude. Yet there still remained one cause of estrangement. A time would probably come when the Princess, who had been educated only to work embroidery, to play on the spinet, and to read the Bible and the Whole Duty of Man, would be the chief of a great monarchy, and would hold the balance of Europe, while her lord, ambitious, versed in affairs, and bent on great enterprises, would find in the British government no place marked out for him, and would hold power only from her bounty and during her pleasure. It is not strange that a man so fond of authority as William, and so conscious of a genius for command, should have strongly felt that jealousy which, during a few hours of royalty, put dissension between Guildford Dudley and the Lady Jane, and which produced a rupture still more tragical between Darnley and the Queen of Scots. The Princess of Orange had not the faintest suspicion of her husband’s feelings. Her preceptor, Bishop Compton, had instructed her carefully in religion, and had especially guarded her mind against the arts of Roman Catholic divines, but had left her profoundly ignorant of the English constitution and of her own position. She knew that her marriage vow bound her to obey her husband; and it had never occurred to her that the relation in which they stood to each other might one day be inverted. She had been nine years married before she discovered the cause of William’s discontent; nor would she ever have learned it from himself. In general his temper inclined him rather to brood over his griefs * Henry Sidney’s Journal of March 31 . 1080, in Mr. Blencowe’s interesting collection. JAMES THE SECOND. 13 'Vi than to give utterance to them; and in this particular case his C yjj P ' l ; lips were sealed by a very natural delicacy. At length a ~ ■ complete explanation and reconciliation were brought about by the agency of Gilbert Burnet. The fame of Burnet has been attacked with singular malice Gilbert and pertinacity. The attack began early in his life, and is still carried on with undiminished vigour, though he has now been more than a century and a quarter in his grave. He is . indeed as fair a mark as factious animosity and petulant wit could desire. The faults of his understanding and temper lie on the surface, and cannot be missed. They were not the faults which are ordinarily considered as belonging to his country. Alone among the many Scotchmen who have raised themselves to distinction and prosperity in England, he had that character which satirists, novelists, and dramatists have agreed to ascribe to Irish adventurers. His high animal spirits, his boastfulness, his undissembled vanity, his propensity to blunder, his provoking indiscretion, his unabashed audacity, afforded inexhaustible subjects of ridicule to the Tories. Nor did his enemies omit to compliment him, sometimes with more pleasantry than delicacy, on the breadth of his shoulders, the thickness of his calves, and his success in matrimonial projects on amorous and opulent widows. Tet Burnet, though open in many respects to ridicule, and even to serious censure, was no contemptible man. His parts were quick, his industry unwearied, his reading various and most extensive. He was at once a historian, an antiquary, a theologian, a preacher, a pamphleteer, a debater, and an active political leader; and in every one of these characters made himself conspicuous among able competitors. The many spirited tracts which he wrote on passing events are now known only to the curious: but his History of his own Times, his History of the Reformation, his Exposition of the Articles, his Discourse ofPastoral Care, his Life of Hale, his Life of . Wilmot, are still reprinted, nor is any good private library . without them. Against such a fact as this all the efforts of de- tractors are vain. A writer, whose voluminous works, in ■ several branches of literature, find numerous readers a $ 14 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. CHAP. VII. 1687 . hundred and thirty years after his death, may have had great faults, but must also have had great merits: and Burnet had great merits, a fertile and vigorous mind, and a style, far indeed removed from faultless purity, but always clear, often lively, and sometimes rising to solemn and fervid eloquence. In the pulpit the effect of his discourses, which were delivered without any note, was heightened by a noble figure and,by pathetic action. He was often interrupted by the deep hum of his audience; and when, after preaching out the hour glass, which in those days was part of the furniture of the pulpit, he held it up in his hand, the congregation clamorously encouraged him to go on till the sand had run off once more. * In his moral character, as in his intellect, great blemishes were more than compensated by great excellence. Though often misled by prejudice and passion, he was emphatically an honest man. Though he was not secure from the seductions of vanity, his spirit was raised high above the influence either of cupidity or of fear. His nature was kind, generous, grateful, forgiving.** His religious zeal, though steady and ardent, was in general restrained by humanity, and by a respect for the rights of conscience. Strongly attached to what he regarded as the spirit of Christianity, he looked with indifference on rites, names, and forms of ecclesiastical polity, and was by no means disposed to be severe even on infidels * Speaker Onslow’s note on Burnet, i. 5%.; Johnson’s Life of Sprat. ** No person has contradicted Burnet more frequently or with more asperity than Dartmouth. Yet Dartmoulh wrote, “I do not think he designedly published anything he believed to be false.” At a later period Dartmouth, provoked by some remarks on himself in the second volume of the Bishop’s history, retracted this praise: but to such a retractation little importance can be attached. Even Swift has the justice to say, “After all, he was a man of generosity and good-nature.” — Short Remarks on Bishop Burnet’s History. It is usual to censnre Burnet as a singularly inaccurate historian; but I believe the charge to be altogether unjust. lie appears to be singularly inaccurate only because his narrative has been subjected to a scrutiny singularly severe and unfriendly. If any Whig thought it worth while to subject Beresby’s Memoirs, North’s Examen, Mulgrave's Account of the Revolution, or the Life of James the Second, edited by Clarke, to a similar scrutiny, it would soon appear that Burnet was far indeed from being the most inexact writer of his time. JAMES THE SECOND. 15 I ; and heretics whose lives were pure, and whose errors ap- )> peared to be the effect rather of some perversion of the under- - ' standing than of the depravity of the heart. But, like many other good men of that age, he regarded the case of the Church of Rome as an exception to all ordinary rules. Burnet had during some years had anEuropean reputation. ; His History of the Reformation had been received with loud ft applause by all Protestants, and had been felt by the Roman Catholics as a severe blow. The greatest Doctor that the Church of Rome has produced since the schism of the sixteenth century, Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, was engaged in framing an elaborate reply. Burnet had been honoured by a vote of thanks from one of the zealous Parliaments which had sate during the excitement of the Popish plot, and had been exhorted, in the name of the Commons of England, to continue his historical researches. He had been admitted to familiar conversation both with Charles and James, had lived on , terms of close intimacy with several distinguished statesmen, particularly with Halifax, and had been the spiritual guide of some persons of the highest note. He had reclaimed from atheism and from licentiousness one of the most brilliant libertines of the age, John Wilrnot, Earl of Rochester. Lord Stafford, the victim of Oates, had, though a Roman Catholic, been edified in his last hours by Burnet’s exhortations touching those points on which all Christians agree. A few ' years later a more illustrious sufferer, Lord Russell, had been | accompanied by Burnet from the Tower to the scaffold in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The court had neglected no means of ‘f, gaining so active and able a divine. Neither royal blandish- ;J ments nor promises of valuable preferment had been spared. I But Burnet, though infected in early youth by those servile $ doctrines which were commonly held by the clergy of that age, V had become on conviction a Whig; and he firmly adhered j through all vicissitudes to his principles. He had, however, no part in that conspiracy which brought so much disgrace and •■'I calamity on the Whig party, and not only abhorred the murderous designs of Goodenough and Ferguson, but was of opinion that even his beloved and honoured friend Russell CHAP. 11)31. 16 HISTOUT OP ENGLANE. chap- had gone to unjustifiable lengths against the government. ~igb 7." _ A time at length arrived when innocence was not a sufficient protection. Burnet, though not guilty of any legal offence, was pursued by the vengeance of the court. He retired to the Continent, and, after passing about a year in those wanderings through Switzerland, Italy, and Germany, of which he has left us an agreeable narrative, reached the Hague in the summer of 1686 , and was received there with kindness and respect. He had many free conversations with the Princess on politics and religion, and soon became her spiritual director and confidential adviser. William proved a much more gracious host than could have been expected. For of all faults officiousness and indiscretion were the most offensive to him: and Burnet was allowed even by friends and admirers to be the most officious and indiscreet of mankind. But the sagacious Prince perceived that this pushing talkative divine, who was always blabbing secrets, asking impertinent questions, obtruding unasked advice, was nevertheless an upright, courageous and able man, well acquainted with the temper and the views of British sects and factions. The fame of Burnet’s eloquence and erudition was also widely spread. William was not himself a reading man. But he had now been many years at the head of the Dutch administration, in an age when the Dutch press was one of the most formidable engines by which the public mind of Europe was moved, and, though he had no taste for literary pleasures, was far too wise and too observant to be ignorant of the value of literary assistance. He was aware that a popular pamphlet might sometimes be of as much service as a victor}' in the field. He also felt the importance of having always near him some person well informed as to the civil and ecclesiastical polity of our island: and Burnet was eminently qualified to be of use as a living dictionary of British affairs. For his knowledge, though not always accurate, was of immense extent; and there were in England and Scotland few eminent men of any political or religious party with whom he had not conversed. He was therefore admitted to as large a share of favour and confidence as was granted to any but those who composed the very small JAMES THE SECOND. 17 inmost knot of the Prince’s private friends. When theDoctor c ^ p - took liberties, which was not seldom the case, his patron ]68T> became more than usually cold and sullen, and sometimes uttered a short dry sarcasm which would have struck dumb any person of ordinary assurance. In spite of such occurrences, however, the amity between this singular pair continued, with some temporary interruptions, till it was dissolved by death. Indeed, it was not easy to wound Burnet’s feelings. His self-complacency, his animal spirits, and his want of tact, were such that, though he frequently gave offence, he never took it. All the peculiarities of his character fitted him to be the peacemaker between William and Mary. When persons who good un- ought to esteem and love each other are kept asunder, as f n e g rS i|“ d " often happens, by some cause which three-words of frank ex-jweenthe planation would remove, they are fortunate if they possess an and indiscreet friend who blurts out the whole truth. Burnet PnnceM- plainly told the Princess what the feeling was which preyed upon her husband’s mind. She learned for the first time, with no small astonishment, that, when she became Queen of England, William would not share her throne. She warmly declared that there was no proof of conjugal submission and affection which she was not ready to give. Burnet, with many apologies and with solemn protestations that no human being had put words into his mouth, informed her that the remedy was in her own hands. She might easily, when the crown devolved on her, induce her Parliament not only to give the regal title to her husband, but even to transfer to him by a legislative act the administration of the government. “But,” he added, “your Royal Highness ought to consider well before you announce any such resolution. For it is a resolu- ■j tion which, having once been announced, cannot safely or easily be retracted.” “I want no time for consideration,” I answered Mary. “It is enough that I have an opportunity of 1 showing my regard for the Prince. Tell him what I say; and $?. bring him to me that he may hear it from my own lips.” “ Burnet went in quest of William; but William was many miles off after a stag. It was not till the next day that the \ Macaulay, History. III. J> 18 HISTOBY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VII. 1G87. Relations between William and English parties. decisive interview took place. “I did not know till yesterday,” said Mary, “that there was such a difference between the laws of England and the laws of God. But I now promise you that you shall always bear rule: and, in return, I ask only this, that, as I shall observe the precept which enjoins wives to obey their husbands, you will observe that which enjoins husbands to love their wives.” Her generous affection completely gained the heart of William. From that time till the sad day when he was carried away in fits from her dying bed, there was entire friendship and confidence between them. Many of her letters to him are extant; and they contain abundant evidence that this man, unamiable as he was in the eyes of the multitude, had succeeded in inspiring a beautiful and virtuous woman, born his superior, with a passion fond even to idolatry. The service which Burnet had rendered to his country was of high moment. A time had arrived at which it was important to the public safety that there should be entire concord between the Prince and Princess. Till after the suppression of the Western insurrection grave causes of dissension had separated William both from Whigs and Tories. He had seen with displeasure the attempts of the Whigs to strip the executive government of some powers which he thought necessary to its efficiency and dignity. He had seen*with still deeper displeasure the countenance given by a large section of that party to the pretensions of Monmouth. The opposition, it seemed, wished first to make the crown of England not worth the wearing, and then to place it on the head of a bastard and impostor. At the same time the Prince’s religious system differed widely from that which was the badge of the Tories. They were Arminians and Prelatists. They looked down on the Protestant Churches of the Continent, and regarded every line of their own liturgy and rubric as scarcely less sacred than the gospels. His opinions touching the metaphysics of theology were Calvinistic. His opinions respecting ecclesiastical polity and modes of worship were latitudinarian. He owned that episcopacy was a lawful and convenient form of church JAMES THE SECOND. 19 government; but be spoke -with sharpness and scorn of the chap. bigotry of those who thought episcopal ordination essential to 168T ’_ 1 ■ a Christian society. He had no scruple about the vestments and gestures prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer. But he avowed that he should like the rites of the Church of England better if they reminded him less of the rites of the Church of Rome. He had been heard to utter an ominous growl when first he saw, in his wife’s private chapel, an altar decked after the Anglican fashion, and had not seemed well pleased at finding her with Hooker’s Ecclesiastical Polity in her hands. * He therefore long observed the contest between the ? ia [ eel ~ English factions attentively, but without feeling a strong wards predilection for either side. Nor in truth did he ever, to the E “ sland ‘ end of his life, become either a Whig or a Tory. He wanted that which is the common groundwork of both characters; for he never became an Englishman. He saved England, it is true; but he never loved her, and he never obtained her love. To him she was always a land of exile, visited with reluctance and quitted with delight. Even when he rendered to her those services of which, at this day, we feel the happy effects, her welfare was not his chief object. Whatever ? is feel * patriotic feeling he had was for Holland. There was the wards * stately tomb where slept the great politician whose blood, ® n j land whose name, whose temperament, and whose genius he had France, inherited. There the very sound of his title was a spell which had, through three generations, called forth the affectionate enthusiasm of boors and artisans. The Dutch language was the language of his nursery. Among the Dutch gentry he had chosen his early friends. The amusements, the architecture, the landscape of his native country, had taken hold on his heart. To her he turned with constant fondness from a prouder and fairer rival. In the gallery of Whitehall he pined for the familiar House in the Wood at the Hague, and never was so happy as when he could quit the magnificence of Windsor for his far humbler seat at Loo. During his splendid * Dr. Hooper’s MS. narrative, published in the Appendix to Lord Dungannon’s Life of William. 2 20 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. ciiAp. VII. J687. banishment it was liis consolation to create round him, by building, planting, and digging, a scene which might remind him of the formal piles of red brick, of the long canals, and of the symmetrical flower beds amidst which his early life had been passed. Yet even his affection for the land of his birth was subordinate to another feeling which early became supreme in his soul, which mixed itself with all his passions, which impelled him to marvellous enterprises, which supported him when sinking under mortification, pain, sickness, and sorrow, which, towards the close of his career, seemed during a short time to languish, but which soon broke forth again fiercer than ever, and continued to animate him even while the prayer for the departing was read at his bedside. That feeling was enmity to France, and to the magnificent King who, in more than one sense, represented France, and who to virtues and accomplishments eminently French joined in large measure that unquiet, unscrupulous, and vainglorious ambition which has repeatedly drawn on France the resentment of Europe. It is not difficult to trace the progress of the sentiment which gradually possessed itself of William’s whole soul. When lie was little more than a boy his country had been attacked by Lewis in ostentatious defiance of justice and public law, had been overrun, had been desolated, had been given up to every excess of rapacity, licentiousness, and cruelty. The Dutch had in dismay humbled themselves before the conqueror, and had implored mercy. They had been told in reply that, if they desired peace, they must resign their independence and do annual homage to the House of Bourbon. The injured nation, driven to despair, had opened its dykes and had called in the sea as an ally against the French tyranny. It was in the agony of that conflict, when peasants were flying in terror before the invaders, when hundreds of fair gardens and pleasure houses were buried beneath the waves, when the deliberations of the States were interrupted by the fainting and the loud weeping of ancient senators who could not bear the thought of surviving the freedom and glory of their native land, that William had been called to the head JAMES THE SECOND. 21 of affairs. For a time it seemed to him that resistance was hopeless. He looked round for succour, and looked in vain. - Spain was unnerved, Germany distracted, England corrupted. Nothing seemed left to the young Stadtholder but to perish sword in hand, or to be the FEneas of a great emigration, and to create another Holland in countries beyond the reach of the tyranny of France. No obstacle would then remain to check the progress Of the House of Bourbon. A few years; and that House might add to its dominions Loraine and Flanders, Castile and Aragon, Naples and Milan, Mexico and Peru. Lewis might wear the imperial crown, might place a prince of his family on the throne of Poland, might be sole master of Europe from the Scythian deserts to the Atlantic Ocean, and of America from regions north of the Tropic of Cancer to regions south of the Tropic of Capricorn. Such was the prospect which lay before William when first he entered on public life, and which never ceased to haunt him till his latest day. The French monarchy was to him what the Roman republic was to Hannibal, what the Ottoman power was to Scanderbeg, what the southern domination was to Wallace. Religion gave her sanction to that intense and unquenchable animosity. Hundreds of Calvinistic preachers proclaimed that the same power which had set apart Samson from the womb to be the scourge of the Philistine, and which had called Gideon from the threshing floor to smite the Midianite, had raised up William of Orange to be the champion of all free nations and of all pure Churches; nor was this notion without influence on his own mind. To the confidence which the heroic fatalist placed in his high destiny and in his sacred cause is to be partly attributed his singular indifference to danger. Fie had a great work to do; and till it was done nothing could harm him. Therefore it was that, in spite of the prognostications of physicians, he recovered from maladies which seemed hopeless, that bands of assassins conspired in vain against his life, that the open skiff to which he trusted himself on a starless night, on a raging ocean, and near a treacherous shore, brought him safe to land, and that, on twenty fields of battle, the cannon balls passed him by to right and left. The ardour cn.\p. VII. 1687 . 22 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VII. 1687 . and perseverance with which he devoted himself to his mission have scarcely any parallel in history. In comparison with his great object he held the lives of other men as cheap as his own. It was but too much the habit, even of the most humane and generous soldiers of that age, to think very lightly of the bloodshed and devastation inseparable from great martial exploits; and the heart of William was steeled, not only by professional insensibility, but by that sterner insensibility which is the effect of a sense of duty. Three great coalitions, three long and bloody wars in which all Europe from the Vistula to the Western Ocean was in ailns, are to be ascribed to his unconquerable energy. When in 1678 the States General, exhausted and disheartened, were desirous of repose, his voice was still against sheathing the sword. If peace was made, it was made only because he could not breathe into other men a spirit as fierce and determined as his own. At the very last moment, in the hope of breaking off the negotiation which he knew to be all but concluded, he fought one of the most bloody and obstinate battles of that age. From the day on which the treaty of Nimeguen was signed, he began to meditate a second coalition. His contest with Lewis, transferred from the field to the cabinet, was soon exasperated by a private feud. In talents, temper, manners and opinions, the rivals were diametrically opposed to each other. Lewis, polite and dignified, profuse and voluptuous, fond of display and averse from danger, a munificent patron of arts and letters, and a cruel persecutor of Calvinists, presented a remarkable contrast to William, simple in tastes, ungracious in demeanour, indefatigable and intrepid in war, regardless of all the ornamental branches of knowledge, and firmly attached to the theology of Geneva. The enemies did not long observe those courtesies which men of their rank, even when opposed to each other at the head of armies, seldom neglect. William, indeed, went through the form of tendering his best services to Lewis. But this civility was rated at its true value, and requited with a dry reprimand. The great King affected contempt for the petty Prince who was the servant of a confederacy of trading towns; and to every mark JAMES THE SECOND. 23 of contempt the dauntless Stadtholder replied by a fresh defiance. William took his title, a title -which the events - of the preceding century had made one of the most illustrious in Europe, from a city which lies on the banks of the Rhone not far from Avignon, and which, like Avignon, though inclosed on every side by the French territory, was properly a fief not of the French but of the Imperial Crown. Lewis, with that ostentatious contempt of public law which was characteristic of him, occupied Orange, dismantled the fortifications, and confiscated the revenues. William declared aloud at his table before many persons that he would make the most Christian King repent the outrage, and, when questioned about these words by the Count of Avaux, positively refused either to retract them or to explain them away. The quarrel was carried so far that the French minister could not venture to present himself at the drawing room of the Princess for fear of receiving some affront. * The feeling with which William regarded France explains the whole of his policy towards England. His public spirit was an European public spirit. The chief object of his care was not our island, not even his native Holland, but the great community of nations threatened with subjugation by one too powerful member. Those who commit the error of considering him as an English statesman must necessarily see his whole life in a false light, and will be unable to discover any principle, good or bad, Whig or Tory, to which his most important acts can be referred. But, when we consider him as a man whose especial task was to join a crowd of feeble, divided and dispirited states in firm and energetic union against a common enemy, when we consider him as a man in whose eyes England was important chiefly because, without her, the great coalition which he projected must be incomplete, we shall be forced to admit that no long career recorded in history has been more uniform from the beginning to the close than that of this great Prince.** * Avaux Negotiations, Aug. IJ. Sept ; Dec, ■$,. 1682. ** I cannot deny myselt the pleasure of quoting Massillon’s unfriendly, yet discriminating and noble, character of William. “Un CHAP. VII. 1687 . 24 HI5T0KY OF ENGLAND. c hap. The clue of which we are now possessed will enable us — 1687. to trac k without difficulty the course, in reality consistent, ms policy though in appearance sometimes tortuous, which lie pursued consistent towards our domestic factions. He clearly saw what had not through- esca p e( j p ersong f ar inferior to him in sagacity, that the enterprise on which his whole soul was intent would probably be successful if England were on his side, would be of uncertain issue if England were neutral, and would be hopeless if England acted as she had acted in the days of the Cabal. He saw not less clearly that between the foreign policy and the domestic policy of the English government there was a close connection; that the sovereign of this country, acting in harmony with the legislature, must always have a great sway in the affairs of Christendom, and must also have an obvious interest in opposing the undue aggrandisement of any continental potentate; that, on the other hand, the sovereign, distrusted and thwarted by the legislature, could be of little weight in European politics, and that the whole of that little weight would be thrown into the wrong scale. The Prince’s ' first wish therefore was that there should be concord between the throne and the Parliament. How that concord should be established, and on which side concessions should be made, were, in his view, questions of secondary importance. He would have been best pleased, no doubt, to. see a complete reconciliation effected without the sacrifice of one tittle of the prerogative. For in the integrity of that prerogative he had a reversionary interest; and lie was, by nature, at least as covetous of power and as impatient of restraint as any of the Stuarts. But there was no flower of the crown which he was not prepared to sacrifice, even after the crown had been placed on his own head, if he could only be convinced that prince profond dans ses vues; Labile 4 former des lignes et a riunir les esprils; pins heureux a exciter les guerres qu’4 combaltre; plus a craindre encore dans le secret du cabinet, qu’a la tile des armies; un ennemi que la haine du nom Frangais avoit rendu capable d’imagincr de grandes choses et de les cxicuter; un de ces gdnies qui semblent fitrc nds pour mouroir 4 leur grd les peuples et les souverains; un grand homme, s’il n’avoit jamais voulu itre roi.” — Oraison funebro de M. le Dauphin. JAMBS THB SECOND. 25 such a sacrifice was indispensably necessary to his great design. In the days of the Popish plot, therefore, though- he disapproved of the violence with which the opposition attacked the royal authority, he exhorted the government to give way. The conduct of the Commons, he said, as respected domestic affairs, was most unreasonable: but while the Commons were discontented the liberties of Europe could never be safe; and to that paramount consideration every other consideration ought to yield. On these principles he acted when the Exclusion Bill had thrown the nation into convulsions. There is no reason to believe that he encouraged the opposition to bring forward that bill or to reject the offers of compromise which were repeatedly made from the throne. But when it became clear that, unless that bill were carried, there would be a serious breach between the Commons and the court, lie indicated very intelligibly, though with decorous reserve, his opinion that the representatives of the people ought to be conciliated at any price. When a violent and rapid rellux of public feeling had left the Whig party for a time utterly helpless, he attempted to attain his grand object by a new road perhaps more agreeable to his temper than that which he had previously tried. In the altered temper of the nation there was little chance that any Parliament disposed to cross the wishes of the sovereign would be elected. Charles was for a time master. To gain Charles, therefore, was the Prince’s first wish. In the summer of 1683, almost at the moment at which the detection of the Rye House Plot made the discomfiture of the Whigs and the triumph of the King complete, events took place elsewhere which William could not behold without extreme anxiety and alarm. The Turkish armies advanced to the suburbs of Vienna. The great Austrian monarchy, on the support of which the Prince had reckoned, seemed to be on the point of destruction. Bentinck was therefore sent in haste from the Hague to London, was charged to omit nothing which might be necessary to conciliate the English court, and was particularly instructed to express in the strongest terms the horror with which bis master regarded the Whig conspiracy. CHAP. VII. 1687. 26 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VII. 1687 . During the eighteen months which followed, there was some hope that the influence of Halifax would prevail, and that the court of Whitehall would return to the policy of the Triple Alliance. To that hope William fondly clung. He spared no effort to propitiate Charles. The hospitality which Monmouth found at the Hague is chiefly to be ascribed to the Prince’s anxiety to gratify the real wishes of Monmouth’s father. As soon as Charles died, William, still adhering unchangeably to his object, again changed his course. He had sheltered Monmouth to please the late King. That the present King might have no reason to complain Monmouth was dismissed. We have seen that, when the Western insurrection broke out, the British regiments in the Dutch service were, by the active exertions of the Prince, sent over to their own country on the first requisition. Indeed William even offered to command in person against the rebels; and that the offer was made in perfect sincerity cannot be doubted by those who have perused his confidential letters to Bentinck. * The Prince was evidently at this time inclined to hope that the great plan to which in his mind everythin else was subordinate might obtain the approbation and support of his father-in-law. The high tone which James was then holding towards France, the readiness with which he consented to a defensive alliance with the United Provinces, the inclination which he showed to connect himself with the House of Austria, encouraged this expectation. But in a short time the prospect was darkned. The disgrace of Halifax, the breach between James and the Parliament, the prorogation, the announcement distinctly made by the King to the foreign ministers that continental politics should no longer divert his attention from internal measures tending to strengthen his prerogative and * For example, “Je crois M. Feversham un trds brave ct honesle homme. Mais je doute s’il a asser d’expdrience k diriger une si grande affaire qu'il a sur Ie bras. Dieu lui donne un succds prompt ct heureux. Mais je ne suis pas hors d’inquidtude.” July T ',. 1C85. Again, after he had received the news of the battle ofSedgemoor, “Dieu soil loud du bon succds que les troupes du Roy ont eu conlre les rebelles. Je ne doute pas que cette affaire ne soit entidrement assoupie, et que le rdgne du Roy sera heureux, ce que Dieu veuille." July 18. JAMES THE SECOND. 27 to promote the interest of Iris Cliurcli, put an end to the c haf. delusion. It was plain that, when the European crisis came, J687 _ England would, if James were her master, either remain inactive or act in conjunction with France. And the European crisis was drawing near. The House of Austria had, by a succession of victories, been secured from danger on the side of Turkey, and was no longer under the necessity of submitting patiently to the encroachments and insults of Lewis. Accordingly, in July 1686, a treaty was signed at Augsburg °f by which the Princes of the Empire bound themselves closely burs, together for the purpose of mutual defence. The Kings of Spain and Sweden were parties to this compact, the King of Spain as sovereign of the provinces contained in the circle of Burgundy, and the King of Sweden as Duke of Pomerania. The confederates declared that they had no intention to attack and no wish to offend any power, but that they were determined to tolerate no infraction of those rights which the Germanic body held under the sanction of public law and public faith. They pledged themselves to stand by each other in case of need, and fixed the amount of force which each member of the league was to furnish if it should be necessary to repel aggression.* The name of William did not appear in this instrument: but all men knew that it was his work, and foresaw that he would in no long time be again the captain of a coalition against France. Between him and the vassal of France there could, in such circumstances, be no cordial good will. There was no open rupture, no interchange of menaces or reproaches. But the father-in-law and the son-in-law were separated completely and for ever. At the very time at which the Prince was thus estranged william from the English court, the causes which had hitherto pro- head duced a coolness between him and the two great sections of ° f the English people disappeared. A large portion, perhaps oppoX- a numerical majority, of the Whigs had favoured the preten- ll a few busy men whose judgment was defective or was biassed by interest, supported the King. Henry Care, who had long Care, been the bitterest and most active pamphleteer among the Nonconformists, and who had, in the days of the Popish plot, assailed James with the utmost fury in a weekly journal entitled the Packet of Advice from Rome, was now as loud in adulation, as he had formerly been in calumny and insult.* The chief agent who was employed by the government to manage the Presbyterians was Vincent Alsop, a divine of Als °p. some note both as a preacher and as a writer. His son, who had incurred the penalties of treason, received a pardon; and the whole influence of the father was thus engaged on the side » of the Court.** With Alsop was joined Thomas Rosewell. Rosewell. Rosewell had, during that persecution of the Dissenters which followed the detection of the Rye House Plot, been falsely accused of preaching against the government, had been tried for his life by Jeffreys, and had, in defiance of the clearest evidence, been donvicted by a packed jury. The injustice of the verdict was so gross that the very courtiers cried shame. One Tory gentleman who had heard the trial went instantly to Charles, and declared that the neck of the most loyal subject in England would not be safe if Rosewell suffered. The jurymen themselves were stung by remorse when they thought over what they had done, and exerted themselves to save the life of the prisoner. At length a pardon was granted; but ‘ Wood’s Athena! Oxonienses; Observalor; Ileraclilus Ridens, patsim. But Care’s own writings furnish the best materials for an estimate of his character. ** Calamy’s Account of the Ministers ejected or silenced after the Restoration, Northamptonshire; Wood’s Athenai Oxonienses; Riographia Rrilannica. 56 HISTORY OR ENGLAND. CHAP. Rosewell remained bound under heavy recognisances to good ■ 1667 ^ - behaviour during life, and to periodical appearance in the Court of King’s Bench. His recognisances were now discharged by the royal command; and in this way his services were secured. * Lobb. The business of gaining the Independents was principally intrusted to one of their ministers named Stephen Lobb. Lobb was a weak, violent, and ambitious man. He had gone such lengths in opposition to the government, that he had been by name proscribed in several proclamations. He now made his peace, and went as far in servility as he had ever done in faction. He joined the Jesuitical cabal, and eagerly recommended measures from which the wisest and most honest Roman Catholics recoiled. It was remarked that he was constantly at the palace and frequently in the closet, that he lived with a splendour to which the Puritan divines were little accustomed, and that he was perpetually surrounded by suitors imploring his interest to procure them offices or pardons.** reno. With Lobb was closely connected William Penn. Penn had never been a strong-headed man: the life which he had been leading during two years had not a little impaired his moral sensibility; and, if his conscience ever reproached him, he comforted himself by repeating that he had a good and noble end in view, and that he was not paid for his services in money. By the influence of these men, and of others less conspicuous, addresses of thanks to the King were procured from several bodies of Dissenters. Tory writers have with justice remarked that the language of these compositions was as fulsomely servile as anything that could be found in the most florid eulogies pronounced by Bishops on the Stuarts. But, on close inquiry, it will appear that the disgrace belongs to but a small part of the Puritan party. There was scarcely * Stale Trials; Samuel Rosewell’s Life of Thomas Rosewell, 1718; Calamy’s Account. ** London Gazette, March 15. 168J; Nichols’s Defence of the Church of England; Pierce’s Vindication of the Dissenters. JAMES THE SECOND. 57 a market town in England without at least a knot of sepa- C "| I P - ratists. No exertion was spared to induce them to express - 1687 _ - tlieir gratitude for, the Indulgence. Circular letters, imploring them to sign, were sent to every corner of the kingdom in such numbers that the mail bags, it was sportively said, were too heavy for the post-horses. Yet all the addresses which could be obtained from all the Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists scattered over England did not in six months amount to sixty; nor is there any reason to believe that these addresses were numerously signed. * The great body of Protestant Nonconformists, firmly at-Thema- tached to civil liberty, and distrusting the promises of the {U” l'uri- King and of the Jesuits, steadily refused to return thanks for ‘ a " a I1 ar t 0 a favour which, it might well be suspected, concealed a snare. theCourt. This was the temper of all the most illustrious chiefs of the party. One of these was Baxter. He had, as we have seen, Baiter, been brought to trial soon after the accession of James, had been brutally insulted by Jeffreys, and had been convicted by a jury, such as the courtly Sheriffs of those times were in the habit of selecting. Baxter had been about a year and a half in prison when the court began to think seriously of gaining the Nonconformists. He was not only set at liberty, but was informed that, if he chose to reside in London, he might do so without fearing that the Five Mile Act would be enforced against him. The government probably hoped that the recollection of past sufferings and the sense of present ease would produce the same effect on him as on Rosewell and Lobb. The hope was disappointed. Baxter was neither to be corrupted nor to be deceived. He refused to join in any address of thanks for the Indulgence, and exerted all his influence to promote good feeling between the Church and the Presbyterians. ** If any man stood higher than Baxter in the estimation Howe, of the Px’Otestant Dissenters, that man was John Howe. Howe had, like Baxter, been personally a gainer by the recent change of policy. The same tyranny which had flung Baxter * The Addresses will be found in the London Gazelles. ** Calamy’s Life of Baxter. ftMStewi^^KiaiSKiB^aaaikte^ 58 HISTOET OF ENGLAND. crrAp. into gaol Had driven Howe into banishment; and, soon after Baxter had been let out of the King’s Bench prison, Howe returned from Utrecht to England. It was expected at Whitehall that Howe would exert in favour of the Court all the authority which he possessed over his brethren. The King himself condescended to ask the help of the subject whom he had oppressed. Howe appears to have hesitated: but the influence of the Hampdens, with whom he was on terms of close intimacy, kept him steady to the cause of the constitution. A meeting of Presbyterian ministers was held at his house, to consider the state of affairs, and to determine on the course to be adopted. There was great anxiety at the palace to know the result. Two royal messengers were in attendance during the discussion. They carried back the unwelcome news that Howe had declared himself decidedly adverse to the dispensing power, and that he had, after long debate, carried with him the majority of the assembly. * Bunyan ^o the names of Baxter and Howe must be added the name of a man far below them in station and in acquired knowledge, but in virtue their equal, and in genius their superior, John Bunyan. Bunyan had been bred a tinker, and had served as a private soldier in the parliamentary army. Early in his life he had been fearfully tortured by remorse for his youthful sins, the worst of which seem, however, to have been such as the world thinks venial. His keen sen- > sibility and his powerful imagination made his internal conflicts singularly terrible. He fancied that he was under sentence of reprobation, that he had committed blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, that he had sold Christ, that he was actually possessed by a demon. Sometimes loud voices from heaven cried out to warn him. Sometimes fiends whispered impious suggestions in his ear. He saw visions of distant .mountain tops, on which the sun shone brightly, but from which he was separated by a waste of snow. He felt the Devil * Calamy’s Life of Howe. The share which the Hampden family had in the matter I learned from a letter of Johnstone of Waristoun, dated June 13 .1688. JAMES THE SECOND. 59 behind him pulling liis clothes. He thought that the brand of Cain had been set upon him. He feared that he was about to burst asunder like Judas. His mental agony disordered his health. One day he shook like a man in the palsy. On another day he felt a fire within his breast. It is difficult to understand how he survived sufferings so intense, and so long continued. At length the clouds broke. From the depths of despair, the penitent passed to a state of serene felicity. An irresistible impulse now urged him to impart to others the blessing of which he was himself possessed.* He joined the Baptists, and became a preacher and writer. His education had been that of a mechanic. He knew no language but the English, as it was spoken by the common people. He had studied no groat model of composition, with the exception, an important exception undoubtedly, of our noble translation of the Bible. His spelling was bad. He frequently transgressed the rules of grammar. Yet his native force of genius, and his experimental knowledge of all the religious passions, from despair to ecstasy, amply supplied in him the want of learning. His rude oratory roused and melted hearers who listened without interest to the laboured discourses of great logicians and Hebraists. His works were widely circulated among the humbler classes. One of them, the Pilgrim’s Progress, was, in his own lifetime, translated into several foreign languages. It was, however, scarcely known to the learned and polite, and had been, during near a century, the delight of pious cottagers and artisans before it was publicly commended by any man of high literary eminence. At length critics condescended to inquire where the secret of so wide and so durable a popularity lay. They were compelled to own that the ignorant multitude had judged more correctly than the learned, and that the despised little book was really a masterpiece. Bunyan is indeed as decidedly the first of allegorists, as Demosthenes is the first of orators, or Shakspeare the first of dramatists. Other allegorists have shown equal ingenuity; but ho other alle- CHAP. VII. 1687 . • Bunyan’s Grace Abounding. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. gorist has ever been able to touch the heart, and to make - abstractions objects of terror, of pity, and of love.* It may be doubted whether any English Dissenter had suffered more severely under the jpenal laws than John Bunyan. Of the twenty-seven years which had elapsed since the Restoration, he had passed twelve in confinement. He still persisted in preaching; but, that he might preach, he was under the necessity of disguising himself like a carter. He was often introduced into meetings through back doors, with a smock frock on his back, and a whip in his hand. If he had thought only of his own ease and safety, he would have hailed the Indulgence with delight. He was now, at length, free to pray and exhort in open day. His congregation rapidly increased: thousands hung upon his words; and at Bedford, where he ordinarily resided, money was plentifully contributed to build a meeting house for him.. His influence among the common people was such that the government would willingly have bestowed on him some municipal office: but his vigorous understanding and his stout English heart were proof against all delusion and all temptation. He felt assured that the proffered toleration was merely a bait intended to lure the Puritan party to destruction; nor would he, by accepting a place for which he was not legally qualified, recognise the validity of the dispensing power. One of the last acts of his virtuous life was to decline an interview to which he was invited by an agent of the government.** Great as was the authority of Bunyan with the Baptists, that of William Kiffin was still greater. Kiffin was the first man among them in wealth and station. He was in the habit of exercising his spiritual gifts at their meetings: but he did * Young classes Bunyan’s prose with Durfey’s poetry. The people of fashion in the Spiritual Quixote rank the Pilgrim’s Progress with Jack the Gianlkiller. Late in the eighteenth century Cowper did not venture to do more than allude to the great allegorist: “1 name thee not, lest so despis’d a name Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame.” * The continuation of Bunyan’s Life appended to his Grace Abounding. JAMES THE SECOND. 61 not live by preaching. He traded largely; his credit on the Exchange of London stood high; and he had accumulated an ample fortune. Perhaps no man could, at that conjuncture, have rendered more valuable services to the Court. But between him and the Court was interposed the remembrance of one terrible event. He was the grandfather of the two Hewlings, those gallant youths who, of all the victims of the Bloody Assizes, had been the most generally lamented. For the sad fate of one of them James was in a peculiar manner responsible. Jeffreys had respited the younger brother. The poor lad’s sister had been ushered by Churchill into the royal presence, and had begged for mercy; but the King’s heart had been obdurate. The misery of the whole family had been great: but Kiffin was most to be pitied. He was seventy years old when lie was left desolate, the survivor of those who should have survived him. The heartless and venal sycophants of Whitehall, judging by themselves, thought that the old man would be easily propitiated by an Alderman’s gown, and by some compensation in money for the property which his grandsons had forfeited. Penn was employed in the work of seduction, but to no purpose. The King determined to try what effect his own civilities would produce. Kiftin was ordered to attend at the palace. He found a brilliant circle of noblemen and gentlemen assembled. James immediately came to him, spoke to him very graciously, and concluded by saying, “I have put you down, Mr. Kiffin, for an Alderman of London.” The old man looked fixedly at the King, burst into tears, and made answer, “Sir, I am worn out, I am unfit to serve your Majesty or the City. And, Sir, the death of my poor boys broke my heart. That wound is as fresh as ever. I shall carry it to my grave.” The King stood silent for a minute in some confusion, and then said, “Mr. Kiffin, I will find a balsam for that sore.” Assuredly James did not mean to say anything cruel or insolent: on the contrary, he seems to have been in an unusually gentle mood. Yet no speech that is recorded of him gives so unfavourable a notion of his character as these few words. They are the words of a hard-hearted and low-minded man, unable to con- CHAP. VII. 1687 . 62 HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VII. 1581. ceive any laceration of the affections for which a place or a pension would not be a full compensation.* That section of the dissenting body which was favourable to the King’s new policy had from the first been a minority, and soon began to diminish. For the Nonconformists perceived in no long time that their spiritual privileges had been abridged rather than extended by the Indulgence. The chief characteristic of the Puritan was abhorrence of the peculiarities of the Church of Rome. He had quitted the Church of England only because he conceived that she too much resembled her superb and voluptuous sister, the sorceress of the golden cup and of the scarlet robe. He now found that one of the implied conditions of that alliance which some of his pastors had formed with the Court was that the religion of the Court should be respectfully and tenderly treated. He soon began to regret the days of persecution. While the penal laws were enforced, he had heard the words of life in secret and at his peril: but still he had heard them. When the brethren were assembled in the inner chamber, when the sentinels had been posted, when the doors had been locked, when the preacher, in the garb of a butcher or a drayman, had come in over the tiles, then at least God was truly worshipped. No portion of divine truth was suppressed or softened down for any worldly object. All the distinctive doctrines of the Puritan theology were fully, and even coarsely, set forth. To the Church of Rome no quarter was given. The Beast, the Antichrist, the Man of Sin, the mystical Jezebel, the mystical Babylon, were the phrases ordinarily employed to describe that august and fascinating superstition. Such had been once the style of Alsop, of Lobb, of Rosewell, and of other ministers who had of late been well received at the palace: but such was now their style no longer. Divines who aspired to a high place in the King’s favour and confidence could not venture to speak with asperity of the King’s religion. Congregations therefore complained loudly that, since the appearance of the Declara- * Kiffin's Memoirs; Luson’s Letter to Brooke, May 11. 1773, in the Hughes Correspondence. JAMBS THE SECOND. 63 tlon which purported to give them entire freedom of conscience, they had never once heard the Gospel boldly and faithfully preached. Formerly they had been forced to snatch their spiritual nutriment by stealth; but, when they had snatched it, they had found it seasoned exactly to their taste. They were now at liberty to feed: but their food had lost all its savour. They met by daylight, and in commodious edifices: but they heard discourses far less to their taste than they would have heard from the rector. At the parish church the will worship and idolatry of Rome were every Sunday attacked with energy: but, at the meetinghouse, the pastor, who had a few months before reviled the established clergy as little better than Papists, now carefully abstained from censuring Popery, or conveyed his censures in language too delicate to shock even the ears of Father Petre. Nor was it possible to assign any creditable reason for this change. The Roman Catholic doctrines had undergone no alteration. Within living memory never had Roman Catholic priests been so active in the work of making proselytes: never had so many Roman Catholic publications issued from the press; never had the attention of all who cared about religion been so closely fixed on the dispute between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants. What could be thought of the sincerity of theologians who had never been weary of railing at Popery when Popery was comparatively harmless and helpless, and who now, when a time of real danger to the reformed faith had arrived, studiously avoided uttering one word which could give offence to a Jesuit? Their conduct was indeed easily explained. It was known that some of them had obtained pardons. It was suspected that others had obtained money. Their prototype might be found in that weak apostle who from fear denied the Master to whom he had boastfully professed the firmest attachment, or in that baser apostle who sold his Lord for a handful of silver.* Thus the dissenting ministers who had been gained by the Court were rapidly losing the influence which they had once * See, among other contemporary pamphlets, one entitled a Representation of the threatening Dangers impending over Protestants. CHAP. VII. ltiST. 64 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. vir. 1687 . The Prince and Princess of Orange hostile t( thcDccla ration of Indulgence. possessed over their brethren. On the other hand, the sectaries found themselves attracted by a strong religious sympathy towards those prelates and priests of the Church of England who, in spite of royal mandates, of threats, and of promises, were waging vigorous war with the Church of Rome. The Anglican body and the Puritan body, so long separated by a mortal enmity, were daily drawing nearer to each other, and every step which they made towards union increased the influence of him who was their common head. William was in all things fitted to be a mediator between these two great sections of the English nation. He could not be said to be a member of either. Yet neither, when in a reasonable mood, could refuse to regard him as a friend. His system of theology agreed with that of the Puritans. At the same time, he regarded episcopacy, not indeed as a divine institution, but as a perfectly lawful and an eminently useful form of church government. Questions respecting postures, robes, festivals and liturgies, he considered as of no vital importance. A simple worship, such as that to which he had been early accustomed, would have been most to his personal taste. But he was prepared to conform to any ritual which might be acceptable to the nation, and insisted only that he should not be required to persecute his brother Protestants whose consciences did not permit them to follow his example. Two years earlier he would have been pronounced by numerous bigots on both sides a mere Laodicean, neither cold nor hot, and fit only to be spewed out. But the zeal which had inflamed Churchmen against Dissenters and Dissenters against Churchmen had been so tempered by common adversity and danger that the lukewarmness which had once been imputed to him as a crime was now reckoned among his chief virtues. All men were anxious to know what he thought of the De- ■ claration of Indulgence. For a time hopes were entertained at Whitehall that his known respect for the rights of con- ’ science would at least prevent him from publicly expressing disapprobation of a policy which had a specious show of liberality. Penn sent copious disquisitions to the Hague, and JAMES THE SECOND. 65 even went thither, in the hope that his eloquence, of which he had a high opinion, would prove irresistible. But, though - he harangued on his favourite theme with a copiousness which tired his hearers out, and though he assured them that the approach of a golden age of religious liberty had been revealed to him by a man who was permitted to converse with angels, no impression was made on the Prince.* “You ask me,” said William to one of the King’s agents, “to countenance an attack on my own religion. I cannot with a safe conscience do it, and I will not, no, not for the crown of England, nor for the empire of the world.” These words were reported to the King and disturbed him greatly.** He wrote urgent letters with his own hand. Sometimes he took the tone of an injured man. He was the head of the royal family; he was as such entitled to expect the obedience of the yoynger branches; and it was very hard that he was to be crossed in a matter on which his heart was set. At other times a bait which was thought irresistible was offered. If William would but give way on this one point, the English government would, in return, cooperate with him strenuously against France. He was not to be so deluded. He knew that James, without the support of a Parliament, would, even if not unwilling, be unable to render effectual service to the common cause of Europe; and there could be no doubt that, if a Parliament were assembled, the first demand of both Houses would be that the Declaration should be cancelled. The Princess assented to all that was suggested by her husband. Their joint opinion was conveyed to the King in firm but temperate terms. They declared that they deeply regretted the course which His Majesty had adopted. They were convinced that he had usurped a prerogative which did * Burnet, i. 093, 694. ** “Le Prince d’Orange, qni avoit dludd jusqu’alors de faire une rdponse positive, dil.qu'il ne consenlira jamais a la suppression de ces loix qui avoient did elablies pour le mainlien et la suretd de la religion Protestanle, et que sa conscience ne le lui permelloit point, non seulement pour la succession du royaunie d’Angleterre, mais meme pour l’empire du monde; en sorte que le roi d'Angletcrre est plus aigri contre lui qu’il n’a jamais did.” — Bonrepaux, June ij. 1087. Macaulay, History. III. 5 CHAP. VII. 1687. 66 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VII. 1 & 87 . Their ■views respecting the English Homan Catholics ■vindicated. not by law belong to him. Against that usurpation they protested, not only as friends to civil liberty, but as members of the royal house, who had a deep interest in maintaining the rights of that crown which they might one day wear. For experience had shown that in England arbitrary government could not fail to produce a reaction even more pernicious than itself; and it might reasonably be feared that the nation, alarmed and incensed by the prospect of despotism, might conceive a disgust even for constitutional monarchy. The advice, therefore, which they tendered to the King was that he would in all things govern according to law. They readily admitted that the law might with advantage be altered by competent authority, and that some part of his Declaration well deserved to be embodied in an Act of Parliament. They were not persecutors. They should with pleasure see Roman Catholics as well as Protestant Dissenters relieved in a proper manner from all penal statutes. They should with pleasure see Protestant Dissenters admitted in a proper manner to civil office. At that point their Highnesses must stop. They could not but entertain grave apprehensions that, if Roman Catholics were made capable of public trust, great evil would ensue; and it was intimated not obscurely that these apprehensions arose chiefly from the conduct of James. * The opinion expressed by the Prince and Princess respecting the disabilities to which the Roman Catholics were subject was that of almost all the statesmen and philosophers who were then zealous for political and religious freedom. In our age, on the contrary, enlightened men have often pronounced, with regret, that, on this one point, William appears to disadvantage when compared with his father-in-law. The truth is that some considerations which are necessary to the forming of a correct judgment seem to have escaped the notice of many writers of the nineteenth century. There are two opposite errors into which those who study the annals of our country are in constant danger of falling, the error of judging the present by the past, and the error of * Burnel, i. 710. Bonrepaur, 1887. JAMES THE SECOND. 67 judging the past by the present. The former is the error of minds prone to reverence whatever is old, the latter of minds readily attracted by whatever is new. The former error may perpetually be observed in the reasonings of conservative politicians on the questions of their own day. The latter error perpetually infects the speculations of writers of the liberal school when they discuss the transactions of an earlier age. The former error is the more pernicious in a statesman, and the latter in a historian. It is not easy for any person who, in our time, undertakes to treat of the revolution which overthrew the Stuarts, to preserve with steadiness the happy mean between these two extremes. The question whether members of the Roman Catholic Church could be safely admitted to Parliament and to office convulsed our country during the reign of James the Second, was set at rest by his downfall, and, having slept during more than a century, was revived by that great stirring of the human mind which followed the meeting of the National Assembly of France. During thirty years the contest went on in both Houses of Parliament, in every constituent body, in every social circle. It destroyed administrations, broke up parties, made all government in one part of the empire impossible, and at length brought us to the verge of civil war. Even when the struggle had terminated, the passions to which it had given birth still continued to rage. It was scarcely possible for any man whose mind was under the influence ofthQse passions to see the events of the years 1687 and 1688 in a perfectly correct light. One class of politicians, starting from the true proposition that the Revolution had been a great blessing to our country, arrived at the false conclusion that no test which the statesmen of the Revolution had thought necessary for the protection of our religion and our freedom could be safely abolished. Another class, starting from the true proposition that the disabilities imposed on the Roman Catholics had long been productive of nothing but mischief, arrived at the false conclusion that there never could have been a time when those disabilities could have been useful and necessary. The chap. vn. 1687 . 68 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. CHAP. VII. 1687 . former fallacy pervaded the speeches of the acute and learned Eldon. The latter was not altogether without influence even on an intellect so calm and philosophical as that of Mackintosh. Perhaps, however, it will be found on examination that we may vindicate the course which was unanimously approved by all the greatEnglish statesmen of the seventeenth century, without questioning the wisdom of the course which was as unanimously approved by all the great English statesmen of our own time. Undoubtedly it is an evil that any citizen should be exclu- dedfrom civil employment on accountof his religious opinions: but a choice between evils is sometimes all that is left to human wisdom. A nation may be placed in such a situation that the majority must either impose disabilities or submit to them, and that what would, under ordinary circumstances, be justly condemned as persecution, may fall within the bounds of legitimate self-defence: and such was in the year 1687 the situation of England. According to the constitution of the realm, James possessed the right of naming almost allpublic functionaries, political, judicial, ecclesiastical, military, and naval. In the exercise of this right he was not, as our sovereigns now are, under the necessity of acting in conformity with the advice of ministers approved by the House of Commons. It was evident therefore that, unless he were strictly bound by law to bestow office on none but Protestants, it would be in his power to bestow office on none but Roman Catholics. The Roman Catholics were few in number; and among them was not a single man whose services could be seriously missed by the commonwealth. The proportion which they bore to the population of England was very much smaller than at present. For at present a constant stream of emigration runs from Ireland to our great towns: but in the seventeenth century there was not even in London an Irish colony. Forty-nine fiftieths of the inhabitants of the kingdom, forty-nine fiftieths of the property of the kingdom, almost all the political, legal, and military ability and knowledge to be found in the kingdom, were Protestant. Nevertheless the King, under a strong infatuation, had de- JAMES THE SECOND. 69 tennined to use his vast patronage as a means of making proselytes. To be of his Church was, in his view, the first of all ■ qualifications for office. To be of the national Church was a positive disqualification. He reprobated, it is true, in language which has been applauded by some credulous friends of religious liberty, the monstrous injustice of that test which excluded a small minority of the nation from public trust: but he was at the same time instituting a test which excluded the majority. He thought it hard that a man who was a good financier and a loyal subject should be excluded from the post of Lord Treasurer merely for being a Papist. But he had himself turned out a Lord Treasurer whom he admitted to be a good financier and a loyal subject merely for being a Protestant. He had repeatedly and distinctly declared his resolution never to put the white staff in the hands of any heretic. With many other great offices of state he had dealt in the same way. Already the Lord President, the Lord Privy Seal, the Lord Chamberlain, the Groom of the Stole, the First Lord of the Treasury, a Secretary of State, the Lord High Commissioner of Scotland, the Chancellor of Scotland, the Secretary of Scotland, were, or pretended to be, Roman Catholics. Most of these functionaries had been bred Churchmen, and had been guilty of apostasy, open or secret, in order to obtain or to keep their high places. Every Protestant who still held an important post in the government held it in constant uncertainty and fear. It would be endless to recount the situations of a lower rank which were filled by the favoured class. Roman Catholics already swarmed in every department of the public service. They were Lords Lieutenants, Deputy Lieutenants, Judges, Justices of the Peace, Commissioners of the Customs, Envoys to foreign courts, Colonels of regiments, Governors of fortresses. The share which in a few months they had obtained of the temporal patronage of the crown was much more than ten times as great as they would have had under an impartial system. Yet this was not the worst. They were made rulers of the Church of England. Men who had assured the King that they held his faith sate in the High Commission, and exercised supreme jurisdiction in spiritual things over all CHAP. VII. 168 T. 70 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VII. liisr.' the prelates and priests of the established religion. Ecclesiastical benefices of great dignity had been bestowed, some on avowed Papists, and some on half concealed Papists. And all this had been done while the laws against Popery were still unrepealed, and while James had still a strong interest in affecting respect for the rights of conscience. What then was his conduct likely to be, if his subjects consented to free him, by a legislative act, from even the shadow of restraint? Is it possibleto doubt thatProtestants wouldhave been as effectually excluded from employment, by a strictly legal use of the royal prerogative, as ever Roman Catholics had been by Act ofParliament? How obstinately James was determined to bestow on the members of his own Church a share of patronage altogether out of proportion to their numbers and importance is proved by the instructions which, in exile and old age, he drew up for the guidance of his son. It is impossible to read without mingled pity and derision those effusions of a mind on which all the discipline of experience and adversity had been exhausted in vain. The Pretender is advised, if ever he should reign in England, to make a partition of offices, and carefully to reserve for the members of the Church of Rome a portion which might have sufficed for them if they had been one half instead of one fiftieth part of the nation. One Secretary of State, one Commissioner of the Treasury, the Secretary of War, the majority of the great dignitaries of the household, the majority of the officers of the army, are always to be Catholics. Such were the designs of James after his perverse bigotry had drawn on him a punishment which had appalled the whole world. Is it then possible to doubt what his conduct would have been if his people, deluded by the empty name of religious liberty, had suffered him to proceed without any check ? Even Penn, intemperate and undiscerning as was his zeal for the Declaration, seems to have felt that the partiality with which honours and emoluments were heaped on Roman Catholics might not unnaturally excite the jealousy of the nation. He owned that, if the Test Act were repealed, the Protestants JAMES THE SECOND. 71 ■were entitled to an equivalent, and went so far as to suggest several equivalents. During some weeks the word equivalent, ■ then lately imported from France, was in the mouths of all the coffee-house orators; but at length a few pages of keen logic and polished sarcasm written by Halifax put an end to these idle projects. One of Penn’s schemes was that a law should be passed dividing the patronage of the crown into three equal parts; and that to one only of those parts members of the Church of Home should be admitted. Even under such an arrangement the members of the Church of Rome would have obtained near twenty times their fair portion of official appointments; and yet there is no reason to believe that even to such an arrangement the King would have consented. But, had he consented, what guarantee could he give that he would adhere to his bargain? The dilemma propounded by Halifax was unanswerable. If laws are binding on you, observe the law which now exists. If laws are not binding on you, it is idle to offer us a law as a security. * It is clear, therefore, that the point at issue was not whether secular offices should be thrown open to all sects indifferently. While James was King it was inevitable that there should be exclusion; and the only question was who should be excluded, Papists or Protestants, the few or the many, a hundred thousand Englishmen or five millions. Such are the weighty arguments by which the conduct of the Prince of Orange towards the English Roman Catholics may be reconciled with the principles of religious liberty. These arguments, it will be observed, have no reference to any part of the Roman Catholic theology. It will also be observed that they ceased to have any force when the crown had been settled on a race of Protestant sovereigns, and when the power of the House of Commons in the state had become so decidedly preponderant that no sovereign, whatever might have been his opinions or his inclinations, could have imitated the example of James. The nation, however, after its terrors, its struggles, its narrow escape, was in a suspicious and vindictive mood. Means of defence therefore which necessity * Johnstone, Jan. 13 . 1088 ; Halifax’s Analomy of an Equivalent. CHAP. VII. 1687. 72 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap, had once justified, and which necessity alone could justify, —“— were obstinately used long after the necessity had ceased to exist, and were not abandoned till vulgar prejudice had maintained a contest of many years against reason. But in the time of James reason and vulgar prejudice were on the same side. The fanatical and ignorant wished to exclude the Roman Catholic from office because he worshipped stocks and stones, because he had the mark of the Beast, because he had burned down London, because he had strangled Sir Ed- mondsbury Godfrey; and the most judicious and tolerant statesman, while smiling at the delusions which imposed on the populace, was led, by a very different road, to the same conclusion. The great object of William now was to unite in one body the numerous sections of the community which regarded him as their common head. In this work he had several able and trusty coadjutors, among whom two were preeminently useful, Burnet and Dykvelt. Enmity of The services ofBurnet indeed it was necessary to employ Burnet' 0 w ith some caution. The kindness with which he had been welcomed at the Hague had excited the rage of James. Mary received from her father two letters filled with invectives against the insolent and seditious divine whom she protected. But these accusations had so little effect on her that she sent back answers dictated by Burnet himself. At length, in January 1687, the King had recourse to stronger measures. Skelton, who had represented the English government in the United Provinces, was removed to Paris, and was succeeded by Albeville, the weakest and basest of all the members of the Jesuitical cabal. Money was Albeville’s one object; and he took it from all who offered it. He was paid at once by France and by Holland. Nay, he stooped below even the miserable dignity of corruption, and accepted bribes so small that they seemed better suited to a porter or a lacquey than to an Envoy who had been honoured with an English baronetcy and a foreign marquisate. On one occasion he pocketed very complacently a gratuity of fifty pistoles as the price of a service which he had rendered to the States General. This man had JAMES THE SECOND. 73 it in charge to demand that Burnet should no longer be countenanced at the Hague. William, who was not inclined to- part with a valuable friend, answered at first with his usual coldness; “I am not aware, Sir, that, since the Doctor has been here, he has done or said anything of which Ilis Majesty can justly complain.” But James was peremptory; the time for an open rupture had not arrived; and it was necessary to give way. During more than eighteen months Burnet never came into the presence of either the Prince or the Princess: but he resided near them; he was fully informed of all that was passing; his advice was constantly asked; his pen was employed on all important occasions; and many of the sharpest and most effective tracts which about that time appeared in London were justly attributed to him. The rage of James flamed high. He had always been more than sufficiently prone to the angry passions. But none of his enemies, not even those who had conspired against his life, not even those who had attempted by perjury to load him with the guilt of treason and assassination, had ever been regarded by him with such animosity as he now felt for Burnet. His Majesty railed daily at the Doctor in unkingly language, and meditated plans of unlawful revenge. Even blood would not slake that frantic hatred. The insolent divine must be tortured before he was permitted to die. Fortunately he was by birth a Scot; and in Scotland, before he was gibbeted in the Grassmarket, his legs might be dislocated in the boot. Proceedings were accordingly instituted against him at Edinburgh : but he had been naturalised in Holland : he had married a woman of fortune who was a native of that province: and it was certain that his adopted country would not deliver him up. It was therefore determined to kidnap him. Ruffians were hired with great sums of money for this perilous and infamous service. An order for three thousand pounds on this account was actually drawn up for signature in the office of the Secretary of State. Lewis was apprised of the design, and took a warm interest in it. He would lend, he said, his best assistance to convey the villain to England, and would undertake that the ministers of the vengeance of James should CHAP. vn. 1687 . 74 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap, find a secure asylum in France. Burnet was well aware of his - 6g f —danger: but timidity was not among his faults. He published a courageous answer to the charges which had been brought against him at Edinburgh. He knew, he said, that it was intended to execute him without a trial: but his trust was in the King of Kings, to whom innocent blood would not cry in vain, even against the mightiest princes of the earth. Fie gave a farewell dinner to some friends, and, after the meal, took solemn leave of them, as a man who was doomed to death, and with whom they could not longer safely converse. Nevertheless he continued to show himself in all the public places of the Hague so boldly that his friends reproached him bitterly with his fool-hardiness.*' Missionof While Burnet was William’s secretary for English affairs in Holland, Dykvelt had been not less usefully employed in London. Dykvelt was one of a remarkable class of public men who, having been bred to politics in the noble school of John De Witt, had, after the fall of that great minister, thought that they should best discharge their duty to the commonwealth by rallying round the Prince of Orange. Of the diplomatists in the service of the United Provinces none was, in dexterity, temper, and manners, superior to Dykvelt. In * Burnet, i. 72G—-734.; Answer to the Criminal Letters issued out against Dr. Burnet; Avaux Neg., July T V If., 4687, Jan. 168S; Lewis to Barillon, j*°‘ 9 *** ; Johnstone of Warisloun, Feb. 21. 1688; Lady Russell to Dr. Fitawilliam, Oct. 5.1687. As it has been suspected that Burnet, who certainly was not in the habit of underrating his own importance, exaggerated the danger to which he was exposed, I will give the words of Lewis and of Johnstone. “Qui que ce soit,** says Lewis, “qui entreprenne de 1’enlever en Hollande trouvera non seule- ment une retraite assuree et une cnti&re protection dans mes etats, mais aussi toute I’assistance qu’il pourra desirer pour faire conduire surement ce scGlerat en Angleterre.” “■The business of Bamfield (Burnet) is certainly true,” says Johnstone. “No man doubts of it here, and some concerned do not deny it. His friends say they hear he tabes no care of himself, but out of vanity, to show his courage, shows his folly; so that, if ill happen on it, all people will laugh at it. Pray tell him so much from Jones (Johnstone). If some could be catched making their coup d’essai on him, it will do much to frighten them from making any attempt on Ogle (the Prince).” JAMES THE SECOND. 75 knowledge of English affairs none seems to have been his coequal. A pretence was found for despatching him, early in—pg-jy- the year 1087, to England on a special mission with credentials from the States General. But in truth his embassy was not to the government, but to the opposition; and his conduct was guided by private instructions which had been drawn by Burnet, and approved by William.* Dykvelt reported that James was bitterly mortified by the conduct of the Prince and Princess. “My nephew’s duty,” o,kveit said the King, “is to strengthen my hands. But he has always taken a pleasure in crossing me.” Dykvelt answered that in slal «s- matters of private concern His Highness had shown, and was ready to show, the greatest deference to the King’s wishes; but that it was scarcely reasonable to expect the aid of a Protestant prince against the Protestant religion.** The King was silenced, but not appeased. He saw, with ill humour which he could not disguise, that Dykvelt was mustering and drilling all the various divisions of the opposition with a skill which would have been creditable to the ablest English statesman, and which was marvellous in a foreigner. The clergy were told that they would find the Prince a friend to episcopacy and to the Book of Common Prayer. The Nonconformists were encouraged to expect from him, not only toleration, but also comprehension. Even the Koman Catholics were conciliated; and some of the most respectable among them declared, to the King’s face, that they were satisfied with what Dykvelt proposed, and that they would rather have a toleration, secured by statute, than an illegal and precarious ascendency.*** The chiefs of all the important sections of the nation had frequent conferences in the presence of the dexterous Envoy. At these meetings the sense of the Tory party was chielly Daniiy. spoken by the Earls of Danby and Nottingham. Though more * Burnet, i. 708.; Avaux Neg., Jan. , 3 j. Feb. -,V 1687; Van Kampen, Karakterkunde der Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis. ** Burnet, i. 711. Dykvell’s despatches to the States General contain, as far as I have seen or can learn, not a word about the real object of his mission. His correspondence with the Prince of Orange was strictly private. **' Bonrepaux, Sept. 1687. 76 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap. VII. 1687 . Nottingham. than eight years had elapsed since Danby had fallen from power, his name was still great among the old Cavaliers of England; and many even of those Whigs who had formerly persecuted him were now disposed to admit that he had suffered for faults not his own, and that his zeal for the prerogative, though it had often misled him, had been tempered by two feelings which did him honour, zeal for the established religion, and zeal for the dignity and independence of his country. He was also highly esteemed at the Hague, where it was never forgotten that he was the person who, in spite of the influence of France and of the Papists, had induced Charles to bestow the hand of the Lady Mary on her cousin. Daniel Finch, Earl of Nottingham, a nobleman whose name will frequently recur in the history of three eventful reigns, sprang from a family of unrivalled forensic eminence. One of his kinsmen had borne the seal of Charles the First, had prostituted eminent parts and learning to evil purposes, and had been pursued by the vengeance of the Commons of England with Falkland at their h ead. A more honourable renown had in the succeeding generation been obtained by Heneage Finch. He had immediately after the Restoration been appointed Solicitor General. He had subsequently risen to be Attorney General, Lord Keeper, Lord Chancellor, Baron Finch, and Earl of Nottingham. Through this prosperous career he had always held the prerogative as high as he honestly or decently could; but he had never been concerned in any machinations against the fundamental laws of the realm. In the midst of a corrupt court he had kept his personal integrity unsullied. He had enjoyed high fame as an orator, though his diction, formed on models anterior to the civil wars, was, towards the close of his life, pronounced stiff and pedantic by the wits of the rising generation. In Westminster Hall he is still mentioned with respect as the man who first educed out of the chaos anciently called by the name of equity a new system of jurisprudence, as regular and complete as that which is administered by the Judges of the Common Law.* A considerable part of the moral and intellectual * See Lord Campbell’s Life of him. JAMES THE SECOND. 77 chara cter of this great magistrate had descended with the title CP ^ P - of Nottingham to his eldest son. This son, Earl Daniel, was - ]6 8 7 _ _ an honourable and virtuous man. Though enslaved by some absurd prejudices, and though liable to strange fits of caprice, he cannot be accused of having deviated from the path of right in search either of unlawful gain or of unlawful pleasure. Like his father he was a distinguished speaker, impressive, but prolix, and too monotonously solemn. The person of the orator was in perfect harmony with his oratory. His attitude was rigidly erect; his complexion so dark that he might have passed for a native of a warmer climate than ours; and Iris harsh features were composed to an expression resembling that of a chief mourner at a funeral. It was commonly said that he looked rather like a Spanish grandee than like an English gentleman. The nicknames of Dismal, Don Dismallo, and Don Diego, were fastened on him by jesters, and are not yet forgotten. He had paid much attention to the science by which his family had been raised to greatness, and was, for a man born to rank and wealth, wonderfully well read in the laws of his country. He was a devoted son of the Church, and showed his respect for her in two ways not usual among those Lords who in his time boasted that they were her especial friends, by writing tracts in defence of her dogmas, and by shaping his private life according to her precepts. Like other zealous churchmen, he had, till recently, been a strenuous supporter of monarchical authority. But to the policy which ' had been pursued since the suppression of the Western insurrection he was bitterly hostile, and not the less so because his younger brother Heneage had been turned out of the office of Solicitor General for refusing to defend the King’s dispensing power.* With these two great Tory Earls was now united Halifax, Halifax, the accomplished chief of the Trimmers. Over the mind of Nottingham indeed Halifax appears to have had at this time a great ascendency. Between Halifax and Danby there was an * Johnstone’s Correspondence; Mackay’s Memoirs; Arbutbnot’s John Bull; Swift's wrilings from nil) to 1714, pttssifti; Mansion's Letter to the Earl of Nottingham, and the Earl’s answer. mm 78 chap. vn. 16K7. Devonshire. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. enmity which began in the court of Charles, and which, at a ■laterperiod, disturbed the court of William, but which, like many other enmities, remained suspended during the tyranny of James. The foes frequently met in the councils held by Dykvelt, and agreed in expressing dislike of the policy of the government and reverence for the Prince of Orange. The different characters of the two statesmen appeared strongly in their dealings with the Dutch envoy. Halifax showed an admirable talent for disquisition, but shrank from coming to any bold and irrevocable decision. Danby, far less subtle and eloquent, displayed more energy, resolution, and practical sagacity. Several eminent Whigs were in constant communication with Dykvelt: but the heads of the great houses of Cavendish andRussel could not take quite so active and prominent a part as might have been expected from their station and their opinions. The fame and fortunes of Devonshire were at that moment under a cloud. He had an unfortunate quarrel with the court, arising, not from a public and honourable cause, but from aprivate brawl in which even his warmest friends eouldnotpro- nounce him altogether blameless. He had gone to Whitehall to pay his duty, and had there been insulted by a man named Co- lepepper, one of a set of bravoes who infested the purlieus of the court, and who attempted to curry favour with the government by affronting members of the opposition. The King himself expressed great indignation at the manner in which one of his most distinguished peers had been treated under the royal roof; and Devonshire was pacified by an intimation that the offender should never again be admitted into the palace. The interdict,- however, was soon taken off. The Earl’s resentment revived. His servants took up his cause. Hostilities such as seemed to belong to a ruder age disturbed the streets of Westminster. The time of the Privy Council was occupied by the criminations and recriminations of the adverse parties. Colepepper’s wife declared that she and her husband went in danger of their lives, and that their house had been assaulted by ruffians in the Cavendish livery. Devonshire replied that he had been fired at from Colepcpper’s windows. This was JAMES THE SECOND. 79 vehemently denied. A pistol, it was owned, loaded with gunpowder, had been discharged. But this had been done in a moment of terror merely for the purpose of alarming the Guards. While this feud was at the height the Earl met Cole- pepper in the drawing-room at Whitehall, and fancied that he saw triumph and defiance in the bully’s countenance. Nothing unseemly passed in the royal sight; but, as soon as the enemies had left the presence chamber, Devonshire proposed that they should instantly decide their dispute with their swords. This challenge was refused. Then the high spirited peer forgot the respect which he owed to the place where he stood and to his own character, and struck Colepepper in the face with a cane. All classes agreed in condemning this act as most indiscreet and indecent; nor could Devonshire himself, when he had cooled, think of it without vexation and shame. The government, however, with its usual folly, treated him so severely that in a short time the public sympathy was all on his side. A criminal information was filed in the King’s Bench. The defendant took his stand on the privileges of the peerage; but on this point a decision was promptly given against him; nor is it possible to deny that the decision, whether it were or were not according to the technical rules of English law, was in strict conformity with the great principles on which all laws ought to be framed. Nothing was then left to him but to plead guilty. The tribunal had, by successive dismissions, been reduced to such complete subjection, that the government which had instituted the prosecution was allowed to prescribe the punishment. The Judges waited in a body on Jeffreys, who insisted that they should impose a fine of not less than thirty thousand pounds. Thirty thousand pounds, when compared with the revenues of the English grandees of that age, may be considered as equivalent to a hundred and fifty thousand pounds in the nineteenth century. In the presence of the Chancellor not a word of disapprobation was uttered: but, when the Judges had retired, Sir John Powell, in whom all the little honesty of the bench was concentrated, muttered that the proposed penalty was enormous, and that one tenth part would CIIA1-. VII. 1687. fi. IM , 80 CHAP. vi r. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. be amply sufficient. His brethren did not agree with him; ■nor did he, on this occasion, show the courage by which, on a memorable day some months later, he signally retrieved his fame. The Earl was accordingly condemned to a fine of thirty thousand pounds, and to imprisonment till payment should be made. Such a sum could not then be raised at a day’s notice even by the greatest of the nobility. The sentence of imprisonment, however, was more easily pronounced than executed. Devonshire had retired to Chatsworth, where he was employed in turning the old Gothic mansion of his family into an edifice worthy of Palladio. The Peak was in those days almost as rude a district as Connemara now is, and the Sheriff found, or pretended, that it was difficult to arrest the lord of so wild a region in the midst of a devoted household and tenantry. Some days were thus gained: but at last both the Earl and the Sheriff were lodged in prison. Meanwhile a crowd of intercessors exerted their influence. The story ran that the Countess Dowager of Devonshire had obtained admittance to the royal closet, that she had reminded James how her brother-in-law, the gallant Charles Cavendish, had fallen at Gainsborough fighting for the crown, and that she had produced notes, written by Charles the First and Charles the Second, in acknowledgment of great sums lent by her Lord during the civil troubles. Those loans had never been repaid, and, with the interest, amounted, it was said, to more even than the immense fine which the Court of King’s Bench had imposed. There was another consideration which seems to have had more weight with the King than the memory of former services. It might be necessary to call a Parliament. Whenever that event took place it was believed that Devonshire would bring a writ of error. The point on which he meant to appeal from the judgment of the King’s Bench related to the privileges of peerage. The tribunal before which the appeal must come was the House of Peers. On such an occasion the Court could not be certain of the support even of the most courtly nobles. There was little doubt that the sentence would be annulled, and that, by grasping at too much, the government would lose all. James was therefore JAMES THE SECOND. 81 disposed to a compromise. Devonshire was informed that, if he would give a bond for the whole fine, and thus preclude himself from the advantage which he might derive from a writ of error, he should be set at liberty. Whether the bond should be enforced or not would depend on his subsequent conduct. If he would support the dispensing power nothing would be exacted from him. If he was bent on popularity he must pay thirty thousand pounds for it. He refused, during some time, to consent to these terms; but confinement was insupportable to him. He signed the bond, and was let out of prison: but, though he consented to lay this heavy burden on his estate, nothing could induce him to promise that he would abandon his principles and his party. He was still entrusted with all the secrets of the opposition: but during some months his political friends thought it best for himself and for the cause that lie should remain in the background.* The Earl of Bedford had never recovered from the effects of the great calamity which, four years before, had almost broken his heart. From private as well as from public feelings he was adverse to the Court: but he was not active in concerting, measures against it. His place in the meetings of the malecontents was supplied by his nephew. This was the celebrated Edward Russell, a man of undoubted courage and capacity, but of loose principles and turbulent temper. He was a sailor, had distinguished himself in his profession, and had in the late reign held an office in the palace. But all the ties which bound him to the royal family had been sundered by the death of his cousin William. The daring, unquiet, and vindictive seaman now sate in the councils called by the Dutch envoy as the representative of the boldest and most * Kennel's funeral sermon on the Duke of Devonshire, and Memoirs of the family of Cavendish; State Trials; Privy Council Book, March 5. 1C8J; Barillon, 1087; Johnstone, Dec. ,v 1087; Lords’ Journals, May 0. 1689. “ Ses amis el ses prochessays Barillon, “ lui conseillent de prendre le bon parti, mais il persiste jusqu’d present a ne se point soumellre. S’il vouloit se bien conduire et renoncer a dire populaire, il ne payeroit pas I'amendo, mais s’il opinifttre, il lui en coutera trento mille pidees, et il demeurera prisonnier jusqu’it l’actuel payement.” Macaulay, History. III. 6 CHAP. VII. 1687 . Edward Bussell. 82 mSTORT OF ENGLAND. chap, eager section of tlic opposition, of those men who, under the —names of Roundheads, Exclusionists, and Whigs, had maintained with various fortune a contest of five and forty years against three successive Kings. This party, lately prostrate and almost extinct, but now again full of life and rapidly rising to ascendency, was troubled by none of the scruples which still impeded the movements of Tories and Trimmers, and was prepared to draw the sword against the tyrant on the first day on which the sword could be drawn with reasonable hope of success. Three men are yet to be mentioned with whom Dykvelt was in confidential communication, and by whose help he hoped to secure the good will of three great professions. Compton. Bishop Compton was the agent employed to manage the iierhert. clergy: Admiral Herbert undertook to exert all his inlluence over the navy; and an interest was established in the army by the instrumentality of Churchill. The conduct of Compton and Herbert requires no explanation. Having, in all things secular, served the crown with zeal and fidelity, they had incurred the royal displeasureby refusing to be employed as tools for the destruction of their own religion. Both of them had learned by experience how soon James forgot obligations, and how bitterly he remembered what it pleased him to consider as wrongs. The Bishop had by an illegal sentence been suspended from his episcopal functions. The Admiral had in one hour been reduced from cimrchiii. opulence to penury. The situation of Churchill was widely different. He had been raised by the royal bounty from obscurity to eminence, and from poverty to wealth. Having started in life a needy ensign, he was now, in his thirty- seventh year, a Major General, a peer of Scotland, a peer of England: he commanded a troop of Life Guards: he had been appointed to several honourable and lucrative offices; and as yet there was no sign that he had lost any part of the favour to which he owed so much. He was bound to James, not only by the common obligations of allegiance, but by military honour, by personal gratitude, and, as appeared to superficial observers, by the strongest ties of interest. But JAMES THE SECOND. 83 Churchill himself was no superficial observer. He knew exactly what his interest really was. If his master were once ■ at full liberty to employ Papists, not a single Protestant would be employed. For a time a few highly favoured servants of the crown might possibly be exempted from the general proscription in the hope that they would be induced to change their religion. But even these would, after a short respite, fall one by one, as Rochester had already fallen. Churchill might indeed secure himself from this danger, and might raise himself still higher in the royal favour, by conforming to the Church of Rome; and it might seem that one who was not less distinguished by avarice and baseness than by capacity and valour was not likely to be shocked at the thought of hearing a mass. But so inconsistent is human nature that there are tender spots even in seared consciences. And thus this man, who had owed his rise to his sister’s dishonour, who had been kept by the most profuse, imperious, and shameless of harlots, and whose public life, to those who can look steadily through the dazzling blaze of genius and glory, will appear a prodigy of turpitude, believed implicitly in the religion which he had learned as a boy, and shuddered at the thought of formally abjuring it. A terrible alternative was before him. The earthly evil which he most dreaded was poverty. The one crime from which his heart recoiled was apostasy. And, if the designs of the Court succeeded, he could not doubt that between poverty and apostasy he must soon make his choice. He therefore determined to cross those designs; and it soon appeared that there was no guilt and no disgrace which he was not ready to incur, in order to escape from the necessity of parting either with his places or with his religion.* * The motive which determined the conduct of the Churchills is shortly and plainly set forth in the Duchess of Marlborough’s Vindication. “It was,” she says, “evident to all the world that, as things were carried on by King James, everybody sooner or later must be ruined, who would not become a Roman Catholic. This consideration made me very well pleased at the Prince of Orange's undertaking to rescue us from such slavery.” CHAP. VII. 1687. 6 * 84 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VII. 1687 . Lady Churchill and the Princess Anne. It was not only as a military commander, high in rank, and distinguished by skill and courage, that Churchill was able to render services to the opposition. It was, if not absolutely essential, yet most Important, to the success of William’s plans that his sister-in-law, who, in the order of succession to the English throne, stood between his wife and himself, should act in cordial union with him. All his difficulties would have been greatly augmented if Anne had declared herself favourable to the Indulgence. Which side she might take depended on the will of others. For her understanding was sluggish; and, though there was latent in her character a hereditary wilfulness and stubbornness which, many years later, great power and great provocations developed, she was as yet a willing slave to a nature far more vivacious and imperious than her own. The person by whom she was absolutely governed was the wife of Churchill, a woman who afterwards exercised a great influence on the fate of England and of Europe. The name of this celebrated favourite was Sarah Jennings. Her elder sister, Frances, had been distinguished by beauty and levity even among the crowd of beautiful faces and light characters which adorned and disgraced Whitehall during the wild carnival of the Restoration. On one occasion Frances dressed herself like an orange girl and cried fruit about the streets.* Sober people predicted that a girl of so little discretion and delicacy would not easily find a husband. She was however twice married, and was now the wife of Tyr- connel. Sarah, less regularly beautiful, was perhaps more attractive. Her face was expressive: her form wanted no feminine charm; and the profusion of her fine hair, not yet disguised by powder according to that barbarous fashion which she lived to see introduced, was the delight of numerous admirers. Among the gallants who sued for her favour, Colonel Churchill, young, handsome, graceful, insinuating, eloquent and brave, obtained the preference. He must have been enamoured indeed. For he had little property except the annuity which he had bought with the in- • Grammonl’s Memoirs; Pepys's Diary, Feb. 21 . 168}. JAMES TIIE SECOND. 85 famous wages bestowed on him by tbe Duchess of Cleveland: he was insatiable of riches: Sarah was poor; and a plain girl with a large fortune was proposed to him. His love, after a struggle, prevailed over his avarice: marriage only strengthened his passion; and, to the last hour of his life, Sarah enjoyed the pleasure and distinction of being the one human being who was able to mislead that far-sighted and sure-footed judgment, who was fervently loved by that cold heart, and who was servilely feared by that intrepid spirit. In a worldly sense the fidelity of Churchill’s love was amply rewarded. His bride, though slenderly portioned, brought with her a dowry which, judiciously employed, made him at length a Duke of England, a Prince of the Empire, the captain general of a great coalition, the arbiter between mighty princes, and, what he valued more, the wealthiest subject in Europe. She had been brought up from childhood with the Princess Anne; and a close friendship had arisen between the girls. In character they resembled each other very little. Anne was slow and taciturn. To those whom she loved she was meek. The form which her anger assumed was sullenness. She had a strong sense of religion, and was attached even with bigotry to the rites and government of the Church of England. Sarah was lively and voluble, domineered over those whom she regarded with most kindness, and, when she was offended, vented her rage in tears and tempestuous reproaches. To sanctity she made no pretence, and, indeed, narrowly escaped the imputation of irreligion. She was not yet what she became when one class of vices had been fully developed in her by prosperity, and another by' adversity, when her brain had been turned by success and flattery', when her heart had been ulcerated by disasters and mortifications. She lived to be that most odious and miserable of human beings, an ancient crone at war with her whole kind, at war with her own children and grandchildren, great indeed and rich, but valuing greatness and riches chiefly because they enabled her to brave public opinion and to indulge without restraint her hatred to the living and the dead. CHAP. VII. 1687. 86 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. CHAP. VII. 1687 . In the reign of James she was regarded as nothing worse than a fine high-spirited young woman, who could now and then be cross and arbitrary, but whose flaws of temper might well be pardoned in consideration of her charms. It is a common observation that differences of taste, understanding, and disposition, are no impediments to friendship, and that the closest intimacies often exist between minds each of which supplies what is wanting to the other. Lady Churchill was loved and even worshipped by Anne. The Princess could not live apart from the object of her romantic fondness. She married, and was a faithful and even an affectionate wife. But Prince George, a dull man whose chief pleasures were derived from his dinner and his bottle, acquired over her no influence comparable to that exercised by her female friend, and soon gave himself up with stupid patience to the dominion of that vehement and commanding spirit by which his wife was governed. Children were born to the royal pair: and Anne was by no means without the feelings of a mother. But the tenderness which she felt for her offspring was languid when compared with her devotion to the companion of her early years. At length the Princess became impatient of the restraint which etiquette imposed on her. She could not bear to hear the words Madam and Royal Highness from the lips of one who was more to her than a sister. Such words were indeed necessary in the gallery or the drawing-room; but they were disused in the closet. Anne was Mrs. Morley: Lady Churchill was Mrs. Freeman; and under these childish names was carried on during twenty years a correspondence on which at last the fate of administrations and dynasties depended. But as yet Anne had no political power and little patronage. Her friend attended her as first Lady of the Bedchamber, with a salary of only four hundred pounds a year. There is reason, however, to believe that, even at this time, Churchill was able to gratify his ruling passion by means of his wife’s influence. The Princess, though her incomo was large and her tastes simple, contracted debts which her father, not without some murmurs, discharged: and it was rumoured JAMES TPIE SECOND. 87 that her embarrassments had been caused by her prodigal c ^| p - bounty to her favourite. * mar. At length the time had arrived when this singular friendship was to exercise a great influence on public afl'airs. What part Anne would take in the contest which distracted England was matter of deep anxiety. Filial duty was on one side. The interests of the religion to which she was sincerely attached were on the other. A less inert nature might well have remained long in suspense when drawn in opposite directions by motives so strong and so respectable. But the influence of the Churchills decided the question; and their patroness became an important member of that extensive league of which the Prince of Orange was the head. In June 1687 Dykvolt returned to the Hague. He pro- Dyk/cit sented to the States General a royal epistle filled with eulogies i 0 tho of his conduct during his residence in London. These eulogies however were merely formal. James, in private nus rrom communications written with his own hand, bitterly com- eminent plained that the Envoy had lived in close intimacy with the most factious men in the realm, and had encouraged them in all their evil purposes. Dykvelt carried with him also a packet of letters from the most eminent of those with whom he had conferred during his stay in England. The writers generally expressed unbounded reverence and affection for William, and referred him to the bearer for fuller information as to their views. Halifax discussed the state and prospects of the country with his usual subtlety and vivacity, but took care not to pledge himself to any perilous line of conduct. Danby wrote in a bolder and more determined tone, and could not refrain from slily sneering at the fears and scruples of his accomplished rival. But the most remarkable letter was from Churchill. It was written with that natural eloquence which, illiterate as he was, he never wanted on great occasions, and with an air of magnanimity which, perfidious as he was, he • It would be endless to recount all the books from which I have formed my estimate of the duchess's character. Her own letters, her own vindication, and the replies which it called forth, have been my chief materials. 88 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap, could with singular dexterity assume. The Princess Anne, ——— he said, had commanded him to assure her illustrious relatives at the Hague that she was fully resolved by God’s help rather to lose her life than to be guilty of apostasy. As for himself, his places and the royal favour were as nothing to him in comparison with his religion. He concluded by declaring in lofty language that, though he could not pretend to have lived the life of a saint, he should be found ready, on occasion, to die the death of a martyr. * zuie- Dykvelt’s mission had succeeded so well that a pretence mission, ■whs soon found for sending another agent to continue the work which had been so auspiciously commenced. The new Envoy, afterwards the founder of a noble English house which became extinct in our own time, was an illegitimate cousin german of William; and bore a title taken from the lordship of Zulestein. Zulestein’s relationship to the House of Orange gave him importance in the public eye. His bearing was that of a gallant soldier. He was indeed in diplomatic talents and knowledge far inferior to Dykvelt: but even this inferiority had its advantages. A military man, who had never appeared to trouble himself about political affairs, could, without exciting any suspicion, hold with the English aristocracy an intercourse which, if he had been a noted master of state craft, would have been jealously watched. Zulestein, after a short absence, returned to his country charged with letters and verbal messages not less important than those which had been entrusted to his predecessor. A regular correspondence was from this time established between the Prince and the opposition. Agents of various ranks passed and repassed between the Thames and the Hague. Among these a Scotchman, of some parts and great activity, named Johnstone, was the most useful. He was cousin of Burnet, and son of an eminent covenanter who had, soon after the Restoration, been put to death for treason, and who was honoured by his party as a martyr. * The formal epistle which Dykvelt carried back to the Stales is in the Archives at the Hague. The other letters mentioned in this paragraph are given by Dalrymple. App. to Book V. JAMES THE SECOND. 89 The estrangement between the King of England and the chap- Prince of Orange became daily more complete. A serious ■ 1687 dispute had arisen concerning the six British regiments which Growing were in the pay of the United Provinces. The King wished to put these regiments under the command of Roman Catholic James officers. The Prince resolutely opposed this design. The wuiiam. King had recourse to his favourite commonplaces about toleration. The Prince replied that he only followed his Majesty’s example. It was notorious that loyal and able men had been turned out of office in England merely for being Protestants. It was then surely competent to the Stadtholder and the States General to withhold high public trusts from Papists, This answer provoked James to such a degree that, in his rage, he lost sight of veracity and common sense. It was false, he vehemently said, that he had ever turned out any body on religious grounds. And if he had, what was that to the Prince or to the States? Were they his masters? Were they to sit in judgment on the conduct of foreign sovereigns? From that time he became desirous to recall his subjects who were in the Dutch service. By bringing them over to England he should, he conceived, at once strengthen himself, and weaken his worst enemies. But there were financial difficulties which it was impossible for him to overlook. The number of troops already in his service was as great as his revenue, though large beyond all precedent and though parsimoniously administered, would support. If the battalions now inHolland were added to the existing establishment, the Treasury would be bankrupt. Perhaps Lewis might be induced to take them into his service. They would in that case be removed from a country where they were exposed to the corrupting influence of a republican government and a Calvinistic worship, and would be placed in a country where none ventured to dispute the mandates of the sovereign or the doctrines of the true Church. The soldiers would soon unlearn every political and religious heresy. Their native prince might always, at short notice, command their help, and would, on any emergency, be able to rely on their fidelity. 90 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VII. 1687 . Influence of the Dutch press. A negotiation on this subject was opened between Whitehall and Versailles. Lewis had as many soldiers as he wanted; and, had it been otherwise, he would not have been disposed to take Englishmen into his service; for the pay of England, low as it must seem to our generation, was much higher than the pay of France. At the same time, it was a great object to deprive William of so fine a brigade. After some weeks of correspondence, Barillon was authorised to promise that, if James would recall the British troops from Holland, Lewis would bear the charge of supporting two thousand of them in England. This offer was accepted by James with warm expressions of gratitude. Having made these arrangements, he requested the States General to send back the six regiments. The States General, completely governed by William, answered that such a demand, in such circumstances, was not authorised by the existing treaties, and positively refused to comply. It is remarkable that Amsterdam, which had voted for keeping these troops in Holland when James needed their help against the Western insurgents, now contended vehemently that his request ought to be granted. On both occasions, the sole object of those who ruled that great city was to cross the Prince of Orange. * The Dutch arms, however, were scarcely so formidable to James as the Dutch presses. English books and pamphlets against his government were daily printed at the Hague; nor could any vigilance prevent copies from being smuggled, by tens of thousands, into the counties bordering on the German Ocean. Among these publications, one was distinguished by its importance, and by the immense effect which it produced. The opinion which the Prince and Princess of Orange held respecting the Indulgence was well known' to all who were conversant with public affairs. But, as no offi- * Sunderland to William, Aug. 24. 1686; William to Sunderland, Sept. a. 1686; Barillon, May*. Oct. A 1681 i Lewis 10 Barillon, Oct. £$. 1687; Memorial ofAlbeville, Dec. ii. 1681; James to William, Jan. 17. Feb. 16 March 2. 13. 1688 j Avaux Neg., March-ft. ft. tV April 1. JAMES THE SECOND. 91 cial announcement of that opinion had appeared, many per- ® I ] -^ P - sons who had not access to good private sources of informa- — tion were deceived or perplexed by the confidence with which the partisans of the Court asserted that their Highnesses approved of the King’s late acts. To contradict those assertions publicly would have been asimple and obvious course, if the sole object of William had been to strengthen his interest in England. But he considered England chiefly as an instrument necessary to the execution of his great European design. Towards that design he hoped to obtain the cooperation of both branches of the House of Austria, of the Italian princes, and even of the Sovereign Pontiff. There was reason to fear that any declaration which was satisfactory to British Protestants would excite alarm and disgust at Madrid, Vienna, Turin, and Rome. For this reason the Prince long abstained from formally expressing his sentiments. At length it was represented to him that his continued silence had excited much uneasiness and distrust among his wellwishers, and that it was time to speak out. He therefore determined to explain himself. A Scotch Whig, named James Stewart, had fled, somecorro- years before, to Holland, in order to avoid the boot and the of gallows, and had become intimate with the Grand Pensionary Stewart Fagel, who enjoyed a large share of the Stadtholder’s con- Fagel. tidence and favour. By Stewart had been drawn up the violent and acrimonious manifesto of Argyle. When the Indulgence. appeared, Stewart conceived that he had an opportunity of obtaining, not only pardon, but reward. He offered his services to the government of which he had been the enemy: they were accepted; and he addressed to Fagel a letter, purporting to have been written by the direction of James. In that letter the Pensionary was exhorted to use all his influence with the Prince and Princess, for the purpose of inducing them to support their father’s policy. After some delay Fagel transmitted a reply, deeply meditated, and drawn up with exquisite art. No person who studies that remarkable document can fail to perceive that, though it is framed in a manner well calculated to reassure and delight 92 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. i : •: ii'm )> (ft , . Ijp cnAP. English Protestants, it contains not a word which could give ■ ‘ offence, even at the Vatican. It was announced that William and Mary would, with pleasure, assist in abolishing every law which made any Englishman liable to punishment for his religious opinions. But between punishments and disabilities a distinction was taken. To admit Roman Catholics to office would, in the judgment of their Highnesses, be neither for the general interest of England nor even for the interest of the Reman Catholics themselves. This manifesto was translated into several languages, and circulated widely on the Continent. Of the English version, carefully prepared by Burnet, near fifty thousand copies were introduced into the eastern shires, and rapidly distributed over the whole kingdom. No state paper was ever more completely successful. The Protestants of our island applauded the manly firmness with which William declared that he could not consent to entrust Papists with any share in the government. The Roman Catholic princes, on the other hand, were pleased by the mild and temperate style in which his resolution was expressed, and by the hope which he held out that, under his administration, no member of their Church would be molested on account of religion. Castei- It is probable that the Pope himself was among those who embassy read this celebrated letter with pleasure. He had some 10 nomc. months before dismissed Castelmaine in a manner which showed little regard for the feelings of Castelmaine’s master. Innocent thoroughly disliked the whole domestic and foreign policy of the English government. He saw that the unjust and impolitic measures of the Jesuitical cabal were far more likely to make the penal laws perpetual than to bring about an abolition of the test. His quarrel with the court of Versailles was every day becoming more and more serious; nor could he, either in his character of temporal prince or in his character of Sovereign Pontiff, feel cordial friendship for a vassal of that court. Castelmaine was ill qualified to remove these disgusts. He was indeed well acquainted with Rome, and was, for a layman, deeply read in theological controversy.* • Adda, Nov. 1685. JAMES THE SECOND. 93 But he had none of the address which his post required; and, even had he been a diplomatist of the greatest ability, there was a circumstance which would have disqualified him for the particular mission on which he had been sent. He was known all over Europe as the husband of the most shameless of women; and he was known in no other way. It was impossible to speak to him or of him without remembering in what manner the very title by which he was called had been acquired. This circumstance would have mattered little if he had been accredited to some dissolute court, such as that in which the Duchess of Montespan had lately been dominant. But there was an obvious impropriety in sending him on an embassy rather of a spiritual than of a secular nature to a pontiff of primitive austerity. The Protestants all over Europe sneered; and Innocent, already unfavourably disposed to the English government, considered the compliment which had been paid him, at so much risk and at so heavy a cost, as little better than an affront. The salary of the Ambassador was fixed at a hundred pounds a week. Castelmaine complained that this was too little. Thrice the sum, he said, would hardly suffice. For at Rome the ministers of all the great continental powers exerted themselves to surpass one another in splendour, under the eyes of a people whom the habit of seeing magnificent buildings, decorations, and ceremonies had made fastidious. He always declared that he had been a loser by his mission. He was accompanied by several young gentlemen of the best Roman Catholic families in England, Ratcliffes, Arundells and Tich- bornes. At Rome he was lodged in the palace of the house of Pamfili on the south of the stately Place of Navona. He was early admitted to a private interview with Innocent: but the public audience was long delayed. Indeed Castelmaine’s preparations for that great occasion were so sumptuous that, though commenced at Easter 1686, they were not complete till the following November; and in November the Pope had, or pretended to have, an attack of gout which caused another postponement. In January 1687, at length, the solemn introduction and homage were performed with unusual pomp. CtlAP. VII. 1687 . HISTORY OF ENGLAND. The state coaches, which had been built at Rome for the pageant, were so superb that they were thought worthy to be transmitted to posterity in fine engravings and to be celebrated by poets in several languages. * The front of the Ambassador’s palace was decorated on this greaj day with absurd allegorical paintings of gigantic size. There was Saint George with his foot on the neck of Titus Oates, andHercules with his club crushing College, the Protestant joiner, who in vain attempted to defend himself with his flail. After this public appearance Castelmaine invited all the persons of note then assembled at Rome to a banquet in that gay and splendid gallery which is adorned with paintings of subjects from the TEneid by Peter of Cortona. The whole city crowded to the show; and it was with difficulty that a company of Swiss guards could keep order among the spectators. The nobles of the Pontifical state in return gave costly entertainments to the Ambassador; and poets and wits were employed to lavish on him and on his master insipid and hyperbolical adulation such as flourishes most when genius and taste are in the deepest decay. Foremost among the flatterers was a crowned head. More than thirty years had elapsed since Christina, the daughter of the great Gustavus, had voluntarily descended from the Swedish throne. After long wanderings, in the course of which she had committed many follies and crimes, she had finally taken up her abode at Rome, where she busied herself with astrological calculations and with the intrigues of the conclave, and amused herself * The Professor of Greek in the College De Propaganda Fide expressed his admiration in some detestable hexameters and pentameters, of which the following specimen may suffice: — Vi'iytniuv r)>■; axc^fo/xiroq ka/jinqoZo Onlatipuv , 3 JIxa fiak* jj'iaoev xal &tev o/kos anaq * OaVfiaZovGa dt T rr JTounr.v , 7toty/Qii(Tid r avTOV “Aq/i am, TOvf &’ t/rrrouc, tolaSi’Poifi?] trpi]. The Latin verses are a little better. Nahum Tale responded in English: “His glorious train and passing pomp to view, A pomp that even to Home itself was new, Each age, each sex, the Latian turrets Riled, Each age and sex in tears of joy distilled.” JAMES THE SECOND. 95 •with pictures, gems, manuscripts, and medals. She now composed some Italian stanzas in honour of the English- prince who, sprung, like herself, from a race of Kings heretofore regarded as the champions of the Reformation, had, like herself, been reconciled to the ancient Church. A splendid assembly met in her palace. Her verses, set to music, were sung with universal applause: and one of her literary dependents pronounced an oration on the same subject in a style so florid that it seems to have offended the taste of the English hearers. The Jesuits, hostile to the Pope, devoted to the interests of France and disposed to pay every honour to James, received the English embassy with the utmost pomp in that princely house where the remains of Ignatius Loyola lie enshrined in lazulite and gold. Sculpture, painting, poetry, and eloquence were employed to compliment the strangers: but all these arts had sunk into deep degeneracy. There was a great display of turgid and impure Latinity unworthy of so erudite an order; and some of the inscriptions which adorned the walls had a fault more serious than even a bad style. It was said in one place that James had sent his brother as his messenger to heaven, and in another that James had furnished the wings with which his brother had soared to a higher region. There was a still more unfortunate distich, which at the time attracted little notice, but which, a few months later, was remembered and malignantly interpreted. “O King,” said the poet, “cease to sigh for a son. Though nature may refuse your wish, the stars will find a way to grant it.” In the midst of these festivities Castelmaine had to suffer cruel mortifications and humiliations. The Pope treated him with extreme coldness and reserve. As often as the Ambassador pressed for an answer to the request which he had been instructed to make in favour of Petre, Innocent was taken with a violent fit of coughing, which put an end to the conversation. The fame of these singular audiences spread over Rome. Pasquin was not silent. All the curious and tattling population of the idlest of cities, the Jesuits and the prelates of the French faction only excepted, laughed at Castelmaine’s cnAP. VII. 1687 . 96 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VII. 168T. discomfiture. His temper, naturally unamiable, was soon exasperated to violence; and he circulated a memorial reflecting on the Pope. He had now put himself in the wrong. The sagacious Italian had got the advantage, and took care to keep it. He positively declared that the rule which excluded Jesuits from ecclesiastical preferment should not he relaxed in favour of Father Petre. Castelmaine, much provoked, threatened to leave Rome. Innocent replied, with a meek impertinence which was the more provoking because it could scarcely he distinguished from simplicity, that his Excellency might go if he liked. “But if we must lose him,” added the venerable Pontiff", “ I hope that he will take care of his health on the road. English people do not know how dangerous it is in this country to travel in the heat of the day. The best way is to start before dawn, and to take some rest at noon.” With this salutary advice and with a string of beads, the unfortunate Ambassador was dismissed. In a few months appeared, both in the Italian and in the English tongue, a pompous history of the mission, magnificently printed in folio, and illustrated with plates. The frontispiece, to the great scandal of all Protestants, represented Castelmaine in the robes of a Peer, with his coronet in his hand, kissing the toe of Innocent.* * Correspondence of James and Innocent, in the British Museum; Burnet, i. 103—705.; Welwood’s Memoirs; Commons’Journals, Oct. 28. 1689; An Account of bis Excellency Roger Earl of Caslelmaine’s Embassy, by Michael Wright, chief steward of his Excellency’s house at Rome, 1688. r CHAPTER YIH. The marked discourtesy of the Pope might well have irri- cuap. tated the meekest of princes. But the only effect which it ■ produced on James was to make him more lavish of caresses Consc _ and compliments. While Castelmaine, his whole soul festered oration with angry passions, was on his road back to England, the Nuncio at Nuncio was loaded with honours which his own judgment would have led him to reject. He had, by a fiction often used in the Church of Rome, been lately raised to the episcopal dignity without having the charge of any see. He was called Archbishop of Amasia, a city ofPontus, the birthplace of Strabo and Mithridates. James insisted that the ceremony of consecration should be performed in the chapel of Saint James’s Palace. The Vicar Apostolic Leyburn and two Irish prelates officiated. The doors were thrown open to the public; and it was remarked that some of those Puritans who had recently turned courtiers were among the spectators. In the evening Adda, wearing the robes of his new office, joined the circle in the Queen’s apartments. James fell on his knees in the presence of the whole Court and implored a blessing. In spite of the restraint imposed by etiquette, the astonishment and disgust of the bystanders could not be concealed.* It was long indeed since an English sovereign had knelt to mortal man; and those who saw the strange sight could not but think of that day of shame when John did homage for his crown between the hands ofPandolph. In a short time a still more ostentatious pageant was per- His pub- formed in honour of the Holy See. It was determined that 1 ?' 1 ?' the JNuncio should go to Court in solemn procession. Some persons on whose obedience the King had counted showed, on this occasion, for the first time, signs of a mutinous spirit. * Barillon, May 1687. Macaulay, History. III. 7 98 2I 1 -i fi-ii !•!! HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. Among these the most conspicuous was the second temporal ■peer of the realm, Charles Seymour, commonly called the The Duke P rou d Duke of Somerset. He was in truth a man in whom the of so- pride of birth and rank amounted almost to a disease. The mcrset. f or j une w j 1 ; c j 1 } ie had inherited was not adequate to the high place which he held among the English aristocracy: but he had become possessed of the greatest estate in England by his marriage with the daughter and heiress of the last Percy who wore the ancient coronet of Northumberland. Somerset was only in his twenty-fifth year, and was very little known to the public. He was a Lord of the King’s Bedchamber, and colonel of one of the regiments which had been raised at the time of the Western insurrection. He had not scrupled to carry the sword of state into the royal chapel on days of festival: but he now resolutely refused to swell the pomp of the Nuncio. Some members of his family implored him not to draw on himself the royal displeasure: but their intreaties produced no effect. The King himself expostulated. “I thought, my Lord,” said he, “that I was doing you a great honour in appointing you to escort the minister of the first of all crowned heads.” “Sir,” said the Duke, “I am advised that I cannot obey your Majesty without breaking the law.” “I will make you fear me as well as the law,” answered the King, insolently. “Do you not know that I am above the law?” “Your Majesty may be above the law,” replied Somerset; “but I am not; and, while I obey the law, I fear nothing.” The King turned away in high displeasure, and Somerset was instantly dismissed from his posts in the household and in the army.* On one point, however, James showed some prudence. He did not venture to parade the Papal Envoy in state before the vast population of the capital. The ceremony was performed, on the third of July 1687, at Windsor. Great multitudes flocked to the little town. The visitors were so numerous that there was neither food nor lodging for them; and * Memoirs of Ihe Duke of Somerset; Citters, July A' *681; Eachard’s History of the Revolution; Clarke’s Life of James the Second, ii. 116, 117,118.; Lord Lonsdale’s Memoirs. JAMES THE SECOND. 99 many persons of quality sate the whole day in their carriages C >J^- waiting for the exhibition. At length, late in the afternoon, 1667 .‘ ■ the Knight Marshal’s men appeared on horseback. Then came a long train of running footmen; and then, in a royal coach, appeared Adda, robed in purple, with a brilliant cross on his breast. He was followed by the equipages of the principal courtiers and ministers of state. In his train the crowd recognised with disgust the arms and liveries of Crewe, Bishop of Durham, and of Cartwright, Bishop of Chester.* On the following day appeared in the Gazette a pro- ' clamation dissolving that Parliament which of all the fifteen the Par- Parliaments held by the Stuarts had been the most ob- hamont • sequious.** Meanwhile new difficulties had arisen in Westminster Hall. Only a few months had elapsed since some Judges had been turned out and others put in for the purpose of obtaining a decision favourable to the crown in the case of Sir Edward Hales; and already fresh changes were necessary. The King had scarcely formed that army on which he Military chiefly depended for the accomplishing of his designs when he illegally found that he could not himself control it. When war was P ,mishl ' <1 - actually raging in the kingdom a mutineer or a deserter might be tried by a military tribunal and executed by the Provost Marshal. But there was now profound peace. The common law of England, having sprung up in an age when all men bore arms occasionally and none constantly, recognised no distinction, in time of peace, between a soldier and any other subject; nor was there any Act resembling that by which the authority necessary for the government of regular troops is now annually confided to the Sovereign. Some old statutes indeed made desertion felony in certain specified cases. But those statutes were applicable only to soldiers serving the King in actual war, and could not without the grossest disingenuousness be so strained as to include the case of a man who, in a time of profound tranquillity at home and abroad, ’ London Gazelle, July 1. 1687; Cillers, July T V Account of the ceremony reprinted among the Somers Tracts. ** London Gazette, July 4.1087. 7 100 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1687 . should become tired of the camp at Hounslow and should go back to his native village. The government appears to have had no hold on such a man, except the hold which master bakers and master tailors have on their journeymen. He and his officers were, in the eye of the law, on a level. If he swore at them he might be fined for an oath. If he struck them he might be prosecuted for assault and battery. In truth the regular army was under less restraint than the militia. For the militia was a body established by an Act of Parliament, and it had been provided by that Act that slight punishments might be summarily inflicted for breaches of discipline. It does not appear that, during the reign of Charles the Second, the practical inconvenience arising from this state of the law had been much felt. The explanation may perhaps be that, till the last year of his reign, the force which he maintained inEngland consisted chiefly of household troops, whose pay was so high that dismission from the service would have been felt by most of them as a great calamity. The stipend of a private in the Life Guards was a provision for the younger son of a gentleman. Even the Foot Guards were paid about as high as manufacturers in a prosperous season, and were therefore in a situation which the great body of the labouring population might regard with envy. The return of the garrison of Tangier and the raising of the new regiments had made a great change. There were now in England many thousands of soldiers, each of whom received only eiglitpence a day. The dread of dismission was not sufficient to keep them to their duty: and corporal punishment their officers could not legally inflict. James had therefore one plain choice before him, to let his army dissolve itself, or to induce the Judges to pronounce that the law was what every barrister in the Temple knew that it was not. It was peculiarly important to secure the cooperation of two courts; the court of King’s Bench, which was the first criminal tribunal in the realm, and the court of gaol delivery which sate at the Old Bailey, and which had jurisdiction over offences committed in the capital. In both these courts there were great difficulties. Herbert, Chief Justice of the King’s JAMES THE SECOND. 101 Bench, servile as he had hitherto been, would go no further. Resistance still more sturdy was to be expected from Sir John Holt, who, as Recorder of the City of London, occupied the bench at the Old Bailey. Holt was an eminently learned and clear-headed lawyer: he was an upright and courageous man; and, though he had never been factious, his political opinions had a tinge of Whiggism. All obstacles, however, disappeared before the royal will. Holt was turned out of the re- cordership. Herbert and another Judge were removed from the King’s Bench; and the vacant places were filled by persons in whom the government could confide. It was indeed necessary to go very low down in the legal profession before men could be found willing to render sucb services as were now required. The new Chief Justice, Sir Robert Wright, was ignorant to a proverb; yet ignorance was not his worst fault. His vices had ruined him. He had resorted to infamous ways of raising money, and had, on one occasion, made a false affidavit in order to obtain possession of five hundred pounds. Poor, dissolute, and shameless, he had become one of the parasites of Jeffreys, who promoted him and insulted him. Such was the man who was now selected by James to be Lord Chief Justice of England. One Richard Allibone, who was even more ignorant of the law than Wright, and who, as a Roman Catholic, was incapable of holding office, was appointed a puisne Judge of the King’s Bench. Sir Bartholomew Shower, equally notorious as a servile Tory and a tedious orator, became Recorder of London. When these changes had been made, several deserters were brought to trial. They were convicted in the face of the letter and of the spirit of the law. Some received sentence of death at the bar of the King’s Bench, some at the Old Bailey. They were hanged in sight of the regiments to which they had belonged; and carewas taken that the executions should be announced in the London Gazette, which very seldom noticed such events.* * See Ibe statutes 18 Henry 6. c. 19.; 2 & 3 Ed. 6. c. 2.; Eachard's History of the Revolution; Rennet, iii. 468.; North’s Life of Guildford, 241.; London Gazette, April 18 . May 23. 1687; Vindication of the E. of R. (Earl of Rochester). CHAP. VIII. 1687 . 102 HISTOKY OP ENGLAND. chap. It may well be believed, that the law, so grossly insulted ■ 163 ; ~ by courts which derived from it all their authority, and which Proceed- were the habit of looking to it as their guide, would be in g s of little respected by a tribunal which had originated in tyran- commis- nical caprice. The new High Commission had, during the sion. ti rs t months of its existence, merely inhibited clergymen from exercising spiritual functions. The rights of property had remained untouched. But, early in the year lGi>7, it was determined to strike at freehold interests, and to impress on every Anglican priest and prelate the conviction that, if he refused to lend his aid for the purpose of destroying the Church of which he was a minister, he would in an hour be reduced to beggary. The uni- It would have been prudent to try the first experiment on versi les. some 0 tj SCure individual. But the government was under an infatuation such as, in a more simple age, would have been called judicial. War was therefore at once declared against the two most venerable corporations of the realm, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The power of those bodies has during many ages been great; but it was at the height during the latter part of the seventeenth century. None of the neighbouring countries could boast of such splendid and opulent seats of learning. The schools of Edinburgh and Glasgow, of Leyden and Utrecht, of Louvain and Leipsic, of Padua and Bologna, seemed mean to scholars who had been educated in the magnificent foundations of Wykeham and Wolsey, of Henry the Sixth and Henry the Eighth. Literature and science were, in the academical system of England, surrounded with pomp, armed with magistracy, and closely allied with all the most august institutions of the state. To be the Chancellor of an University was a distinction eagerly sought by the magnates of the realm. To represent an University in Parliament was a favourite object of the ambition of statesmen. Nobles and even princes were proud to receive from an University the privilege of wearing the doctoral scarlet. The curious were attracted to the Universities by ancient buildings rich with the tracery of the middle ages, by modern buildings JAMES THE SECOND. 103 ■which exhibited the highest skill of Jones and Wren, by noble halls and chapels, by museums, by botanical gardens, and- by the only great public libraries which the kingdom then contained. The state which Oxford especially displayed on solemn occasions rivalled that of sovereign princes. When her Chancellor, the venerable Duke of Ormond, sate in his embroidered mantle on his throne under the painted ceiling of the Sheldonian theatre, surrounded by hundreds of graduates robed according to their rank, while the noblest youths of England were solemnly presented to him as candidates for academical honours, he made an appearance scarcely less regal than that which his master made in the Banqueting House of Whitehall. At the Universities had been formed the minds of almost all the eminent clergymen, lawyers, physicians, wits, poets, and orators of the land, and of a large proportion of the nobility and of the opulent gentry. It is also to be observed that the connection between the scholar and the school did not terminate with his residence. He often continued to be through life a member of the academical body, and to vote as such at all important elections. He therefore regarded his old haunts by the Cam and the Isis with even more than the affection which educated men ordinarily feel for the place of their education. There was no corner of England in which both Universities had not grateful and zealou's sons. Any attack on the honour or interests of either Cambridge or Oxford was certain to excite the resentment of a powerful, active, and intelligent class scattered over every county from Northumberland to Cornwall. The resident graduates, as a body, were perhaps not superior positively to the resident graduates of our time: but they occupied a far higher position as compared with the rest of the community. For Cambridge and Oxford were then the only two provincial towns in the kingdom in which could be found a large number of men whose understandings had been highly cultivated. Even the capital felt great respect for the authority of the Universities, not only on questions of divinity, of natural philosophy, and of classical antiquity, but also on points on which capitals generally claim the right of CHAP. VIII. "Tear. 104 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1687 . Proceedings against the Uui- Tersity oi Cambridge. deciding in the last resort. From Will’s coffee-house, and from the pit of the theatre royal in Drury Lane, an appeal lay to the two great national seats of taste and learning. Plays which had been enthusiastically applauded in London were not thought out of danger till they had undergone the more severe judgment of audiences familiar with Sophocles and Terence.* The great moral and intellectual influence of the English Universities had been strenuously exerted on the side of the crown. The head quarters of Charles the First had been at Oxford; and the silver tankards and salvers of all the colleges had been melted down to supply his military chest. Cambridge was not less loyally disposed. She had sent a large part of her plate to the royal camp; and the rest would have followed had not the town been seized by the troops of the Parliament. Both Universities had been treated with extreme severity by the victorious Puritans. Both had hailed the Restoration with delight. Both had steadily opposed the Exclusion Bill. Both had expressed the deepest horror at the Rye House Plot. Cambridge had not only deposed her Chancellor Monmonth, but had marked her abhorrence of his treason in a manner unworthy of a seat of learning, by committing to the flames the canvass on which his pleasing face and figure had been portrayed by the utmost skill of Kneller.** Oxford, which lay nearer to the Western insurgents, had given still stronger proofs of loyalty. The students, under the sanction of their preceptors, had taken arms by hundreds in defence of hereditary right. Such were the bodies which James now determined to insult and plunder in direct defiance of the laws and of his plighted faith. Several Acts of Parliament, as clear as any that were to be found in the statute book, had provided that no person should be admitted to any degree in either University without • Dryden’s Prologues and Cibber’s Memoirs contain abundant prooTs of the estimation in which the taste of the Oxonians was held by the most admired poets and actors. ** See the poem called Advice to the Painter upon the Defeat of the Rebels in the \Vest. See also another poem, a most detestable one, on the same subject, by Stepney, who was then studying at Trinity College. JAMES THE SECOND. 105 taking the oath of supremacy, and another oath of similar character called the oath of obedience. Nevertheless, in- February 1687, a royal letter was sent to Cambridge directing that a Benedictine monk, named Alban Francis, should be admitted a Master of Arts. The academical functionaries, divided between reverence for the King and reverence for the law, were in great distress. Messengers were despatched in all haste to the Duke of Albemarle, who had succeeded Monmouth as Chancellor of the University. He was requested to represent the matter properly to the King. Meanwhile the Registrar and Bedells waited on Francis, and informed him that, if he would take the oaths according to law, he should instantly be admitted. He refused to be sworn, remonstrated with the officers of the University on their disregard of the royal mandate, and, finding them resolute, took horse, and hastened to relate his grievances at Whitehall. The heads of the colleges now assembled in council. The best legal opinions were taken, and were decidedly in favour of the course which had been pursued. But a second letter from Sunderland, in high and menacing terms, was already on the road. Albemarle informed the University, with many expressions of concern, that he had done his best, but that he had been coldly and ungraciously received by the King. The academical body, alarmed by the royal displeasure, and conscientiously desirous to meet the royal wishes, but determined not to violate the clear law of the land, submitted the humblest and most respectful explanations, but to no purpose. In a short time came down a summons citing the Vicechancellor and the Senate to appear before the new High Commission at Westminster on the twenty-first of April. The Vicechancellor was to attend in person; the Senate, which consists of all the Doctors and Masters of the University, was to send deputies. When the appointed day arrived, a great concourse filled the Council chamber. Jeffreys sate at the head of the board. Rochester, since the white staff had been taken from him, CHAP. vjij. its-. 106 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap. was no longer a member. In his stead appeared the Lord 1(i87 ' - Chamberlain, John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave. The fate The Earl ^’ s nobleman has, in one respect, resembled the fate of Mui- of his colleague Sprat. Mulgrave wrote verses which scarcely grave, ever rose above absolute mediocrity; but, as he was a man of high note in the political and fashionable world, these verses found admirers. Time dissolved the charm, but, unfortunately for him, not until his lines had acquired a prescriptive right to a place in all collections of the works of English poets. To this day accordingly his insipid essays in rhyme and his paltry songs to Amoretta and Gloriana are reprinted in company with Comus and Alexander’s Feast. The consequence is that our generation knows Mulgrave chiefly as a poetaster, and despises him as such. In truth however he was, by the acknowledgment of those who neither loved nor esteemed him, a man distinguished by fine parts, and in parliamentary eloquence inferior to scarcely any orator of his time. His moral character was entitled to no respect. He was a libertine without that openness of heart and hand which sometimes makes libertinism amiable, and a haughty aristocrat without that elevation of sentiment which sometimes makes aristocratical haughtiness respectable. The satirists of the age nicknamed him Lord Allpride. Yet was his pride compatible with all ignoble vices. Many wondered that a man who had so exalted a sense of his dignity could be so hard and niggardly in all pecuniary dealings. He had given deep offence to the royal family by venturing to entertain the hope that he might win the heart and hand of the Princess Anne. Disappointed in this attempt, he had exerted himself to regain by meanness the favour which he had forfeited by presumption. His epitaph, written by himself, still informs all who pass through Westminster Abbey that he lived and died a sceptic in religion; and we learn from the memoirs which he wrote that one of his favourite subjects of mirth was the Romish superstition. Yet he began, as soon as James was on the throne, to express a strong inclination towards Popery, and at length in private affected to be a con- JAMES THE SECOND. 107 vert. This abject hypocrisy had been rewarded by a place in the Ecclesiastical Commission.* Before that formidable tribunal now appeared the Vice- chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Doctor John Pechell. He was a man of no great ability or vigour; but he was accompanied by eight distinguished academicians, elected by the Senate. One of these was Isaac Newton, Fellow of Trinity College, and Professor of mathematics. His genius was then in the fullest vigour. The great work, which entitles him to the highest place among the geometricians and natural philosophers of all ages and of all nations, had been some time printing under the sanction of the Royal Society', and was almost ready for publication. He was the steady friend of civil liberty and of the Protestant religion: but his habits by no means fitted him for the conflicts of active life. He therefore stood modestly silent among the delegates, and left to men more versed in practical business the task of pleading the cause of his beloved University. Never was there a clearer case. The law was express. The practice had been almost invariably' in conformity with the law. It might perhaps have happened that, on a day of great solemnity, when many honorary degrees were conferred, a person who had not taken the oaths might have passed in the crowd. But such an irregularity, the effect of mere haste and inadvertence, could not be cited as a precedent. Foreign ambassadors of various religions, and in particular one Mussulman, had been admitted without the oaths. But it might well be doubted whether such cases fell within the reason and spirit of the Acts of Parliament. It was not even pretended that any person to whom the oaths had been tendered and who had refused them had ever taken a degree; and this was the situation in which Franeis stood. The delegates offered to prove that, in the late reign, several * Mackay’s character of Sheffield, with Swift’s note; the Satire on the Deponents, 1088; Life of John, Duke ofBuckinghamsbire, 1129; Barillon, Aug. 30. 1681. I have a manuscript lampoon on Mulgrave, dated 1090. It is not destitute of spirit. The most remarkable lines are these: - “ Peters (Petre) to-day and Burnet to-morrow, Knaves of all sides and religions he’ll woo." CHAP. VIII. 1687 . 108 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1687 . Stale of Oxford. royal mandates had been treated as nullities because the persons recommended had not chosen to qualify according to law, and that, on such occasions, the government had always acquiesced in the propriety of the course taken by the University. But Jeffreys would hear nothing. He soon found out that the Vicechancellor was weak, ignorant, and timid, and therefore gave a loose to all.that insolence which had long been the terror of the Old Bailey. The unfortunate Doctor, unaccustomed to such a presence and to such treatment, was soon harassed and scared into helpless agitation. When other academicians who were more capable of defending their cause attempted to speak they were rudely silenced. “You are not Vicechancellor. When you are, you may talk. Till then it will become you to hold your peace.” The defendants were thrust out of the court without a hearing. In a short time they were called in again, and informed that the Commissioners had determined to deprive Pechell of the Vicechancellorship, and to suspend him from all the emoluments to which he was entitled as Master of a college, emoluments which were strictly of the nature of freehold property. “As for you,” said Jeffreys to the delegates, “most of you are divines. I will therefore send you home with a text of scripture, ‘Go your way and sin no more, lest a worse thing happen to you.’ ” * These proceedings might seem sufficiently unjust and violent. But the King had already begun to treat Oxford with such rigour that the rigour shown towards Cambridge might, by comparison, be called lenity. Already University College had been turned by Obadiah Walker into a Roman Catholic seminary. Already Christ Church was governed by a Roman Catholic Dean. Mass was already said daily in both those colleges. The tranquil and majestic city, so long the stronghold of monarchical principles, was agitated by passions which it had never before known. The undergraduates, with the connivance of those who were in authority over them, hooted the members of Walker’s congregation, and chanted * See Ihe proceedings against the University of Cambridge in the collection of Stale Trials. * t Hty JAMES THE SECOND. 109 satirical ditties under his windows. Some fragments of the serenades which then disturbed the High Street have been preserved. The burden of one ballad was this: “ Old Obadiah Sings Ave Maria.” When the actors came down to Oxford, the public feeling was expressed still more strongly. Howard’s Committee was performed. This play, written soon after the Restoration, exhibited the Puritans in an odious and contemptible light, and had therefore been, during a quarter of a century, a favourite with Oxonian audiences. It was now a greater favourite than ever; for, by a lucky coincidence, one of the most conspicuous characters was an old hypocrite named Obadiah. The audience shouted with delight when, in the last scene, Obadiah was dragged in with a halter round his neck; and the acclamations redoubled when one of the players, departing from the written text of the comedy, proclaimed that Obadiah should be hanged because he had changed his religion. The King was much provoked by this insult. So mutinous indeed was the temper of the University that one of the newly raised regiments, the same which is now called the Second Dragoon Guards, was quartered at Oxford for the purpose of preventing an outbreak. * These events ought to have convinced James that he had entered on a course which must lead him to his ruin. To the clamours of London he had been long accustomed. They had been raised against him, sometimes unjustly, and sometimes vainly. He had repeatedly braved them, and might brave them still. But that Oxford, the seat of loyalty, the head quarters of the Cavalier army, the place where his father and brother had held their court when they thought themselves insecure in their stormy capital, the place where the writings of the great republican teachers had recently been committed to the flames, should now be in a ferment of discontent, that those high-spirited youths who a few months • Wood’s Alhenae Oxonienses; Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber; Cilters, March ,V 16 S 6 . CHAP. VIII. 1687 . 110 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. cnAP. VIII. 1687 . before had eagerly volunteered to march against the Western insurgents should now be with difficulty kept down by sword and carbine, these were signs full of evil omen to the House of Stuart. The warning, however, was lost on the dull, stubborn, self-willed tyrant. He was resolved to transfer to his own Church all the wealthiest and most splendid foundations of England. It was to no purpose that the best and wisest of his Roman Catholic counsellors remonstrated. They represented to him that he had it in his power to render a great service to the cause of his religion without violating the rights of property. A grant of two thousand pounds a year from his privy purse would support a Jesuit college at Oxford. Such a sum he might easily spare. Such a college, provided with able, learned, and zealous teachers, would be a formidable rival to the old academical institutions, which exhibited but too many symptoms of the languor almost inseparable from opulence and security. King James’s College would soon be, by the confession even of Protestants, the first place of education in the island, as respected both science and moral discipline. This would be the most effectual and the least invidious method by which the Church of England could be humbled and the Church of Rome exalted. The Earl of Ailesbury, one of the most devoted servants of the royal family, declared that, though a Protestant, and by no means rich, he would himself contribute a thousand pounds towards this design, rather than that his master should violate the rights of property, and break faith with the Established Church.* The scheme, however, found no favour in the sight of the King. It was indeed ill suited, in more ways than one, to his ungentle nature. For to bend and break the spirits of men gave him pleasure; and to part with his money 7 gave him pain. What he had not the generosity 7 to do at his own expense he determined to do at the expense of others. When once he was engaged, pride and obstinacy prevented him from receding; and he was at length led, step by step, to acts of Turkish tyranny, to acts which impressed the * Burnet, i. 891.; Letter of Lord Ailesbury printed in the European Magazine for April 1195. JAMES THE SECOND. Ill nation with a conviction that the estate of a Protestant English chap. freeholder under a Roman Catholic King must be as insecure 1687 as that of a Greek under Moslem domination. Magdalene College at Oxford, founded in the fifteenth jtaeda- century by William of Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester and]“JJ^Q°jl Lord High Chancellor, was one of the most remarkable of favour academical institutions. A graceful tower, on the summit of which a Latin hymn was annually chanted by choristers at the dawn of May day, caught far off the eye of the traveller who came from London. As he approached he found that this tower rose from an embattled pile, low and irregular, yet singularly venerable, which, embowered in verdure, overhung the sluggish waters of the Cherwell. He passed through a gateway overhung by a noble oriel, * and found himself in a spacious cloister adorned with emblems of virtues and vices, rudely carved in grey stone by the masons of the fifteenth century. The table of the society was plentifully spread in a stately refectory hung with paintings and rich with fantastic carving. The service of the Church was performed morning and evening in a chapel which had suffered much violence from the Reformers, and much from the Puritans, but which was, under every disadvantage, a building of eminent beauty, and which has, in our own time, been restored with rare taste and skill. The spacious gardens along the river side were remarkable for the size of the trees, among which towered conspicuous one of the vegetable wonders of the island, a gigantic oak, older by a century, men said, than the oldest college in the University. The statutes of the society ordained that the Kings of England and Princes of Wales should by lodged in their house. Edward the Fourth had inhabited the building while it was still unfinished. Richard the Third had held his court there, had heard disputations in the hall, had feasted there royally, and had mended the cheer of his hosts by a present of fat bucks from his forests. Two heirs apparent of the crown who had been prematurely snatched away, Arthur the elder brother of Henry the Eighth, and Henry the elder brother of Charles the * This gateway is now closed. 112 HIST01IY OF ENGLAND. Cuap. VIII. issT. First, had been members of the college. Another prince of the blood, the last and best of the Roman Catholic Archbishops of Canterbury, the gentle Reginald Pole, had studied there. In the time of the civil war Magdalene had been true to the cause of the crown. There Rupert had fixed his quarters; and, before, some of his most daring enterprises, his trumpets had been heard sounding to horse through those quiet cloisters. Most of the Fellows were divines, and could aid the King only by their prayers and their pecuniary contributions. But one member of the body, a Doctor of Civil Law, raised a troop of undergraduates, and fell fighting bravely at their head against the soldiers of Essex. When hostilities had terminated, and the Roundheads were masters of England, six sevenths of the members of the foundation refused to make any submission to usurped authority. They were consequently ejected from their dwellings and deprived of their revenues. After the Restoration the survivors returned to their pleasant abode. They had now been succeeded by a new generation which inherited their opinions and their spirit. During the Western rebellion such Magdalene men as were not disqualified by their age or profession for the use of arms had eagerly volunteered to fight for the crown. It would be difficult to name any corporation in the kingdom which had higher claims to the gratitude of the House of Stuart*. The society consisted of a President, of forty Fellows, of thirty scholars called Demies, and of a train of chaplains, clerks, and choristers. At the time of the general visitation in the reign of Henry the Eighth the revenues were far greater than those of any similar institution in the realm, greater by nearly one half than those of the magnificent foundation of Henry the Sixth at Cambridge, and considerably more than double those which William of Wvkeham had settled on his college at Oxford. In the days of James the Second the riches of Magdalene were immense, and were exaggerated by report. The college was popularly said to be wealthier than the weal- * Wood's Atbenae Oxonienses; Walker’s Sufferings of the Clergy. <• i"Mi' JAMES THE SECOND. 113 thiest abbeys of the Continent. When the leases fell in, — so ran the vulgar rumour, — the rents would be raised to the - prodigious sum of forty thousand pounds a year. * The Fellows were, by the statutes which their founder had drawn up, empowered to select their own President from among persons who were, or had been, Fellows either of their society or of New College. This power had generally been exercised with freedom. But in some instances royal letters had been received recommending to the choice of the corporation qualified persons who were in favour at Court; and on such occasions it had been the practice to show respect to the wishes of the sovereign. In March 1687, the President of the college died. One of the Fellows, Doctor Thomas Smith, popularly nicknamed Kabbi Smith, a distinguished traveller, book-collector, antiquary, and orientalist, who had been chaplain to the embassy at Constantinople, and had been employed to collate the Alexandrian manuscript, aspired to the vacant post. He conceived that he had some claims on the favour of the government as a man of learning and as a zealous Tory. His loyalty was in truth as fervent and as steadfast as was to be found in the whole Church of England. He had long been intimately acquainted with Parker, Bishop of Oxford, and hoped to obtain by the interest of that prelate a royal letter to the college. Parker promised to do his best, but soon reported that he had found difficulties. “The King,” he said, “will recommend no person who is not a friend to His Majesty’s religion. What can you do to pleasure him as to that matter?” Smith answered that, if he became President, he would exert himself to promote learning, true Christianity, and loyalty. “That will not do,” said the Bishop. “If so,” said Smith manfully, “let who will be President: I can promise nothing more. ” * Burnet, i. 697.; Tanner’s Notitia Monastica. At the visitation in the twenty-sixth year of Henry the Eighth it appeared that the annual 1076 p aB Colle S e was ; °f New College, 4877; of Magdalene, Macaulay, History. HI. g CHAP. VIII. 1687 . 114 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1687 . Anthony Farmer recommended, fcy the King for President. The election had been fixed for the thirteenth of April, and the Fellows were summoned to attend. It was rumoured that a royal letter would come down recommending one Anthony Farmer to the vacant place. This man’s life had been a series of shameful acts. He had been a member of the University of Cambridge, and had escaped expulsion only by a timely retreat. He had then joined the Dissenters. Then he had gone to Oxford, had entered himself at Magdalene, and had soon become notorious there for every kind of vice. He generally reeled into his college at night speechless with liquor. He was celebrated for having headed a disgraceful riot at Abingdon. He had been a constant frequenter of noted haunts of libertines. At length he had turned pandar, had exceeded even the ordinary vileness of his vile calling , and had received money from dissolute young gentlemen commoners for services such as it is not good that history should record. This wretch, however, had pretended to turn Papist. His apostasy atoned for all his vices; and, though still a youth, he was selected to rule a grave and religious society in which the scandal given by his depravity was still fresh. As a Roman Catholic he was disqualified for academical office by the general law of the land. Never having been a Fellow of Magdalene College or of New College, he was disqualified for the vacant presidency by a special ordinance ot William of Waynfiete. William ofWaynflete had also enjoined those who partook of his bounty to have a particular regard to moral character in choosing their head; and, even ifhehadleftno such injunction, a body chiefly composed of divines could not with decency entrust such a man as Farmer with the government of a place of education. The Fellows respectfully represented to the King the difficulty in which they should be placed, if, as was rumoured, Farmer should be recommended to them, and begged that, if it were His Majesty’s pleasure to interfere in the election, some person for whom they could legally and conscientiously vote might be proposed. Of this dutiful request no notice was taken. The royal letter arrived. It was brought down by JAMES THE SECOND. 115 one of the fellows who had lately turned Papist, Robert chap. Cliarnock, a man of parts and spirit, but of a violent and rest- 1637 '~ less temper, which impelled him a few years later to an atrocious crime and to a terrible fate. On the thirteenth of April the society met in the chapel. Some hope was still entertained that the King might be moved by the remonstrance which had been addressed to him. The assembly therefore adjourned till the fifteenth, which was the last day on which, by the constitution of the college, the election could take place. The fifteenth of April came. Again the Fellows repaired ® f ,c [ ^ on to their chapel. No answer had arrived from* Whitehall. Pre- Two or three of the Seniors, among whom was Smith, were sidl!nt ’ inclined to postpone the election once more rather than take a step which might give offence to the King. But the language of the statutes was clear. Those statutes the members of the foundation had sworn to observe. The general opinion was that there ought to be no further delay. A hot debate followed. The electors were too much excited to take their seats; and the whole choir was in a tumult. Those who were for proceeding appealed to their oaths and to the rules laid down by the founder whose bread they had eaten. The King, they truly said, had no right to force on them even a qualified candidate. Some expressions unpleasing to Tory ears were dropped in the course of the dispute; and Smith was provoked into exclaiming that the spirit of Ferguson had possessed his brethren. It was at length resolved by a great majority that it was necessary to proceed immediately to the election. Charnock left the chapel. The other Fellows, having first received the sacrament, proceeded to give their voices. The choice fell on John Hough, a man of eminent virtue and prudence, who, having borne persecution with fortitude and prosperity with meekness, having risen to high honours and having modestly declined honours higher still, died in extreme old age, yet in full vigour of mind, more than fifty-six years after this eventful day. The society hastened to acquaint the King with the circumstances which had made it necessary to elect a President 8 * 116 HISTOET OP ENGLAND. chap, without further delay, and requested the Duke of Ormond, as ■ patron of the whole University, and the Bishop of Winchester, as visitor of Magdalene College, to undertake the office of intercessors : but the King was far too angry and too dull to listen to explanations. The Fei- Early in June the Fellows were cited to appear before the Masda- High Commission at Whitehall. Five of them, deputed by lcneciicdtho rest, obeyed the summons. Jeffreys treated them after the°H? e h his usual fashion. When one of them, a grave Doctor named sion" 1 ' 8 " Fairfax, hinted some doubt as to the validity of the Commission, the Chancellor began to roar like a wild beast. “Who is this man? What commission has he to be impudent here? Seize him. Put him into a dark room. What does he do without a keeper? He is under my care as a lunatic. I wonder that nobody has applied to me for the custody of him.” But when this storm had spent its force, and the depositions concerning the moral character of the King’s nominee had been read, none of the Commissioners had the front to pronounce that such a man could properly be made the head of a great college. Obadiah Walker and the other Oxonian Papists who were in attendance to support their proselyte were utterly confounded. The Commission pronounced Hough’s election void, and suspended Fairfax from his fellowship: but about Farmer no more was said; and, in the month of August, arrived a royal letter recommending Parker, Bishop of Oxford, to the Fellows. Parker Parker was not an avowed Papist. Still there was an wcHSi objection to him which, even if the presidency had been aspre- vacant, would have been decisive: for he had never been a Fellow of either New College or Magdalene. But the presidency was not vacant: Hough had been duly elected; and all the members of the college were bound by oath to support him in his office. They therefore, with many expressions of loyalty and concern, excused themselves from complying with the King’s mandate. The While Oxford was thus opposing a firm resistance to house"” tyranny, a stand not less resolute was made in another quarter. James had, some time before, commanded the trustees of JAMES THE SECOND. 117 the Charterhouse, men of the first rank and consideration in the kingdom, to admit a Roman Catholic named Popham into the hospital which was under their care. The Master of the house, Thomas Burnet, a clergyman of distinguished genius, learning, and virtue, had the courage to represent to them, though the ferocious Jeffreys sate at the board, that what was required of them was contrary both to the will of the founder and to an Act of Parliament. “ What is that to the purpose? ” said a courtier who was one of the governors. “It is very much to the purpose, I think,” answered a voice, feeble with age and sorrow, yet not to be heard without respect by any assembly, the voice of the venerable Ormond. “An Act of Parliament,” continued the patriarch of the Cavalier party, “is, in my judgment, no light thing.” The question was put whether Popham should be admitted, and it was determined to reject him. The Chancellor, who could not well ease himself by cursing and swearing at Ormond, flung away in a rage, and was followed by some of the minority. The consequence was that there was not a quorum left, and that no formal reply could be made to the royal mandate. The next meeting took place only two days after the High Commission had pronounced sentence of deprivation against Hough, and of suspension against Fairfax. A second mandate under the Great Seal was laid before the trustees: but the tyrannical manner in which Magdalene College had been treated had roused instead of subduing their spirit. They drew up a letter to Sunderland in which they requested him to inform the King that they could not, in this matter, obey HisMajesty without breaking the law and betraying their trust. There can be little doubt that, had ordinary signatures been appended to this document, the King would have taken some violent course. But even he was daunted by the great names of Ormond, Halifax, Danby, and Nottingham, the chiefs of all the sections of that great party to which he owed his crown. He therefore contented himself with directing Jeffreys to consider what course ought to be taken. It was announced at one time that a proceeding would be instituted in the King’s Bench, at another that the Ecclesiastical Com- CHAP. VIII. 1687 . 118 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap, mission would take up the case: but these threats gradually -75ST died away.* The royal The summer was now far advanced; and the King set out progress, on a progress, the longest and the most splendid that had been known for many years. From Windsor he went on the sixteenth of August to Portsmouth, walked round the fortifications, touched some scrofulous people, and then proceeded in one of his yachts to Southampton. From Southampton he travelled to Bath, where he remained a few days, and where he left the Queen. When he departed, he was attended by the High Sheriff of Somersetshire and by a large body of gentlemen to the frontier of the county, where the High Sheriff of Gloucestershire, with a not less splendid retinue, was in attendance. The Duke of Beaufort soon met the royal coaches, and conducted them to Badminton, where a banquet worthy of the fame which his splendid housekeeping had won for him was prepared. In the afternoon the cavalcade proceeded to Gloucester. It was greeted two miles from the city by the Bishop and clergy. At the South Gate the Mayor waited with the keys. The bells rang and the conduits flowed with wine as the King passed through the streets to the close which encircles the venerable Cathedral. He lay that night at the deanery, and on the following morning set out for Worcester. From Worcester he went to Ludlow, Shrewsbury, and Chester, and was everywhere received with outward signs of joy and respect, which he was weak enough to consider as proofs that the discontent excited by his measures had subsided, and that an easy victory was before him. Barillon, more sagacious, informed Lewis that the King of England was under a delusion, that the progress had done no real good, and that those very gentlemen of Worcestershire and Shropshire who had thought it their duty to receive their Sovereign and their guest with every mark of honour would be found as refractory as ever when the question of the test should come on.** * A Relation of the Proceedings at the Charterhouse, 1689. ** See the London Gazette, from August 18. to September 1. 1687; Barillon, September $}. JAMES THE SECOND. 119 On the road the royal train was joined by two courtiers who in temper and opinions differed widely from each other. - Penn was at Chester on a pastoral tour. His popularity and authority among his brethren had greatly declined since he had become a tool of the King and of the Jesuits. * He was, however, most graciously received by James, and, on the Sunday, was permitted to harangue in the tennis court, while Cartwright preached in the Cathedral, and while the King heard mass at an altar which had been decked in the Shire Hall. It is said, indeed, that His Majesty deigned to look into the tennis court and to listen with decency to his friend’s melodious eloquence.** The furious Tyrconnel had crossed the sea from Dublin to give an account of his administration. All the most respectable English Catholics looked coldly on him as on an enemy of their race and a scandal to their religion. But he was cordially welcomed by his master, and dismissed with assurances of undiminished confidence and steady support. James expressed his delight at learning that in a short time the whole government of Ireland would be in Roman Catholic hands. The English colonists had already been stripped of all political power. Nothing remained but to strip them of their property; and this last outrage was deferred only till the cooperation of an Irish Parliament should have been secured.*** * “Penn, chef des Quakers, qu'on saitdtre dans les intdrdts du Roi d’Angleterre, est si fort ddcrid parmi ceux de son parti qu’ils n’ont plus aucune confiance en Iui.” — Bonrepaux to Seignelay, Sept. i?. 1687. The evidence of Gerard Croese is to the same effect. “ Etiam Quakeri Pennum non amplius, ut ante, ita amabant ac magnifaciebant, quidam aversabantur ac fugiebant.” — Ilistoria Quakeriana, lib. ii. 1695. ** Cartwright’s Diary, August 30. 1687. Clarkson’s Life of William Penn. *** London Gazette, Sept. 5.; Sheridan MS.; Barillon, Sept. VI* 1687. “LeRoi son mailre,” says Barillon, “a tdmoignd une grande satisfaction des mesures qu’il a prises, et a autorisd ce qu’il a fail en faveur des Catholiques. II les dtablit dans les emplois et les charges, en sorte que l’auloritd se trouvera bientdt entre leurs mains. II reste encore beau- coup de choses h faire en ce pays la pour retirer les biens injustement 6l6s aux Catholiques. Mais cela ne peut s’exdculer qu’avec le terns et dans 1’assemblde d’un parlement en Irlande.” CHAP. VIII. 1687 . 120 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap. From Cheshire the King turned southward, and, in the ■ 1687 ~ full belief that the Fellows of Magdalene College, however mutinous they might be, would not dare to disobey a command uttered by his own lips, directed his course towards Oxford. By the way he made some little excursions to places which peculiarly interested him, as a King, a brother, and a son. He visited the hospitable roof of Boscobel and the remains of the oak so conspicuous in the history of his house. He rode over the field ofEdgehill, where the Cavaliers first crossed swords with the soldiers of the Parliament. On the third of September he dined in great state at the palace of Woodstock, an ancient and renowned mansion, of which not a stone is now to be seen, but of which the site is still marked on the turf of Blenheim Park by two sycamores which grow The King near the stately bridge. In the evening he reached Oxford. iioi[otd.ge wag rece j vec i there with the wonted honours. The students in their academical garb were ranged to welcome him on the right hand and on the left, from the entrance of the city . to the great gate of Christ Church. He lodged at the deanery, where, among other accommodations, he found a Ho repri- chapel fitted up for the celebration of the Mass. * On the day Fenowsoi after his arrival, the Fellows of Magdalene College were iene^ a " ordered to attend him. When they appeared before him he treated them with an insolence such as had never been shown to their predecessors by the Puritan visitors. “ You have not dealt with me like gentlemen,” he exclaimed. “You have been unmannerly as well as undutiful.” They fell on their knees and tendered a petition. He would not look at it. “Is this your Church of England loyalty? I could not have believed that so many clergymen of the Church of England would have been concerned in such a business. Go home. Get you gone. I am King. I will be obeyed. Go to your chapel this instant; and admit the Bishop of Oxford. Let those who refuse look to it. They shall feel the whole weight of my hand. They shall know what it is to incur the displeasure of their Sovereign.” The Fellows, still kneeling before him, again offered him their petition. He angrily * London Gazette of Sept. 5. and Sept. 8.1681. JAMES THE SECOND. 121 flung it down. “Get you gone, I tell you. I will receive c " I A [ j - nothing from you till you have admitted the Bishop.” " 1637 ~' They retired and instantly assembled in their chapel. The question was propounded whether they would comply with His Majesty’s command. Smith was absent. Charnock alone answered in the affirmative. The other Fellows who were at the meeting declared that in all things lawful they were ready to obey the King, but that they would not violate their statutes and their oaths. The King, greatly incensed and mortified by his defeat, quitted Oxford and rejoined the Queen at Bath. His obstinacy and violence had brought him into an embarrassing position. He had trusted too much to the effect of his frowns and angry tones, and had rashly staked, not merely the credit of his administration, but his personal dignity, on the issue of the contest. Could he yield to subjects whom he had menaced with raised voice and furious gestures? Yet could he venture to eject in one day a crowd of respectable clergymen from their homes, because they had discharged what the whole nation regarded as a sacred duty? Perhaps there might be an escape from this dilemma. Perhaps the college might still be terrified, caressed, or bribed into submission. The agency of Penn was employed. He had too much good feeling to approve of the violent and unjust proceedings of mediate, the government, and even ventured to express part of what he thought. James was, as usual, obstinate in the wrong. The courtly Quaker, therefore, did his best to seduce the college from the path of right. He first tried intimidation. Ruin, he said, impended over the society. The King was highly incensed. The case might be a hard one. Most people thought it so. But every child knew that His Majesty loved to have his own way and could not bear to be thwarted. Penn, therefore, exhorted the Fellows not to rely on the goodness of their cause, but to submit, or at least to temporise. Such counsel came strangely from one who had himself been expelled from the University for raising a riot about the surplice, who had run the risk of being disinherited rather than take off his hat to the princes of the blood, and who had been 122 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. CHAP. vm. 1687 . more than once sent to prison for haranguing in conventicles. • He did not succeed in frightening the Magdalene men. In answer to his alarming hints he was reminded that in the last generation thirty-four out of the forty Fellows had cheerfully left their beloved cloisters and gardens, their hall and their chapel, and had gone forth not knowing where they should find a meal or a bed, rather than violate the oath of allegiance. The King now wished them to violate another oath. He should find that the old spirit was not extinct. Then Penn tried a gentler tone. He had an interview with Hough and with some of the Fellows, and, after many professions of sympathy and friendship, began to hint at a compromise. The King could not bear to be crossed. The college must give way. Parker must be admitted. But he was in very bad health. All his preferments would soon be vacant. “Doctor Hough,” said Penn, “may then be Bishop of Oxford. How should you like that, gentlemen?” Penn h^i passed his life in declaiming against a hireling ministry. He held that he was bound to refuse the payment of tithes, and this even when he had bought land chargeable with tithes, and had been allowed the value of the tithes in the purchase money. According to his own principles, he would have committed a great sin if he had interfered for the purpose of obtaining a benefice on the most honourable terms for the most pious divine. Yet to such a degree had his manners been corrupted by evil communications, and his understanding obscured by inordinate zeal for a single object, that he did not scruple to become a broker in simony of a peculiarly discreditable kind, and to use a bishopric as a bait to tempt a divine to perjury. Hough replied with civil contempt that he wanted nothing from the crown but common justice. “We stand,” he said, “on our statutes and our oaths: but, even setting aside our statutes and oaths, we feel that we have our religion to defend. The Papists have robbed us of University College. They have robbed us of Christ Church. The fight is now for Magdalene. They will soon have all the rest.” Penn was foolish enough to answer that he really believed that the Papists would now be content. “University,” he JAMES THE SECOND. 123 said, “is a pleasant college. Christ Church is a noble place. Magdalene is a fine building. The situation is convenient. —j 687 '~ The walks by the river are delightful. If the Roman Catholics are reasonable they will be satisfied with these.” This absurd avowal would alone have made it impossible for Hough and his brethren to yield. The negotiation was broken oil'; and the King hastened to make the disobedient know, as he had threatened, what it was to incur his displeasure. A special commission was directed to Cartwright, Bishop Spiral of Chester, to Wright, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, siasticai and to Sir Thomas Jenner, a Baron of the Exchequer, ap- pointing them to exercise visitatorial jurisdiction over the sent to college. On the twentieth of October they arrived at Oxford, 10 escorted by three troops of cavalry with drawn swords. On the following morning the Commissioners took their seats in the hall of Magdalene. Cartwright pronounced a loyal oration which, a few years before, would have called forth the acclamations of an Oxonian audience, but which was now heard with sullen indignation. A long dispute followed. The President defended his rights with skill, temper, and resolution. He professed great respect for the royal authority. But he steadily maintained that he had by the laws of England a freehold interest in the house and revenues annexed to the presidency. Of that interest he could not be deprived by an arbitrary mandate of the Sovereign. “Will you submit,” said the Bishop, “to our visitation? ” “I submit to it,” said Hough with great dexterity, “so far as it is consistent with the laws, and no farther.” “Will you deliver up the key of your lodgings? ” said Cartwright. Hough remained silent. The question was repeated; and Hough returned a mild but resolute refusal. The Commissioners pronounced him an intruder, and charged the Fellows no longer to recognise his authority, and to assist at the admission of the Bishop of Oxford. Charnock eagerly promised obedience; Smith returned an evasive answer: but the great body of the members of the college firmly declared that they still regarded Hough as their rightful head. 124 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap. And now Hough himself craved permission to address a f ew words to the Commissioners. They consented with much protest of civility > perhaps expecting from the calmness and suavity of Hough, his manner that ho would make some concession. “My Lords,” said he, “you have this day deprived me of my freehold: I hereby protest against all your proceedings as illegal, unjust, and null; and I appeal from you to our sovereign Lord the King in his courts of justice.” A loud murmur of applause arose from the gownsmen who filled the hall. The Commissioners were furious. Search was made for the offenders, but in vain. Then the rage of the whole board was turned against Hough. “Do not think to huff us, Sir,” cried Jenner, punning on the President’s name. “I will uphold His Majesty’s authority,” said Wright, “while I have breath in my body. All this comes of your popular protest. You have broken the peace. You shall answer it in the King’s Bench. I bind you over in one thousand pounds to appear there next term. I will see whether the civil power cannot manage you. If that is not enough, you shall have the military too.” In truth Oxford was in a state which made the Commissioners not a little uneasy. The soldiers were ordered to have their carbines loaded. It was said that an express was sent to London for the purpose of hastening the arrival of more troops. No disturbance however took place. The tlm*”*" Bishop of Oxford was quietly installed by proxy: but only Parker, two members of Magdalene College attended the ceremony. Many signs showed that the spirit of resistance had spread to the common people. The porter of the college threw down his keys. The butler refused to scratch Hough’s name out of the buttery book, and was instantly dismissed. No blacksmith could be found in the whole city who would force the lock of the President’s lodgings. It was necessary for the Commissioners to employ their own servants, who broke open the door with iron bars. The sermons which on the following Sunday were preached in the University church were full of reflections such as stung Cartwright to the quick, though such as he could not discreetly resent. JAMES THE SECOND. 125 And here, if James had not been infatuated, the matter c ^j' might have stopped. The Fellows in general were not in- —^3,7 dined to carry their resistance further. They were of opinion that, by refusing to assist in the admission of the intruder, they had sufficiently proved their respect for their statutes and oaths, and that, since he was now in actual possession, they might justifiably submit to him as their head, till he should be removed by sentence of a competent court. Only one Fellow, Doctor Fairfax, refused to yield even to this extent. The Commissioners would gladly have compromised the dispute on these terms; and during a few hours there was a truce which many thought likely to end in an amicable arrangement: but soon all was again in confusion. The Fellows found that the popular voice loudly accused them of pusillanimity. The townsmen already talked ironically of a Magdalene conscience, and exclaimed that the brave Hough and the honest Fairfax had been betrayed and abandoned. Still more annoying were the sneers of Obadiah Walker and his brother renegades. This then, said those apostates, was the end of all the big words in which the society had declared itself resolved to stand by its lawful President and by its Protestant faith. While the Fellows, bitterly annoyed by the public censure, were regretting the modified submission which they had consented to make, they learned that this submission was by no means satisfactory to the King. It was not enough, he said, that they offered to obey the Bishop of Oxford as President in fact. They must distinctly admit the Commission and all that had been done under it to be legal. They must acknowledge that they had acted undutifully; they must declare themselves penitent; they must promise to behave better in future, must implore His Majesty’s pardon, and lay themselves at his feet. Two Fellows of whom the King had no complaint to make, Charnock and Smith, were excused from the obligation of making these degrading apologies. Even James never committed a grosser error. The Fellows, already angry with themselves for having conceded so much, and galled by the censure of the world, eagerly caught at the opportunity which was now offered them of regaining 126 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1687 . Ejection of the Fellows. the public esteem. With one voice they declared that they would never ask pardon for being in the right, or admit that the visitation of their college and the deprivation of their President had been legal. Then the King, as he had threatened, laid on them the whole weight of his hand. They were by one sweeping edict condemned to expulsion. Yet this punishment was not deemed sufficient. It was known that many noblemen and gentlemen who possessed church patronage would be disposed to provide for men who had suffered so much for the laws of England and for the Protestant religion. The High Commission therefore pronounced the ejected Fellows incapable of ever holding any church preferment. Such of them as were not yet in holy orders were pronounced incapable of receiving the clerical character. James might enjoy the thought that he had reduced many of them from a situation in which they were surrounded by comforts, and had before them the fairest professional prospects, to hopeless indigence. But all these severities produced an effect directly the opposite of that which he had anticipated. The spirit of Englishmen, that sturdy spirit which no King of the House of Stuart could ever be taught by experience to understand, swelled up high and strong against injustice. Oxford, the quiet seat of learning and loyalty, was in a state resembling that of the City of London on the morning after the attempt of Charles the First to seize the five members. The Vice- chancellor had been asked to dine with the Commissioners on the day of the expulsion. He refused. “My taste,” he said, “differs from tha't of Colonel Kirke. I cannot eat my meals with appetite under a gallows.” The scholars refused to pull off their caps to the new rulers of Magdalene College. Smith was nicknamed Doctor Roguery, and was publicly insulted in a coffee-house. When Charnock summoned the Demies to perform their academical exercises before him, they answered that they were deprived of their lawful governors and would submit to no usurped authority. They assembled apart both for study and for divine service. Attempts were made to JAMES THE SECOND. 127 corrupt them by offers of the lucrative fellowships which had chap. just been declared vacant: but one undergraduate after~ iJIFT - another manfully answered that his conscience would not suffer him to profit by injustice. One lad who was induced to take a fellowship was turned out of the hall by the rest. Youths were invited from other colleges, but with small success. The richest foundation in the kingdom seemed to have lost all attractions for needy students. Meanwhile, in London and all over the country, money was collected for the support of the ejected Fellows. The Princess of Orange, to the great joy of all Protestants, subscribed two hundred pounds. Still, however, the King held on his course. The expulsion of the Fellows was soon followed by the expulsion of a crowd of Demies. All this time the new President was fast sinking under bodily and mental disease. He had made a last feeble effort to serve the government by publishing, at the very time when the college was in a state of* open rebellion against his authority, a defence of the Declaration of Indulgence, or rather a defence of the doctrine of transubstantiation. This piece called forth many answers, and particularly one from Burnet, written with extraordinary vigour and acrimony. A few weeks after the expulsion of the Demies, Parker died in the house of which he had violently taken possession. Men said that his heart was broken by remorse and shame. He lies in the beautiful antechapel of the college: but no monument marks his grave. Then the King’s whole plan was carried into full effect. ^’ s 0 da " The college was turned into a Popish seminary. Bonaventure College Giffard, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Madura, was ap-K™» d pointed President. The Roman Catholic service was per- Popi . ,h formed in the chapel. In one day twelve Roman Catholics were semiMry ' admitted Fellows. Some servile Protestants applied for fellowships, but met with refusals. Smith, an enthusiast in loyalty, but still a sincere member of the Anglican. Church, could not bear to see the altered aspect of the house. He absented himself; he was ordered to return into residence: he disobeyed: he was expelled; and the work of spoliation was complete.’ * Proceedings against Magdalene College, in Oxon. for not electing 128 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1687. Resentment of tho clergy. The nature of the academical system of England is such that no event which seriously affects the interests and honour of either University can fail to excite a strong feeling throughout the country. Every successive blow, therefore, which fell on Magdalene College, was felt to the extremities of the kingdom. In the coffee-houses of London, in the Inns of Court, in the closes of all the Cathedral towns, in parsonages and manor houses scattered over the remotest shires, pity for the sufferers and indignation against the government went on growing. The protest of Hough was everywhere applauded: the forcing of his door was everywhere mentioned with abhorrence : and at length the sentence of deprivation fulminated against the Fellows dissolved those ties once so close and dear which had bound the Church of England to the House of Stuart. Bitter resentment and cruel apprehension took the place of love and confidence. There was no prebendary, no rector, no vifcar, whose mind was not haunted by the thought that, however quiet his temper, however obscure his situation, he might, in a few months, be driven from his dwelling by an arbitrary edict to beg in a ragged cassock with his wife and children, while his freehold, secured to him by laws of immemorial antiquity and by the royal word, was occupied by some apostate. This then was the reward of that heroic loyalty never once found wanting through the vicissitudes of fifty tempestuous years. It was for this that the clergy had endured spoliation and persecution in the cause of Charles the First. It was for this that they had supported Charles the Second in his hard contest with the Whig opposition. It was for this that they had stood in the front of the battle against those who sought to despoil James of his birthright. To their fidelity alone their oppressor owed the power which he was now employing to their ruin. They had long Anthony Farmer president of the said College, in the Collection of Slate Trials, Howell's edition; Lultrell’s Diary, June 15. it., Oct. 24., Dec. 10. 1681; Smith’s Narrative; Letter of Dr. Ilichard Rawlinson, dated Oct. 31. 1687; Ueresby’s Memoirs; Durnel, i. 699..; Cartwright’s Diary; Citters, Oct. 25. Nov. 4.* Oct. 28. Nov. 7. Nov. Nov. H 1687 . JAMES THE SECOND. 129 been in the habit of recounting in acrimonious language all that they had suffered at the hand of the Puritan in the day - of his power. Yet for the Puritan there was some excuse. He was an avowed enemy: he had wrongs to avenge; and even lie, while remodelling the ecclesiastical constitution of the country, and ejecting all who would not subscribe his Covenant, had not been altogether without compassion. He had at least granted to those whose benefices he seized a pittance sufficient to support lift. But the hatred felt by the King towards that Church which had saved him from exile and placed him on a throne was not to be so easily satiated. Nothing but the utter ruin of his victims would content him. It was not enough that they were expelled from their homes and stripped of their revenues. They found every walk of life towards which men of their habits could look for a subsistence closed against them with malignant care, and nothing left to them but the precarious and degrading resource of alms. The Anglican clergy therefore, and that portion of the laity which was strongly attached to Protestant episcopacy, now regarded the King with those feelings which injustice aggravated by ingratitude naturally excites. Yet had the Churchman still many scruples of conscience and honour to surmount before he could bring himself to oppose the government by force. He had been taught that passive obedience was enjoined without restriction or exception by the divine law. He had professed this opinion ostentatiously. He had treated with contempt the suggestion that an extreme case might possibly arise which would justify a people in drawing the sword against regal tyranny. Both principle and shame therefore restrained him from imitating the example of the rebellious Roundheads, while any hope of a peaceful and legal deliverance remained; and such a hope might reasonably be cherished as long as the Princess of Orange stood next in succession to the crown. If he would but endure with patience this trial of his faith, the laws of nature would soon do for him what he could not, without sin and dishonour, do for himself. The wrongs of the Church would be redressed; Macaulay, History, lit. 9 cnAP. VIII. 1687 . 130 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap, her property and dignity would be fenced by new guarantees; '“T686 ~ an d those wicked ministers who had injured and insulted her in the day of her adversity would be signally punished. Schemes The event to which the Church of England looked forward Jesuitical as to an honourable and peaceful termination of her troubles specting" w as one of which even the most reckless members of the the sue- Jesuitical cabal could not think without painful apprehensions. If their master should die, leaving them no better security against the penal laws than a Declaration which the general voice of the nation pronounced to be a nullity, if a Parliament, animated by the same spirit which had prevailed in the Parliament of Charles the Second, should assemble round the throne of a Protestant sovereign, was it not probable that a terrible retribution would be exacted, that the old laws against Popery would be rigidly enforced, and that new laws still more severe would be added to the statute book? The evil counsellors had long been tormented by these gloomy apprehensions, and some of them had contemplated strange and desperate remedies. James had scarcely mounted the throne when it began to be whispered about Whitehall that, if the Lady Anne would turn Roman Catholic, it might not be impossible, with the help of Lewis, to transfer to her the birthright of her elder sister. At the French embassy tliis scheme was warmly approved; andBonrepaux gave it as his opinion that the assent of James would be easily obtained.* Soon, however, it became manifest that Anne was unalterably attached to the Established Church. All thought of making her Queen was therefore relinquished. Nevertheless, a small knot of fanatics still continued to cherish a wild hope that they might be able to change the order of succession. The plan formed by these men was set forth in a minute of which a rude French translation has been preserved. It was to be hoped, they said, that the King might be able to establish the true faith without resorting to extremities; but, in the worst event, * “Quand on connoit le dedans de cette cour aussi inlimement que je la connois, on pout croire que sa Majesld Brilannique donnera vo- lonliers dans ces sortes de projels." — Bonrepaux lo Seignelay. March B. 1086 . JAMES THE SECOND. 131 he might leave his 'crown at the disposal of Lewis. It was better for Englishmen to be the vassals of France than the slaves of the Devil." This extraordinary document was handed about from Jesuit to Jesuit, and from courtier to courtier, till some eminent Roman Catholics, in whom bigotry had not extinguished patriotism, furnished the Dutch Ambassador with a copy. He put the paper into the hands of James. James, greatly agitated, pronounced it a vile forgery contrived by some pamphleteer in Holland. The Dutch minister resolutely answered that he could prove the contrary by the testimony of several distinguished members of His Majesty’s own Church, nay, that there would be no difficulty in pointing out the writer, who, after all, had written only what many priests and many busy politicians said every day in the galleries of the palace. The King did not think it expedient to ask who the writer was, but, abandoning the charge of forgery, protested, with great vehemence and solemnity, that no thought of disinheriting his eldest daughter had ever crossed his mind. “Nobody,” he said, “ever dared to hint such a thing to me. I never would listen to it. God does not command us to propagate the true religion by injustice; and this would be the foulest, the most unnatural injustice.”* ** Notwithstanding all these professions, Barillon, a few days later, reported to his court that James had begun to listen to suggestions respecting a change in the order of succession, that the question was doubtless a delicate one, but that there was reason to hope that, with time and management, a way might be found to settle the crown on some Roman Catholic to the exclusion of the two Princesses.*** During many months * “Que, quand pour dtablir la religion Catholiquc et pour la confirmer icy, il (James) devroit se rendre en quelquo fa^on dependant de la France, et mettre la decision de la succession a la couronne entre les mains de ce monarque Id, qu’il seroit obligd delefaire, parcequ’il vaudroit mieux pour ses sujets qu’ils devinssent vassaux du Roy de France, diant Catholiques, que de demeurer comme esclaves duDiable.” This paper is in the archives of both France and Holland. ** Citters, Aug. ,'i:. . 1685; Barillon, Aug. I . *** Barillon, Sept. !|. 1680. “La succession esl une malidre fort ddlicate a traitor. Je sais pourtant qu'on en parle au Roy d’Anglelerre. 9 * CHAP. VIII. 1687 . 132 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap, this subject continued to be discussed by the fiercest and most -- - extravagant Papists about the Court; and candidates for the regal office were actually named.* * scheme It is not probable however that James ever meant to take a course so insane. He must have known that England would connei never bear for a single day the yoke of an usurper who was venting” also a Papist, and that any attempt to set aside the Lady Mary ces/of"” would have been withstood to the death, both by all those who orange bad supported the Exclusion Bill, and by all those who had micceea- opposed it. There is however no doubt that the King was an bing^nT accomplice in a plot less absurd, but not less unjustifiable, of ire- against the rights of his children. Tyrconnel had, with his land ' master’s approbation, made arrangements for separating Ireland from the empire, and for placing her under the protection of Lewis, as soon as the crown should devolve on a Protestant sovereign. Bonrepaux had been consulted, had imparted the design to his court, and had been instructed to assure Tyrconnel that France would lend effectual aid to the accomplishment of this great project.** These transactions, which, though perhaps not in all parts accurately known at thellague, were strongly suspected there, must not be left out of the account if we would pass a just judgment on the course taken a few months later by the Princess of Orange. Those who pronounce her guilty of a breach of filial duty must admit that her fault was at least greatly extenuated by her wrongs. If, to serve the cause of her religion, she broke through the most et qu’on ne ddsespere pas avee le temps de trouver des moyens pour faire passer la couronne sur la tfite d'un hdrilier Catholique.” * Bonrepaux, July H. 1687. ** Bonrepaux to Seignelay, ^“* t ~ j 1687. I will quote a few words from this most remarkable despatch: “Je sgay bien certainement que l'inlention du Boy d’Anglelerre est de faire perdre ce royaume (Ireland) h son successeur, et de le fortifier en sorte que tous ses sujets Calko- liques y puissent avoir un asile assurd. Son projet est de mettre les choses en cel eslat dans le cours de cinq anndes.” In the Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland, printed in 1690, there is a passage which shows that this negotiation had not been kept strictly secret. “Though the King kept it private from most of his council, yet certain it is that he had promised the French King the disposal of that government and kingdom when things had attained to that growth as to be fit to bear it.” e V 1 #: JAMES THE SECOND. 133 sacred ties of consanguinity, she only followed her father’s C ^J'- example. She did not assist to depose him till he had con- 1 J687 .'~ spired to disinherit her. Scarcely had Bonrepaux been informed that Lewis had re- Tbe solved to assist the enterprise of Tyrconnel when all thoughts pregnant, of that enterprise were abandoned. James had caught the first glimpse of a hope which delighted and elated him. The Queen was with child. Before the end of October 1687 the great news began to General be whispered. It was observed that Her Majesty had absent- ed herself from some public ceremonies, on the plea of indisposition. It was said that many relics, supposed to possess extraordinary virtue, had been hung about her. Soon the story made its way from the palace to the coffee-houses of the capital, and spread fast over the country. By a very small minority the rumour was welcomed with joy. The great body of the nation listened with mingled derision and fear. There was indeed nothing very extraordinary in what had happened. The King had but just completed his fifty-fourth year. The Queen was in the summer of life. She had already borne four children who had died young; and long afterwards she was delivered of another child whom nobody had any interest in treating as supposititious, and who was therefore never said to be so. As, however, five years had elapsed since her last pregnancy, the people, under the influence of that delusion which leads men to believe what they wish, had ceased to entertain any apprehension that she would give an heir to the throne. On the other hand, nothing seemed more natural and probable than that the Jesuits should have contrived a pious fraud. It was certain that they must consider the accession of the Princess of Orange as one of the greatest calamities which could befall their Church, It was equally certain that they would not be very scrupulous about doing whatever might be necessary to save their Church from a great calamity. In books written by eminentmembers of the Society, and licensed by its rulers, it was distinctly laid down that means even more shocking to all notions of justice and humanity than the introduction of a spurious heir into a family might lawfully be 134 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1687 . employed for ends less important than the conversion of a heretical kingdom. It had got abroad that some of the King’s advisers, and even the King himself, had meditated schemes for defrauding the Lady Mary, either wholly or in part, of her rightful inheritance. A suspicion, not indeed well founded but by no means so absurd as is commonly supposed, took possession of the public mind. The folly of some Roman Catholics confirmed the vulgar prejudice. They spoke of the auspicious event as strange, as miraculous, as an exertion of the same Divine power which had made Sarah proud and happy in Isaac, and had given Samuel to the prayers of Hannah. Mary’s mother, the Duchess of Modena, had lately died. A short time before her death, she had, it was said, implored the Virgin of Loretto, with fervent vows and rich offerings, to bestow a son on James. The King himself had, in the preceding August, turned aside from his progress to visit the Holy Well, and had there besought Saint Winifred to obtain for him that boon without which his great designs for the propagation of the true faith could be but imperfectly executed. The imprudent zealots who dwelt on these tales foretold with confidence that the unborn infant would be a boy, and offered to back their opinion by laying twenty guineas to one. Heaven, they affirmed, would not have interfered but for a great end. One fanatic announced that the Queen would give birth to twins, of whom the elder would be King of England, and the younger Pope of Rome. Mary could not conceal the delight whith which she heard this prophecy; and her ladies found that they could not gratify her more than by talking of it. The Roman Catholics would have acted more wisely if they had spoken of the pregnancy as of a natural event, and if they had borne with moderation their unexpected good fortune. Their insolent triumph excited the popular indignation. Their predictions strengthened the popular suspicions. From the Prince and Princess of Denmark down to porters and laundresses nobody alluded to the promised birth without a sneer. The wits of London described the new miracle in rhymes which, it may well be supposed, were not the most delicate. The rough country squires roared <•* JAMES THE SECOND. 135 with laughter if they met with any person simple enough to believe that the Queen was really likely to be again a mother. A royal proclamation appeared commanding the clergy to read a form of prayer and thanksgiving which had been prepared for this joyful occasion by Crewe and Sprat. The clergy obeyed: but it was observed that the congregations made no responses and showed no signs of reverence. Soon in all the coffee-houses was handed about a brutal lampoon on the courtly prelates whose pens the King had employed. Mother East had also her full share of abuse. Into that homely monosyllable our ancestors had degraded the name of the great house of Este which reigned at Modena.* The new hope which elated the King’s spirits was mingled With many fears. Something more than the birth of a Prince of Wales was necessary to the success of the plans formed by the Jesuitical party. It was not very likely that James would live till his son should be of age to exercise the regal functions. The law had made no provision for the case of a minority. The reigning sovereign was not competent to make provision for such a case by will. The legislature only could supply the defect. If James should die before the defect had been supplied, leaving a successor of tender years, the supreme power would undoubtedly devolve on Protestants. Those Tories who held most firmly the doctrine that nothing could justify them in resisting their liege lord would have no scruple about drawing their swords against a Popish woman who should dare to usurp the guardianship of the realm and of the infant sovereign. The result of a contest could scarcely be matter of doubt. The Prince of Orange, or his wife, would be Regent. The young King would be placed in the hands of heretical instructors, whose arts might speedily efface from his mind the impressions which might have been made on it in the nursery. He might prove another Edward the Sixth; and the blessing granted to the intercession of the Virgin Mother * Citters, ° ct ‘ 2 °’ , I 1° T ' 1687; (lie Princess Anne lo the Princess ot Orange, March 14. and 20. 168J; Barillon, Dec. T ' T , 1687; Revolution Politics; the song “Two Toms and a Nat;” Johnstone, April 4. 1688; Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland, 1690. CHAP. vm. 16S7. 136 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap, and of St. Winifred might be turned into a curse. * This was ■ J(| . 8T -- a danger against which nothing but an Act of Parliament could Feeiin" be a security; and to obtain such an Act was not easy. Everyth tiie° thing seemed to indicate that, if the Houses were convoked, tueiu'bo- they would come up to Westminster animated by the spirit of onhe alld 1640. The event of the county elections could hardly be Peers, doubted. The whole body of freeholders, high and low, clerical and lay, was strongly excited against the government. In the great majority of those towns where the right of voting depended on the payment of local taxes, or on the occupation of a tenement, no courtly candidate could dare to show his face. A very large part of the House of Commons was returned by members of municipal corporations. These corporations had recently been remodelled for the purpose of destroying the influence of the Whigs and Dissenters. More than a hundred constituent bodies had been deprived of their charters by tribunals devoted to the crown, or had been induced to avert compulsory disfranchisement by voluntary surrender. Every Mayor, every Alderman, every Town Clerk, from Berwick to Helstone, was a Tory and a Churchman: but Tories and Churchmen were now no longer devoted to the sovereign. The new municipalities were more unmanageable than the old municipalities had ever been, and would undoubtedly return representatives whose first act would be to impeach all the Popish Privy Councillors, and all the members of the High Commission. In the Lords the prospect was scarcely less gloomy than in the Commons. Among the temporal peers it was certain that an immense majority would be against the King’s measures: and on that episcopal bench, which seven years before had unanimously supported him against those who had attempted to deprive him of his birthright, he could now look forsup- * The king's uneasiness on this subject is strongly described by Ronquillo, Dec. 1688. “Un Principe de Vales y un Duque de York y otro di Locbaosterna (Lancaster, I suppose,) no bastan h reducir la gente; porque el Rey tiene 54 afios, y vendra a morir, dejando los hijos pequenos, y que entonces el reyno se apoderara dellos, y los nombrara tutor, y los edueara en la religion prolestante, contra la disposicion que dejare el Rey, y la autoridad de la Reyna.” JAMES THE SECOND 137 port only to four or five sycophants despised by their pro- cjj-O’- fession and their country.* 1687- 1 To all men not utterly blinded by passion these difficulties appeared insuperable. The most unscrupulous slaves of power showed signs of uneasiness. Dryden muttered that the King would only make matters worse by trying to mend them, and sighed for the golden days of the careless and good- natured Charles.** Even Jeffreys wavered. As long as ho was poor, he was perfectly ready to face obloquy and public hatred for lucre. But he had now, by corruption and extortion, accumulated great riches; and he was more anxious to secure them than to increase them. His slackness drew on him a sharp reprimand from the royal lips. In dread of being deprived of the Great Seal, he promised whatever was required of him: butBarillon, in reporting this circumstance to Lewis, remarked that the King of England could place little reliance on any man who had any thing to lose. *** Nevertheless James determined to persevere. The James lie- ■t termines sanction of a Parliament was necessary to his system. The to pack a sanction of a free and lawful Parliament it was evidently im- possible to obtain: but it might not be altogether impossible to bring together by corruption, by intimidation, by violent exertions of prerogative, by fraudulent distortions of law, an assembly which might call itself a Parliament, and might be willing to register any edict of the Sovereign. Returning . officers must be appointed who would avail themselves of the * Three lists framed at this lime are extant; one in the French archives, the other two in the archives of the Portland family. In these lists every peer is entered under one of three heads, For the Repeal of the Test, Against the Repeal, and Doubtful. According to one list the numbers were, 31 for, 86 against, and 20 doubtful; according to another, 33 for, 87 against, and 19 doubtful; according to the third, 35 for, 92 against, and 10 doubtful. Copies of the three lists are in the Mackintosh MSS. ** There is in the British Museum a letter of Dryden to Etherege, dated Feb. 1688. I do not remember to have seen it in print. “Oh," says Dryden, “that our monarch would encourage noble idleness by his own example, as he of blessed memory did before him. For my mind misgives me that he will not much advance his affairs by stirring." *” Barillon > 1C87 ‘ itt 138 CHAP, VIII. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. slightest pretence to declare the King’s friends duly elected. -Every placeman, from the highest to the lowest, must be made to understand that, if he wished to retain his office, he must, at this conjuncture, support the throne by his vote and interest. The High Commission meanwhile would keep its eye on the clergy. The boroughs, which had just been remodelled to serve one turn, might be remodelled again to serve another. By such means the King hoped to obtain a majority in the House of Commons. The Upper House would then be at his mercy. He had undoubtedly by law the power of creating peers without limit: and this power he was fully determined to use. He did not wish, and indeed no sovereign can wish, to make the highest honour which is in the gift of the crown worthless. He cherished the hope that, by calling up some heirs apparent to the assembly in which they must ultimately sit, and by conferring English titles on some Scotch and Irish Lords, he might be able to secure a majority without ennobling new men in such numbers as to bring ridicule on the coronet and the ermine. But there was no extremity to which he was not prepared to go in case of necessity. When in a large company an opinion was expressed that the peers would prove intractable, “Oh, silly,” cried Sunderland, turning to Churchill; “your troop of guards shall be called up to the House of Lords.” * •Having determined to pack a Parliament, James set himself energetically and methodically to the work. A proclamation appeared in the Gazette, announcing that the King had determined to revise the Commissions ofPeace and of Lieutenancy, and to retain in public employment only such gentlemen as should be disposed to support his policy.** A committee of seven Privy Councillors sate at Whitehall, for the purpose of regulating — such was the phrase — the municipal corporations. In this committee Jeffreys alone represented the Protestant interest. Powis alone represented the moderate Roman Catholics. All the other members be- * Told by Lord Bradford, who was present, to Dartmouth; note on Burnet, i. 155. ** London Gazette, Dec. 12.1081. JAMES THE SECOND. 139 longed to the Jesuitical faction. Among them was Petro, chap. who had just been sworn of the Council. Till he took his seat ■ l6ST ]— at the board, his elevation had been kept a profound secret from everybody but Sunderland. The public indignation at this new violation of the law was clamorously expressed; and it was remarked that the Roman Catholics were even louder in censure than the Protestants. The vain and ambitious Jesuit was now charged with the business of destroying and reconstructing half the constituent bodies in the kingdom. Under the committee of Privy Councillors a subcommittee consisting of bustling agents less eminent in rank was entrusted with the management of details Local subcommittees TheBoard of regulators all over the country corresponded with the cen- ° a f t ors? u ' tral board at Westminster.* The persons on whom James chiefly relied for assistance in his new and arduous enterprise were the Lords Lieutenants. Every Lord Lieutenant received written orders directing him to go down immediately into his county. There he was to summon before him all his deputies, and all the Justices of the Peace, and to put to them a series of interrogatories framed for the purpose of ascertaining how they would act at a general election. He was to take down the answers in writing, and to transmit them to the government. He was to furnish a list of such Roman Catholics, and such Protestant Dissenters, as might be best qualified for the bench and for commands in the militia. He was also to examine into the state of all the boroughs in his county, and to make such reports as might be necessary to guide the operations of the board of regulators. It was intimated to him that he must himself perform these duties, and that he could not be permitted to delegate them to any other person.** The first effect produced by these orders would have at Man? once sobered a prince less infatuated than James. Half the ueuie- Lords Lieutenants of England peremptorily refused to stoop * Bonrepaux to Seignelay, Nov. Journals, Dec. 20. 1689. ** Citters Oct. 28. 5 jSov. 7. 1687. Citters, Nov. II.; Lords 140 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1C87. The Earl of Oxford. to the odious service which was required of them. They were immediately dismissed. All those who incurred this glorious disgrace were peers of high consideration; and all had hitherto been regarded as firm supporters of monarchy. Some names in the list deserve especial notice. The noblest subject in England, and indeed, as Englishmen loved to say, the noblest subject in Europe, was Aubrey deVere, twentieth and last of the old Earls of Oxford. He derived his title through an uninterrupted male descent from a time when the families of Howard and Seymour were still obscure, when the Nevilles and Percies enjoyed only a provincial celebrity, and when even the great name of Plan- tagenet had not yet been heard in England. One chief of the house of De Vere had held high command at Hastings: another had marched, with Godfrey and Tancred, over heaps of slaughtered Moslem, to the sepulchre of Christ. The first Earl of Oxford had been minister of Henry Beau- clerc. The third Earl had been conspicuous among the Lords who extorted the Great Charter from John. The seventh Earl had fought bravely at Cressy and Poictiers. The thirteenth Earl had, through many vicissitudes of fortune, been the chief of the party of the Red Rose, and had led the van on the decisive day of Bosworth. The seventeenth Earl had shone at the court of Elizabeth, and had won for himself an honourable place among the early masters of English poetry. The nineteenth Earl had fallen in arms for the Protestant religion and for the liberties of Europe under the walls of Maestricht. His son Aubrey, in whom closed the longest and most illustrious line of nobles that England has seen, a man of loose morals, but of inoffensive temper and of courtly manners, was Lord Lieutenant of Essex, and Colonel of the Blues. His nature was not factious; and his interest inclined him to avoid a rupture with the Court; for his estate was encumbered, and his military command lucrative. He was summoned to the royal closet; and an explicit declaration of his intentions was demanded from him. “Sir,” answered Oxford, “I will stand by your Majesty against all enemies to the last drop of my blood. But this is matter of conscience, JAMES THE SECOND. 141 and I cannot comply.” He was instantly deprived of his chap. lieutenancy and of his regiment.* - ]687 j~ Inferior in antiquity and splendour to the house of DeiheEari Vere, but to the house of De Yere alone, was the house of Talbot. Ever since the reign of Edward the Third, the Tal- bury, bots had sate among the peers of the realm. The earldom of Shrewsbury had been bestowed, in the fifteenth century, on John Talbot, the antagonist of the Maid of Orleans. He had been long remembered by his countrymen with tenderness and reverence as one of the most illustrious of those warriors who had striven to erect a great English empire on the Continent of Europe. The stubborn courage which he had shown in the midst of disasters had made him an object of interest greater than more fortunate captains had inspired, and his death had furnished a singularly touching scene to our early stage. His posterity had, during two centuries, flourished in great honour. The head of the family at the time of the Restoration was Francis, the eleventh Earl, a Roman Catholic. His death had been attended by circumstances such as, even in those licentious times which immediately followed the downfall of the Puritan tyranny, had moved men to horror and pity. The Duke of Buckingham in the course of his vagrant amours was for a moment attracted by the Countess of Shrewsbury. She was easily won. Her lord challenged the gallant, and fell. Some said that the abandoned woman witnessed the combat in man’s attire, and others that she clasped her victorious lover to her bosom while his shirt was still dripping with the blood of her husband. The honours of the murdered man descended to his infant son Charles. As the orphan grew up to man’s estate, it was generally acknowledged that of the young nobility of England none had been so richly gifted by nature. His person was pleasing, his temper singularly sweet, his parts such as, if he had been * Halstead’s Succinct Genealogy of the Family of Vere, 1685; Collins’s Historical Collections. See in the Lords’Journals, and in Jones’s Keports, the proceedings respecting the earldom of Oxford, in March and April 162g. The exordium of the speech of Lord Chief Justice Crew is among the finest specimens of the ancient English eloquence. Citters, Feb. A. 1688 142 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1687 . born in a humble rank, might well have raised him to the height of civil greatness. All these advantages he had so improved that, before he was of age, he was allowed to be one of the finest gentlemen and finest scholars of his time. His learning is proved by notes which are still extant in his handwriting on books in almost every department of literature. He spoke French like a gentleman of Lewis’s bedchamber, and Italian like a citizen ofFlorence. It was impossible that ayouth of such parts should not be anxious to understand the grounds on which his family had refused to conform to the religion of the state. He studied the disputed points closely, submitted his doubts to priests of his own faith, laid their answers before Tillotson, weighed the arguments on both sides long and attentively, and, after an investigation which occupied two years, declared himself a Protestant. The Church of England welcomed the illustrious convert with delight. His popularity was great, and became greater when it was known that royal solicitations and promises had been vainly employed to seduce him back to the superstition which he had abjured. The character of the young Earl did not however develope itself in a manner quite satisfactory to those who had borne the chief part in his conversion. His morals by no means escaped the contagion of fashionable libertinism. In truth the shock which had overturned his early prejudices had at the same time unfixed all his opinions, and left him to the unchecked guidance of his feelings. But, though his principles were unsteady, his impulses were so generous, his temper so bland, his manners so gracious and easy, that it was impossible not to love him. He was early called the King of Hearts, and never, through a long, eventful, and chequered life, lost his right to that name.* Shrewsbury was Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire and Colonel of one of the regiments of horse which had been * Core’s Shrewsbury Correspondence; Mackay’s Memoirs; Life of Charles Duke of Shrewsbury, 1118; Burnet, i. 162.; Birch’s Life of Tillotson, where the reader will find a letter from Tillotson to Shrewsbury, which seems to me a model of serious, friendly, and gentlemanlike reproof. JAMES THE SECOND. 143 raised in consequence of the Western insurrection. He now refused to act under the board of regulators, and was deprived of both his commissions. None of the English nobles enjoyed a larger measure of public favour than Charles Sackville Earl of Dorset. He was indeed a remarkable man. In his youth he had been one of the most notorious libertines of the wild time which followed the Restoration. He had been the terror of the City watch, had passed many nights in the round house, and had at least once occupied a cell in Newgate. His passion for Betty Morrice, and for Nell Gwynn, who called him her Charles the First, had given no small amusement and scandal to the town.* Yet, in the midst of follies and vices, his courageous spirit, his fine understanding, and his natural goodness of heart, had been conspicuous. Men said that the excesses in which he indulged were common between him and the whole race of gay young Cavaliers, but that his sympathy with human suffering and the generosity with which he made reparation to those whom his freaks had injured were all his own. His associates were astonished by the distinction which the public made between him and them. “He may do what he chooses,” said Wilmot; “he is never in the wrong.” The judgment of the world became still more favourable to Dorset when he had been sobered by time and marriage. His graceful manners, his brilliant conversation, his soft heart, his open hand, were universally praised. No day passed, it was said, in which some distressed family had not reason to bless his name. And yet, with all his good-nature, such was the keenness of his wit that scoffers whose sarcasm all the town feared stood in craven fear of the sarcasm of Dorset. All political parties esteemed and caressed him: but politics were not much to his taste. Had he been driven by necessity to exert himself, he would probably have risen to the highest * The King was only Nell’s Charles III. Whether Dorset or Major Hart had the honour of being her Charles I. is a point open to dispute. But the evidence in favour of Dorset’s claim seems to me to preponderate. See the suppressed passage of Burnet, i. 203.; and Pepys’s Diary, Oct. 20.16GT. CHAP. VIII. 11 ) 87 . The Earl ofDorset* 144 CHAP. VIII. ill HISTORY OF ENGLAND. posts in the state; but he was born to rank so high and wealth ■ so ample that many of the motives which impel men to engage in public affairs were wanting to him. He took just so much part in parliamentary and diplomatic business as sufficed to show that he wanted nothing but inclination to rival Danby and Sunderland, and turned away to pursuits which pleased him better. Like many other men who, with great natural abilities, are constitutionally and habitually indolent, he became an intellectual voluptuary, and a master of all those pleasing branches of knowledge which can be acquired without severe application. He was allowed to be the best judge of painting, of sculpture, of architecture, of acting, that the Court could show. On questions of polite learning his decisions were regarded at all the coffee-houses as without appeal. More than one clever play which had failed on the first representation was supported by his single authority against the whole clamour of the pit, and came forth successful from the second trial. The delicacy of his taste in French composition was extolled by SaintEvremond and LaFontaine. Such a patron of letters England had never seen. His bounty was bestowed with equal judgment and liberality, and was confined to no sect or faction. Men of genius, estranged from each other by literary jealousy or by difference of political opinion, joined in acknowledging his impartial kindness. Dryden owned that he had been saved from ruin by Dorset’s princely generosity. Yet Montague and Prior, who had keenly satirised Dryden, were introduced by Dorset into public life; and the best comedy of Dryden’s mortal enemy, Shadwell, was written at Dorset’s country seat. The munificent Earl might, if such had been his wish, have been the rival of those of whom he was content to be the benefactor. For the verses which he occasionally composed, unstudied as they are, exhibit the traces of a genius which, assiduously cultivated, would have produced something great. In the small volume of his works may be found songs which have the easy vigour of Suckling, and little satires which sparkle with wit as splendid as that of Butler. * * Pepys’s Diary; Prior’s dedication of his poems lo the Duke of JAMES THE SECOND. 145 Dorset was Lord Lieutenant of Sussex: and to Sussex the board of regulators looked with great anxiety: for in no other county, Cornwall and Wiltshire excepted, were there so many small boroughs. He was ordered to repair to his post. No person who knew him expected that he would obey. He gave such an answer as became him, and was informed that his services were no longer needed. The interest which his many noble and amiable qualities inspired was heightened when it was known that he had received by the post an anonymous billet telling him that, if he did not promptly comply with the King’s wishes, all his wit and popularity should not save him from assassination. A similar warning was sent to Shrewsbury. Threatening letters were then much more rare than they afterwards became. It is therefore not strange that the people, excited as they were, should have been disposed to believe that the best and noblest Englishmen were really marked out for Popish daggers.* * Just when these letters were the talk of all London, the mutilated corpse of a noted Puritan was found in the streets. It was soon discovered that the murderer had acted from no religious or political motive. But the first suspicions of the populace fell on the Papists. The mangled remains were carried in procession to the house of the Jesuits in the Savoy; and during a few hours the fear and rage of the populace were scarcely less violent than on the day when Godfrey was borne to his grave.** Dorset; Johnson’s Life of Dorset; Dryden’s Essay on Satire, and Dedication of the Essay on Dramatic Poesy. The affection of Dorset for his wife and his strict fidelity to her are mentioned with great contempt by that profligate coxcomb Sir George Elherege in his letters from Ratisbon, Dec. A* 168L and Jan. 1G8S; Shadwell’s Dedication of the Squire of Alsatia; Burnet, i. 264.; Mackay’s Characters. Some parts of Dorset’s character are well touched in his epitaph, written by Pope: “Yet soft his nature, though severe his lay;” and again: “Blest courtier, who could king and country please, Yet sacred keep his friendships and his ease.” * Barillon, Jan. f s . 1688; Citters, ’ Feb. II). ** Adda, Feb. -ft. I®. 1688. Macaulay, History. III. JO CHAP. VIII. 1687 . 146 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHA p . The other dismissions must be more concisely related. - I637 ’~ The Duke of Somerset, whose regiment had been taken from him some months before, was now turned out of the Lord Lieutenancy of the East Riding of Yorkshire. The North Riding was taken from Viscount Fauconberg, Shropshire from Viscount Newark, and Lancashire from the Earl of Derby, grandson of that gallant Cavalier who had faced death so bravely, both on the field of battle and on the scaffold, for the House of Stuart. The Earl of Pembroke, who had recently served the crown with fidelity and spirit against Monmouth, was displaced in Wiltshire, the Earl of Rutland in Leicestershire, the Earl of Bridgewater in Buckinghamshire, the.Earl of Thanet in Cumberland, the Earl of Northampton in Warwickshire, the Earl of Abingdon in Oxfordshire, and the Earl of Scarsdale in Derbyshire. Scars- dale was also deprived of a regiment of cavalry, and of an office in the household of the Princess of Denmark. She made a struggle to retain his services, and yielded only to a peremptory command of her father. The Earl of Gainsborough was ejected, not only' from the Lieutenancy of Hampshire, but also from the government of Portsmouth and the rangersliip of the New Forest, two places for which he had, only a few months before, given five thousand pounds. * The King could not find Lords of great note, or indeed Protestant Lords of any sort, who would accept the vacant offices. It was necessary to assign two shires to Jeffreys, a new man whose landed property was small, and two to Preston who was not even an English peer. The other counties which had been left without governors were entrusted, with scarcely an exception, to known Roman Catholics, or to courtiers who had secretly promised the King to declare themselves Roman Catholics as soon as they could do so with prudence. Questions At length the new machinery was put in action; and soon &a l ?u- lhl> from every corner of the realm arrived the news of complete 'rates, an d hopeless failure. The catechism by which the Lords Lieutenants had been directed to test the sentiments of the * Barillon, Dec. A- &• «• 1087 5 Cillers, Dec. A- JAMES THE SECOND. 147 country gentlemen consisted of three questions. Every c n^- magistrate and Deputy Lieutenant was to be asked, first, - 1687 ." whether, if he should be chosen to serve in Parliament, he would vote for a bill framed on the principles of the Declaration of Indulgence; secondly, whether, as an elector, he would support candidates who would engage to vote for such a bill; and, thirdly, whether, in his private capacity, he would aid the King’s benevolent designs by living in friendship with people of all religious persuasions.* As soon as the questions got abroad, a form of answer, “ nd thoir drawn up with admirable skill, was circulated all over the kingdom, and was generally adopted. It was to the following effect: “As a member of the House of Commons, should I have the honour of a seat there, I shall think it my duty carefully to weigh such reasons as may be adduced in debate for and against a Bill of Indulgence, and then to vote according to my conscientious conviction. As an elector, I shall give my support to candidates whose notions of the duty of a representative agree with my own. As a private man, it is my wish to live in peace and charity with every body.” This Failure answer, far more provoking than a direct refusal, because King’s slightly tinged with a sober and decorous irony which could P laDS - not well be resented, was all that the emissaries of the Court could extract from most of the country gentlemen. Arguments, promises, threats, were tried in vain. The Duke of Norfolk, though a Protestant, and though dissatisfied with the proceedings of the government, had consented to become its agent in two counties. He went first to Surrey, where he soon found that nothing could be done.** He then repaired to Norfolk, and returned to inform the King that, of seventy gentlemen of note who bore office in that great province, only six had held out hopes that they should support the policy of the Court.*** The Duke of Beaufort, whose authority * Citters, 1087 ; Lonsdale’s Memoirs. ** CiUers ’ 1687 - *** Ibid. 108 {. 10 148 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, chap, extended over four English shires and over the whole princi- v “ 7 1- - pality of Wales, came up to Whitehall with an account not less discouraging.* Rochester was Lord Lieutenant of Hertfordshire. All his little stock of virtue had been expended in his struggle against the strong temptation to sell his religion for lucre. He was still bound to the Court by a pension of four thousand pounds a year; and in return for this pension he was willing to perform any service, however illegal or degrading, provided only that he were not required to go through the forms of a reconciliation with Rome. He had readily undertaken to manage his county; and he exerted himself, as usual, with indiscreet heat and violence. But his anger was thrown away on the sturdy squires to whom he addressed himself. They told him with one voice that they would send up no man to Parliament who would vote for taking away the safeguards of the Protestant religion.** The same answer was given to the Chancellor in Buckinghamshire.*** The gentry of Shropshire, assembled at Ludlow, unanimously refused to fetter themselves by the pledge which the King demanded of them, f The Earl of Yarmouth reported from Wiltshire that, of sixty magistrates and Deputy Lieutenants with whom he had conferred, only seven had given favourable answers, and that even those seven could not be trusted.ft The renegade Peterborough made no progress inNorthamptonshire.fft His brother renegade Dover was equally unsuccessful in Cambridgeshire. § Preston brought cold news from Cumberland and Westmoreland. Dorsetshire and Huntingdonshire were animated by the same spirit. The Earl of Bath, after a ** Rochester's offensive warmth on this occasion is twice noticed by Johnstone, Nov. 25. and Dec. 8. 1687. His failure is mentioned by Cillers, Dec. jV * Citters, Dec. 27. Jftn. (i. *•* Cillers, Dec. *. 1087. + Ibid. Dec. f{. 1687. March 30. H Ibid. April 9. Not- 32. +++ Ibid. Deo. H. $ Ibid. Nov. H. 1687. JAMES THE SECOND. 149 long canvass, returned from the West with gloomy tidings, He had been authorised to make the most tempting offers to 1688 ; ' the inhabitants of that region. In particular he had promised that, if proper respect were shown to the royal wishes, the trade in tin should be freed from the oppressive restrictions under which it lay. But this lure, which at another time would have proved irresistible, was now slighted. All the Justices and Deputy Lieutenants of Devonshire and Cornwall, without a single dissenting voice, declared that they would put life and property in jeopardy for the King, but that the Protestant religion was dearer to them than either life or property. “And, Sir,” said Bath, “if your Majesty should dismiss all these gentlemen, their successors would give exactly the same answer.” * If there was any district in which the government might have hoped for success, that district was Lancashire. Considerable doubts had been felt as to the result of what was passing there. In no part of the realm had so many opulent and honourable families adhered to the old religion. The heads of many of those families had already, by virtue of the dispensing power, been made Justices of the Peace and entrusted with commands in the militia. Yet from Lancashire the new Lord Lieutenant, himself a Roman Ca-' tholic, reported that two thirds of his deputies and of the magistrates were opposed to the Court.** But the proceedings in Hampshire wounded the King’s pride still more deeply. Arabella Churchill had, more than twenty years before, borne him a son, widely renowned, at a later period, as one of the most skilful captains of Europe. The youth, named James Fitzjames, had as yet given no promise of the eminence which he afterwards attained: but his manners were so gentle and inoffensive that he had no enemy except Mary of Modena, who had long hated the child of the concubine with the bitter hatred of a childless wife. A small part of the Jesuitical faction had, before the pregnancy of the Queen was an- * Citters, April 4J. 1688. ** The anxiety about Lancashire is mentioned by Cillers, in a despatch dated Nov. 4|. 1681; the result in a despatch dated four days later. 150 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1688 . nounced, seriously thought of setting him up as a competitor of the Princess of Orange.* When it is remembered how signally Monmouth, though believed by the populace to be legitimate, and though the champion of the national religion, had failed in a similar competition, it must seem extraordinary that any man should have been so much blinded by fanaticism as to think of placing on the throne one who was universally known to be a Popish bastard. It does not appear that this absurd design was ever countenanced by the King. The boy, however, was acknowledged; and whatever distinctions a subject, not of the royal blood, could hope to attain were bestowed on him. He had been created Duke of Berwick; and ho was now loaded with honourable and lucrative employments, taken from those noblemen who had refused to comply with the royal commands. He succeeded the Earl of Oxford as Colonel of the Blues, and the Earl of Gainsborough as Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire, Ranger of the New Forest, and Governor of Portsmouth. On the frontier of Hampshire Berwick expected to have been met, according to custom, by a long cavalcado of baronets, knights, and squires: but not a single person of note appeared to welcome him. He sent out letters commanding the attendance of the gentry: but only five or six paid the smallest attention to his summons. The rest did not wait to be dismissed. They declared that they would take no part in the civil or military government of their county while the King was represented there by a Papist, and voluntarily laid down their commissions. ” Sunderland, who had been named Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire in the room of the Earl of Northampton, found some excuse for not going down to face the indignation and contempt of the gentry of that shire; and his plea was the more readily admitted because the King had, by that time, begun to feel that the spirit of the rustic gentry was not to bo bent.*” * Bonrepaux, July 1 } ■ 1681. ** Citters, Feb. p,. 1688. '** Citters, April p.. 1688. .TAMES THE SECOND. 151 It is to be observed that those who displayed this spirit chap. were not the old enemies of the House of Stuart. The Com- 1688 , missions of Peace and Lieutenancy had long been carefully purged of all republican names. The persons from whom the court had in vain attempted to extract any promise of support were, with scarcely an exception, Tories. The elder among them could still show sears given by the swords of Round- heads , and receipts for plate sent to Charles the First in his distress. The younger had adhered firmly to James against Shaftesbury and Monmouth. Such were the men who were now turned out of office in a mass by the very prince to whom they had given such signal proofs of fidelity. Dismission however only made them more resolute. It had become a sacred point of honour among them to stand stoutly by one another in this crisis. There could be no doubt that, if the suffrage of the freeholders were fairly taken, not a single knight of the shire favourable to the policy of the government would be returned. Men therefore asked one another, with no small anxiety, whether the suffrages were likely to be fairly taken. The list of the Sheriffs for the new year was impatiently ex- pected. It appeared while the Lords Lieutenants were still engaged in their canvass, and was received with a general cry' of alarm and indignation. Most of the functionaries who were to preside at the county elections were either Roman Catholics or Protestant Dissenters who had expressed their approbation of the Indulgence.* For a time the most gloomy apprehensions prevailed: but soon they began to subside. There was good reason to believe that there was a point beyond which the King could not reckon on the support even of those Sheriffs who were members of his own Church. Between the Roman Catholic courtier and theRoman Catholic character country gentleman there was very little sympathy. That cabal R f 0 ^, e n which domineered at Whitehall consisted partly of fanatics, Catholic who were ready to break through all rules of morality and to gcnile- throw the world into confusion for the purpose of propagating men ‘ their religion, and partly of hypocrites who, for lucre, had apostatized from the faith in which they had been brought up, * London Gazette, Dec. 5.1087; Citters, Dec. &. 152 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1688 . and who now overacted the zeal characteristic of neophytes. Both the fanatical and the hypocritical courtiers were generally destitute of all English feeling. In some of them devotion to their Church had extinguished every national sentiment. Some were Irishmen, whose patriotism consisted in mortal hatred of the Saxon conquerors of Ireland. Some, again, were traitors, who received regular hire from a foreign power. Some had passed a great part of their lives abroad, and either were mere cosmopolites, or felt a positive distaste for the manners and institutions of the country which was now subjected to their rule. Between such men and the lord of a Cheshire or Staffordshire manor who adhered to the old Church there was scarcely anything in common. He was neither a fanatic nor a hypocrite. He was a Roman Catholic because his father and grand-father had been so; and he held his hereditary faith, as men generally hold a hereditary faith, sincerely, but with little enthusiasm. In all other points he was a mere English squire, and, if he differed from the neighbouring squires, differed from them by being somewhat more simple and clownish than they. The disabilities under which he lay had prevented his mind from expanding to the standard, moderate as that standard was, which the minds of Protestant country gentlemen then ordinarily attained. Excluded, when a boy, from Eton and Westminster, when a youth, from Oxford and Cambridge, when a man, from Parliament and from the bench of justice, he generally vegetated as quietly as the elms of the avenue which led to his ancestral grange. His cornfields, his dairy and his cider press, his greyhounds, his fishing rod and his gun, his ale and his tobacco, occupied almost all his thoughts. With his neighbours , in spite of his religion, he was generally on good terms. They knew him to be unambitious and inoffensive. He was almost always of a good old family. He was always a Cavalier. His peculiar notions were not obtruded, and caused no annoyance. He did not, like a Puritan, torment himself and others with scruples about everything that was pleasant. On the contrary, he was as keen a sportsman, and as jolly a boon companion, as any man who had taken the oath of supremacy JAMES THE SECOND. 153 and the declaration against transubstantiation. He met his brother squires at the cover, was in with them at the death, - and, when the sport was over, took them home with him to a venison pasty and to October four years in bottle. The oppressions which he had undergone had not been such as to impel him to any desperate resolution. Even when his Church was barbarously persecuted, his life and property were in little danger. The most impudent false witnesses could hardly venture to shock the common sense of mankind by accusing him of being a conspirator. The Papists whom Oates selected for attack were peers, prelates, Jesuits, Benedictines, a busy political agent, a lawyer in high practice, a court physician. The Roman Catholic country gentleman, protected by his obscurity, by his peaceable demeanour, and by the good will of those among whom he lived, carted his hay or filled his bag with game unmolested, while Coleman and Lang- horne, Whitbread and Pickering, Archbishop Plunkett and Lord Stafford, died by the halter or the axe. An attempt was indeed made by a knot of villains to bring home a charge of treason to Sir Thomas Gascoigne, an aged Roman Catholic baronet of Yorkshire: but twelve of the'best gentlemen of the West Riding, who knew his way of life, could not be convinced that their honest old acquaintance had hired cutthroats to murder the King, and, in spite of charges which did very little honour to the bench, found a verdict of Not Guilty. Sometimes, indeed, the head of an old and respectable provincial family might reflect with bitterness that he was excluded, on account of his religion, from places of honour and authority which men of humbler descent and less ample estate were thought competent to fill; but he was little disposed to risk land and life in a struggle against overwhelming odds; and his honest English spirit would have shrunk with horror from means such as were contemplated by the Petres and Tyrconnels. Indeed he would have been as ready as any of his Protestant neighbours to gird on his sword, and to put pistols in his holsters, for the defence of his native land against an invasion of French or Irish Papists. Such was the general character of the men to whom James now looked as to CHAP. vm. 1USS. 154 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 16687 Feeling of the Dissenters. his most trustworthy instruments for the conduct of county elections. He soon found that they were not inclined to throw away the esteem of their neighbours, and to endanger their heads and their estates, by rendering him an infamous and criminal service. Several of them refused to be Sheriffs. Of those who accepted the shrievalty many declared that they would discharge their duty as fairly as if they were members of the Established Church, and would return no candidate who had not a real majority. * If the King could place little confidence even in his Roman Catholic Sheriffs, still less could he rely on the Puritans. Since the publication of the Declaration several months had elapsed, months crowded with important events, months of unintermitted controversy. Discussion had opened the eyes of many Dissenters: but the acts of the government, and especially the severity with which Magdalene College had been treated, had done more than even the pen of Halifax to alarm and to unite all classes of Protestants. Most of those sectaries who had been induced to express gratitude for the Indulgence were now ashamed of their error, and were dc- * About twenty years before this time a Jesuit had noticed the retiring character of the Roman Catholic country gentlemen of England. “ La nobilta Inglese, senon se legata in servigio di Corle, 6 in opera di maestrato, vive, e gode il piu dell* anno alia campagna, ne’ suoi palagi e poderi, dove son liberi e padroni; e ci6 tanto piu sollecitamente i Cat- lolici quanto piu ulilmcnte, si come meno osservati cola.” — L’lnghil- terra descrilta dal P. Daniello Rarloli. Roma, 1667. “Many of the Popish Sheriffs,” Johnstone wrote, “have estates, and declare that whoever expects false returns from them will bo disappointed. The Popish gentry that live at their houses in the country are much different from those that live here in town. Several of them have refused to be Sheriffs or Deputy Lieutenants.” Dec. 8. 1687. Ronquillo says the same. “Algunos Calolicos quo fueron nom- brados por sherifes se ban excusado,” Jan. 1688. lie some months later assured his court that the Catholic country gentlemen would willingly consent to a compromise of which the terms should be that the penal laws should be abolished and the test retained. “Esloy in- formado,” he says, “que los Calolicos de las provincias no lo reprue- ban, pues no pretendiendo oficios, y siendo solo algunos de la Corle los provcchosos, les parece que mejoran su eslado, quedando seguros ellos y sus descendientes cn la religion * en la quietud, y en la seguridad de sus haciendas.” ^- — . 1 : 1688. Aug. 2. JAMES THE SECOND. 155 sirous of making atonement by casting in their lot with the ™jj • great body of their countrymen. Jeisl In consequence of this change in the feeling of the Non- negnia- conformists, the government found almost as great difficulty in the towns as in the counties. When the regulators began eons, their work, they had taken it for granted that every Dissenter who had availed himself of the Indulgence would be favourable to the King’s policy. They were therefore confident that they should be able to fill all the municipal offices in the kingdom with staunch friends. In the new charters a power had been reserved to the crown of dismissing magistrates at pleasure. This power was now exercised without limit. It was by no means equally clear that James had the power of appointing new magistrates: but, whether it belonged to him or not, he determined to assume it. Everywhere, from the Tweed to the Land’s End, Tory functionaries were ejected, and the vacant places were filled with Presbyterians, Independents, and Baptists. In the new charter of the City of London the crown had reserved the power of displacing the Masters, Wardens, and Assistants of all the companies. Accordingly more than eight hundred citizens of the first consideration, all of them members of that party which had opposed the Exclusion Bill, were turned out of office by a single edict. In a short time appeared a supplement to this long list.* But scarcely had the new office-bearers been sworn in when it was discovered that they were as unmanageable as their predecessors. At Newcastle on Tyne the regulators appointed a Roman Catholic Mayor and Puritan Aider- men. No doubt was entertained that the municipal body, thus remodelled, would vote an address promising to support the King’s measures. The address, however, was negatived. The Mayor went up to London in a fury, and told the King that the Dissenters were all knaves and rebels, and that in the whole corporation the government could not reckon on more than four votes.** At Reading twenty-four Tory Alder- * Privy Council Book, Sept. 25. 1681; Feb. 21. 168J. ** llecords of the Corporation, quoted in Brand’s History of Newcastle; Johnstone, Feb. 21.1C3£. 156 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. tiii. 1688. men were dismissed. Twenty-four new Aldermen were appointed. Twenty-three of those immediately declared against the Indulgence, and were dismissed in their turn.* In the course of a few days the borough of Yarmouth was governed by three different sets of magistrates, all equally hostile to the Court.** These are mere examples of what was passing all over the kingdom. The Dutch Ambassador informed the States that in many towns the public functionaries had, within one month, been changed twice, and even thrice, and yet changed in vain.*** From the records of the Privy Council it appears that the number of regulations, as they were called, exceeded two hundred, f The regulators indeed found that, in not a few places, the change had been for the worse. The discontented Tories, even while murmuring against theKing’s policy, had constantly expressed respect for his person and his office, and had disclaimed all thought of resistance. Very different was the language of some of the new members of corporations. It was said that old soldiers of the Commonwealth, who, to their own astonishment and that of the public, had been made Aldermen, gave the agents of the Court very distinctly to understand that blood should flow before Popery and arbitrary power were established in England.ff The regulators found that little or nothing had been gained by what had as yet been done. There was one way, and one way only, in which they could hope to effect their object. The charters of the boroughs must be resumed; and other charters must be granted confining the elective franchise to very small constituent bodies appointed by the sovereign.f+f But how was this plan to be carried into effect? In a few of the new charters, indeed, a right of revocation had been reserved to the crown: but the rest James could get into his * Johnstone, Feb. 21.168}. ** Citters, Feb. If. 1688. *** Ibid. May 1688. t In the margin of the Privy Council Book may be observed the words “Second regulation,” and “Third regulation,” when a corporation had been remodelled more than once. ft Johnstone, May 23. 1688. ttt Ibid. Feb. 21. 1688. JAMES THE SECOND. hands only by voluntary surrender on the part of corporations, or by judgment of the King’s Bench. Few corporations were now disposed to surrender their charters voluntarily; and such judgments as would suit the purposes of the government were hardly to be expected even from such a slave as Wright. The writs of Quo Warranto which had been brought a few years before for the purpose of crushing the Whig party had been condemned by every impartial man. Yet those writs had at least the semblance of justice; for they were brought against ancient municipal bodies; and there were few ancient municipal bodies in which some abuse, sufficient to afford a pretext for a penal proceeding, had not grown up in the course of ages. But the corporations now to be attacked were still in the innocence of infancy. The oldest among them had not completed its fifth year. It was impossible that many of them should have committed offences meriting disfranchisement. The Judges themselves were uneasy. They represented that what they were required to do was in direct opposition to the plainest principles of law and justice: but all remonstrance was vain. The boroughs were commanded to surrender their charters. Few complied; and the course which the King took with those few did not encourage others to trust him. In several towns the right of voting was taken away from the commonalty, and given to a very small number of persons, who were required to bind themselves by oath to support the candidates recommended by the government. At Tewkesbury, for example, the franchise was confined to thirteen persons. Yet even this number was too large. Hatred and fear had spread so widely through the community that it was scarcely possible to bring together in any town, by any process of packing, thirteen men on whom the Court could absolutely depend. It was rumoured that the majority of the new constituent body of Tewkesbury was animated by the same sentiment which was general throughout the nation, and would, when the decisive day should arrive, send true Protestants to Parliament. The regulators in great wrath threatened to reduce the number of electors to three. * Mean- * Johnstone, Feb. 21. 1088. 158 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap. w hile the great majority of the boroughs firmly refused to give "i688* ~ U P their privileges. Barnstaple, Winchester, and Buckingham, distinguished themselves by the boldness of their opposition. At Oxford the motion that the city should resign its franchises to the King was negatived by eighty votes to two. * The Temple and Westminster Hall were in a ferment with the sudden rush of business from all corners of the kingdom. Every lawyer in high practice was overwhelmed with the briefs from corporations. Ordinary litigants complained that their business was neglected. ** It was evident that a considerable time must elapse before judgment could be given in so great a number of important cases. Tyranny could ill brook this delay. Nothing was omitted which could terrify the refractory boroughs into submission. At Buckingham some ot the municipal officers had spoken of Jeffreys in language which was not laudatory. They were prosecuted, and were given to understand that no mercy should be shown to them unless they would ransom themselves by surrendering their charter.*** At Winchester still more violent measures were adopted. A large body of troops was marched into the town for the sole purpose of burdening and harassing the inhabitants.! The town continued resolute; and the public voice loudly accused the King of imitating the worst crimes of his brother of France. The dragonades, it was said, had begun. There was indeed reason for alarm. It had occurred to James that he could not more effectually break the spirit of an obstinate town than by quartering soldiers on the inhabitants. He must have known that this practice had sixty vears before excited formidable discontents, and had been solemnly pronounced illegal by the Petition of Bight, a statute scarcely less venerated by Englishmen than the Great Charter. But he hoped to obtain from the courts of law a declaration that even the Petition of Eight could not control the prerogative. He actually consulted the Chief Justice of the King’s **» * Citters, March |g. 1688. May 28. June 1« ** Ibid. May 1688. + Ibid. May *. 1G88. JAMES THE SECOND. 159 Bench on this subject:* but the result of the consultation remained secret; and in a very few weeks the aspect of affairs became such that a fear stronger than even the fear of the royal displeasure began to impose some restraint even on a man so servile as Wright. While the Lords Lieutenants were questioning the Justices of the Peace, while the regulators were remodelling the boroughs, all the public departments were subjected to a strict inquisition. The palace was first purified. Every battered old Cavalier, who, in return for blood and lands lost in the royal cause, had obtained some small place under the Keeper of the Wardrobe or the Master of the Harriers, was called upon to choose between the King and the Church. The Commissioners of Customs and Excise were ordered to attend His Majesty at the Treasury. There he demanded from them a promise to support his policy, and directed them to require a similiar promise from all their subordinates.** One Customhouse officer notified his submission to the royal will in a way which excited both merriment and compassion. “I have,” he said, “fourteen reasons for obeying His Majesty’s commands , a wife and thirteen young children.” *** Such reasons were indeed cogent; yet there were not a few instances in which, even against such reasons, religious and patriotic feelings prevailed. There is reason to believe that the government at this time seriously meditated a blow which would have reduced many thousands of families to beggary, and would have disturbed the whole social system of every part of the country. No wine, beer, or coffee could be sold without a license. It was rumoured that every person holding such a license would shortly be required to enter into the same engagements which had been imposed on public functionaries, or to relinquish his trade.f It seems certain that, if such a step had * Cillers, May 1688 ** Ibid. April ,V 1088.; Treasury Letter Book, March 14. 168J; Ron- quillo, April *” Citters, May iJ. 1688. CHAP. VIII. 16SS. Inquisition in all the public departments. f Ibid. 160 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. C viii ’ been token, tlie houses of entertainment and of public resort ■-all over the kingdom would have been at once shut up by hun- 1688 x * dreds. What effect such an interference with the comfort of all ranks would have produced must be left to conjecture. The resentment produced by grievances is not always proportioned to their dignity; and it is by no means improbable that the resumption of licenses might have done what the resumption of charters had failed to do. Men of fashion would have missed the chocolate house in Saint James’s Street, and men of business the coffee pot, ro und which they were accustomed to smoke and talk politics, in Change Alley. Half the clubs would have been wandering in search of shelter. The traveller at nightfall would have found the inn where he had expected to sup and lodge deserted. The clown would have regretted the hedge alehouse, where he had been accustomed to take his pot on the bench before the door in summer, and at the chimney comer in winter. The nation might, perhaps, under such provocation, have risen in general rebellion without waiting for the help of foreign allies. It was not to be expected that a prince who required all pismis- the humblest servants of the government to support his policy Sawyer, on pain of dismission would continue to employ an Attorney General whose aversion to that policy was no secret. Sawyer had been suffered to retain his situation more than a year and a half after he had declared against the dispensing power. This extraordinary indulgence he owed to the extreme difficulty which the government found in supplying his place. It was necessary, for the protection of the pecuniary interests of the crown, that at least one of the two chief law officers should be a man of ability and knowledge; and it wap by no means easy to induce any barrister of ability and knowledge to put himself in peril by committing every day acts which the next Parliament- would probably treat as high crimes and misdemeanours. It had been impossible to procure a better Solicitor General thanPowis, a man who indeed stuck at nothing, but who was incompetent to perform the ordinary duties of his post. In these circumstances it was thought desirable that there should be a division of JAMES THE SECOND. 161 labour. An Attorney, the value of whose professional talents criAP. was much diminished by his conscientious scruples, was - 16 g 8 ~ coupled with a Solicitor whose want of scruples made some amends for his want of talents. When the government wished to enforce the law, recourse was had to Sawyer. When the government wished to break the law, recourse was had to Powis. This arrangement lasted till the King obtained the services of an advocate who was at once baser than Powis and abler than Sawyer. No barrister living had opposed the Court with more viru- lence than William Williams. Pie had distinguished himself General, in the late reign as a Whig and an Exclusionist. When faction was at the height, he had been chosen Speaker of the House of Commons. After the prorogation of the Oxford Parliament he had commonly been counsel for the most noisy demagogues who had been accused of sedition. He was allowed to possess considerable quickness and knowledge. His chief faults were supposed to be rashness and party spirit. It was not yet suspected that he had faults compared with which rashness and party spirit might well pass for virtues. The government sought occasion against him, and easily found it. He had published, by order of the House of Commons, a narrative which Dangerfield had written. This narrative, if published by a private man, would undoubtedly have been a seditious libel. A criminal information was tiled in the King’s Bench against Williams: he pleaded the privileges of Parliament in vain: he was convicted and sentenced to a fine of ten thousand pounds. A large part of this sum he actually paid: for the rest he gave a bond. The Earl of Peterborough, who had been injuriously mentioned in Dangerfield’s narrative, was encouraged, by the success of the criminal information, to bring a civil action, and to demand large damages. Williams was driven to extremity. At this juncture a way of escape presented itself. It was indeed a way which, to a man of strong principles or high spirit, would have been more dreadful than beggary, imprisonment, or death. He might sell himself to that government of which he had been the enemy and the victim. He might offer to go on the forlorn hope in ilacaulay, History. III. ] 1 162 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VI If, 1688 . Second Declaration ofln- diligence, every assault on those liberties and on that religion for which he had professed an inordinate zeal. lie might expiate his Whiggism by performing services from which bigoted Tories, stained with the blood of Russell and Sidney, shrank in horror. The bargain was struck. The debt still due to the crown was remitted. Peterborough was induced, by royal mediation, to compromise his action. Sawyer was dismissed. Powis became Attorney General. Williams was made Solicitor, received the honour of knighthood, and was soon a favourite. Though in rank he was only the second law officer of the crown, his abilities, learning, and energy were such that he completely threw his superior into the shade.* Williams had not been long in office when he was required to bear a chief part in the most memorable state trial recorded in the British annals. On the twenty-seventh of April 1C88, the King put forth . a second Declaration of Indulgence. In this paper he recited at length the Declaration of the preceding April. His past life, he said, ought to have convinced his people that he was not a person who could easily be induced to depart from any resolution which lie.had formed. But, as designing men had attempted to persuade the world that he might be prevailed on to give way in this matter, he thought it necessary to proclaim that his purpose was immutably fixed, that he was resolved to employ those only who were prepared to concur in his design, and that he had, in pursuance of that resolution, dismissed many of his disobedient servants from civil and military employments. He announced that he meant to hold a Parliament in November at the latest; and he exhorted his subjects to choose representatives who would assist him in the great work which he had undertaken.** * London Gazette, Dec. 15. 1087. See die proceedings against Williams in the Collection of Slate Trials. “Ila lieclio,” says Konquillo, “grande susto el halter nombrado el abogado Williams, que file el oratlor y cl mas arrabiado de Loda la casa des cotnunes en los ullimos terribles parlamentos del ltey difunto." '' 1087. ** London Gazette, April30. 1688 ; Carillon, JAMES THE SECOND. 163 This Declaration at first produced little sensation. It con- C y ] -'| > - tained nothing new; and men wondered that the King should 1688 think it worth while to publish a solemn manifesto merely for Th(j the purpose of telling them that he had not changed his clergy mind.* Perhaps James was nettled by the indifference with to read it. which the announcement of his fixed resolution was received by the public, and thought that his dignity and authority would suffer unless he without delay did something novel and striking. On the fourth of May, accordingly, he made an Order in Council that his Declaration of the preceding week should be read, on two successive Sundays at the time of divine service, by the officiating ministers of all the churches and chapels of the kingdom. In London and in the suburbs the reading was to take place on the twentieth and twenty- seventh of May, in other parts of England on the third and tenth of June. The Bishops were directed to distribute copies of the Declaration through their respective dioceses.** When it is considered that the clergy of the Established Church, with scarcely an exception, regarded the Indulgence as a violation of the laws of the realm, as a breach of the plighted faith of the King, and as a fatal blow levelled at the interest and dignity of their own profession, it will scarcely admit of doubt that the Order in Council was intended to be felt by them as a cruel affront. It was popularly believed that Petre had avowed this intention in a coarse metaphor borrowed from the rhetoric of the East. He would, he said, make them eat dirt, the vilest and most loathsome of all dirt. But, tyrannical and malignant as the mandate was, would the Anglican priesthood refuse to obey? The King’s temper was arbitrary and severe. The proceedings of the Ecclesiatical Commission were as summary a? those of a court martial. Whoever ventured to resist might in a week be ejected from his parsonage, deprived of his whole income, pronounced incapable of holding any other spiritual preferment, and left to beg from door to door. If, indeed, the whole body offered an united opposition to the royal will, it was probable that * Cillers, May ? r . 1688, ** London Gazette, May T. 1C8S. 11 * 164 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1688. They hesitate. Patriotism of the Protestant Nonconformists of London. even James would scarcely venture to punish ten thousand delinquents at once. But there was not time to form an extensive combination. The Order in Council was gazetted on the seventh of May. On the twentieth the Declaration was to be read in all the pulpits of London and the neighbourhood. By no exertion was it possible in that age to ascertain within a fortnight the intentions of one tenth part of the parochial ministers who were scattered over the kingdom. It was not easy to collect in so short a time the sense even of the episcopal order. It might also well be apprehended that, if the clergy refused to read the Declaration, the Protestant Dissenters would misinterpret the refusal, would despair of obtaining any toleration from the members of the Church of England, and would throw their whole weight into the scale of the Court. The clergy therefore hesitated; and this hesitation may well be excused: for some eminent laymen, who possessed a large share of the public confidence, were disposed to recommend submission. They thought that a general opposition could hardly be expected, and that a partial opposition would be ruinous to individuals, and of little advantage to the Church and to the nation. Such was the opinion given at this time by Halifax and Nottingham. The day drew near; and still there was no concert and no formed resolution.* At this conjuncture the Protestant Dissenters of London won for themselves a title to the lasting gratitude of their country. They had hitherto been reckoned by the government as part of its strength. A few of their most active and noisy preachers, corrupted by the favours of the Court, had got up addresses in favour of the King’s policy. Others, estranged by the recollection of many cruel wrongs both from the Church of England and from the House of Stuart, had seen with resentful pleasure the tyrannical prince and the tyrannical hierarchy separated by a bitter enmity, and bidding against each other for the help of sects lately persecuted and despised. But this feeling, however natural, had been indulged long enough. The time had come when it was * Johnstone, May 27 . 1688 . JAMES THE SECOND. 165 necessary to make a choico: and the Nonconformists of the City, with a noble spirit, arrayed themselves side by side with the members of the Church in defence of the fundamental laws of the realm. Baxter, Bates, and Howe distinguished themselves by their efforts to bring about this coalition; but the generous enthusiasm which pervaded the whole Puritan body made the task easy. The zeal of the flocks outran that of the pastors. Those Presbyterian and Independent teachers who showed' an inclination to take part with the King against the ecclesiastical establishment received distinct notice that, unless they changed their conduct, their congregations would neither hear them nor pay them. Alsop, who had flattered himself that he should be able to bring over a great body of his disciples to the royal side, found himself on a sudden an object of contempt and abhorrence to those who had lately revered him as their spiritual guide, sank into a deep melancholy, and hid himself from the public eye. Deputations waited on several of the London clergy imploring them not to judge of the dissenting body from the servile adulation which had lately filled the London Gazette, and exhorting them, placed as they were in the van of this great fight, to play the men for the liberties of England and for the faith delivered to the Saints. These assurances were received with joy and gratitude. Yet there was still much anxiety and much difference of opinion among those who had to decide whether, on Sunday the twentieth, they would or would not Obey the King’s command. The London clergy, then universally Consuiia- acknowledged to be the flower of their profession, held aLoHaon' 1 ' meeting. Fifteen Doctors of Divinity were present. Tillot- cler ^- son, Dean of Canterbury, the most celebrated preacher of the age, came thither from a sick bed. Sherlock, Master of the Temple, Patrick, Dean of Peterborough and Rector of the important parish of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, and Stil- lingfleet, Archdeacon of London and Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, attended. The general feeling of the assembly seemed to be that it was, on the whole, advisable to obey the Order in Council. The dispute began to wax warm, and might have produced fatal consequences, if it had not been 166 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. -aA’ - C vm‘ broughtto a close by the firmness and wisdom of Doctor 1688. ' Edward Fowler, Vicar of St. Giles’s, Cripplegate, one of a small but remarkable class of divines who united that love of civil liberty which belonged to the school of Calvin with the theology of the school of Arminius.’ Standing up, Fowler spoke thus: “I must be plain. The question is so simple that argument can throw no new light on it, and can only beget heat. Let every man say Yes or No. But I cannot consent to be bound by the vote of the majority. I shall be sorry to cause a breach of unity. But this Declaration I cannot in conscience read.” Tillotson, Patrick, Sherlock, and Stil- lingfleet declared that they were of the same mind. The majority yielded to the authority of a minority so respectable. A resolution by which all present pledged themselves to one another not to read the Declaration was then drawn up. Patrick was the first who set his hand to it; Fowler was the second. The paper was sent round the city, and was speedily subscribed by eighty-five incumbents.* ** Meanwhile several of the Bishops were anxiously deliberating as to the course which they should take. On the twelfth of May a grave and learned company was assembled round the table of the Primate at Lambeth. Compton, Bishop of London, Turner, Bishop of Ely, White, Bishop ofPeter- borougli, and Tenison, Rector of St. Martin’s parish, were among the guests. The Earl of’Clarendon, a zealous and uncompromising friend of the Church, had been invited. Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, intruded himself on the meeting, probably as a spy. While he remained, no confidential communication could take place; but, after his departure, the great question of which all minds were full was pro- * That very remarkable man, the late Alexander Knox, whose eloquent conversation and elaborate letters had a great influence on the minds of his contemporaries, learned, 1 suspect, much of his theological system from Fowler’s writings. Fowler’s book on the Design of Christianity was assailed by John Bunyan with a ferocily which nothing can justify, but which the birth and breeding of the honest linker in some degree excuse. ■ ** Johnstone, May 23. 1G88. There is a satirical poem on this meeting entitled the Clerical Cabal. 'ttvem JAMES THE SECOND. 167 pounded and discussed. The general opinion was that the chap. Declaration ought not to be read. Letters were forthwith—^557 written to several of the most respectable prelates of the province of Canterbury, entreating them to come up without delay to London, and to strengthen the hands of their metropolitan at this conjuncture.* As there was little doubt that these letters would be opened if they passed through the office in Lombard Street, they were sent by horsemen to the nearest country post towns on the different roads. The Bishop of Winchester, whose loyalty had been so signally proved at Sedgemoor, though suffering from indisposition, resolved to set out in obedience to the summons, but found himself unable to bear the motion of a coach. The letter addressed to William Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich, was, in spite of all precautions, detained by a postmaster; and that prelate, inferior to none of his brethren in courage and in zeal for the common cause of his order, did not reach London in time.** His namesake, William Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph, a pious, honest, and learned man, but of slender judgment, and half crazed by his persevering endeavours to extract from Daniel and the Revelations some information about the Pope and the King of France, hastened to the capital and arrived on the sixteenth.*** On the following day came the excellent Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells, Lake, Bishop of Chichester, and Sir John Trelawney, Bishop of Bristol, a baronet of an old and honourable Cornish family. On the eighteenth a meeting of prelates and of other eminent divines was held at Lambeth. Tillotson, Tenison, Lambeth Stillingfleet, Patrick, and Sherlock were present. Prayers l ’ alac °’ were solemnly read before the consultation began. After long deliberation, a petition embodying the general sense was written by the Archbishop with his own hand. It was not drawn up with much felicity of style. Indeed, the cumbrous and inelegant structure of the sentences brought on Sancroft * Clarendon’s Diary, May 22. 1GSS. ** Extracts from Tanner MS. in Howell’s State Trials; Life of Prideaux; Clarendon’s Diary, May 16. 10S8. ••• Clarendon’s Diary, May 10 and 17.1088. 168 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VIM. 1686 . Petition of toe seven Bishops presented to the King. some raillery, which he bore with less patience than he showed ■ under much heavier trials. But in substance nothing could be more skilfully framed than this memorable document. All disloyalty, all intolerance, was earnestly disclaimed. The King was assured that the Church still was, as she had ever been, faithful to the throne. He was assured also that the Bishops would, in proper place and time, as Lords of Parliament and members of the Upper House of Convocation, show that they by no means wanted tenderness for the conscientious scruples of Dissenters. But Parliament had, both in the late and in the present reign, pronounced that the sovereign was not constitutionally competent to dispense with statutes in matters ecclesiastical. The Declaration was therefore illegal-, and the petitioners could not, in prudence, honour, or conscience, be parties to the solemn publication of an illegal Declaration in the house of God, and during the time of divine service. This paper was signed by the Archbishop and by six of his suffragans, Lloyd of St. Asaph, Turner of Ely, Lake of Chichester, Ken of Bath and Wells, White of Peterborough, and Trelawney of Bristol. The Bishop of Condon, being under suspension, did not sign. It was now late on Friday evening: and on Sunday morning the Declaration was to be read in the churches of London. It was necessary to put the paper into the King’s hands without delay. The six Bishops set off for Whitehall. The Archbishop, who had long been forbidden the Court, did not accompany them. Lloyd, leaving his five brethren at the house of Lord Dartmouth in the vicinity of the palace, went to Sunderland, and begged that minister to read the petition, and to ascertain when the King would be willing to receive it. Sunderland, afraid of compromising himself, refused to look at the paper, but went immediately to the royal closet. James directed that the Bishops should be admitted. He had heard from his tool Cartwright that they were disposed to obey the royal mandate, but that they wished for some little modifications in form, and that they meant to present a humble request to that effect. His Majesty was therefore in very JAMES THE SECOND. 169 good humour. When they knelt before him, he graciously told them to rise, took the paper from Lloyd, and said, ■ “This is my Lord of Canterbury’s hand.” “Yes, Sir, his own hand,” was the answer. James read the petition; he folded it up; and his countenance grew dark. “This,” he said, “is a great surprise to me. I did not expect this from your Church, especially from some of you. This is a standard of rebellion.” The Bishops broke out into passionate professions of loyalty: but the King, as usual, repeated the same words over and over. “I tell you, this is a standard of rebellion.” “Rebellion!” criedTrelawney, falling on his knees. “For God’s sake, Sir, do not say so hard a thing of us. No Trelawney can be a rebel. Remember that my family has fought for the crown. Remember how I served your Majesty when Monmouth was in the West.” “We put down the last rebellion,” said Lake: “we shall not raise another.” “We rebell” exclaimed Turner; “we are ready to die at your Majesty’s feet.” “Sir,” said Ken, in a more manly tone, “I hope that you will grant to us that liberty of conscience which you grant to all mankind.” Still James went on. “This is rebellion. This is a standard of rebellion. Did ever a good Churchman question the dispensing power before? Have not some of you preached for it and written for it? It is a standard of rebellion. I will have my Declaration published.” “We have two duties to perform,” answered Ken, “ohr duty to God, and our duty to your Majesty. We honour you: but we fear God.” “Have I deserved this?” said the King, more and more angry, “I who have been such a friend to your Church! I did not expect this from some of you. I will be obeyed. My Declaration shall be published. You are trumpeters of sedition. What do you do here? Go to your dioceses and see that I am obeyed. I will keep this paper. I will not part with it. I will remember you that have signed it.” “God’s will be done,” said Ken. “God has given me the dispensing power,” said the King, “and I will maintain it. I tell you that there are still seven thousand of your Church who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” The CHAP. VIII. 170 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1688 , Bishops respectfully retired.* That very evening the docu- • ment which they had put into the hands of the King appeared word for word in print, was laid on the tables of all the coffeehouses, and was cried about the streets. Everywhere the people rose from their beds, and came out to stop the hawkers. It was said that the printer cleared a thousand pounds in a few hours by this penny broad-side. This is probably an exaggeration; but it is an exaggeration which proves that the sale was enormous. How the petition got abroad is still a mystery. Sancroft declared that he had taken every precaution against publication, and that he knew of no copy except that which he had himself written, and which James had taken out of Lloyd’s hand. The veracity of the Archbishop is beyond all suspicion. It is, however, by no means improbable that some of the divines who assisted in framing the petition may have remembered so short a composition accurately, and may have sent it to the press. The prevailing opinion, however, was that some person about the King had been indiscreet or treacherous.** Scarcely less sensation was produced by a short letter which was written with great power of argument and language, printed secretly, and largely circulated on the same day by the post and by the common carriers. A copy was sent to every clergyman in the kingdom. The writer did not attempt to disguise the danger which those who disobeyed the royal mandate would incur: but he set forth in a lively manner the still greater danger of submission. “If we read the Declaration,” said he, “we fall to rise no more. We fall unpitied and despised. We fall amidst the curses of a nation whom our compliance will have ruined.” Some thought that this paper came from Holland. Others attributed it to Sherlock. But Prideaux, Dean of Norwich, who was a principal agent in distributing it, believed it to be the work of Halifax. The conduct of the prelates was rapturously extolled by the general voice: but some murmurs were heard. It was * Sancroft’s Narrative printed from the Tanner MS.; Cillers, r 1 June 1. ms. ** Burnet,i. 141.; Revolution Politics; Higgins’s Short View. JAMES THE SECOND. 171 said that such grave men, if they thought themselves bound chap. in conscience to remonstrate with the King, ought to have 1688 . remonstrated earlier. Was it fair to him to leave him in the dark till within thirty-six hours of the time fixed for the reading of the Declaration? Even if he wished to revoke the Order in Council, it was too late to do so. The inference seemed to be that the petition was intended, not to move the royal mind, but merely to inflame the discontents of the people.* These complaints were utterly groundless. The King had laid on the Bishops a command new, surprising, and embarrassing. It was their duty to communicate with each other, and to ascertain as far as possible the sense of the profession of which they were the heads before they took any step. They were dispersed over the whole kingdom. Some of them were distant from others a full week’s journey. James allowed them only a fortnight to inform themselves, to meet, to deliberate, and to decide; and he surely had no right to think himself aggrieved because that fortnight was drawing to a close before he learned their decision. Nor is it true that they did not leave him time to revoke his order if he had been wise enough to do so. He might have called together his Council on Saturday morning, and before night it might have been known throughout London and the suburbs that he had yielded to the intreaties of the fathers of the Church. The Saturday, however, passed over without any sign of relenting on the part of the government; and the Sunday arrived, a day long remembered In the City and Liberties of London were about a hundred parish churches. In only four of these was the Order in clergy Council obeyed. At Saint Gregory’s the Declaration was ule°™y a i read by a divine of the name of Martin. As soon as he order . uttered the first words, the whole congregation rose and withdrew. At Saint Matthew’s, in Friday Street, a wretch named Timothy Hall, who had disgraced his gown by acting as broker for the Duchess of Portsmouth in the sale of pardons, and who now had hopes of obtaining the vacant bishopric of Oxford, was in like manner left alone in his church. At * Clarke’s Life of James the Second, ii. 155. 172 HISTORY OP ENGI.AKD. CHAP. VIII. 1663 . Serjeant’s Inn, in Chancery Lane, the clerk pretended that he had forgotten to bring a copy; and the Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, who had attended in order to see that the royal mandate was obeyed, was forced to content himself with this excuse. Samuel Wesley, the father of John and Charles Wesley, a curate in London, took for his text that day the noble answer of the three Jews to the Chaldean tyrant. “Be it known unto thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” Even in the chapel of Saint James’s Palace the officiating minister had the courage to disobey the order. The Westminster boys long remembered what took place that day in the Abbey. Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, officiated there as Dean. As soon as he began to read the Declaration, murmurs and the noise of people crowding out of the choir drowned his voice. He trembled so violently that men saw the paper shake in his hand. Long before he had finished, the place was deserted by all but those whose situation made it necessary for them to remain. * Never had the Church been so dear to the nation as on the afternoon of that day. The spirit of dissent seemed to be extinct. Baxter from his pulpit pronounced an eulogium on the Bishops and parochial clergy. The Dutch minister, a few hours later, wrote to inform the States General that the Anglican priesthood had risen in the estimation of the public to an incredible degree. The universal cry of the Nonconformists, he said, was that they would rather continue to lie under the penal statutes than separate their cause from that of the prelates.** Another week of anxiety and agitation passed away. Sunday came again. Again the churches of the capital were thronged by hundreds of thousands. The Declaration was read nowhere except at the very few places where it had been • Cillers, a ; - 1088; Burnet, i. 740.; and Lord Dartmoulh’s nole; 1 June!. » r t » Southey’s Life of Wesley. ** Cillers, 1688. 5 JUDOI. i JAMES THE SECOND, 173 read the week before. The minister who had officiated at chap. the chapel in Saint James’s Palace had been turned out of his ■ ]6g8 y situation, and a more obsequious divine appeared with the paper in his hand: but his agitation was so great that he could not articulate. In truth the feeling of the whole nation had now become such as none but the very best and noblest, or the very worst and basest, of mankind could without much discomposure encounter.* Even the King stood aghast for a moment at the violence Hesito- of the tempest which he had raised. What step was he next [h° e n 6 ° 0 f . to take? He must either advance or recede: and it was im- liation. At one moment he determined to put forth a second order enjoining the clergy in high and angry terms to publish his Declaration, and menacing every one who should be refractory with instant suspension. This order was drawn up and sent to the press, then recalled, then a second time sent to the press, then recalled a second time.** A different plan was suggested by some of those who were for rigorous measures. The prelates who had signed the petition might be cited before the Ecclesiastical Commission and deprived of their sees. But to this course strong objections were urged in Council. It had been announced that the Houses would be convoked before the end of the year. The Lords would assuredly treat the sentence of deprivation as a nullity, would insist that Sancroft and his fellow petitioners should be summoned to Parliament, and would refuse to acknowledge a new Archbishop of Canterbury or a new Bishop of Bath and Wells. Thus the session, which at best was likely to be sufficiently stormy, would commence with a deadly quarrel between the crown and the peers. If therefore it were thought necessary to punish the Bishops, the punishment ought to be inflicted according to the known course of English law. Sunderland had from the beginning objected, as far as he dared, to the Order in Council. He now suggested a course possible to advance without peril, or to recede without liumi- m0nt- * Cillers May 29. '' June 8. ** Ibid. May 29. June 8. 1683. 174 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. V1H, 1688. It is determined to prosecute the Bishops for a libel. which, though not free from inconveniences, was the most prudent and the most dignified that a series of errors had left open to the government. The King might with grace and majesty announce to the world that he was deeply hurt by the undutiful conduct of the Church of England; but that he could not forget all the services rendered by that Church, in trying times, to his father, to his brother, and to himself; that, as a friend to the liberty of conscience, he was unwilling to deal severely by men whom conscience, ill informed indeed, and unreasonably scrupulous, might have prevented from obeying his commands; and that he would therefore leave the offenders to that punishment which their own reflections would inflict whenever they should calmly compare their recent acts with the loyal doctrines of which they had so loudly boasted. Not only Powis and Bellasyse, who had always been for moderate counsels, but even Dover and Arundell, leaned towards this proposition. Jeffreys, on the other hand, maintained that the government would be disgraced if such transgressors as the seven Bishops were suffered to escape with a mere reprimand. He did not, however, wish them to be cited before the Ecclesiastical Commission, in which he sate as chief or rather as sole Judge. For the load of public hatred under which he already lay was too much even for his shameless forehead and obdurate heart; and he shrank from the responsibility which he would have incurred by pronouncing an illegal sentence on the rulers of the Church and the favourites of the nation. He there- , fore recommended a criminal information. It was accordingly resolved that the Archbishop and the six other petitioners should be brought before the Court of King’s Bench on a charge of seditious libel. That they would be convicted it was scarcely possible to doubt. The Judges and their officers were tools of the Court. Since the old charter of the City of London had been forfeited, scarcely one prisoner whom the government was bent on bringing to punishment had been absolved by a jury. The refractory prelates would probably be condemned to ruinous fines and to long imprisonment, and would be glad to ransom themselves by JAMES THE SECOND. 175 serving, both in and out of Parliament, the designs of the Sovereign.* On the twenty-seventh of May it was notified to the Bishops that on the eighth of June they must appear before the King in Council. Why so long an interval was allowed we are not informed. Perhaps James hoped that some of the offenders, terrified by his displeasure, might submit before the day fixed for the reading of the Declaration in their dioceses, and might, in order to make their peace with him, persuade their clergy to obey his order. If such was his hope it was signally disappointed. Sunday the third of June came; and all parts of England followed the example of the capital. Already the Bishops of Norwich, Gloucester, Salisbury, Winchester, and Exeter, had signed copies of the petition in token of their approbation. The Bishop of Worcester had refused to distribute the Declaration among his clergy. The Bishop of Hereford had distributed it: but it was generally understood that he was overwhelmed by remorse and shame for having done so. Not one parish priest in fifty complied with the Order in Council. In the grert diocese of Chester, including the county of Lancaster, only three clergymen could be prevailed on by Cartwright to obey the King. In the diocese of Norwich are many hundreds of parishes. In only four of these was the Declaration read. The courtly Bishop of Rochester could not overcome the scruples of the minister of the ordinary of Chatham, who depended on the government for bread. There is still extant a pathetic letter which this honest priest sent to the Secretary of the Admiralty. “I cannot,” he wrote, “reasonably expect your Honour’s protection. God’s will be done. I must choose suffering rather than sin.”** On the evening of the eighth of June the seven prelates, furnished by the ablest lawyers in England with full advice, ' Barillon, Wrv 3(1. May 31, IC88; Citters, July Tl* » June#. June ID. June ; Clarke’s Life ol James the Second, ii. 158. Adda Mny 85 . June4. ** Burnet, i. 740.; Life of Prideaux; Citters, June $j. 1688; Tanner MS.; Life and Correspondence of Pepys. 6HAP _V1U. 16SS. They are examined 176 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. - 16S8. by the Privy Council, repaired to the palace, and were called into the Council chamber. Their petition was lying on the table. The Chancellor took the paper up, showed it to the Archbishop, and said, “Is this the paper which your Grace wrote, and which the six Bishops present delivered to his Majesty?” Sancroft looked at the paper, turned to the King, and spoke thus: “Sir, I stand here a culprit. I never was so before. Once I little thought that I ever should be so. Least of all could I think that I should be charged with any offence against my King: but, since I am so unhappy as to be in this situation, your Majesty will not be offended if I avail myself of my lawful right to decline saying anything which may criminate me.” “This is mere chicanery,” said the King. “I hope that your Grace will not do so ill a thing as to deny your own hand.” “Sir,” said Lloyd, whose studies had been much among the casuists, “all divines agree that a person situated as we are may refuse to answer such a question.” The King, as slow of understanding as quick of temper, could not comprehend what the prelates meant. He persisted, and was evidently becoming very angry. “Sir,” said the Archbishop, “I am not bound to accuse myself. Nevertheless, if your Majesty positively commands me to answer, I will do so in the confidence that a just and generous prince will not suffer what I say in obedience to his orders to be brought in evidence against me.” “You must not capitulate with your Sovereign,” said the Chancellor. “No,” said the King; “I will not give any such command. If you choose to deny your own hands, I have nothing more to say to you.” The Bishops were repeatedly sent out into the antechamber, and repeatedly called back into the Council room. At length James positively commanded them to answer the question. He did not expressly engage that their confession should not be used against them. But they, not unnaturally, supposed that, after what had passed, such an engagement was implied in his command. Sancroft acknowledged his handwriting; and his brethren followed his example. They were then interrogated about the meaning of some words in the petition, and about the letter which had been circulated JAMES THE SECOND. 177 with so much effect all over the kingdom: but their language ™ai>. was so guarded that nothing was gained by the examination. ■ ]688 The Chancellor then told them that a criminal information would be exhibited against them in the Court of King’sBench, and called upon them to enter into recognisances. They refused. They were peers of the realm, they said. They were advised by the best lawyers in Westminster Hall that no peer could be required to enter into a recognisance in a case of libel; and they should not think themselves justified in relinquishing the privilege of their order. The King was so absurd as to think himself personally affronted because they chose, on a legal question, to be guided by legal advice. “You believe everybody,” he said, “rather than me.” He was indeed mortified and alarmed. For he had gone so far that, if they persisted, he had no choice left but to send them to prison; and, though he by no means foresaw all the consequences of such a step, he foresaw probably enough to disturb him. They were resolute. A warrant wqp therefore They are made out directing the Lieutenant of the Tower to keep them ted'to'the in safe custody, and a barge was manned to convey them Tower, down the river.* It was known all over London that the Bishops were before the Council. The public anxiety was intense. A great multitude filled the courts of Whitehall and all the neighbouring streets. Many people were in the habit of refreshing themselves at the close of a summer day with the cool air of the Thames. But on this evening the whole river was alive with wherries. When the Seven came forth under a guard, the emotions of the people broke through all restraint. Thousands fell on their knees and prayed aloud for the men who had, with the Christian courage ofKidley and Latimer, confronted a tyrant inflamed by all the bigotry of Mary. Many dashed into the stream, and, up to their waists in ooze and water, cried to the holy fathers to bless them. All down the river, from Whitehall to London Bridge, the royal barge passed between lines of boats, from which arose a shout of “ God bless your Lordships.” The King, in great alarm, gave * Sancroft’s Narrative, printed from the Tanner MS. Macaulay, History. III. 12 178 niSTORY OF ENGLAND. CFIAP. VIII. 1688. Birth of the Pretender. orders that the garrison of the Tower should be doubled, that the Guards should be held ready for action, and that two companies should be detached from every regiment in the kingdom, and sent up instantly to London. But the force on which he relied as the means of coercing the people shared all the feelings of the people. The very sentinels who were under arms at the Traitors’ Gate reverently asked for a blessing from the martyrs whom they were to guard. Sir Edward Hales was Lieutenant of the Tower. He was little inclined to treat his prisoners with kindness. For he was an apostate from that Church for which they suffered; and he held several lucrative posts by virtue of that dispensing power against which they had protested. He learned with indignation that his soldiers were drinking the health of the Bishops. He ordered his officers to see that it was done no more. But the officers came back with a report that the thing could not be prevented, and that no other health was drunk in the garrison. Nor was it .only by carousing that the troops showed their reverence for the fathers of the Church. There was such a show of devotion throughout the Tower that pious divines thanked God for bringing good out of evil, and for making the persecution of His faithful servants the means of saving many souls. All day the coaches and liveries of the first nobles of England were seen round the prison gates. Thousands of humbler spectators constantly covered Tower Hill.* But among the marks of public respect and sympathy which the prelates received there was one which more than all the rest enraged and alarmed the King. He learned that a deputation of ten Nonconformist ministers had visited the Tower. He sent for four of these persons, and himself upbraided them. They courageously answered that they thought it their duty to forget past quarrels, and to stand by the men who stood by the Protestant religion.** Scarcely had the gates of the Tower been closed on the prisoners when an event took place which increased the public * Burnet, i. 141.; Citters, June ■,%. 1688; LutlreH's Diary, June8.: Evelyn’s Diary; Letter of Dr. Nalson to his wife, dated June 14., and printed from ihe Tanner HIS. j Reresby’s Memoirs. ** Keresby's Memoirs. JAMES THE SECOND. 179 excitement. It had been announced that the Queen did not chap- expect to be delivered till July. But, on the day after the 16a8 ' " Bishops had appeared before the Council, it was observed that the King seemed to be anxious about her state. In the evening, however, she sate playing cards at Whitehall till near midnight. Then she was carried in a sedan to Saint James’s Palace, where apartments had been very hastily fitted tip for her reception. Soon messengers were running about in all directions to summon physicians and priests, Lords of the Council, and Ladies of the Bedchamber. In a few hours many public functionaries and women of rank were assembled in the Queen’s room. There, on the morning of Sunday, the tenth of June, a day long kept sacred by the too faithful adherents of a bad cause, was born the most unfortunate of princes, destined to seventy-seven years of exile and wandering, of vain projects, of honours more galling than insults, and of hopes such as make the heart sick. The calamities of the poor child had begun before his He is birth. The nation over which, according to the ordinary believed course of succession, he would have reigned, was fully per- ‘° pp e osi _ suaded that his mother was not really pregnant. By whatever tious. evidence the fact of his birth had been proved, a considerable number of people would probably have persistod in maintaining that the Jesuits had practised some skilful sleight of hand: and the evidence, partly from accident, partly from gross mismanagement, was open to some objections. Many persons of both sexes were in the royal bedchamber when the child first saw the light; but none of them enjoyed any large measure of public confidence. Of the Privy Councillors present half were Roman Catholics; and those who called themselves Protestants were generally regarded as traitors to their country and their God. Many of the women in attendance were French, Italian, and Portuguese. Of the English ladies some were Papists, and some were the wives of Papists. Some persons who were peculiarly entitled to be present, and whose testimony would have satisfied all minds accessible to reason, were absent; and for their absence the King was held responsible. The Princess Anne was, of all the inhabitants of 13 * 180 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. p; the island, the most deeply interested in the event. Her sex • and her experience qualified her to act as the guardian of her sister’s birthright and her own. She had conceived strong suspicions which were daily confirmed by circumstances trilling or imaginary. She fancied that the Queen carefully shunned her scrutiny, and ascribed to guilt a reserve which was perhaps the effect of delicacy.* In this temper Anne had determined to be present and vigilant when the critical day should arrive. But she had not thought it necessary to be at her post a month before that day, and had, incompliance, it was said, with her father’s advice, gone to drink the Bath waters. Sancroft, whose great place made it his duty to attend, and on whose probity the nation placed entire reliance, had a few hours before been sent to the Tower by James. The Hydes were the proper protectors of the rights of the two Princesses. The Dutch Ambassador might be regarded as the representative of William, who, as first prince of the blood and consort of the King’s eldest daughter, had a deep interest in what was passing. James never thought of summoning any member, male or female, of the family of Hyde; nor was the Dutch Ambassador invited to be present. Posterity has fully acquitted the King of the fraud which his people imputed to him. But it is impossible to acquit him of folly and perverseness such as explain and excuse the error of his contemporaries. He was perfectly aware of the suspicions which were abroad.** He ought to have known that those suspicions would not be dispelled by the evidence of members of the Church of Rome, or of persons who, though they might call themselves members of the Church of England, had shown themselves ready to sacrifice the interests of the Church of England in order to obtain his favour. That he was taken by surprise is true. But he had twelve hours to make his arrangements. He found no difficulty in crowding St. James’s Palace with bigots and sycophants on whose word the nation placed no reliance. It would have been quite as * Correspondence between Anne and Mary, in Dalrymple; Clarendon’s Diary, Oct. 31. 1688. ** This is clear from Clarendon’s Diary, Oct. 31. 1688 . Li.!'., JAMES THE SECOND. easy to procure the attendance of some eminent persons whose attachment to the Princesses and to the established religion was unquestionable. At a later period, when he had paid dearly for his foolhardy contempt of public opinion, it was the fashion at Saint Germains to excuse him by throwing the blame on others. Some Jacobites charged Anne with having purposely kept out of the way. Nay, they were not ashamed to say that San croft had provoked the King to send him to the Tower, in order that the evidence which was to confound the calumnies of the malecontents might be defective.* The absurdity of these imputations is palpable. Could Anne or Sancroft possibly have foreseen that the Queen’s calculations would turn out to be erroneous by a whole month? Had those calculations been correct, Anne would have been back from Bath, and Sancroft would have been out of the Tower, in ample time for the birth. At all events the maternal uncles of the King’s daughters were neither at a distance nor in a prison. The same messenger who summoned the whole bevy of renegades, Dover, Peterborough, Murray, Sunderland, andMulgrave, could just as easily have summoned Clarendon. If they were Privy Councillors, so was he. His house was in Jermyn Street, not two hundred yards from the chamber of the Queen. Yet he was left to learn at St. James’s Church, from the agitation and whispers of the congregation, that his niece had ceased to be heiress presumptive of the crown.** Was it a disqualification that he was the near kinsman of the Princesses of Orange and Denmark? Or was it a disqualification that he was unalterably attached to the Church of England? The cry of the whole nation was that an imposture had been practised. Papists had, during some months, been predicting, from the pulpit and through the press, in prose and verse, in English and Latin, that a Prince of Wales would be given to the prayers of the Church; and they had now accomplished their own prophecy. Every witness who could not be corrupted or deceived had been studiously ex- * Clarke's Life of James the Second, ii. 159, ICO. *' Clarendon’s Diary, June 10, 1 C 8 S. 182 HISTOET OP ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1688 . eluded. Anne tad been tricked into visiting Batli. The Primate had, on the very day preceding that which had been fixed for the villany, been sent to prison in defiance of the rules of law and of the privileges of peerage. Not a single man or woman who had the smallest interest in detecting the fraud had been suffered to be present. The Queen had been removed suddenly and at the dead of night to St. James’s Palace, because that building, less commodious for honest purposes than Whitehall, had some rooms and passages well suited for the purpose of the Jesuits. There, amidst a circle of zealots who thought nothing a crime that tended to promote the interests of their Church, and of courtiers who thought nothing a crime that tended to enrich and aggrandise themselves, a new born child had been introduced into the royal bed, and then handed round in triumph, as heir of the three kingdoms. Heated by such suspicions, suspicions unjust, it is true, but not altogether unnatural, men thronged more eagerly than ever to pay their homage to the saintly victims of the tyrant who, having long foully injured his people, had now filled up the measure of his iniquities by more foully injuring his children.* The Prince of Orange, not himself suspecting any trick, and not aware of the state of public feeling in England, ordered praj'ers to be said under his own roof for his little brother-in-law, and sent Zulestein to London with a formal message of congratulation. Zulestein, to his amazement, found all the people whom he met open mouthed about the infamous fraud just committed by the Jesuits, and saw every hour some fresh pasquinade on the pregnancy and the delivery. He soon wrote to the Hague that not one person in ten believed the child to have been born of the Queen.** * Johnstone gives in a very few words an excellent summary of the case against the King. “The generality of people conclude all is a trick; because they say the reckoning is changed, the Princess sent away, none of the Clarendon family nor the Dutch Ambassador sent for, the suddenness of the thing, the sermons, the confidence of the priests, the hurry.” June 13. 1688. * Honquillo, Ronquillo adds, that what Zulestein said of the state of public opinion was strictly true. via JA5IES THE SECOND. 183 The demeanour of the seven prelates meanwhile c ^j’- strengthened the interest which their situation excited. On—5^557— the evening of the Black Friday, as it was called, on which they were committed, they reached their prison just at the hour of divine service. They instantly hastened to the chapel. It chanced that in the second lesson were these words: “In all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments.” All zealous Churchmen were delighted by this coincidence, and remembered how much comfort a similar coincidence had given, near forty years before, to Charles the First at the time of his death. On the evening of the next day, Saturday the ninth, a letter came from Sunderland enjoining the chaplain of the Tower to read the Declaration during divine service on the following morning. As the time fixed by the Order in Council for the reading in London had long expired, this proceeding of the government could be considered only as a personal insult of the meanest and most childish kind to the venerable prisoners. The chaplain refused to comply: he was dismissed from his situation; and the chapel was shut up. * The Bishops edified all who approached them by the firm- The ness and cheerfulness with which they endured confinement, brought by the modesty and meekness with which they received the £uig>3 llia applauses and blessings of the whole nation, and by the loyal Bench attachment which they professed for the persecutor who b”ned. sought their destruction. They remained only a week in custody. On Friday the fifteenth of June, the first day of term, they were brought before the King’s Bench. An immense throng awaited their coming. From the landing-place to the Court of Bequests they passed through a lane of spectators who blessed and applauded them. “Friends,” said the prisoners as they passed, “honour the King; and remember us in your prayers.” These humble and pious expressions moved the hearers, even to tears. When at length the procession had made its way through the crowd into the presence of the Judges, the Attorney General exhibited the Cillers June J5- *688; Lutlrell’s Diary, June 18. 184 HISTOliY OF ENGLAND. cijap. viii. i(IS8. information which he had been commanded to prepare, and moved that the defendants might be ordered to plead. The counsel on the otherside objected that the Bishops had been unlawfully committed, and were therefore not regularly before the Court. The question whether a peer could be required to enter into recognisances on a charge of libel was argued at great length, and decided by a majority of tr.e Judges in favour of the crown. The prisoners then pleaded Not Guilty. That day fortnight, the twenty-ninth of June, was fixed for their trial. In the meantime they were allowed to be at large on their own recognisances. The crown lawyers acted prudently in not requiring sureties. For Halifax had arranged that twenty-one temporal peers of the highest consideration should be ready to put in bail, three for each defendant; and such a manifestation of the feeling of the nobility would have been no slight blow to the government. It was also known that one of the most opulent Dissenters of the City had begged that he might have the honour of gjving security for Ken. The Bishops were now permitted to depart to their own homes. The common people, who did not understand the nature of the legal proceedings which had taken place in the King’s Bench, and who saw that their favourites had been brought to Westminster Hall in custody and were suffered to go away in freedom, imagined that the good cause was prospering. Loud acclamations were raised. The steeples of the churches sent forth joyous peals. Sprat was amazed to hear the bells of his own Abbey ringing merrily. He promptly silenced them: but his interference caused much angry muttering. The Bishops found it difficult to escape from the importunate crowd of their well-wishers. Lloyd was detained in Palace Yard by admirers who struggled to touch his hands and to kiss the skirt of his robe, till Clarendon, with some difficulty, rescued him and conveyed him home by a bye path. Cartwright, it is said, was so unwise as to mingle with the crowd. Some person who saw his episcopal habit asked and received his blessing. A bystander cried out, “Do you know who blessed you?” “Surely,” said he who had just been JAMES THE SECOND. 185 honoured, by the benediction, “it -was one of the Seven.” “No,” said the other; “it is the Popish Bishop of Chester.” ■ “Popish dog,” cried the enraged Protestant; “take your blessing back again.” Such was the concourse, and such the agitation, that the Dutch Ambassador was surprised to see the day close without an insurrection. The King had been by no means at ease. In order that he might be ready to suppress any disturbance, he had passed the morning in reviewing several battalions of infantry in Hyde Park. It is, however, by no means certain that his troops would have stood by him if he had needed their services. When San croft reached Lambeth, in the afternoon, he found the grenadier guards, who were quartered in that suburb, assembled before the gate of his palace. They formed in two lines on his right and left, and asked his benediction as he went through them. He with difficulty prevented them from lighting a bonfire in honour of his return to his dwelling. There were, however, many bonfires that evening in the City. Two Roman Catholics who were so indiscreet as to beat some boys for joining in these rejoicings were seized by the mob, stripped naked, and ignominiously branded. * Sir Edward Hales now came to demand fees from those who had lately been his prisoners. They refused to pay anything for a detention which they regarded as illegal to an officer whose commission was, on their principles, a nullity. The Lieutenant hinted very intelligibly that, if they came into his hands again, they should be put into heavy irons and should lie on bare stones. “We are under our King’s displeasure,” was the answer; “and most deeply do we feel it: but a fellow subject who threatens us does but lose his breath.” It is easy to imagine with what indignation the people, excited as they were, must have learned that a renegade from the Protestant faith, who held a command in defiance of the fundamental laws of England, had dared to * For the events of this day see the Slate Trials; Clarendon’s Diary; Lutlrell’s Diary; Citlers, JuncR.; Johnstone, June 18.; Revolution Politics. CHAP. vilf. 1633 . 186 IIISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap, menace divines of venerable age and dignity with all the bar- - 16S8- ’ barities of Lollard’s Tower. * Agitation Before the day of trial the agitation had spread to the public farthest corners of the island. From Scotland the Bishops mimi. received letters assuring them of the sympathy of the Presbyterians of that country, so long and so bitterly hostile to prelacy.** The people of Cornwall, a fierce, bold, and athletic race, among whom there was a stronger provincial feeling than in any other part of the realm, were greatly moved by the danger of Trelawney, whom they reverenced less as a ruler of the Church than as the head of an honourable house, and the heir through twenty descents of ancestors who had been of great note before the Normans had set foot on English ground. All over the county the peasants chanted a ballad of which the burden is still remembered: “And shall Trelawney die, and shall Trelawney die? Then thirty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why.” The miners from their caverns reechoed the song with a variation: “Then twenty thousand under ground will know the reason why.”*'* The rustics in many parts of the country loudly expressed a strange hope which had never ceased to live in their hearts. Their Protestant Duke, their beloved Monmouth, would suddenly appear, would lead them to victory, and would tread down the King and the Jesuits under his feet, f The ministers were appalled. Even Jeffreys would gladly have retraced his steps. He charged Clarendon with friendly messages to the Bishops, and threw on others the blame of the prosecution which he had himself recommended. Sunderland again ventured to recommend concession. The late auspicious birth, he said, had furnished the King with an excellent opportunity of withdrawing from a position full of danger and inconvenience without incurring the reproach of * Johnstone, June 18.1688; Evelyn’s Diary, June 29. ** Tanner MS. *•* This fact was communicated to me in the most obliging manner by the Reverend U. S. Hawker of Morwenstow in Cornwall. + Johnstone, June 18.1688. JAMES THE SECOND. 187 timidity or of caprice. On such happy occasions it had been C y I ^|’ - usual for sovereigns to make the hearts of subjects glad by j 688 7" acts of clemency; and nothing could be more advantageous to the Prince of Wales than that he should, while still in his cradle, be the peacemaker between his father and the agitated nation. But the King’s resolution was fixed. “I will go on,” he said. “I have been only too indulgent. Indulgence ruined my father.” * The artful minister found that his ad- vice had been formerly taken only because it had been shaped sunder- to suit the royal temper, and that, from the moment at which J0 lie began to counsel well, he began to counsel in vain. He had shown some signs of slackness in the proceeding against Magdalene College. He had recently attempted to convince the King that Tyrconnel’s scheme of confiscating the property of the English colonists in Ireland was full of danger, and had, with the help of Powis and Bellasyse, so far succeeded that the execution of the design had been postponed for another year. But this timidity and scrupulosity had excited disgust and suspicion in the royal mind.** The day of retribution had arrived. Sunderland was in the same situation in which his rival Rochester had been some months before. Each of the two statesmen in turn experienced the misery of clutching, with an agonizing grasp, power which was perceptibly slipping away. Each in turn saw his suggestions scornfully rejected. Both endured the pain of reading displeasure and distrust in the countenance arid demeanour of their master; yet both were by their country held responsible for those crimes and errors from which they had vainly endeavoured to dissuade him. While he suspected them of trying to win popularity at the expense of his authority and dignity, the public voice loudly accused them of trying to win his favour at the expense of their own honour and of the general weal. Yet, in spite of mortifications and humiliations, they both clung to office with the gripe of drowning men. Both at- * Adda, ~ 1688 . 7 Jnly9. ** Sunderland’s own narrative is, of course, not to be implicitly trusted. But he vouched Godolphin as a witness of what loojt place respecting the Irish Act of Settlement. 188 HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. vm ltjbS. He professes liimsclf a Roman Catholic. Trial of the Bishops. tempted to propitiate the King by affecting a willingness to be reconciled to his Church. But there was point at which Rochester was determined to stop. He went to the verge of apostasy: but there he recoiled: and the world, in consideration of the firmness with which he refused to take the final step, granted him a liberal amnesty for all former compliances. Sunderland, less scrupulous and less sensible of shame, resolved to atone for his late moderation, and to recover the royal confidence, by an act which, to a mind impressed with the importance of religious truth, must have appeared to be one of the most flagitious of crimes, and which even men of the world regard as the last excess of baseness. About a week before the day fixed for the great trial, it was publicly announced that he was a Papist. The King talked with delight of this triumph of divine grace. Courtiers and envoys kept their countenances as well as they could while the renegade protested that he had been long convinced of the impossibility of finding salvation out of the communion of Rome, and that his conscience would not let him rest till he he had renounced the heresies in which he had been brought up. The news spread fast. At all the coffee-houses it was told how the prime minister of England, his feet bare, and a taper in his hand, had repaired to the royal chapel and knocked humbly for admittance: how a priestly voice from within had demanded who was there; how Sunderland had made answer that a poor sinner who had long wandered from the true Church implored her to receive and to absolve him; how the doors were opened; and how the neophyte partook of the holy mysteries.* This scandalous apostasy could not but heighten the interest with which the nation looked forward to the day when the fate of the seven brave confessors of the English Church was to be decided. To pack a jury was now the great object of the King. The crown lawyers were ordered to make strict inquiry as to the sentiments of the persons who were re- * tv .11 JuncZI. June2S. . ,, Jtine29. * Barillon, - 7 - 7 - 7 - — 7 - 5 - 1688; Adda, ■ , , ’ July!. July8. ’ ’ JulyU. stone, July 2.1688; The Converts, a poem. Citters, June 26. July 6. John- JAMES THE SECOND. gistered in the freeholders’ book. Sir Samuel Astry, Clerk of the Crown, whose duty it was, in cases of this description, ■ to select the names, was summoned to the palace, and had an interview with James in the presence of the Chancellor.* Sir Samuel seems to have done his best. For, among the forty-eight persons whom he nominated, were said to be several servants of the King, and several Roman Catholics.** But as the counsel for the Bishops had a right to strike off twelve, these persons were removed. The crown lawyers also struck off twelve. The list was thus reduced to twenty- four. The first twelve who answered to their names were to try the issue. On the twenty-ninth of June, Westminster Hall, Old and New Palace Yard, and all the neighbouring streets to a great distance were thronged with people. Such an auditory had never before and has never since been assembled in the Court of King’s Bench. Thirty-five temporal peers of the realm were counted in the crowd.*** All the four Judges of the Court were on the bench. Wright, who presided, had been raised to his high place over the heads of many abler and more learned men solely on account of his unscrupulous servility. AUibone was a Papist, and owed his situation to that dispensing power, the legality of which was now in question. Holloway had hitherto been a serviceable tool of the government. Even Powell, whose character for honesty stood high, had borne a part in some proceedings which it is impossible to defend. He had, in the great case of Sir Edward Hales, with some hesitation, it is true, and after some delay, concurred with the majority of the bench, and had thus brought on his character a stain which his honourable conduct on this day completely effaced. The counsel were by no means fairly matched. The government had required from its law officers services so odious and disgraceful that all the ablest jurists and advocates * Clarendon’s Diary, June 21 .1688. ** CiUers, • 1688. *** Johnstone, July 2. 1688. 189 CHAP. VJI L_ ] 688 , 190 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1688 . of the Tory party had, one after another, refused to comply, and hat been dismissed from their employments. Sir Thomas Powis, the Attorney General, was scarcely of the third rank in his profession. Sir William Williams, the Solicitor General, had quick parts and dauntless courage: but he wanted discretion; he loved wrangling; he had no command over his temper; and he was hated and despised by all political parties. The most conspicuous assistants of the Attorney and Solicitor were Serjeant Trinder, a Roman Catholic, and Sir Bartholomew Shower, Recorder of London, who had some legal learning, but whose fulsome apologies and endless repetitions were the jest of Westminster Hall. The government had wished to secure the services of Maynard: but he had plainly declared that he could not in conscience do what was asked of him.* On the other side were arrayed almost all the eminent forensic talents of the age. Sawyer and Finch, who, at the time of the accession of James, had been Attorney and Solicitor General, and who, during the persecution of the Whigs in the late reign, had served the crown with hut too much vehemence and success, were of counsel for the defendants. With them were joined two persons who, since age had diminished the activity of Maynard, were reputed the two hest lawyers that could he found in the Inns of Court: Pemb."rton, who had, in the time of Charles the Second, been Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, who had been removed from his high place on account of his humanity and moderation, and who had resumed his practice at the bar; and Pollexfen, who had long been at the head of the Western circuit, and who, though he had incurred much unpopularity by holding briefs for the crown at the Bloody Assizes, and particularly by appearing against Alice Lisle, was known to be at heart a Whig, if not a republican. Sir Creswell Levinz was also there, a man of great knowledge and experience, but of singularly timid nature. He had been removed from the bench some years before, because he was afraid to serve the purposes of the government. He was now afraid to appear as the advocate of * Johnstone, July 2.1688 JAMES THE SECOND. 191 the Bishops, and had at first refused to receive their retainer: but it had been intimated to him by the whole body of attorneys who employed him that, if he declined this brief, he should never have another.* Sir George Treby, an able and zealous Whig, who had been Recorder of London under the old charter, was on the same side. Sir John Holt, a still more eminent Whig lawyer, was not retained for the defence, inconsequence, it should seem, of some prejudice conceived against him by Sancroft, but was privately consulted on the case by the Bishop of London.** The junior counsel for the Bishops was a young barrister named John Somers. He had no advantages of birth or fortune; nor had he yet had any opportunity of distinguishing himself before the eyes of the public: but his genius, his industry, his great and various accomplishments, were well known to a small circle of friends; and, in spite of his Whig opinions, his pertinent and lucid mode of arguing and the constant propriety of his demeanour had already secured to him the ear of the Court of King’s Bench. The importance of obtaining his services had been strongly represented to the Bishops by Johnstone; and Pollexfen, it is said, had declared that no man in Westminster Hall was so well qualified to treat a historical and constitutional question as Somers. The jury was sworn; it consisted of persons of highly respectable station. The foreman was Sir Roger Langley, a baronet of old and honourable family. With him were joined a knight and ten esquires, several of whom are known to have been men of large possessions. There were some Nonconformists in the number; for the Bishops had wisely resolved not to show any distrust of the Protestant Dissenters. One name excited considerable alarm, that of Michael Arnold. He was brewer to the palace; and it was apprehended that the government counted on his voice. The story goes that he * Johnstone, July 2. 1688 . The editor of bevinz’s reports expresses great wonder that, aTter the Revolution, bevinz was not replaced on the bench. The facts related by Johnstone may perhaps explain the seeming injustice. ■* I draw this inference from a letter of Compton to Sancroft, dated the 12th of June. CHAP. VIII. - I68sr 192 BISTORT OP ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. IG8S. complained bitterly of the position in which he found himself. -“Whatever I do,” he said, “I am sure to be half ruined. If I say Not Guilty, I shall brew no more for the King; and if I say Guilty, I shall brew no more for anybody else.” * The trial then commenced, a trial which, even when cooly perused after the lapse of more than a century and a half, has all the interest of a drama. The advocates contended on both sides with far more than professional keenness and vehemence: the audience listened with as much anxiety as if the fate of every one of them was to be decided by the verdict; and the turns of fortune were so sudden and amazing that the multitude repeatedly passed in a single minute fromanxiety to exultation and back again from exultation to still deeper anxiety. The information charged the Bishops with having written orpublished, in the county of Middlesex, a false, malicious, and seditious libel. The Attorney and Solicitor first tried to prove the writing. For this purpose several persons were called to speak to the hands of the Bishops. But the witnesses were so unwilling that hardly a single plain answer could be extracted from any of them. Pemperton, Pollexfen, and Levinz contended that there was no evidence to go to the jury. Two of the Judges, Holloway andPowell, declared themselves of the same opinion; and the hopes of the spectators rose high. All at once the crown lawyers announced their intention to take another line. Powis, with shame and reluctance which he could not dissemble, put into the witness box Blath- \vayt, a Clerk of the Privy Council, who had been present when the King interrogated the Bishops. Blathwayt swore that he had heard them own their signatures. His testimony was decisive. “ Why,” said Judge Holloway to the Attorney, “ when you had such evidence, did you not produce it at first, without all this waste of time?” It soon appeared why the counsel for the crown had been unwilling, without absolute necessity, to resort to this mode of proof. Pemberton stopped Blathwayt, subjected him to a searching cross examination, and insisted upon having all that had passed between the King and the defendants fully related. “ That is a pretty thing * Revolution Politics. JAMES THE SECOND. 193 indeed,” cried Williams. “Do you think,” said Powis, “that you are at liberty to ask our -witnesses -any impertinent question that comes into your heads ? ” The advocates of the Bishops were not men to be so put down. “He is sworn,” said Pollexfen, “to tell the truth and the whole truth: and an answer we must and will have.” The witness shuffled, equivocated, pretended to misunderstand the questions, implored the protection of the Court. But he was in hands from which it was not easy to escape. At length the Attorney again interposed. “If, ” he said, “you persist in asking such a question, tell us, at least, what use you mean to make of it.” Pemberton, who, through the whole trial, did his duty manfully and ably, replied without hesitation; “My Lords, I will answer Mr. Attorney. I will deal plainly with the Court. If the Bishops owned this paper under a promise from His Majesty that their confession should not be used against them, I hope that no unfair advantage will be taken of them.” “You put on His Majesty what I dare hardly name,” said Williams: “since you will be so pressing, I demand, for the King, that the question may be recorded.” “What do you mean, Mr. Solicitor?” said Sawyer, interposing. “I know what I mean,” said the apostate: “I desire that the question may be recorded in Court.” “Record what you will, I am not afraid of you, Mr. Solicitor,” said Pemberton. Then came a loud and fierce altercation,which the Chief Justice could with difficulty quiet. In other circumstances, he would probably have ordered the question to be recorded and Pemberton to be committed. But on this great day he was overawed. He often cast a side glance towards the thick rows of Earls and Barons by whom he was watched, and who in the next Parliament might be his judges. He looked, a bystander said, as if all the peers present had halters in their pockets.* At length Blath- wayt was forced to give a full account of what had passed. It appeared that the King had entered into no express covenant with the Bishops. But it appeared also that the Bishops might not unreasonably think that there was an implied engagement. * This is the expression of an eye witness. It is in a newsletter in the Mackintosh Collection. Macaulay, Bistory, HI, 13 CHAP. VII I. I6SS. 194 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1688 . Indeed, from the unwillingness of the crown lawyers to put the Clerk of the Council into the witness box, and from the vehemence with which they objected to Pemberton’s cross examination, it is plain that they were themselves of this opinion. However, the handwriting was now proved. But a new and serious objection was raised. It was not sufficient to prove that the Bishops had written the alleged libel. It was necessary to prove also that they had written it in the county of Middlesex. And not only was it out of the power of the Attorney and Solicitor to prove this; but it was in the power of the defendants to prove the contrary. For it so happened that Sancroft had never once left the palace at Lambeth from the time when the Order in Council appeared till after the petition was in the King’s hands. The whole case for the prosecution had therefore completely broken down; and the audience, with great glee, expected a speedy acquittal. The crown lawyers then changed their ground again, abandoned altogether the charge of writing a libel, and undertook to prove that the Bishops had published a libel in the county of Middlesex. The difficulties were great. The delivery of the petition to the King was undoubtedly, in the eye of the law, a publication. But how was this delivery to be proved? No person had been present at the audience in the royal closet, except the King and the defendants. The King could not well be sworn. It was therefore only by the admissions of the defendants that the fact of publication could be established. Blathwayt was again examined, but in vain. He well remembered, he said, that the Bishops owned their hands; but he did not remember that they owned the paper which lay on the table of the Privy Council to be the same paper which they had delivered to the King, or that they were even interrogated on that point. Several other official men who had been in attendance on the Council were called, and among them Samuel Pepys, Secretary of the Admiralty; but none of them could remember that anything was said about the delivery. It was to no purpose that Williams put leading questions till the counsel on the other side declared that such twisting, such JAMES THE SECOND. wiredrawing, was never seen in a court of justice, and till Wright himself was forced to admit that the Solicitor’s mode of examination was contrary to all rule. As witness after witness answered in the negative, roars of laughter and shouts of triumph, which the Judges did not even attempt to silence, shook the hall. It seemed that at length this hard fight had been won. The case for the crown was closed. Had the counsel for the Bishops remained silent, an acquittal was certain; for nothing which the most corrupt and shameless Judge could venture to call legal evidence of publication had been given. The Chief Justice was beginning to charge the jury, and would undoubtedly have directed them to acquit the defendants; but Finch, too anxious to be perfectly discreet, interfered, and begged to be heard. “If you will be heard,” said Wright, “you shall be heard; but you do not understand your own interests.” The other counsel for the defence made Finch sit down, and begged the Chief Justice to proceed. He was about to do so when a messenger came to the Solicitor General with news that Lord Sunderland could prove the publication, and would come down to the court immediately. Wright maliciously told the counsel for the defence that they had only themselves to thank for the turn which things had taken. The countenances of the great multitude fell. Finch was, during some hours, the most unpopular man in the country. Why could he not sit still as his betters, Sawyer, Pemberton, and Pollexfen had done? His love of meddling, his ambition to make a fine speech, had ruined everything. Meanwhile the Lord President was brought in a sedan chair through the hall. Not a hat moved as he passed; and many voices cried out “Popish dog.” He came into Court pale and trembling, with eyes fixed on the ground, and gave his evidence in a faltering voice. He swore that the Bishops had informed him of their intention to present a petition to the King, and that they had been admitted into the royal closet for that purpose. This circumstance, coupled with the circumstance that, after they left the closet, there was in the King’s hands a petition signed by them, was such 13 * 196 HISTORY OR ENGLAND. chap. VJ1I. 1688 . proof as might reasonably satisfy a jury of the fact of the publication. Publication in Middlesex was then proved. But was the paper thus published a false, malicious, and seditious libel? Hitherto the matter in dispute had been whether a fact which everybody well knew to be true could be proved according to technical rules of evidence; but now the contest became one of deeper interest. It was necessary to inquire into the limits of prerogative and liberty, into the right of the King to dispense with statutes, into the right of the subject to petition for the redress of grievances. During three hours the counsel for the petitioners argued with great force in defence of the fundamental principles of the constitution, and proved from the journals of the House of Commons that the Bishops had affirmed no more than the truth when they represented to the King that the dispensing power which he claimed had been repeatedly declared illegal by Parliament. Somers rose last. He spoke little more than five minutes; but every' word was full of weighty matter; and when he sate down his reputation as an orator and a constitutional lawyer was established. He went through the expressions which were used in the information to describe the offence imputed to the Bishops, and showed that every word, whether adjective or substantive, was altogether inappropriate. The offence imputed was a false, a malicious, a seditious libel. False the paper was not; for every fact which it set forth had been proved from the journals of Parliament to be true. Malicious the paper was not; for the defendants had not sought an occasion of strife, but had been placed by the government in such a situation that they must either oppose themselves to the royal will, or violate the most sacred obligations of conscience and honour. Seditious the paper was not; for it had not been scattered by the writers among the rabble, but delivered privately into the hands of the King alone: and a libel it was not, but a decent petition such as, by the laws of England, nay, by the laws of imperial Rome, by the laws of all civilised states, a subject who thinks himself aggrieved may with propriety present to the sovereign. JAMES THE SECOND. 197 The Attorney replied shortly and feebly. The Solicitor spoke at great length and with great acrimony, and was often interrupted by the clamours and hisses of the audience. He went so far as to lay it down that no subject or body of subjects, except the Houses ofParliament, had a right to petition the King. The galleries were furious; and the Chief Justice himself stood aghast at the effrontery of this venal turncoat. At length Wright proceeded to sum up the evidence. His language showed that the awe in which he stood of the government was tempered by the awe with which the audience, so numerous, so splendid, and so strongly excited, had impressed him. He said that he would give no opinion on the question of the dispensing power, that it was not necessary for him to do so, that he could not agree with much of the Solicitor’s speech, that it was the right of the subject to petition, but that the particular petition before the Court was improperly worded, and was, in the contemplation of law, a libel. Allibone was of the same mind, but, in giving his opinion, showed such gross ignorance of law and history as brought on him the contempt of all who heard him. Holloway evaded the question of the dispensing power, but said that the petition seemed to him to be such as subjects who think themselves aggrieved are entitled to present, and therefore no libel. Powell took a bolder course. He avowed that, in his judgment, the Declaration of Indulgence was a nullity, and that the dispensing power, as lately exercised, was utterly inconsistent with all law. If these encroachments of prerogative were allowed, there was an end of Parliaments. The whole legislative authority would be in the King. “ That issue, gentlemen,” he said, “I leave to God and to your consciences.”* It was dark before the jury retired to consider of their verdict. The night was a night of intense anxiety. Some letters are extant which were despatched during that period of suspense, and which have therefore an interest of a peculiar kind. “It is very late,” wrote the Papal Nuncio; * See the proceedings in the Collection of State Trials. I have taken some touches from Johnstone, and some from CiUers. CHAP. VIII. 1688 . 198 DISTORT OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1688 . “and the decision is not yet known. The Judges and the culprits have gone to their own homes. The jury remain together. To-morrow we shall learn the event of this great struggle.” The solicitor for the Bishops sate up all night with a body of servants on the stairs leading to the room where the jury was consulting. It was absolutely necessary to watch the officers who watched the doors; for those officers were supposed to be in the interest of the crown, and might, if not carefully observed, have furnished a courtly juryman with food, which would have enabled him to starve out the other eleven. Strict guard was therefore kept. Not even a candle to light a pipe was permitted to enter. Some basins of water for washing were suffered to pass at about four in the morning. The jurymen, raging with thirst, soon lapped up the whole. Great numbers of people walked the neighbouring streets till dawn. Every hour a messenger came from Whitehall to know what was passing. Voices, high in altercation, were repeatedly heard within the room: but nothing certain was known.* At first nine were for acquitting and three for convicting. Two of the minority soon gave way; but Arnold was obstinate. Thomas Austin, a country gentleman of great estate, who had paid close attention to the evidence and speeches, and had taken full notes, wished to argue the question. Arnold declined. He was not used, he doggedly said, to reasoning and debating. His conscience was not satisfied; and he should not acquit the Bishops. “If you come to that,” said Austin, “look at me. I am the largest and strongest of the twelve; and before I find such a petition as this a libel, here I will stay till I am no bigger than a tobacco pipe.” It was six in the morning before Arnold yielded. It was soon known that the jury were agreed: but what the verdict would be was still a secret.** At ten the Court again met. The crowd was greater than * Johnstone, July 2. 1688; Letter from Mr. Ince to the Archbishop, dated at six o’clock in the morning; Tanner MS.; Revolution Politics. ** Johnstone, July 2.1688. JAMES THE SECOND. 199 ever. The jury appeared in their box; and there was a breathless stillness. ~Tessi - Sir Samuel Astry spoke. “Do you find the defendants, The or any of them, guilty of the misdemeanour whereof they are verdict, impeached, or not guilty?” Sir Roger Langley answered, “Not guilty.” As the words passed his lips, Halifax sprang Joy onhe up and waved his hat. At that signal, benches and galleries peop e raised a shout. In a moment ten thousand persons, who crowded the great hall, replied with a still louder shout, which made the old oaken roof crack; and in another moment the innumerable throng without set up a third huzza, which was heard at Temple Bar. The boats which covered the Thames gave an answering cheer. A peal of gun-powder was heard on the water, and another, and another; and so, in a few moments, the glad tidings went dying past the Savoy and the Friars to London Bridge, and to the forest of masts below. As the news spread, streets and squares, market places and coffee-houses, broke forth into acclamations. Yet were the acclamations less strange than the weeping. For the feelings of men had been wound up to such a point that at length the stern English nature, so little used to outward signs of emotion, gave way, and thousands sobbed aloud for very joy. Meanwhile, from the outskirts of the multitude, horsemen were spurring off to bear along all the great roads intelligence of the victory of our Church and nation. Yet not even that astounding explosion could awe the bitter and intrepid spirit of the Solicitor. Striving to make himself heard above the din, he called on the Judges to commit those who had violated, by clamour, the dignity of a court of justice. One of the rejoicing populace was seized. But the tribunal felt that it would be absurd to punish a single individual for an offence common to hundreds of thousands, and dismissed him with a gentle reprimand.* It was vain to think of passing at that moment to any other business. Indeed the roar of the multitude was such that, * State Trials; Oldmixon, 739.; Clarendon’s Diary, June 25. 1688; Johnstone, July 2.; Cillers, July Am Adda, July -ft.; Luttrell’s Diary; Barillon, July T V 200 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. CIIAP. VIII. less. for half an hour, scarcely a word could be heard in court. Williams got to his coach amidst a tempest of hisses and curses. Cartwright, whose curiosity was ungovernable, had been guilty of the folly and indecency of coming to Westminster in order to hear the decision. He was recognised by his sacerdotal garb and by his corpulent figure, and was hooted through the hall. “Take care,” said one, “of the wolf in sheep’s clothing.” “Make room,” cried another, “for the man with the Pope in his belly.” * The acquitted prelates took refuge from the crowd which implored their blessing in the nearest chapel where divine service was performing. Many churches were open on that morning throughout the capital; and many pious persons repaired thither. The bells of all the parishes of the City and liberties were ringing. The jury meanwhile could scarcely make their way out of the hall. They were forced to shake hands with hundreds. “God bless you,” cried the people; “God prosper your families; you have done like honest good- natured gentlemen; you have saved us all to-day.” As the noblemen who had appeared to support the good cause drove off, they flung from their carriage windows handfuls of money, and bade the crowd drink to the health of the King, the Bishops, and the jury. ** * Citters, July A- The gravity with which he tells the story has a comic effect. “Den Bisschop van Chester, wie seer de partie van het hof houdl, om te voldoen aan syne gewoone nieusgierigheyt, hem op dien tyt in Westminster Hall mede hebbende laten vinden, in het uytgaan doorgaans was uytgekreten voor een grypende wolf in schaaps kleederen; en hy synde een heer van booge stature en vollyvig, spolsgewyse alommo geroepen was dat men voor hem plaats moeste maken, om te laten passen, gelyck ook geschiede, om dat soo sy uytschreeuwden en hem in het aansigtseyden, hy den Paus in syn buyck hadde.” ** Luttrell; Citters, July A- *688. “Soo syn in tegendeel gedagle jurys met de uyterste acclamalie en alle teyckenen van genegenheyl en danckbaarheyt in het door passeren van de gemeente oulvangen. Honderden vielen haar om den hals met alle bedenckelycke wewensch van segen en geluck over hare persoonen cn familicn, om dat sy haar so heusch en eerlyck buylen vcrwagtinge als het ware in desen gedragen hadden. Veele van de groolen en kleynen adel wierpen in het wegryden lianden vol gelt onder de armen luyden , om op de gesontheyt van den Coning, der Heeren Prelaten, en de Jurys te drincken.” JAMES THE SECOND. 201 The Attorney went with the tidings to Sunderland, who happened to be conversing with the Nuncio. “Never,” said Powis, “within man’s memory, have there been such shouts and such tears of joy as to-day.” * TheKing had that morning visited the camp on Hounslow Heath. Sunderland instantly sent a courier thither with the news. James was in Lord Feverslxam’s tent when the express arrived. He was greatly disturbed, and exclaimed in French, “So much the worse for them.” He soon set out for London. While he was present, respect prevented the soldiers from giving a loose to their feelings; but he had scarcely quitted the camp when he heard a great shouting behind him. He was surprised, and asked what that uproar meant. “Nothing,” was the answer: “the soldiers are glad that the Bishops are acquitted.” “Do you call that nothing?” said James. And then he repeated, “So much the worse for them.”** He might well be out of temper. His defeat had been complete and most humiliating. Had the prelates escaped on account of some technical defect in the case for the crown, had they escaped because they had not written the petition in Middlesex, or because it was impossible to prove, according to the strict rules of law, that they had delivered to the King the paper for which they were called in question, the prerogative would have suffered no shock. Happily for the country, the fact of publication had been fully established. The counsel for the defence had therefore been forced to attack the dispensing power. They had attacked it with great learning, eloquence, and boldness. The advocates of the government had been by universal acknowledgment overmatched in the contest. Not a single Judge had ventured to declare that the Declaration of Indulgence was legal. One Judge had in the strongest terms pronounced it illegal. The language of the whole town was that the dispensing power had ' “Mi trovava con Milord Sunderland la stessa maltina, quando venne l’Avvocato Generate a rendergli conto delsuccesso, edisse, che mai piu a memoria d’huomini si era sentilo un applauso, mescolato di voci e lagrime di giubilo, egual a quello che veniva egli di vedcre in quest’ occasionc.” — Adda, July -ft. 1688. " Burnet, i. 741.; Citters, July ,V 1688 . CHAP. VIII. ” 1688 . 202 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1688 . * received a fatal blow. Finch, who had the day before been ■ universally reviled, was now universally applauded. He had been unwilling, it was said, to let the case be decided in a way which would have left the great constitutional question still doubtful. He had felt that a verdict which should acquit his clients, without condemning the Declaration of Indulgence, would be but half a victory. It is certain that Finch deserved neither the reproaches which had been cast on him while the event was doubtful, nor the praises which he received when it had proved happy. It was absurd to blame him because, during the short delay which he occasioned, the crown lawyers unexpectedly discovered new evidence. It was equally absurd to suppose that he deliberately exposed his clients to risk, in order to establish a general principle: and still more absurd was it to praise him forwhat would have been a gross violation of professional duty. That joyful day was followed by a not less joyful night. The Bishops, and some of their most respectable friends, in vain exerted themselves to prevent tumultuous demonstrations of joy. Never within the memory of the oldest, not even on that evening on which it was known through London that the army of Scotland had declared for a free Parliament, had the streets been in such a glare with bonfires. Bound every bonfire crowds were drinking good health to the Bishops and confusion to the Papists. The windows were lighted with rows of candles. Each row consisted of seven; and the taper in the centre, which was taller than the rest, represented the Primate. The noise of rockets, squibs, and firearms, was incessant. One huge pile of faggots blazed right in front of the great gate of Whitehall. Others were lighted before the doors of Roman Catholic peers. Lord Arundell of Wardour wisely quieted the mob with a little money: but at Salisbury House in the Strand an attempt at resistance was made. Lord Salisbury’s servants sallied out and fired: but they killed only the unfortunate beadle of the parish, who had come thither to put out the fire; and they were soon routed and driven back into the house. None of the spectacles of that night interested the common people so JAMES THE SECOND. 203 much as one with which they had, a few years before, been chap. familiar, and which they now, after a long interval, enjoyed j^ 88> once more, the burning of the Pope. This once familiar pageant is known to our generation only by descriptions and engravings. A figure, by no means resembling those rude representations of Guy Faux which are still paraded on the fifth of November, but made of wax with some skill, and adorned at no small expense with robes and a tiara, was mounted on a chair resembling that in which the Bishops of Rome are still, on some great festivals, borne through Saint Peter’s Church to the high altar. His Holiness was generally accompanied by a train of Cardinals and Jesuits. At his ear stood a buffoon disguised as a devil with horns and tail. No rich and zealous Protestant grudged his guinea on such an occasion, and, if rumour could be trusted, the cost of the procession was sometimes not less than a thousand pounds. After the Pope had been borne some time in state over the heads of the multitude, he was committed to the flames with loud acclamations. In the time of the popularity of Oates and Shaftesbury this show was exhibited annually in Fleet Street before the windows of the Whig Club on the anniversary of the birth of Queen Elizabeth. Such was the celebrity of these grotesque rites, that Barillon once risked his life in order to peep at them from a hiding place.* But, from the day when the Rye House Plot was discovered, till the day of the acquittal of the Bishops, the ceremony had been disused. Now, however, several Popes made their appearance in different parts of London. The Nuncio was much shocked; and the King was more hurt by this insult to his Church than by all the other affronts which he had received. The magistrates, however, could do nothing. The Sunday had dawned, and the bells ofthe parish churches were ringing for early prayers, before the fires began to languish and the crowds to disperse. A proclamation was speedily put forth * See a very curious narrative published among olher papers, in 1110, by Danby, then Duke of Leeds. There is an amusing account of the ceremony of burning a Pope in North’s Examen, 570. See also the note on the Epilogue to the Tragedy of OEdipus in Scott’s edition of Drydeu. 204 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. vm. 1688 . Peculiar state of public feeling ai this time, against the rioters. Many of them, mostly young apprentices, ■were apprehended; but the bills were thrown out at the Middlesex sessions. The magistrates, many of whom were Roman Catholics, expostulated with the grand jury and sent them three or four times back, but to no purpose.* Meanwhile the glad tidings were flying to every part of the kingdom, and were everywhere received with rapture. ‘Gloucester, Bedford, and Lichfield, were among the places which were distinguished by peculiar zeal: but Bristol and Norwich, which stood nearest to London in population and wealth, approached nearest to London in enthusiasm on this joyful occasion. The prosecution of the Bishops is an event which stands by itself in our history. It was the first and the last occasion on which two feelings of tremendous potency, two feelings which have generally been opposed to each other, and either .of which, when strongly excited, has sufficed to convulse the state, wei-e united in perfect harmony. Those feelings were love of the Church and love of freedom. During many generations every violent outbreak of High Church feeling, with one exception, has been unfavourable to civil liberty; every violent outbreak of zeal for liberty, with one exception, has been unfavourable to the authority and influence of the prelacy and the priesthood. In 1688 the cause of the hierarchy was for a moment that of the popular party. More* than nine thousand clergymen, with the Primate and his most respectable suffragans at their head, offered themselves to endure bonds and the spoiling of their goods for the great fundamental principle of our free constitution. The effect was a coalition which included the most zealous Cavaliers, the most zealous Republicans, and all the intermediate sections of the community. The spirit which had supported Hampden in the preceding generation, the spirit which, in the succeeding generation, supported Sacheverell, combined to support the Archbishop who was Hampden and Sacheverell in one. Those * Reresby’s Memoirs; Cilters, July T J j. 1688; Adda, July T V; Barillon, July h -; Lutlrell’s Diary; Newsletter of July i .; Oldmixon, 139.; Ellis Correspondence. JAMES THE SECOND. 205 classes of society which are most deeply interested in the preservation of order, which in troubled times are generally most ready to strengthen the hands of government, and which have a natural antipathy to agitators, followed, without scruple, the guidance of a venerable man, the first peer of the realm, the first minister of the Church, a Tory in politics, a saint in manners, whom tyranny had in his own despite turned into a demagogue. Those, on the other hand, who had always abhorred episcopacy, as a relic of Popery, and as an instrument of arbitrary power, now asked on bended knees the blessing of a prelate who was ready to wear fetters and to lay his aged limbs on bare stones rather than betray the interests of the Protestant religion and set the prerogative above the laws. With love of the Church and with love of freedom was mingled, at this great crisis, a third feeling which is among the most honourable peculiarities of our national character. An individual oppressed by power, even when destitute of all claim to public respect and gratitude, generally finds strong sympathy among us. Thus, in the time of our grandfathers, society was thrown into confusion by the persecution of Wilkes. We have ourselves seen the nation roused almost to madness by the wrongs of Queen Caroline. It is probable, therefore, that, even if no great political and religious interests had been staked on the event of the proceeding against the Bishops, England would not have seen, without strong emotions of pity and anger, old men of stainless virtue pursued by the vengeance of a harsh and inexorable prince who owed to their fidelity the crown which he wore. Actuated by these sentiments our ancestors arrayed themselves against the government in one huge and compact mass. All ranks, all parties, all Protestant sects, made up that vast phalanx. In the van were the Lords Spiritual and Temporal. Then came the landed gentry and the clergy, both the Universities, all the Inns of Court, merchants, shopkeepers, farmers, the porters who plied in the streets of the great towns, the peasants who ploughed the fields. The league against the King included the very foremast men who manned CHAP. vm. " 7688 . 206 HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. VIII. 1688 . Iiis ships, the very sentinels who guarded his palace. The ■ names of Whig and Tory were for a moment forgotten. The old Exclusionist took the old Abhorrer by the hand. Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, forgot their long feuds, and remembered only tbeir common Protestantism and their common danger. Divines bred in the school of Laud talked loudly, not only of toleration, but of comprehension. The Archbishop soon after his acquittal put forth a pastoral letter which is one of the most remarkable compositions of that age. He had, from his youth up, been at war with the Nonconformists, and had repeatedly assailed them with unjust and unchristian asperity. His principal work was a hideous caricature of the Calvinistic theology.* He had drawn up for the thirtieth of January and for the twenty-ninth of May forms of prayer which reflected on the Puritans in language so strong that the government had thought fit to soften it down. But now his heart was melted and opened. He solemnly enjoined the Bishops and clergy to have a very tender regard to their brethren the Protestant Dissenters, to visit them often, to entertain them hospitably, to discourse with them civilly, to persuade them, if it might be, to conform to the Church, but, if that were found impossible, to join them heartily and affectionately in exertions for the blessed cause of the Reformation. ** Many pious persons in subsequent years remembered that time with bitter regret. They described it as a short glimpse of a golden age between two iron ages. Such lamentation, though natural was not reasonable. The coalition of 1688 * The Fur Praideslinatus. ** This document will be found in the first of the twelve collections of papers relating to the affairs of England, printed at the end of 1688 and the beginning of 1689. It was put forth on the 26th of July, not quite a month after the trial. Lloyd of Saint Asaph about the same time told Henry Wharton that the Bishops purposed to adopt an entirely new policy towards the Protestant Dissenters; “Omni modo curaluros ut ecclesia sordibus et corruplelis penilus exuerelur; ut sectariis re- formalis reditus in ecclesiae sinum exoptati occasio ac ratio concedere- tur, si qui sobrii etpiiessent; ut pertinacibus interim jugum levaretur, extinctis penitus leglbus mulctatoriis.” — Excerpta ex Vita H. Wharton. JAMES THE SECOND. 207 was produced, and could be produced, only by tyranny which approached to insanity, and by danger which threatened at once all the great institutions of the country. If there has never since been similar union, the reason is that there has never since been similar misgovernment. It must be remembered that, though concord is in itself better than discord, discord may indicate a better state of things than is indicated by concord. Calamity and peril often force men to combine. Prosperity and security often encourage them to separate. CIIAP. VIII. 1688 . CHAPTER IX. CHAP. IX. 1686 . Change in the opinion of the Tories concerning the lawfulness of resistance. The acquittal of the Bishops was not the only event which makes the thirtieth of June 1688 a great epoch in history. On that day, while the bells of a hundred churches were ringing, while multitudes were busied, from Hyde Park to Mile End, in piling faggots and dressing Popes for the rejoicings of the night, was despatched from London to the Hague an instrument scarcely less important to the liberties of England than the Great Charter. The prosecution of the Bishops, and the birth of the Prince of Wales, had produced a great revolution in the feelings of many Tories. At the very moment at which their Church was suffering the last excess of injury and insult, they were compelled to renounce the hope of peaceful deliverance. Hitherto they had flattered themselves that the trial to which their loyalty was subjected would, though severe, be temporary, and that their wrongs would shortly be redressed without any violation of the ordinary rule of succession. A very different prospect was now before them. As far as they could look forward they saw only misgovern- ment, such as that of the last three years, extending through ages. The cradle of the heir apparent of the crown was surrounded by Jesuits. Deadly hatred of that Church of which he would one day be the head would be studiously instilled into his infant mind, would be the guiding principle of his life, and would be bequeathed by him to his posterity. This vista of calamities had no end. It stretched beyond the life of the youngest man living, beyond the eighteenth century. None could say how many generations of Protestant Englishmen might have to bear oppression, such as, even when it had been believed to be short, had been found almost insupportable. Was there then no remedy? One remedy there was, quick, sharp, and decisive, a remedy which the JAMES THE SECOND. 209 Whigs had been but too ready to employ, but which had always been regarded by the Tories as, in all cases, unlawful. The greatest Anglican doctors of that age had maintained that no breach of law or contract, no excess of cruelty, rapacity, or licentiousness, on the part of a rightful King, could justify his people in withstanding him by force. Some of them had delighted to exhibit the doctrine of nonresistance in a form so exaggerated as to shock common sense and humanity. They frequently and emphatically remarked that Nero was at the head of the Roman government when Saint Paul inculcated the duty of obeying magistrates. The inference which they drew was that, if an English King should, without any law but his own pleasure, persecute his subjects for not worshipping idols, should fling them to the lions in the Tower, should wrap them up in pitched cloth and set them on fire to light up Saint James’s Park, and should go on with these massacres till whole towns and shires were left without one inhabitant, the survivors would still be bound meekly to submit, and to be torn in pieces or roasted alive without a struggle. The arguments in favour of this proposition were futile indeed: but the place of sound argument was amply supplied by the omnipotent sophistry of interest and of passion. Many writers have expressed wonder that the high spirited Cavaliers of England should have been zealous for the most slavish theory that has ever been known among men. The truth is that this theory at first presented itself to the Cavalier as the very opposite of slavish. Its tendency was to make him not a slave but a freeman and a master. It exalted him by exalting one whom he regarded as his protector, as his friend, as the head of his beloved party and of his more beloved Church. , When Republicans were dominant the Royalist had endured wrongs and insults which the restoration of the legitimate government had enabled him to retaliate. Rebellion was therefore associated in his imagination with subjection and degradation, and monarchical authority with liberty and ascendency. It had never crossed his imagination that a time might come when a King, a Stuart, Macaulay, History. III. CHAP. IX. I68S. 210 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. would persecute the most loyal of the clergy and gentry with ■ more than the animosity of the Rump or the Protector. That time had however arrived. It was now to be seen how the patience which Churchmen professed to have learned from the writings of Paul would stand the test of a persecution by no means so severe as that of Nero. The event was such as everybody who knew anything of human nature would have predicted. Oppression speedily did what philosophy and eloquence would have failed to do. The system of Filmer might have survived the attacks of Locke: but it never recovered from the death blow given by James. That logic, which, while it was used to prove that Presbyterians and Independents ought to bear imprisonment and confiscation with meekness, had been pronounced unanswerable, seemed to be of very little force when the question was whether Anglican Bishops should be imprisoned, and the revenues of Anglican colleges confiscated. It had been often repeated, from the pulpits of all the Cathedrals in the land, that the apostolical injunction to obey the civil magistrate was absolute and universal, and that it was impious presumption in man to limit a precept which had been promulgated without any limitation in the word of God. Now, however, divines, whose sagacity had been sharpened by the imminent danger in which they stood of being turned out of their livings and prebends to make room for Papists, discovered flaws in the reasoning which had formerly seemed so convincing. The ethical parts of Scripture were not to be construed like Acts of Parliament, or like the casuistical treatises of the schoolmen. What Christian really turned the left cheek to the ruffian who had smitten the right? What Christian really gave his cloak to the thieves who had taken his coat away? Both in the Old and in the New Testament general rules were perpetually laid down unaccompanied by the exceptions. Thus there was a general command not to kill, unaccompanied by any reservation in favour of the warrior who kills in defence of his king and country. There was a general command not to swear, unaccompanied by any reservation in favour of the witness who swears to speak the JAMES THE SECOND. 211 truth before a judge. Yet the lawfulness of defensive war, and of judicial oaths, was disputed only by a few obscure sectaries, and was positively affirmed in the articles of the Church of England. All the arguments, which showed that the Quaker, who refused to bear arms, or to kiss the Gospels, was unreasonable and perverse, might be turned against those who denied to subjects the right of resisting extreme tyranny by force. If it was contended that the texts which prohibited homicide, and the texts which prohibited swearing, though generally expressed, must be construed in subordination to the great commandment by which every man is enjoined to promote the welfare of his neighbours, and would, when so construed, be found not to apply to cases in which homicide ot swearing might be absolutely necessary to protect the dearest interests of society, it was not easy to deny that the texts which prohibited resistance ought to be construed in the same manner. If the ancient people of God had been directed sometimes to destroy human life, and sometimes to bind themselves by oaths, they had also been directed sometimes to resist wicked princes. If early fathers of the Church had occasionally used language which seemed to imply that they disapproved of all resistance, they had also occasionally used language which seemed to imply that they disapproved of all war and of all oaths. In truth the doctrine of passive obedience, as taught at Oxford in the reign of Charles the Second, can be deduced from the Bible only by a mode of interpretation which would irresistibly lead us to the conclusions of Barclay and Penn. It was not merely by arguments drawn from the letter of Scripture that the Anglican theologians had, during the years which immediately followed the Restoration, laboured to prove their favourite tenet. They had attempted to show that, even if revelation had been silent, reason would have taught wise men the folly and wickedness of all resistance to established government. It was universally admitted that sucli resistance was, except in extreme cases, unjustifiable. And who would undertake to draw the line between extreme cases and ordinary cases? Was there any government in the world under which there were not to be found some discon- 14 * CHAP. IX.. 1688 . 212 niSTORY OP ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. 1688 . tented and factious men wlio would say, and perhaps think, that their grievances constituted an extreme case? If, indeed, it were possible to lay down a clear and accurate rule which might forbid men to rebel against Trajan, and yet leave them at liberty to rebel against Caligula, such a rule might be highly beneficial. But no such rule had ever been, or ever would be, framed. To say that rebellion was lawful under some circumstances, without accurately defining those circumstances, was to say that every man might rebel whenever he thought fit; and a society in which every man rebelled whenever he thought fit would be more miserable than a society governed by the most cruel and licentious despot. It was therefore necessary to maintain the great principle of non- resistance in all its integrity. Particular cases might doubtless be put in which resistance would benefit a community: but it was, on the whole, better that the people should patiently endure a bad government than that they should relieve themselves by violating a law on which the security of all government depended. Such reasoning easily convinced a dominant and prosperous party, but could ill bear the scrutiny of minds strongly excited by royal injustice and ingratitude. It is true that to trace the exact boundary between rightful and wrongful resistance is impossible: but this impossibility arises from the nature of right and wrong, and is found in almost every part of ethical science. A good action is not distinguished from a bad action by marks so plain as those which distinguish a hexagon from a square. There is a frontier where virtue and vice fade into each other. Who has ever been able to define the exact boundary between courage and rashness, between prudence and cowardice, between frugality and avarice, between liberality and prodigality? Who has ever been able to say how far mercy to offenders ought to be carried, and where it ceases to deserve the name of mercy and becomes a pernicious weakness? What casuist, what lawgiver, has ever been able nicely to mark the limits of the right of self-defence? All our jurists hold that a certain quantity of risk to life or limb justifies a man in shooting or stabbing an assailant: but JAMES THE SECOND. 213 they have long given up in despair the attempt to describe, in precise words, that quantity of risk. They only say that it 168S must be, not a slight risk, but a risk such as would cause serious apprehension to a man of firm mind; and who will undertake to say what is the precise amount of apprehension which deserves to be called serious, or what is the precise texture of mind which deserves to be called firm. It is doubtless to be regretted that the nature of words and the nature of things do not admit of more accurate legislation: nor can it be denied that wrong will often be done when men are judges in their own cause, and proceed instantly to execute their own judgment. Yet who would, on that account, interdict all self-defence? The right which a people has to resist a bad government bears a closeanalogy to the rightwhich an individual, in the absence of legal protection, has to slay an assailant. In both cases the evil must be grave. In both cases all regular and peaceable modes of defence must be exhausted before the aggrieved party resorts to extremities. In both cases an awful responsibility is incurred. In both cases the burden of the proof lies on him who has ventured on so desperate an expedient; and, if he fails to vindicate himself, he is justly liable to the severest penalties. But in neither case can we absolutely deny the existence of the right. A man beset by assassins is not bound to let himself be tortured and butchered without using his weapons, because nobody has ever been able precisely to define the amount of danger which justifies homicide. Nor is a society bound to endure passively all that tyranny can inflict, because nobody has ever been able precisely to define the amount of misgovernment which justifies rebellion. But could the resistance of Englishmen to such a prince as James be properly called rebellion? The thorough-paced disciples of Filmer, indeed, maintained that there was no difference whatever between the polity of our country and that of Turkey, and that, if the King did not confiscate the contents of all the tills in Lombard Street, and send mutes with bowstrings to Sancroft and Halifax, this was only because His Majesty was too gracious to use the whole power which he de- 214 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap, rived from heaven. But the great body of Tories, though, 1688 - in the heat of conflict, they might occasionally use language ■which seemed to indicate that they approved of these extravagant doctrines, heartily abhorred despotism. The English government was, in their view, a limited monarchy. Yet how can a monarchy be said to be limited if force is never to be employed, even in the last resort, for the purpose of maintaining the limitations? In Muscovy, where the sovereign was, by the constitution of the state, absolute, it might pcr- hapsbe, with some colour of truth, contended that, whatever excesses he might commit, he was still entitled to demand, on Christian principles, the obedience of his subjects. But here prince and people were alike bound by the laws. It was therefore James who incurred the woe denounced against those who insult the powers that be. It was James who was resisting the ordinance of God, who was mutinying against that legitimate authority to which he ought to have been subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake, and who was, in the true sense of the words of Jesus, withholding from Csesar the things which were Caesar’s. Moved by such considerations as these, the ablest and most enlightened Tories began to admit that they had overstrained the doctrine of passive obedience. The difference between these men and the Whigs as to the reciprocal obligations of Kings and subjects was now no longer a difference of principle. There still remained, it is true, many historical controversies between the party which had always maintained the lawfulness of resistance and the new converts. The memory of the blessed Martyr was still as much revered as ever by those old Cavaliers who were ready to take arms against his degenerate son. They still spoke with abhorrence of the Long Parliament, of the Rye House Plot, and of the Western insurrection. But, whatever they might think about the past, the view which they took of the present was altogether Whiggisli: for they now held that extreme oppression might justify resistance, and they held that the oppression which the nation suffered was extreme.* * This change in the opinion of a section of the Tory party is well JAMES THE SECOND. 215 It must not, however, be supposed that all the Tories re- chap. nounced, even at that conjuncture, a tenet which they had “ 19BS from childhood been taught to regard as an essential part of Christianity, wliich they had professed during many years with ostentatious vehemence, and which they had attempted to propagate by persecution. Many were kept steady to their old creed by conscience, and many by shame. But the greater part, even of those who still continued to pronounce all resistance to the sovereign unlawful, were disposed, in the event of a civil conflict, to remain neutral. No provocation should drive them to rebel: but, if rebellion broke forth, it did not appear that they were bound to fight for James the Second as they would have fought for Charles the First. The Christians of Rome had been forbidden by Saint Paul to resist the government of Nero: but there was no reason to believe that the Apostle, if he had been alive when the Legions and the Senate rose up against that wicked Emperor, would have commanded the brethren to fly to arms in support of tyranny. The duty of the persecuted Church was clear: she must suffer patiently, and commit her cause to God. But, if God, whose providence perpetually educes good out of evil, should be pleased, as oftentimes He had been pleased, to redress her wrongs by the instrumentality of men whose angry passions her lessons had not been able to tame, she might gratefully accept from Him a deliverance which her principles did not permit her to achieve for herself. Most of those Tories, therefore, who still sincerely disclaimed all thought of attacking the government, were yet by no means inclined to defend it, and perhaps, while glorying in their own scruples, secretly rejoiced that everybody was not so scrupulous as themselves. The Whigs saw that their time was come. Whether they should draw the sword against the government had, during six or seven years, been, in their view, merely a question of illustrated by a little tract published at the beginning of 1689, and entitled “A Dialogue between Two Friends, wherein the Church of England is vindicated in joining with the Prince of Orange.” 216 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. cnAP. IX. 1688 . Russell proposes to the Prince o Orange i descent on England. Henry Sidney. prudence; and prudence itself now urged them to take a bold - course. In May, before the birth of the Prince of Wales, and while it was still uncertain whether the Declaration would or would f not be read in the churches, Edward Russell had repaired to the Hague. He had strongly represented to the Prince of Orange the state of the public mind, and had advised his Highness to appear in England at the head of a strong body of troops, and to call the people to arms. William had seen, at a glance, the whole importance of the crisis. “Now or never,” he exclaimed in Latin to Dyk- velt.* To Russell he held more guarded language, admitted that the distempers of the state were such as required an extraordinary remedy, but spoke with earnestness of the chance of failure, and of the calamities which failure might bring on Britain and on Europe. He knew well that many who talked in high language about sacrificing their lives and fortunes for their country would hesitate when the prospect of another Bloody Circuit was brought close to them. He wanted therefore to have, not vague professions of good will, but distinct invitations and promises of support subscribed by powerful and eminent men. Russell remarked that it would be dangerous to entrust the design to a great number of persons. William assented, and said that a few signatures would be sufficient, if they were the signatures of statesmen who represented great interests.** With this answer Russell returned to London, where he found the excitement greatly increased and daily increasing. The imprisonment of the Bishops and the delivery of the Queen made his task easier than he could have anticipated. He lost no time in collecting the voices of the chiefs of the opposition. His principal coadjutor in this work was Henry Sidney, brother of Algernon. It is remarkable that both Edward Russell and Henry Sidney had been in the household of James, that both had, partly on public and partly onpri- * “Aut nunc, aut nunquam.”— Wilsen MS. quoted by Wagenaar, book lx. *' Burnet, i. 763. ffggi JAMBS THE SECOND. 217 vate grounds, become his enemies, and that both had to avenge the blood of near kinsmen who had, in the same year, - fallen victims to his implacable severity. Here the resemblance ends. Russell, with considerable abilities, was proud, acrimonious, restless, and violent. Sidney, with a sweet temper and winning manners, seemed to be deficient in capacity and knowledge, and to be sunk in voluptuousness and indolence. His face and form were eminently handsome. In his youth he had been the terror of husbands; and even now, at near fifty, he was the favourite of women and the envy of younger men. He had formerly resided at the Hague in a public character, and had then succeeded in obtaining a large share of William’s confidence. Many wondered at this: forit seemed that between the most austere of statesmen and the most dissolute of idlers there could be nothing in common. Swift, many years later, could not bo convinced that one whom he had known only as an illiterate and frivolous old rake could really have played a great part in a great revolution. Yet a less acute observer than Swift might have been aware that there is a certain tact, resembling an instinct, which is often wanting to great orators and philosophers, and which is often found in persons who, if judged by their conversation or by their writings, would be pronounced simpletons. Indeed, when a man possesses this tact, it is in some sense an advantage to him that he is destitute of those more showy talents which would make him an object of admiration, of envy, and of fear. Sidney was a remarkable instance of this truth. Incapable, ignorant, and dissipated as he seemed to be, he understood, or rather felt, with whom it was necessary to be reserved, and with whom he might safely venture to be communicative. The consequence was that he did what Mor- daunt, with all his vivacity and invention, or Burnet, with all his multifarious knowledge and fluent elocution, never could have done.* With the old Whigs there could be no difficulty. In their opinion.there had been scarcely a moment, during many years * Sidney’s Diary and Correspondence, edited by Mr. Blecnowe; Mackay’s Memoirs with Swift’s note; Burnet, i. 103 . CHAP. tx. 218 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. --V0\' chap. a t which the public wrongs would not have justified resistance. - ■ — —■ Devonshire, who might be regarded as their chief, had private loss. 7 . ° . - Devon- as well as public wrongs to revenge. He went into the scheme shlre ' with his whole heart, and answered for his party.* shrews- Russell opened the design to Shrewsbury. Sidney sounded jTrfax Halifax. Shrewsbury took his part with a courage and decision which, at a later period, seemed to be wanting to his character. He at once agreed to sethis estate, his honours, and his life, on the stake. But Halifax received the first hint of the project in a way which showed that it would be useless, and perhaps hazardous, to be explicit. He was indeed not the man for such an enterprise. His intellect was inexhaustibly fertile of distinctions and objections; his temper calm and unadventurous. He was ready to oppose the Court to the utmost in the House of Lords and by means of anonymous writings: but he was little disposed to exchange his lordly repose for the insecure and agitated life of a conspirator, to be in the power of accomplices, to live in constant dread of warrants and King’s messengers, nay, perhaps, to end his days on a scaffold, or to live on alms in some back street of the Hague. He therefore let fall some words which plainly indicated that he did not wish to be privy to the intentions of his more daring and impetuous friends. Sidneyunderstood him and said no more.*-* Danby. The next application was made to Danby, and had far better success. Indeed, for his bold and active spirit the danger and the excitement, which were insupportable to the more delicately' organized mind of Halifax, had a strong fascination. The different characters of the two statesmen were legible in their faces. The brow, the eye, and the mouth of Halifax indicated a powerful intellect and an exquisite sense of the ludicrous; but the expression was that of a sceptic, of a voluptuary, of a man not likely to venture his all on a single hazard, or to be a martyr in any cause. To those who are acquainted with his countenance it will not seem wonderful that thewriter inwhomhe mostdelightedwasMontaigne.*** Danby * Burnet, i. 761.; Letter in cipher to William, dated June 18. 1688, in Dalrymnle. ** Burnet, i. 764.; Letter in cipher to William, dated June 18.168S. *** As to Montaigne, see Halifax’s Letter to Cotton. I am not sure JAMES TITE SECOND. ' was a skeleton; and his meagre and wrinkled, though handsome and noble, face strongly expressed both the keenness of' his parts and the restlessness of his ambition. Already he had once risen from obscurity to the height of power. He had then fallen headlong from his elevation. His life had been in danger. He had passed years in a prison. He was now free: but this did not content him: he wished to be again great- Attached as he was to the Anglican Church, hostile as he was to the French ascendency, he could not hope to be great in a court swarming with Jesuits and obsequious to the House of Bourbon. But, if he bore a chief part in a revolution which should confound all the schemes of the Papists, which should put an end to the long vasalage of England, and which should transfer the regal power to an illustrious pair whom he had united, he might emerge from his eclipse with new splendour. The Whigs, whose animosity had nine years before driven him from office, would, on his auspicious reappearance, join their acclamations to the acclamations of his old friends the Cavaliers. Already there had been a complete reconciliation between him and one of the most distinguished of those who had formerly been managers of his impeachment, the Earl of Devonshire. The two noblemen had met at a village in the Peak, and had exchanged assurances of good will. Devonshire had frankly owned that the Whigs had been guilty of a great injustice, and had declared that they were now convinced of their error. Danby, on his side, had also recantations to make. He had once held, or pretended to hold, the doctrine of passive obedience in the largest sense. Under his administration and with his sanction, a law had been proposed which, if it had been passed, would have excluded from Parliament and office all who refused to declare on oath that they thought resistance in every case unlawful. But his vigorous understanding, now thoroughly awakened by anxiety for the public interests and for his own, was no longer to be duped, if indeedit ever liadbeen duped, by such childish fallacies. He at 219 CHAP. IX. 16SS. that the head of Halifax in Westminster Abbey does not give a more lively notion of him than any painting or engraving that I have seen. 220 HISTOliY OF ENGLAND. chap, oncegavein his own adhesion to the conspiracy. Hethenexert- 1688i ■ ■ edhimself to obtain the concurrence of Compton, the suspended Bishop Bishop of London, and succeeded without difficulty. No pre- Compton. late had been so insolently and unjustly treated by the government as Compton; nor had any prelate so much to expect from a revolution: for lie had directed the education of the Princess of Orange, and was supposed to possess a large share of her confidence, hie had, like his brethren, strongly maintained, as long as he was not oppressed, that it was a crime to resist oppression; but, since he had stood before the High Commission, a new light had broken in upon his mind.* Noicing- Both Danby and Compton were desirous to secure the h ‘ lm ' assistance of Nottingham. The whole plan was opened to him; and he approved of it. But in a few days he began to be unquiet. His mind was not sufficiently powerful to emancipate itself from the prejudices of education. He went about from divine to divine proposing in general terms hypothetical cases of tyranny, and inquiring whether in such cases resistance would be lawful. The answers which he obtained increased his distress. He at length told his accomplices that he could go no further with them. If they thought him capable of betraying them, they might stab him; and he should hardly blame them; for, by drawing back after going so far, he had given them a kind of right over his life. They had, however, he assured them, nothing to fear from him: he would keep their secret; he could not help wishing them success, but his conscience would not suffer him to take an active part in a rebellion. They heard his confession with suspicion and disdain. Sidney, whose notions of a conscientious scruplewere extremelyvaguc, informed the Prince that Nottingham had taken fright. It is due to Nottingham, however, to say that the general tenor of his life justifies us in believing his conducton this occasion to have been perfectly honest, though most unwise and irresolute.** Lum'ey The agents of the Prince had more complete success with " ‘ ‘ Lord Lumley, who knew himself to be, in spite of the eminent * See Danby’s Introduction to the papers which he published in 1710; Ilurnct, i. 764. ** Uurnet, i. 764.; Sidney to the Prince of Orange, June 30. 1688 , in Dalrymple. JAMES THE SECOND. 221 service •which he had performed at the time of the Western insurrection, abhorred at Whitehall, not only as a heretic but ■ 16g3 _ - as a renegade,- and who was therefore more eager than most of those who had been born Protestants to take arms in defence of Protestantism. * During June the meetings of those who were in the secret inviia- were frequent. At length, on the last day of the month, the Viliam day on which the Bishops were pronounced not guilty, the despaich- decisive step was taken. A formal invitation, transcribed by Sidney, but drawn up by some person more skilled than Sidney in the art of composition, was despatched to the Hague. In this paper William was assured that nineteen twentieths of the English people were desirous of a change, and would willingly join to effect it, if only they could obtain the help of such a force from abroad as might secure those who should rise in arms from the danger of being dispersed and slaughtered before they could form themselves into anything like military order. If his Highness would appear in the island at the head of some troops, tens of thousands would hasten to his standard. He would soon find himself at the head of a force greatly superior to the whole regular army of England. Nor could that army be implicitly depended on by the government. The officers were discontented; and the common soldiers shared that aversion to Popery which was general in the class from which they were taken. In the navy Protestant feeling was still stronger. It was important to take some decisive step while things were in this state. The enterprise would be far more arduous if it were deferred till the King, by remodelling boroughs and regiments, had procured a Parliament and an army on which he could rely. The conspirators, therefore, implored the Prince to come among them with as little delay as possible. They pledged their honour that they would join him* and they undertook to secure the cooperation of as large a number of persons as could safely be trusted with so momentous and perilous a secret. On one point they thought it their duty to remonstrate with his Highness. He had not taken advantage of the opinion which the * Burnct,.i. 703,; Lumley to William, May 31.1688, in Dalrymple. 222 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. JU88. Conduct of Wary. great body of the English people had formed respecting the late birth. He had, on the contrary, sent congratulations to Whitehall, and had thus seemed to acknowledge that the child who was called Prince of Wales was rightful heir of the throne. This was a grave error, and had damped the zeal of many. Not one person in a thousand doubted that the boy was supposititious ; and the Prince would be wanting to his own interests if the suspicious circumstances which had attended the Queen’s confinement were not put prominently forward among his reasons for taking arms.* This paper was signed in cipher by the seven chiefs of the conspiracy, Shrewsbury, Devonshire, Danby, Lumley, Compton, Russell and Sidney. Herbert undertook to be their messenger. His errand was one of no ordinary peril. He assumed the garb of a common sailor, and in this disguise reached the Dutch coast in safety, on the Friday after the trial of theBishops. He instantly hastened to the Prince. Bentinck and Dykvelt were summoned, and several days were passed in deliberation. The first result of this deliberation was that the prayer for the Prince of Wales ceased to be read in the Princess’s chapel.** From his wife William had no opposition to apprehend. Her understanding had been completely subjugated by his; and, what is more extraordinary, he had won her entire affection. He was to her in the place of the parents whom she had lost by death and by estrangement, of the children who had been denied to her prayers, and of the country from which she was banished. His empire over her heart was divided only with her God. To her father she had probably never been attached: she had quitted him young: many years had elapsed since she had seen him; and no part of his conduct to her, since her marriage, had indicated tenderness on his part, or had been calculated to call forth tenderness on hers. He had done all in his power to disturb her domestic happiness, and had established a system of spying, eavesdropping, and talebearing under her roof. lie had a far * See the invitation at length in Dalrymple. ** Sidney’s Letter to William, June 30. 1088; Avaux Keg., July IS. 12. JAMES TIIE SECOND. 223 greater revenue than any of his predecessors had ever pos- CI j£ p - sessed, and regularly allowed to her younger sister forty 1688 , thousand pounds a year:* but the heiress presumptive of his throne had never received , from him the smallest pecuniary assistance, and was scarcely able to make that appearance which became her high rank among European princesses. She had ventured to intercede with him on behalf of her old friend and preceptor Compton, who, for refusing to commit an act of flagitious injustice, had been suspended from his episcopal functions; but she had been ungraciously repulsed.** From the day on which it had become clear that she and her husband were determined not to be parties to the subversion of the English constitution, one chief object of the politics of James had been to injure them both. He had recalled the British regiments from Holland. Ho had conspired with Tyrconnel and with France against Mary’s rights, and had made arrangements for depriving her of one at least of the three crowns to which, at his death, she would have been entitled. It was now believed by the great body of his people, and by many persons high in rank and distinguished by abilities, that he had introduced a supposititious Prince of Wales into the royal family, in order to deprive her of a magnificent inheritance; and there is no reason to doubt that she partook of the prevailing suspicion. That she should love such a father was impossible. Her religious principles, indeed, were so strict that she would probably have tried to perform what she considered as her duty, even to a father whom she did not love. On the present occasion, however, she judged that the claim of James to her obedience ought to yield to a claim more sacred. And indeed all divines and publicists agree in this, that, when the daughter of a prince of one country is married to a prince of another country, she is bound to forget her own people and her father’s house, and, in the event of a rupture between her husband and her parents, to side with her husband. This is the undoubted rule even when the husband is in the wrong; and to Mary the * Bonrepaux, July {{. 1C8T. ** Birch’s Extracts, in the British Museum. 224 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. ciiap. enterprise -which William meditated appeared not only just, less. holy. mracui- But, though she carefully abstained from doing or saying ties of ^ anything that could add to his difficulties, those difficulties enter* were serious indeed. They were in truth but imperfectly prise. understood even by some of those who invited him over, and have been but imperfectly described by some of those who have written the history of his expedition. The obstacles which he might expect to encounter on English ground, though the least formidable of the obstacles which stood in the way of his design, were yet serious. He felt that it would be madness in him to imitate the example of Monmouth, to cross the sea with a few British adventurers, and to trust to a general rising of the population. It was necessary, and it was pronounced necessary by all those who invited him over, that he should carry an army with him. Yet who could answer for the effect which the appearance of such an army might produce? The government was indeed justly odious. But would the English people, altogether unaccustomed to the interference of continental powers in English disputes, be inclined to look with favour on a deliverer who was surrounded by foreign soldiers? If any part of the royal forces resolutely withstood the invaders, would not that part soon have on its side the patriotic sympathy of millions? A defeat would be fatal to the whole undertaking. A bloody victory gained in the heart of the island by the mercenaries of the States.General over the Coldstream Guards and the Buffs would be almost as great a calamity as a defeat. Such a victory would be the most cruel wound ever inflicted on the national pride of one of the proudest of nations. The crown so won would never be worn in peace or security. The hatred with which the High Commission and the Jesuits were regarded would give place to the more intense hatred which would be inspired by the alien conquerors; and many, who had hitherto contemplated the power of France with dread and loathing, would say that, if a foreign yoke must be borne, there was less ignominy in submitting to France than in submitting to Holland. ' '•* *■*#»** JAMES THE SECOND. T 225 These considerations might well have made William uneasy, even if all the military means of the United Provinces had been at his absolute disposal. But in truth it seemed very doubtful whether he would be able to obtain the assistance of a single battalion. Of all the difficulties with which he had to struggle, the greatest, though little noticed by English historians, arose from the constitution of the Batavian republic. No great society has ever existed during a long course of years under a polity so inconvenient. The States General could not make war or peace, could not conclude any alliance or levy any tax, without the consent of the States of every province. The States of a province could not give such consent without the consent of every municipality which had a share in the representation. Every municipality was, in some sense, a sovereign state, and, as such, claimed the right of communicating directly with foreign ambassadors, and of concerting with them the means of defeating schemes on which other municipalities were intent. In some town councils the party which had, during several generations, regarded the influence of the Stadtholders with jealousy had great power. At the head of this party were the magistrates of the noble city of Amsterdam, which was then at the height of prosperity. They had, ever since the peace of Nimeguen, kept up a friendly correspondence with Lewis through the instrumentality of his able and active envoy the Count of Avaux. Propositions brought forward by the Stadtholder as indispensable to the security of the commonwealth, sanctioned by all the provinces except Holland, and sanctioned by seventeen of the eighteen town councils of Holland, had repeatedly been negatived by the single voice of Amsterdam. The only constitutional remedy in such cases was that deputies from the cities which were agreed should pay a visit to the city which dissented, for the purpose of expostulation. The number of deputies was unlimited: they might continue to expostulate as long as they thought fit; and meanwhile all their expenses were defrayed by the obstinate community which refused to yield to their arguments. This absurd mode of coercion had once been tried with success on the little Macaulay, History. III. 15 CHAP. IX. M, 226 HISTOKT OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. y.-: jibV' town of Gorkum, but was not likely to produce much effect ■ on the mighty and opulent Amsterdam, renowned throughout the world for its haven bristling with innumerable masts, its canals bordered by stately mansions, its gorgeous hall of state, walled, roofed, and floored with polished marble, its warehouses filled with the most costly productions of Ceylon and Surinam, and its Exchange resounding with the endless hubbub of all the languages spoken by civilised men.* The disputes between the majority which supported the Stadtholder and the minority headed by the magistrates of Amsterdam had repeatedly run so high that bloodshed had seemed to be inevitable. On one occasion the Prince had attempted to bring the refractory deputies to punishment as traitors. On another occasion the gates of Amsterdam had been barred against him, and troops had been raised to defend the privileges of the municipal council. That the rulers of this great city would ever consent to an expedition offensive in the highest degree to Lewis whom they courted, and likely to aggrandise the House of Orange which they abhorred, was not likely. Yet, without their consent, such an expedition could not legally be undertaken. To quell their opposition by main force was a course from which, in different circumstances, the resolute and daring Stadtholder would not have shrunk. But at that moment it was most important that he should carefully avoid every act which could be represented as tyrannical. He could not venture to violate the fundamental laws of Holland at the very moment at which he was drawing the sword against his father-in-law for violating the fundamental laws of England. The violent subversion of one free constitution would have been a strange prelude to the violent restoration of another.** There was yet another difficulty which has been too little noticed by English writers, but which was never for a moment absent from William’s mind. In the expedition which he meditated he could succeed only by appealing to the Pro- ** As to the relation in which the Stadtholder and the city of Amsterdam stood towards each other, see Avaux, pussim. JAMES THE SECOND. 227 testant feeling ofEngland, and by stimulating that feeling till c “£ p - it became, fora time, the dominant and almost the exclusive ' 1CS8 sentiment of the nation. This would indeed have been a very simple course, had the end of all his politics been to effect a revolution in our island and to reign there. But he had in view an ulterior end which could be attained only by the help of princes sincerely attached to the Church of Rome. He was desirous to unite the Empire, the Catholic King, and the Holy See, with England and Holland, in a league against the French ascendency. It was therefore necessary that, while striking the greatest blow ever struck in defence of Protestantism, he should yet contrive not to lose the goodwill of governments which regarded Protestantism as a deadly heresy. Such were the complicated difficulties of this great undertaking. Continental statesmen saw a part of those difficulties; British statesmen another part. One capacious and powerful mind alone took them all in at one view, and determined to surmount them all. It was no easy thing to subvert the English government by means of a foreign army without galling the national pride of Englishmen. It was no easy thing to obtain from that Batavian faction which regarded France with partiality, and the House of Orange with aversion, a decision in favour of an expedition which would confound all the schemes of France, and raise the House of Orange to the height of greatness. It was no easy thing to lead enthusiastic Protestants on a crusade against Popery with the good wishes of almost all Popish governments and of the Pope himself. Yet all these things William effected. All his objects, even those which appeared most incompatible with each other, he attained completely and at once. The whole history of ancient and of modern times records no other such triumph of statesmanship. The task would indeed have been too arduous even for such a statesman as the Prince of Orange, had not his chief adversaries been at this time smitten with an infatuation such as by many men not prone to superstition was ascribed to the special judgment of God. Not only was the King of Eng- 15 * 228 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. J688. Conduct of James after the trial of the Bishops. land, as he had ever been, stupid and perverse: but even the counsel of the politic King of France was turned into foolishness. Whatever wisdom and energy could do William did. Those obstacles which no wisdom or energy could have overcome his enemies themselves studiously removed. On the great day on which the Bishops were acquitted, and on which the invitation was despatched to the Hague, James returned from Hounslow to Westminster in a gloomy and agitated mood. He made an elFort that afternoon to appear cheerful:* but the bonfires, the rockets, and above all the waxen Popes who were blazing in every quarter of London, were not likely to sooth him. Those who saw him on the morrow could easily read in his face and demeanour the violent emotions which agitated his mind.** During soma days he appeared so unwilling to talk about the trial that even Barillon could not venture to introduce the subject.*** Soon it began to be clear that defeat and mortification had only hardened the King’s heart. The first words which he uttered when he learned that the objects of his revenge had escaped him were, “ So much the worse for them.” In a few days these words, which he, according to his fashion, repeated many times, were fully explained. He blamed himself, not for having prosecuted the Bishops, but for having prosecuted them before a tribunal where questions of fact were decided by juries, and where established principles of law could not be utterly disregarded even by the most servile Judges. This error he determined to repair. Not only the seven prelates who had signed the petition, but the whole Anglican clergy, should have reason to curse the day on which they had triumphed over their Sovereign. Within a fortnight after the trial an order was made, enjoining all Chancellors of dioceses and all Archdeacons to make a strict inquisition throughout their respective jurisdictions, and to report to the High Commission, within five weeks, the names of all such rectors, vicars, and curates as had omitted to * Adda, July 1688 . ** Reresby’s Memoirs. *** Barillon, July 1688. JAMES THE SECOND. 229 read the Declaration.* The King anticipated with delight ™£ p - the terror with which the offenders would learn that they ieasl were to be cited before a court which would give them no quarter.“ The number of culprits was little, if at all, short of ten thousand: and, after what had passed at Magdalene College, every one of them might reasonably expect to be interdicted from all his spiritual functions, ejected from his benefice, declared incapable of holding any other preferment, and charged with the costs of the proceedings which had reduced him to beggary. Such was the persecution with which James, smarting Dismis- from lus great defeat m Westminster Hall, resolved to harass promo- the clergy. Meanwhile he tried to show the lawyers, by a tl0ns- prompt and large distribution of rewards and punishments, that strenuous and unblushing servility, even when least successful, was a sure title to his favour, and that whoever, after years of obsequiousness, ventured to deviate but for one moment into courage and honesty was guilty of an unpardonable offence. The violence and audacity which the apostate Williams had exhibited throughout the trial of the Bishops had made him hateful to the whole nation.*** He was recompensed with a baronetcy. Holloway and Powell had raised their character by declaring that, in their judgment, the petition was no libel. They were dismissed from their situations.! The fate of Wright seems to have been, during some time, in suspense. He had indeed summed up against the Bishops: but he had suffered their counsel to question the dispensing power. He had pronounced the petition a libel: but he had carefully abstained from pronouncing the Declaration legal; and, through the whole proceeding, his * London Gazelle of July lit. 1688. The order bears dale July 12. ** Barillon's own phrase, July ft. 1688. *** In one of the numerous ballads of lhal lime are the following lines: “Both our Britons are fooled, Who Ihe laws overruled , And next parliament each will be plaguily schooled.” The two Britons are Jeffreys and Williams, who were both natives of Wales. f London Gazette, July 9. 1688. 230 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ■ #N_ chap, tone had been that of a man who remembered that a day of " 7 63ai reckoning might come. He had indeed strong claims to indulgence: for it was hardly to be expected that any human impudence would hold out without flagging through such a task in the presence of such a bar and of such an auditory. The members of the Jesuitical cabal, however, blamed his want of spirit; the Chancellor pronounced him a beast; and it was generally believed that a new Chief Justice would be appointed.* But no change was made. It would indeed have been no easy matter to supply Wright’s place. The many lawyers who were far superior to him in parts and learning were, with scarcely an exception, hostile to the designs of the government; and the very few lawyers who surpassed him in turpitude and effrontery were, with scarcely an exception, to be found only in the lowest ranks of the profession, and would have been incompetent to conduct the ordinary business of the Court of King’s Bench. Williams, it is true, united all the qualities which James required in a magistrate. But the services of Williams were needed at the bar; and, had he been moved thence, the crown would have been left without the help of any advocate even of the third rate. Nothing had amazed or mortified the King more than the enthusiasm which the Dissenters had shown in the cause of the Bishops. Penn, who, though he had himself sacrificed wealth and honours to his conscientious scruples, seems to have imagined that nobody but himself had a conscience, imputed the discontent of the Puritans to envy and dissatisfied ambition. They had not had their share of the benefits promised by the Declaration of Indulgence: none of them had been admitted to any high and honourable post; and therefore it was not strange that they were jealous of the Roman Catholics. Accordingly, within a week after the great verdict had been pronounced in Westminster Hall, Sila3 Titus, a noted Presbyterian, a vehement Exclusionist, and a manager of Stafford’s impeachment, was invited to occupy * Ellis Correspondence, July 10. 1G88; Clarendon’s Diary, Aug. 3, 1688. JAMES THE SECOND. 231 a seat in the Privy Council. He was one of the persons on c ^ p - whom the opposition had most confidently reckoned. But 1688 _ the honour now offered to him, and the hope of obtaining a large sum due to him from the crown, overcame his virtue, and, to the great disgust of all classes of Protestants, he was sworn in.* The vindictive designs of the King against the Church were not accomplished. Almost all the Archdeacons and diocesan Chancellors refused to furnish the information which was required. The day on which it had been intended that the whole body of the priesthood should be summoned to answer for the crime of disobedience arrived. The High ? r g ° ce 0 e f d " Commission met. It appeared that scarcely one ecclesiastical the High officer had sent up a return. At the same time a paper of J°“ mls_ grave import was delivered to the board. It came from Sprat, Bishop of Rochester. During two years, supported by the seat, hope of an Archbishopric, he had been content to bear the reproach of persecuting that Church which he was bound by every obligation of conscience and honour to defend. But his hope had been disappointed. He saw that, unless he abjured his religion, he had no chance of sitting on the metropolitan throne of York. He was too good-natured to find any pleasure in tyranny, and too discerning not to see the signs of the coming retribution. He therefore determined to resign his odious functions; and he communicated his determination to his colleagues in a letter written, like all his prose compositions, with great propriety and dignity of style. It was impossible, he said, that he could longer continue to be a member of the Commission. He had himself, in obedience to the royal command, read the Declaration: but he could not presume to condemn thousands of pious and loyal divines who had taken a different view of their duty; and, since it was resolved to punish them for acting according to their conscience, he must declare that he would rather suffer with them than be accessary to their sufferings. The Commissioners read and stood aghast. The very * London Gazette, July 9. 16SS; Adda, July ij.; Evelyn’s Diary, July 12.; Johnstone, Dec. T \. 1 GST, Feb. ,V 16 S 8 . 232 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. C !x' P ' ^ au ^ s °f their colleague, the known laxity of his principles, i6 83 . ~ the known meanness of his spirit, made his defection peculiarly alarming. A government must be indeed in danger when men like Sprat address it in the language of Hampden. The tribunal, lately so insolent, became on a sudden strangely tame. The ecclesiastical functionaries who had defied its authority were not even reprimanded. It was not thought safe to hint any suspicion that their disobedience had been intentional. They were merely enjoined to have their reports ready in four months. The Commission then broke up in confusion. It had received a death blow.* tentouhe While the High Commission shrank from a conflict with clergy, the Church, the Church, conscious of its strength, and animated by a new enthusiasm, invited, by a series of defiances, the attack of the High Commission. Soon after the acquittal of the Bishops, the venerable Ormond, the most illustrious of the Cavaliers of the great civil war, sank under Transac- his infirmities. The intelligence of his death was conveyed Oxford! with speed to Oxford. Instantly the University, of which he had long been Chancellor, met to name a successor. One party was for the eloquent and accomplished Halifax, another for the grave and orthodox Nottingham. Some mentioned the Earl of Abingdon, who resided near them, and had recently been turned out of the lieutenancy of the county for refusing to join with the King against the established religion. But the majority, consisting of a hundred and eighty graduates, voted for the young Duke of Ormond, grandson of their late head, and son of the gallant Ossory. The speed with which they came to this resolution was caused by their apprehension that, if there were a delay even of a day, the King would attempt to force on them some chief who would betray their rights. The apprehension was reasonable: for, only two hours after they had separated, came a mandate from Whitehall requiring them to choose Jeffreys. Happily the election of young Ormond was already complete and * Sprat’s Letters to the Earl of Dorset; London Gazette, Aug. 23 . 1638 . JAMES THE SECOND. 233 irrevocable.* A few weeks later the infamous Timothy Hall, C ' I 1 ' P - who had distinguished himself among the clergy of London 1C88- by reading the Declaration, was rewarded with the Bishopric of Oxford, which had been vacant since the death of the not less infamous Parker. Hall came down to his see: but the Canons of his Cathedral refused to attend his installation: the University refused to create him a Doctor: not a single one of the academic youth applied to liim for holy orders: no cap was touched to him; and, in his palace, he foilnd himself alone.** Soon afterwards a living which was in the gift of Magdalene College, Oxford, became vacant. Hough and his ejected brethren assembled and presented a clerk; and the Bishop of Gloucester, in whose diocese the living lay, instituted their presentee without hesitation.*** The gentry were not less refractory than the clergy. The assizes of that summer wore all over the country an aspect ihe never before known. The Judges, before they set out on !e “ lry ' their circuits, had been summoned into the King’s presence, and had been directed by him to impress on the grand jurors and magistrates, throughout the kingdom, the duty of electing such members of Parliament as would support his policy. They obeyed his commands, harangued vehemently against the clergy, reviled the seven Bishops, called the memorable petition a factious libel, criticized with great asperity San- croft’s style, which was indeed open to criticism, and pronounced that his Grace ought to be whipped by Doctor Busby for writing bad English. But the only effect of these indecent declamations was to increase the public discontent. All the marks of public respect which had usually been shown to the judicial office and to the royal commission were withdrawn. The old custom was that men of good birth and estate should ride in the train of the Sheriff when he escorted the Judges to * London Gazelle, July 20. 1088; Adda, - ;“ - lya J' ; Newsletter in the Mackintosh Collection, July 25.; Ellis Correspondence, July 28 31.j Wood’s Fasti Oxonienses. ** Wood’s Athene Oxonienses; Lutlrell’s Diarv, Aug. 23, 1G88 *** Ronquillo, Sept. ij. 1688 , Luttrell’s Diary, Sept. 0. 234 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. 16B8. Discontent of the army. the county town: but such a procession could now with difficulty be formed in any part of the kingdom. The successors of Powell and Holloway, in particular, were treated with marked indignity. The Oxford circuit had been allotted to them; and they had expected to be greeted in every sbire by a cavalcade of the loyal gentry. But as they approached Wallingford, where they were to open their commission for Berkshire, the Sheriff alone came forth to meet them. As they approached Oxford, the eminently loyal capital of an eminently loyal province, they were again welcomed by the Sheriff alone. * The army was scarcely less disaffected than the clergy or the gentry. The garrison of the Tower had drunk the health of the imprisoned Bishops. The footguards stationed at Lambeth had, with every mark of reverence, welcomed the Primate back to his palace. Nowhere had the news of the acquittal been received with more clamoro.us delight than at Hounslow Heath. In truth, the great force which the King had assembled for the purpose of overawing his mutinous capital had become more mutinous than the capital itself, and was more dreaded by the Court than by the citizens. Early in August, therefore, the camp was broken up, and the troops were sent to quarters in different parts of the country.** James flattered himself that it would be easier to deal with separate battalions than with many thousands of men collected in one mass. The first experiment was tried on Lord Lichfield’s regiment of infantry, now called the Twelfth of the Line. That regiment was probably selected because it had been raised, at the time of the Western insurrection, in Staffordshire, a province where the Roman Catholics were more numerous and powerful than in almost any other part of England. The men were drawn up in the King’s presence. Their major informed them that His Majesty wished them to subscribe an engagement, binding them to assist in carrying * Ellis Correspondence, August 4.1. 1688; Bishop Sprat’s relation of the Conference of Nov. 6. J688. ** Luttrell’s Diary, Aug. 8. 1688. JAMES THE SECOND. 235 into effect his intentions concerning the test, and that all who c hap. did not choose to comply must quit the service on the spot. 1688i ■ To the King’s great astonishment, whole ranks instantly laid down their pikes and muskets. Only two officers and a few privates, all Roman Catholics, obeyed his command. He remained silent for a short time. Then he bade the men take up their arms. “Another time,” he said, with a gloomy look, “I shall not do you the honour to consult you.”* It was plain that, if he determined to persist in his designs, he must remodel his army. Yet materials for that purpose he could not find in our island. The members of his Church, even in the districts where they were most numerous, were a small minority of the people. Hatred of Popery had spread through all classes of his Protestant subjects, and had become the ruling passion even of ploughmen and artisans. But there was another part of his dominions where a very different spirit animated the great body of the population. There was no limit to the number of Roman Catholic soldiers whom the good pay and quarters of England would attract across St. George’s Channel. Tyrconnel had been, during some time, employed in forming out of the peasantry of his country a military force on which his master might depend. Already Papists, of Celtic blood and speech, composed almost the whole army of Ireland. Barillon earnestly and repeatedly advised James to bring over that army for the purpose of coercing the English.** James wavered. He wished to be surrounded by troops Irish on whom he could rely: but he dreaded the explosion of na- brought tional feeling which the appearance of a great Irish force on over ” English ground must produce. At last, as usually happens when a weak man tries to avoid opposite inconveniences, he took a course which united them all. He brought over Irishmen, not indeed enough to hold down the single city of London, or the single county of York, but more than enough This is told us by three writers who could well remember that time, Kennet, Eachard, and Oldmixon. See also the Caveat against the Whigs. ** Barillon, Aug. 23. Sejit. 2. 1688 ; Sept. A. / B . A- 236 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IJ. 1688. Public indignation. to excite the alarm and rage of the -whole kingdom, from ■ Northumberland to Cornwall. Battalion after battalion, raised and trained by Tyrconnel, landed on the western coast and moved towards the capital; and Irish recruits were imported in considerable numbers, to fill up vacancies in the English regiments. * Of the many errors which James committed, none was more fatal than this. Already he had alienated the hearts of his people by violating their laws, confiscating their estates, and persecuting their religion. Of those who had once been most zealous for monarchy, he had already made many rebels in heart. Yet he might still, with some chance of success, have appealed to the patriotic spirit of his subjects against an invader. For they were a race insular in temper as well as in geographical position. Their national antipathies were, indeed, in that age, unreasonably "and unamiably strong. Never had the English been accustomed to the control or interference of any stranger. The appearance of a foreign army on their soil might impel them to rally even round a King whom they had no reason to love. William might perhaps have been unable to overcome this difficulty; but James removed it. Not even the arrival of a brigade of Lewis’s musketeers would have excited such resentment and shame as our ancestors felt when they saw armed columns of Papists, just arrived from Dublin, moving in military pomp along the high roads. No man of English blood then regarded the aboriginal Irish as his countrymen. They did not belong to our branch of the great human family. They were distinguished from us by more than one moral and intellectual peculiarity, which the difference of situation and of education, great as that difference was, did not seem altogether to explain. They had an aspect of their own, a mother tongue of their own. When they talked English their pronunciation was ludicrous; their phraseology was grotesque, as is always the phraseology of those who think in one language and express their thoughts in another. They were therefore foreigners; and of all foreigners they were the most hated and * I.uWrell’s Diary, Aug. 27. 1 C 88 . JAMES THE SECOND. 237 despised: the most hated, for they had, during five centuries, c hap. always been our enemies; the most despised, for they were—jjjjy our vanquished, enslaved, and despoiled enemies. The Englishman compared with pride his own fields with the desolate bogs whence the Rapparees issued forth to rob and murder, and his own dwelling with the hovels where the peasants and the hogs of the Shannon wallowed in filth together. He was a member of a society far inferior, indeed, in wealth and civilisation, to the society in which we live, but still one of the wealthiest and most highly civilised societies that the world had then seen: the Irish were almost as rude as the savages of Labrador. He was a freeman: the Irish were the hereditary serfs of his race. He worshipped God after a pure and rational fashion: the Irish were sunk in idolatry and superstition. He knew that great numbers of Irish had repeatedly fled before a small English force, and that the whole Irish population had been held down by a small English colony; and he very complacently inferred that he was naturally a being of a higher order than the Irishman: for it is thus that a dominant race always explains its ascendency and excuses its tyranny. That in vivacity, humour, and eloquence, the Irish stand high among the nations of the world is now universally acknowledged. That, when well disciplined, they are excellent soldiers has been proved on a hundred fields of battle. Yet it is certain that, a century and a half ago, they were generally despised in our island as both a stupid and a cowardly people. And these were the men who were to hold England down by main force while her civil and ecclesiastical constitution was destroyed. The blood of the whole nation boiled at the thought. To be conquered by Frenchmen or by Spaniards would have seemed comparatively a tolerable fate. With Frenchmen and Spaniards we had been accustomed to treat on equal terms. We had sometimes envied their prosperity, sometimes dreaded their power, sometimes congratulated ourselves on their friendship. In spite of our unsocial pride, we admitted that they were great nations, and that they could boast of men eminent in the arts of war and peace. But to be subjugated by an inferior caste 238 HISTOEY OP ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. 1588 . was a degradation beyond all other degradation. The English felt as the -white inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans would feel if those towns were occupied by negro garrisons. The real facts would have been sufficient to excite uneasiness and indignation: but the real facts were lost amidst a crowd of wild rumours which flew without ceasing from coffee-house to coffee-house and from ale-bench to ale-bench, and became more wonderful and terrible at every stage of the progress. The number of the Irish troops who had landed on our shores might justly excite serious apprehensions as to the King’s ulterior designs; but it was magnified tenfold by the public apprehensions. It may well be supposed that the rude kerne of Connaught, placed, with arms in his hands, among a foreign people whom he hated, and by whom he was hated in turn, was guilty of some excesses. These excesses were exaggerated by report; and, in addition to the outrages which the stranger had really committed, all the offences of his English comrades were set down to his account. From every corner of the kingdom a cry arose against the foreign barbarians who forced themselves into private houses, seized horses and waggons, extorted money and insulted women. These men, it was said, were the sons of those who, forty- seven years before, had massacred Protestants by tens of thousands. The history of the rebellion of 1641, a history which, even when soberly related, might well move pity and horror, and which had been frightfully distorted by national and religious antipathies, was now the favourite topic of conversation. Hideous stories of houses burned with all the inmates, of women and young children butchered, of near relations compelled by torture to be the murderers of each other, of corpses outraged and mutilated, were told and heard with full belief and intense interest. Then it was added that the dastardly savages who had by surprise committed all these cruelties on an unsuspecting and defenceless colony had, as soon as Oliver came among them on his great mission of vengeance, flung down their arms in panic terror, and had sunk, without trying the chances of a single pitched field, into that slavery which was their fit portion. Many signs JAMES THE SECOND. 239 indicated that another great spoliation and slaughter of the Saxon settlers was meditated by the Lord Lieutenant. Already thousands of Protestant colonists, flying from the injustice and insolence of Tyrconnel, had raised the indignation of the mother country by describing all that they had suffered, and all that they had, with too much reason, feared. How much the public mind had been excited by the complaints of these fugitives had recently been shown in a manner not to be mistaken. Tyrconnel had transmitted for the royal approbation the heads of a bill repealing the law by which half the soil of Ireland was held, and he had sent to Westminster, as his agents, two of his Roman Catholic countrymen who had lately been raised to high judicial office; Nugent, Chief Justice of the Irish Court of King’s Bench, a personification of all the vices and weaknesses which the English then imagined to be characteristic of the Popish Celt, and Rice, a Baron of the Irish Exchequer, who, in abilities and attainments, was perhaps the foremost man of his race and religion. The object of the mission was well known ; and the two Judges could not venture to show themselves in the streets. If ever they were recognised, the rabble shouted, “Room for the Irish Ambassadors;” and their coach was escorted with mock solemnity by a train of ushers and harbingers bearing sticks with potatoes stuck on the points. * So strong and general, indeed, was at that time the aversion of theEnglish to the Irish that the most distinguished Roman Catholics partook of it. Powis and Bellasyse expressed, in coarse and acrimonious language, even at the Council board, their antipathy to the aliens.** Among English Protestants that antipathy was still stronger: and perhaps it was strongest in the army. Neither officers nor soldiers were disposed to bear patiently the preference shown by their master to a foreign and a subject race. The Duke of Berwick, who was Colonel of the Eighth Regiment of the Line, then quartered at Portsmouth, gave orders that thirty men just * King's State of the Protestants of Ireland; Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland. " Secret Consults of the Romish Parly in Ireland. CHAP. IX. 1688 . 240 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. 1688 . Lillibul* lero. arrived from Ireland should be enlisted. The English soldiers declared that they would not serve with these intruders. John Beaumont, the Lieutenant Colonel, in his own name and in the name of five of the Captains, protested to the Duke’s face against this insult to the English army and nation. “ We raised the regiment,” he said, “at our own charges to defend His Majesty’s crown in a time of danger. We had then no difficulty in procuring hundreds of English recruits. We can easily keep every company up to its full complement without admitting Irishmen. We therefore do not think it consistent with our honour to have these strangers forced on us; and we beg that we may either be permitted to command men of our own nation or to lay down our commissions.” Berwick sent to Windsor for directions. The King, greatly exasperated, instantly despatched a troop of horse to Portsmouth with orders to bring the six refractory officers before him. A council of war sate on them. They refused to make any submission; and they were sentenced to be cashiered, the highest punishment which a court martial was then competent to inflict. The whole nation applauded the disgraced officers; and the prevailing sentiment was stimulated by an unfounded rumour that, while under arrest, they had been treated with cruelty. * Public feeling did not then manifest itself by those signs with which we are familiar, by large meetings, and by vehement harangues. Nevertheless it found a vent. Thomas Wharton, who, in the last Parliament, had represented Buckinghamshire, and who was already conspicuous both as a * History of the Desertion, 16S9; compare the first and second editions; Barillon, Sept. A* *688; Citters of the same date; Clarke’s Lire of James the Second, ii. 168. The compiler of the last mentioned work says that Churchill moved the court to sentence the six officers to death. This story does not appear to have been taken from the King’s papers; I therefore regard it as one of the thousand fictions invented at Saint Germains for the purpose of blackening a character which was black enough without such daubing. That Churchill may have affected great indignation on this occasion, in order to hide the treason which he meditated, is highly probable. But it is impossible to believe that a man of bis sense would have urged the members of a council of war to inflict a punishment which was notoriously beyond their competence. / JAMES THE SECOND. 241 libertine and as a Whig, had written a satirical ballad on the c ^ p - administration of Tyrconnel. In this little poem an Irishman — feea ~."~ congratulates a brother Irishman, in a barbarous jargon, on the approaching triumph of Popery and of the Milesian race. The Protestant heir will be excluded. The Protestant officers will be broken. The Great Charter and the praters who appeal to it will be hanged in one rope. The good Talbot will shower commissions on his countrymen, and will cut the throats of the English. These verses, which were in no respect above the ordinary standard of street poetry, had for burden some gibberish which was said to have been used as a watchword by the insurgents of Ulster in 1641. The verses and the tune caught the fancy of the nation. From one end of England to the other all classes were constantly singing this idle rhyme. It was especially the delight of the English army. More than seventy years after the Revolution, a great writer delineated, with exquisite skill, a veteran who had fought at the Boyne and at Namur. One of the characteristics of the good old soldier is his trick of whistling Lillibullero. * Wharton afterwards boasted that he had sung a King out of three kingdoms. But in truth the success of Lillibullero was the effect, and not the cause, of that excited state of public feeling which produced the Revolution. While James was thus raising against himself all those national feelings which, but for his own folly,might have saved his throne, Lewis was in another way exerting himself not less effectually to facilitate the enterprise whichWilliammeditated. The party in Holland which was favourable to France was Politics ct a minority, but a minority strong enough, according to the p r ^ lnitecl constitution of the Batavian federation, to prevent the Stadt- vinces. holder from striking any great blow. To keep that minority steady was an object to which, if the Court of Versailles had been wise, every other object would at that conjuncture have been postponed. Lewis however had, during some time, la- * The song of Lillibullero is among Ihe State Poems. In Percy’s Relics the first part will be found, but not the second part, which was added after William’s landing. In the Examiner and in several pamphlets of 1112 Wharton is mentioned as the author. Macaulay, History. Ill . 16 242 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. 1688 . boured, as if of set purpose, to estrange his Dutch friends; and he at length, though not without difficulty, succeeded in forcing them to become his enemies at the precise moment at which their help would have been invaluable to him. There were two subjects on which the people of the United Provinces were peculiarly sensitive, religion and trade; and both their religion and their trade the French King had assailed. The persecution of the Huguenots, and the revocation of the edict of Nantes, had everywhere moved the grief and indignation of Protestants. But in Holland these feelings were stronger than in any other country; for many persons of Dutch birth, confiding in the repeated and solemn declarations of Lewis that the toleration granted by his grandfather should be maintained, had, for commercial purposes, settled in France, and a large proportion of the settlers had been naturalised there. Every post now brought to Holland the tidings that these persons were treated with extreme rigour on account of their religion. Dragoons, it was reported, were quartered on one. Another had been held naked before a fire till he was half roasted. All were forbidden, under the severest penalties, to celebrate the rites of their religion, or to quit the country into which they had, under false pretences, been decoyed. The partisans of the House of Orange exclaimed against the cruelty and perfidy of the tyrant. The opposition was abashed and dispirited. Even the town council of Amsterdam, though strongly attached to the French interest and to the Arminian theology, and though little inclined to find fault with Lewis or to sympathize with the Calvinists whom he persecuted, could not venture to oppose itself to the general sentiment; for in that great city there was scarcely one wealthy merchant who had not some kinsman or friend among the sufferers. Petitions numerously and respectably signed were presented to the Burgomasters, imploring them to make strong representations to Avaux. There were even suppliants who made their way into the Stadthouse, flung themselves on their knees, described with tears and sobs the lamentable condition of those whom they most loved, and besought the in- JAMES THE SECOND. 243 tarcession of the magistrates. The pulpits resounded with C1I £ P - invectives and lamentations. The press poured forth heart- lljs8 _ rending narratives and stirring exhortations. Avaux saw the whole danger. He reported to his court that even the well intentioned—for so he always called the enemies of theHouse of Orange — either partook of the public feeling or were overawed by it; and he suggested the policy of making some concession to their wishes. The answers which he received from Versailles were cold and acrimonious. Some Dutch families, indeed, which had not been naturalised in France, were permitted to return to their country. But to those natives of Holland who had obtained letters of naturalisation Lewis refused all indulgence. No power on earth, he said, should interfere between him and his subjects. These people had chosen to become his subjects; and how he treated them was a matter with which no neighbouring state had anything to do. The magistrates of Amsterdam naturally resented the scornful ingratitude of the potentate whom they had strenuously and unscrupulously served against the general sense of their own countrymen. Soon followed another provocation which they felt even more keenly. Lewis began to make war on their trade. He first put forth an edict prohibiting the importation of herrings into his dominions. Avaux hastened to inform his court that this step had excited great alarm and indignation, that sixty thousand persons in the United Provinces subsisted by the herring fishery, and that some strong measure of retaliation would probably be adopted by the States. The answer which he received was that the King was determined, not only to persist, but also to increase the duties on many of those articles in which Holland carried on a lucrative trade with France. The consequence of these errors, errors committed in defiance of repeated warnings, and, as it should seem, in the mere wantonness of self-will, was that now, when the voice of a single powerful member of the Batavian federation might have averted an event fatal to all the politics of Lewis, no such voice was raised. TheLnvoy, with all his skill, vainly endeavoured to rally the party by the help of which he had, during several 10 * 244 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap, years, held the Stadtholder in check. The arrogance and - 1(i8 s '— obstinacy of the master counteracted all the efforts of the Errors of servant. At length Avaux was compelled to send to Versailles the the alarming tidings that no reliance could be placed on Am- King.° sterdam, so long devoted to the French cause, that some of the well intentioned were alarmed for their religion, and that the few whose inclinations were unchanged could not venture to utter what they thought. The fervid eloquence of preachers who declaimed against the horrors of the French persecution, and the lamentations of bankrupts who ascribed their ruin to the French decrees, had wrought up the people to such a temper, that no citizen could declare himself favourable to France without imminent risk of being flung into the nearest canal. Men remembered that, only fifteen years before, the most illustrious chief of the party adverse to the House of Orange had been torn to pieces by an infuriated mob in the very precinct of the palace of the States General. A similar fate might not improbably befall those who should, at this crisis, be accused of serving the purposes of France against their native land, and against the reformed religion. * His quar- While Lewis was thus forcing his friends in Holland to Tel with become, or to pretend to become, his enemies, he was la- concern- bouring with not less success to remove all the scruples which franciii- might have prevented the Roman Catholic princes of the Con- ses. tinent from countenancing William’s designs. A new quarrel had arisen between the Court of Versailles and the Vatican, a quarrel in which the injustice and insolence of the French King were perhaps more offensively displayed than in any other transaction of his reign. It had long been the rule at Rome that no officer of justico or finance could enter the dwelling inhabited by the minister * See the Negotiations of the Count of Avaux. It would be almost impossible for me to cite all the passages which have furnished me with materials for this part of my narrative. The most important will be found under the following dates: 1085, Sept. 20., Sept. 24., Oct. 5., Dec. 20.; 1080, Jan. 3. Nov. 22.; 1081, Oct. 2., Nov. 0., Nov. 19.; 1088, July 29., Aug. 20. Lord Lonsdale, in his Memoirs, justly remarks that, but for the mismanagement of Lewis, the city of Amsterdam would have prevented the Revolution. T JAMES THE SECOND. who represented a Catholic state. In process of time not only the dwelling, but a large precinct round it, was held- inviolable. It was a point of honour with every Ambassador to extend as widely as possible the limits of the region which was under his protection. At length half the city consisted of privileged districts, within which the Papal government had no more power than within the Louvre or the Escurial. Every asylum was thronged with contraband traders, fraudulent bankrupts, thieves and assassins. In every asylum were collected magazines of stolon or smuggled goods. From every asylum ruffians sallied forth nightly to plunder and stab. In no town of Christendom, consequently, was law so impotent and wickedness so audacious as in the ancient capital of religion and civilisation. On this subject Innocent felt as became a priest and a prince. He declared that he would receive no Ambassador who insisted on a right so destructive of order and morality. There was at first much murmuring; but his resolution was so evidently just that all governments but one speedily acquiesced. The Emperor, highest in rank among Christian monarclis, the Spanish court, distinguished among all courts by sensitiveness and pertinacity on points of etiquette, renounced the odious privilege. Lewis alone was impracticable. What other sovereigns might choose to do, he said, was nothing to him. He therefore sent a mission to Rome, escorted by a great force of cavalry and infantry. The Ambassador marched to his palace as a general marches in triumph through a conquered town. The house was strongly guarded. Round the limits of the protected district sentinels paced the rounds day and night, as on the walls of a fortress. The Pope was unmoved. “ They trust,” he cried, “in chariots and in horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.” He betook him vigorously to his spiritual weapons, and laid the region garrisoned by the French under an interdict. * This dispute was at the height when another dispute arose, in which the Germanic body was as deeply concerned as the Pope. * ProfessorVonBanke,DieItomischenPopste, bookviii.; Burnet,i.759. 245 CHAP. IX. 24G HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap. Cologne and the surrounding district were governed by an ■ |68 j —Archbishop, who was an Elector of the Empire. The right T] of choosing this great prelate belonged, under certain limi- Arch- tations, to the Chapter of the Cathedral. The Archbishop pjshnpric wag a j s0 jjjshop of Liege, of Munster, and of Hildesheim. lognc. His dominions were extensive, and included several strong fortresses, which in the event of a campaign on the Rhine would be of the highest importance. In time of war he could bring twenty thousand men into the field. Lewis had spared no effort to gain so valuable an ally, and had succeeded so well that Cologne had been almost separated from Germany, and had become an outwork of France. Many ecclesiastics devoted to the court of Versailles had been brought into the Chapter; and Cardinal Furstemburg, a mere creature of that court, had been appointed Coadjutor. In the summer of the year 1088 the archbishopric became vacant. Furstemburg was the candidate of the House of Bourbon. The enemies of that house proposed the young Prince Clement of Bavaria. Furstemburg was already a Bishop, and therefore could not be moved to another diocese except by a special dispensation from the Pope, or by a postulation, in which it was necessary that two thirds of the Chapter of Cologne should join. The Pope would grant no dispensation to a creature of France. The Emperor induced more than a third part of the Chapter to vote for the Bavarian prince. Meanwhile, in the Chapters of Liege, Munster, and Hildesheim, the majority was adverse to France. Lewis saw, with indignation and alarm, that an extensive province which he had begun to regard as a fief of his crown was about to become, not merely independent of him, but hostile to him. In a paper written with great acrimony he complained of the injustice with which France was on all occasions treated by that See which ought to extend a parental protection to every part of Christendom. Many signs indicated his fixed resolution to support the pretensions of his candidate by arms against the Pope and the Pope’s confederates.* * Burnet, i. 158.: Lewis’s paper bears dale 2 " 1088. It will be found in Ibe Rccueil des Trailds, vcl. iv. no. 219. JAMES THE SECOND. 247 Thus Lewis, by two opposite errors, raised against him- CI *£ p . self at once the resentment of both the religious parties 1688 — between which Western Europe was divided. Having SMItlll alienated one great section of Christendom by persecuting the Huguenots, he alienated another by insulting the Holy william. See. These faults he committed at a conjuncture at which no fault could be committed with impunity, and under the eye of an opponent second in vigilance, sagacity, and energy, to no statesman whose memory history has preserved. William saw with stern delight his adversaries toiling to clear away obstacle after obstacle from his path. While they raised against themselves the enmity of all sects, he laboured to conciliate all. The great design which lie meditated he with exquisite skill presented to different governments in different lights; and it must be added that, though those lights were different, none of them was false. He called on the princes of Northern Germany to rally round him in defence of the common cause of all reformed Churches. He set before the two heads of the House of Austria the danger with which they were threatened by French ambition, and the necessity of rescuing England from vassalage and of uniting her to the European confederacy.* lie disclaimed, and with truth, all bigotry. The real enemy, lie said, of the British Roman Catholics was that shortsighted and headstrong monarch who, when he might easily have obtained for them a legal toleration, had trampled on law, liberty, property, in order to raise them to an odious and precarious ascendency. If the misgovernment of James were suffered to continue, it must produce, at no remote time, a popular outbreak, which might be followed by a barbarous persecution of the Papists. The Prince declared that to avert * For the consummate dexterity with which he exhibited two different views of his policy to two different parties he was afterwards bitterly reviled by the Court of Saint Germains. “Licet Foederatis pub- licus ille prtedo haud aliud aperte proponat nisi ut Gallici imperii ex- uberans amputelur potestas, veruntamen sibi, et suis ex haeretica faice compljcibus, ut pro comperto habemus, longe aliud promittit, nempe ut, exciso vel enervato Francorum regno, ubi Calholicarum parliuin summum jam robur situm est, haeretica ipsorum pravitas per orbem Christianum universum preevaleat.” — Letter of James to the Pope, evidently written in 1689. 248 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CIIAP. IX. 1688 . Jlis military and naval preparations. the horrors of such a persecution was one of his chief objects. If ho succeeded in his design, he would use the power which he must then possess, as head of the Protestant interest, to protect the members of the Church of Rome. Perhaps the passions excited by the tyranny of James might make it impossible to efface the penal laws from the statute book: but those laws should be mitigated by a lenient administration. No class would really gain more by the proposed expedition than those peaceable and unambitious Roman Catholics who merely wished to follow their callings and to worship their Maker without molestation. The only losers would b’e the Tyrconnels, the Dovers, the Albevilles, and the other political adventurers who, in return for flattery and evil counsel, had obtained from their credulous master governments, regiments, and embassies. While William exerted himself to enlist on his side the sympathies both of Protestants and of Roman Catholics, he exerted himself with not less vigour aud prudence to provide the military means which his undertaking required. He could not make a descent on England without the sanction of the United Provinces. If he asked for that sanction before his design was ripe for execution, his intentions might possibly be thwarted by the faction hostile to his house, and would certainly be divulged to the whole world. He therefore determined to make his preparations with all speed, and, when they were complete, to seize some favourable moment for requesting the consent of the federation. It was observed by the agents of France that he was more busy than they had ever known him. Not a day passed on which he was not seen spurring from his villa to the Hague. He was perpetually closeted with his most distinguished adherents. Twenty-four ships of war were fitted out for sea in addition to the ordinary force which the commonwealth maintained. There was, as it chanced, an excellent pretence for making this addition to the marine: for some Algerine corsairs had recently dared to show themselves in the German Ocean. A camp was formed near Nimeguen. Many thousands of troops were assembled there. In order to strengthen this army the garrisons were JAMES THE SECOND. 249 withdrawn from the strongholds in Dutch Brabant. Even the cr ]Ap. renowned fortress of Bergopzoom was left almost defenceless. - Field pieces, bombs, and tumbrels from all the magazines of the United Provinces were collected at the head quarters. All the bakers of Rotterdam toiled day and night to make biscuit. All the gunmakers of Utrecht were found too few to execute the orders for pistols and muskets. All the saddlers of Amsterdam were hard at work on harness and holsters. Six thousand sailors were added to the naval establishment. Seven thousand new soldiers were raised. They could not, indeed, be formally enlisted without the sanction of the federation: but they were well drilled, and kept in such a state of discipline that they might without difficulty be distributed into regiments within twenty-four hours after that sanction should be obtained. These preparations required ready money: but William had, by strict economy, laid up against a great emergency a treasure amounting to about two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling. What more was wanting was supplied by the zeal of his partisans. Great quantities of gold, not less, it was said, than a hundred thousand guineas, came to him from England. The Huguenots, who had carried with them into exile large quantities of the precious metals, were eager to lend him all that they possessed; fortlicy fondly hoped that, if he succeeded, they should be restored to the country of their birth; and they feared that, if he failed, they should scarcely be safe even in the country of their adoption.’ Through the latter part of July and the whole of August no re- the preparations went on rapidly, yet too slowly for the vehe- numerous ment spirit of William. Meanwhile the intercourse between “““Jf 11 " England and Plolland was active. The ordinary modes of support conveying intelligence and passengers were no longer thought lan™. 15 ” 6 ' safe. A light bark of marvellous speed constantly ran backward and forward between Schevening and the eastern coast of our island.” By this vessel William received a succession * Avaux Neg., Aug. ft. Jj. «. ,' J, s;. 1088. ** Avaux Neg., Sept. ft. 1088. 250 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. 16 B 8 . of letters from persons of high note in the Church, the state, and the army. Two of the seven prelates who had signed the memorable petition, Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph, and Tre- lawney, Bishop of Bristol, had, during their residence in the Tower, reconsidered the doctrine of nonresistance, and were ready to welcome an armed deliverer. A brother of the Bishop of Bristol, Colonel Charles Trelawney, who commanded one of the Tangier regiments, now known as the Fourth of the Line, signified his readiness to draw his sword for the Protestant religion. Similar assurances arrived from the savage Kirke. Churchill, in a letter written with a certain elevation of language, which was the sure mark that he was going to commit a baseness, declared that he was determined to perform his duty to heaven and to his country, and that he put his honour absolutely into the hands of the Prince of Orange. William doubtless read these words with one of those bitter and cynical smiles which gave his face its least pleasing expression. It was not his business to take care of the honour of other men; nor had the most rigid casuists pronounced it unlawful in a general to invite, to use, and to reward the services of deserters whom he could not but despise. * Churchill’s letter was brought by Sidney, whose situation in England had become hazardous, and who, having taken many precautions to hide his track, had passed over to Holland about the middle of August.** About the same time Shrewsbury and Edward Russell crossed the German Ocean in a boat which they had hired with great secrecy, and appeared at the Hague. Shrewsbury brought with him twelve thousand pounds, which he had raised by a mortgage on his estates, and which he lodged in the bank of Amsterdam.*** Devonshire, Danby, and Lumley remained in England, where they undertook to rise in arms as soon as the Prince should set foot on the island. There is reason to believe that, at this conjuncture, Wil- * Burnet, i. 165.; Churchill’s letter bears date Aug. 4.1688. ** William to Bentinck, Aug. R. 1688. *** Memoirs of the Duke of Shrewsbury, 1T18. JAMES THE SECOND. 251 liam first received assurances of support from a very different CJ ] I £ P - quarter. The history of Sunderland’s intrigues is covered J68 8.' with an obscurity which it is not probable that any inquirer will Sunllcr _ ever succeed in penetrating: but, though it is impossible to '“d. discover the whole truth, it is easy to detect some palpable fictions. The Jacobites, for obvious reasons, affirmed that the revolution of 1688 was the result of a plot concerted long before. Sunderland they represented as the chief conspirator, lie had, they averred, in pursuance of his great design, incited his too confiding master to dispense with statutes, to create an illegal tribunal, to confiscate freehold property, and to send the fathers of the Established Church to a prison. This romance rests on no evidence, and, though it^iasbeen repeated down to our own time, seems hardly to deserve confutation. No fact is more certain than that Sunderland opposed some of the most imprudent steps which James took, and in particular the prosecution of the Bishops, which really brought on the decisive crisis. But, even if this fact were not established, there would still remain one argument sufficient to decide the controversy. What conceivable motive had Sunderland to wish for a revolution? Under the existing system he was at the height of dignity and prosperity. As President of the Council he took precedence of the whole temporal peerage. As Principal Secretary of State he was the most active and powerful member of the cabinet. He might lookforward to a dukedom. He had obtained the garter lately worn by the brilliant and versatile Buckingham, who, having squandered away a princely fortune and a vigorous intellect, had sunk into the grave deserted, contemned, and broken-hearted.* Money, which Sunderland valued more than honours, poured in upon him in such abundance that, with ordinary management, he might hope to become, in a few years, one of the wealthiest subjects in Europe. The direct emolument of his posts, though considerable, was a very small part of what he received. From France alone he drew a regular stipend of near six thousand pounds a year, besides large occasional gratuities. He had bargained with * London Gazette, April 25. 28.1687 252 HISTOBY OF ENGLAND. CHAP, IX. 1688 . Tyrconnel for five thousand a year, or fifty thousand pounds down, from Ireland. What sums he made by selling places, titles, and pardons, can only be conjectured, but must have been enormous. James seemed to take a pleasure in loading with wealth one whom he regarded as his own convert. All fines, all forfeitures went to Sunderland. On every grant toll was paid to him. If any suitor ventured to ask any favour directly from the King, the answer was, “Have you spoken to my Lord President?” One bold man ventured to say that the Lord President got all the money of the Court. “Well,” replied His Majesty; “he deserves it all.” * We shall scarcely overrate the amount of the minister’s gains, if we put them at thirty thousand pounds a year: and it must be remembered that fortunes of thirty thousand pounds a year were in this time rarer than fortunes of a hundred thousand pounds a year now are. It is probable that there was then not one peer of the realm whose private income equalled Sunderland’s official income. What chance was there that, in a new order of things, a man so deeply implicated in illegal and unpopular acts, a member of the High Commission, a renegade whom the multitude, in places of general resort, pursued with the cry of Popish dog, would be greater and richer? What chance that he would even be able to escape condign punishment? He had undoubtedly been long in the habit of looking forward to the time when William and Mary might be, in the ordinary course of nature and law, at the head of the English government, and had probably attempted to make for himself an interest in their favour, by promises and services which, if discovered, would not have raised his credit at Whitehall. But it may with confidence be affirmed that he had no wish to see them raised to power by a revolution, and that he did not at all foresee such a revolution when, towards the close of * Secret Consults of the Romish Party in Ireland. This account is strongly confirmed by what Bonrepaux wrote to Seignelay, Sept. J|. >687. “II (Sunderland) amassera beaucoup d’argent, le roi son maitre lui donnant la plus grande partie de celui qui provient des confiscations ou des accommodemens que ceux qui ont encouru des peines font pour obtenir leur grace." JAMES THE SECOND. 253 June 1688, lie solemnly joined the communion of the Church ofRome. Scarcely however had he, by that inexpiable crime, made himself an object of hatred and contempt to the whole nation, when he learned that the civil and ecclesiastical polity of England would shortly be vindicated by foreign and domestic arms. From that moment all his plans seem' to have undergone a change. Fear bowed down his whole soul, and was so written in his face that all who saw him could read.* It could hardly be doubted that, if there were a revolution, the evil counsellors who surrounded the throne would be called to a strict account: and among those counsellors he stood in the foremost rank. The loss of his places, his salaries, his pensions, was the least that he had to dread. His patrimonial mansion and woods at Althorpe might be confiscated. He might lie many years in a prison. He might end his days in a foreign land a pensioner on the bounty of France. Even this was not the worst. Visions of an innumerable crowd covering Tower Hill and shouting with savage joy at the sight of the apostate, of a scaffold hung with black, of Burnet reading the prayer for the departing, and of Ketch leaning on the axe with which Russell and Monmouth had been mangled in so butcherly a fashion, began to haunt the unhappy statesman. There was yet one way in which he might escape, a way more terrible to a noble spirit than a prison or a scaffold. He might still, by a well timed and useful treason, earn his pardon from the foes of the government. It was in his power to render to them at this conjuncture services beyond all price: for he had the royal ear; he had great influence over the Jesuitical cabal; and he was blindly trusted by the French Ambassador. A channel of communication was not wanting, a channel worthy of the purpose which it was to serve. The Countess of Sunderland was an artful woman, who, under a show of devotion which imposed on some grave men, carried on, with great activity, both amorous and political intrigues.** The * Adda says that Sunderland's terror was visible. ~r ct " a °‘ 1688 . J Isor. 5. ” Compare Evelyn’s account of her with what the Princess ofDen- crup. IX. 1688. 254 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. 1688. handsome and dissolute Henry Sidney had long been her favourite lover. Her husband was well pleased to see her thus connected with the court of the Hague. Whenever he wished to transmit a secret message to Holland, he spoke to his wife. she wrote to Sidney; and Sidney communicated her letter to William. One of her communications was intercepted and carried to James. She vehemently protested that it was a forgery. Her husband, with characteristic ingenuity, defended himself by representing that it was quite impossible for any man to be so base as to do what he was in the habit of doing. “Even if this is Lady Sunderland’s hand,” he said, “that is no affair of mine. Your Majesty knows my domestic misfortunes. The footing on which my wife and Mr. Sidney are is but too public. Who can believe that I would make a confidant of the man who has injured my honour in the ten- derest point, of the man whom, of all others, I ought most to hate?”* * This defence was thought satisfactory; and secret intelligence was still transmitted from the wittol to the adulteress, from the adulteress to the gallant, and from the gallant to the enemies of James. It is highly probable that the first decisive assurances of Sunderland’s support were conveyed orally by Sidney to William about the middle of August. It is certain that, from that time till the expedition was ready to sail, a most significant correspondence was kept up between the Countess and her lover. A few of her letters, partly written in cipher, are still extant. They contain professions of good will and promises of service mingled with earnest intreaties for protection. The writer intimates that her husband will do all that his friends at the Hague can wish: she supposes that it will be necessary for him to go into temporary exile: but she hopes that his banishment will not be perpetual, and that his patrimonial estate will be spared; and she earnestly begs to be informed in what place it will be best for him to take refuge till the first fur)- of the storm is over. ** mark wrote about her to the Hague, and with her own letters to Henry Sidney. * Honrepaux to Seignelay, July ip. 1088. *' See her letters in the Sidney Diary and Correspondence lately JAM®S THE SECOND. 255 The help of Sunderland was most welcome. For, as the c uptime of striking the great blow drew near, the anxiety of 1688 ~ William became intense. From common eyes his feelings AnlielJ were concealed by the icy tranquillity of his demeanour: but of wii- his whole heart was open to Bentinck. The preparations 1 were not quite complete. The design was already suspected, and could not be long concealed. The King of France or the city of Amsterdam might still frustrate the whole plan. If Lewis were to send a great force into Brabant, if the faction which hated the Stadtholder were to raise its head, all was over. “My sufferings, my disquiet,” the Prince wrote, “are dreadful. I hardly see my way. Never in my life did I so much feel the need of God’s guidance.”* * Bentinck’s wife was at this time dangerously ill; and both the friends were painfully anxious about her. “God support you,” William wrote, “and enable you to bear your part in a work on which, as far as human beings can see, the welfare of his Church depends.”** It was indeed impossible that a design so vast as that conveyed which had been formed against the King of England should 10 Jame “ remain during many weeks a secret. No art could prevent intelligent men from perceiving that William was making great military and naval preparations, and from suspecting the object with which those preparations were made. Early in August hints that some great event was approaching were whispered up and down London. The weak and corrupt Albeville was then on a visit to England, and was, or affected to be, certain that the Dutch government entertained no design unfriendly to James. But, during the absence of Albe- ville from his post, Avaux performed, with eminent skill, the duties both of French and English Ambassador to the States, and supplied Barillon as well as Lewis with ample intelligence. Avaux was satisfied that a descent on England was in contemplation, and succeeded in convincing his master of the published. Mr. Fox, in his copy of Barillon’s despatches, marked the 30th of August N. S. 1688, as the date from which it was quite certain that Sunderland was playing false. * Aug.i?. 1088. ** Sept. A- 1688. 256 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. ciiAp. truth. Every courier who arrived at Westminster, either from i68s T~~ H a gue or from Versailles, brought earnest warnings.* But James was under a delusion which appears to have been artfully encouraged by Sunderland. The Prince of Orange, said the cunning minister, would never dare to engage in an expedition beyond sea, leaving Holland defenceless. The States, remembering what they had suffered and what they, had been in danger of suffering during the great agony of 1072, would never incur the risk of again seeing an invading army encamped on the plain between Utrecht and Amsterdam. There was doubtless much discontent in England: but the interval was immense between discontent and rebellion. Men of rank and fortune were not disposed lightly to hazard their honours, their estates, and their lives. How many eminent Whigs had held high language when Monmouth was in the Netherlands 1 And yet, when he set up his standard, what eminent Whig had joined it? It was easy to understand why Lewis affected to give credit to these idle rumours. He doubtless hoped to frighten the King of England into taking the French side in the dispute about Cologne. 'By such reasoning James was easily lulled into stupid security.** The alarm and indignation of Lewis increased daily. The style of his letters became sharp and vehement. *** He could not understand, he wrote, this lethargy on the eve of a terrible crisis. Was the King bewitched? Were his ministers blind? Was it possible that nobody at Whitehall was aware of what was passing in England and on the Continent? Such fool-hardy security could scarcely be the effect of mere improvidence. There must be foul play. James was evidently in bad hands. Barillon was earnestly cautioned not to repose implicit confidence in the English ministers: but he was cautioned in vain. On him, as on James, Sunderland had cast a spell which no exhortation could break. * Avaux, July Aug. if 1688; Lewis to Barillon. Aug. -,V }J. ** Barillon, Aug. J*. 1688; Adda, Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 177. Orig. Mem. *** Lewis to Barillon, Sept. x * s . 1688 . JAMES THE SECOND. 257 Lewis bestirred himself vigorously. Bonrepaux, who was C1 ™ p - far superior to Barillon in shrewdness, and who had always 1688 . 1 disliked and distrusted Sunderland, was despatched to London Eieriitnu with an offer of naval assistance. Avaux was at the same time “ 0 r ^ a “" ,s ordered to declare to the States General that France had James, taken James under her protection. A large body of troops was held in readiness to march towards the Dutch frontier. This hold attempt to save the infatuated tyrant in his own despite was made with the full concurrence of Skelton, who was now Envoy from England to the Court of Versailles. Avaux, in conformity with his instructions, demanded an audience of the States. It was readily granted. The assembly was unusually large. The general belief was that some overture respecting commerce was about to be made; and the President brought a written answer framed on that supposition. As soon as Avaux began to disclose his errand, signs of uneasiness were discernible. Those who were believed to enjoy the confidence of the Prince of Orange cast down their eyes. The agitation became great when the Envoy announced that his master was strictly bound by the ties of friendship and alliance to His Britannic Majesty, and that any attack on England would be considered as a declaration of war against France. The President, completely taken by surprise, stammered out a few evasive phrases; and the conference terminated. It was at the same time notified to the States that Lewis had taken under his protection Cardinal Furstemburg and the Chapter of Cologne. * The Deputies were in great agitation. Some recommended caution and delay. Others breathed nothing but war. Fagel spoke vehemently of the French insolence, and implored his brethren not to be daunted by threats. The proper answer to such a communication, he said, was to levy more soldiers, and to equip more ships. A courier was instantly despatched to recall William from Minden, where he was holding a consultation of high moment with the Elector of Brandenburg. * Avaux, Aug. 23. Aug. 3U. Sept. ' 4 . Sept. *J. 1688. Macaulay, History. III. 17 25 $ HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. chap. gut there was no cause for alarm. James was bent on ■ 1688 , ruining himself; and every attempt to stop him only made , him rush more eagerly to his doom. When his throne was James . ° ... frustrates secure, when Ins people were submissive, when the most ob- lhem ‘ sequious of Parliaments was eager to anticipate all his reasonable wishes, when foreign kingdoms and commonwealths paid emulous court to him, when it depended only on himself whether he would be the arbiter of Christendom, he had stooped to be the slave and the hireling of France. And now when, by a series of crimes and follies, he had succeeded in alienating his neighbours, his subjects, his soldiers, his sailors, his children, and had left himself no refuge but the protection of France, he was taken with a fit of pride, and determined to assert his independence. That help which, when he did not want it, he had accepted with ignominious tears, he now, when it was indispensable to him, threw contemptuously away. Having been abject when he might, with propriety, have been punctilious in maintaining his dignity, he became ungratefully haughty at a moment when haughtiness must bring on him at once derision and ruin. He resented the friendly intervention which might have saved him. Was ever King so used? Was he a child, or an idiot, that others must think for him? Was he a petty prince, a Cardinal Furstemburg, who must fall if not upheld by a powerful patron? Was he to be degraded in the estimation of all Europe, by an ostentatious patronage which he had never asked? Skelton was recalled to answer for his conduct, and, as soon as he arrived, was committed prisoner to the Tower. Citters was well received at Whitehall, and had a long audience. He could, with more truth than diplomatists on such occasions think at all necessary, disclaim, on the part of the States General, any hostile project. For the States General had, as yet, no official knowledge of the design of William; nor was it by any means impossible that they might, even now, refuse to sanction that design. James declared that he gave not the least credit to the rumours of a Dutch invasion, and that the conduct of the French government had surprised and annoyed him. Middleton was directed to as- JAMES THE SECOND. 259 sure all the foreign ministers that there existed no such alliance between France and England as the Court of Versailles had, for its own ends, pretended. To the Nuncio the King said that the designs of Lewis were palpable and should be frustrated. This officious protection was at once an insult and a snare. “My good brother,” said James, “has excellent qualities; but flattery and vanity have turned his head.” * Adda, who was much more anxious about Cologne than about England, encouraged this strange delusion. Albeville, who had now returned to his post, was commanded to give friendly assurances to the States General, and to add some high language, which might have been becoming in the mouth of Elizabeth or Oliver. “My master,” he said, “is raised, alike by his power and by his spirit, above the position which France affects to assign to him. There is some difference between a King of England and an Archbishop of Cologne.” The reception of Bonrepaux at Whitehall was cold. The naval succours which he offered were not absolutely declined; but he was forced to return without having settled anything; and the Envoys, both of the United Provinces and of the House of Austria, were informed that his mission had been disagreeable to the King and had produced no result. After the Revolution Sunderland boasted, and probably with truth, that he had induced his master to reject the proffered assistance ofFrance.** The perverse folly of James naturally excited the indignation of his powerful neighbour. Lewis complained that, in return for the greatest service which he could render to the English government, that government had given him the lie in the face of all Christendom. He justly remarked that what * “ Che 1 ’adulazione e la vanith gli avevano tomato il capo.”— Adda, A "g- 3I - .f,RS Sept. 10. ,688 ‘ ** Citters, Sept. R. 16 S 8 ; Avaux, Sept. R. 7^777; Barillon, Wagenaar, book lx.; Sunderland’s Apology. It has been often asserted that James declined the help of a French army. The truth is that no such army was offered. Indeed, the French troops would have served James much more effectually by menacing the frontiers of Holland than by crossing the Channel. 17 * cnAp. IX. i6ss. 260 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap. Avaux had said, touching the alliance between France and —Gre'at Britain, was true according to the spirit, though perhaps not according to the letter. There was not indeed a treaty digested into articles, signed, sealed, and ratified: but assurances equivalent in the estimation of honourable men to such a treaty had, during some years, been constantly exchanged between the two Courts. Lewis added that, high as was his own place in Europe, he should never be so absurdly jealous of his dignity as to see an insult in any act prompted by friendship. But James was in a very different situation, and would soon learn the value of that aid which he had so ungraciously rejected. * Yet, notwithstanding the stupidity and ingratitude of James, it would have been wise in Lewis to persist in the resolution which had been notified to the States General. Avaux, whose sagacity and judgment made him an antagonist worthy of William, was decidedly of this opinion. The first object of the French government — so the skilful Envoy reasoned — ought to be to prevent the intended descent on England. The way to prevent that descent was to invade the Spanish Netherlands, and to menace the Batavian frontier. The Prince of Orange, indeed, was so bent on his darling enterprise that he would persist, even if the white flag were flying on the walls of Brussels. He had actually said that, if the Spaniards could only manage to keep Ostend, Mons, and Namur till the next spring, he would then return from England with a force which would soon recover all that had been lost. But, though such was the Prince’s opinion, it was not the opinion of the States. They would not readily consent to send their Captain General and the flower of their army across the German Ocean, while a formidable enemy threatened their own territory.** F h °nch Lewis admitted the force of these reasonings: but he had armies already resolved on a different line of action. Perhaps he Germany, had been provoked by the discourtesy and wrong-headedness * Lewis to Barilfon, Sept. fj. 1688. ** Avaux, ’l' 1 ' Oct. A. *688. JAMES THE SECOND. of the English government, and indulged his temper at the expense of his interest. Perhaps he was misled by the- counsels of his minister of war, Louvois, whose influence was great, and who regarded Avaux with no friendly feeling. It was determined to strike in a quarter remote from Holland a great and unexpected blow. Lewis suddenly withdrew his troops from Flanders, and poured them into Germany. One army, placed under the nominal command of the Dauphin, but really directed by the Duke of Duras and by Vauban, the father of the science of fortification, invested Philipsburg. Another, led by the Marquess of Bouffiers, seized Worms, Mentz, and Treves. A third, commanded by the Marquess Humieres, entered Bonn. All down the Rhine, from Carls- ruhe to Cologne, the French arms were victorious. The news of the fall of Philipsburg reached Versailles on All Saints day, while the Court was listening to a sermon in the chapel. The King made a sign to the preacher to stop, announced the good news to the congregation, and, kneeling down, returned thanks to God for this great success. The audience wept for joy.* The tidings were eagerly welcomed by the sanguine and susceptible people of France. Poets celebrated the triumphs of their magnificent patron. Orators extolled from the pulpit the wisdom and magnanimity of the eldest son of the Church. The Te Deum was sung with unwonted pomp; and the solemn notes of the organ were mingled with the clash of the cymbal and the blast of the trumpet. But there was little cause for rejoicing. The great statesman who was at the head of the European coalition smiled inwardly at the misdirected energy of his foe. Lewis had indeed, by his promptitude, gained some advantages on the side of Germany: but those advantages would avail little if England, inactive and inglorious under four successive Kings, should suddenly resume her old rank in Europe. A few weeks would suffice for the enterprise on which the fate of the world depended; and for a few weeks the United Provinces were in security. • Madame de Sdvignd, 1688 . ° 7 fcov. «i. 262 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap. William now urged on his preparations with indefatigable ]688 — activity and with less secrecy than he had hitherto thought William necessary. Assurances of support came pouring in daily ihesanc f rom foreign courts. Opposition had become extinct at the tionofthe Hague. It was in vain that Avaux, even at this last moment, uerafio 0 " exerted all his skill to reanimate the faction which had con- Iiiiion Pe " ten( led against three generations of the House of Orange. The chiefs of that faction, indeed, still regarded theStadt- holder with no friendly feeling. They had reason to fear that, if he prospered in England, he would become absolute master of Holland. Nevertheless the errors of the Court of Versailles, and the dexterity with which he had availed himself of those errors, made it impossible to continue the struggle against him. He saw that the time had come for demanding the sanction of the States. Amsterdam was the head quarters of the party hostile to his line, his office, and his person; and even from Amsterdam he had at this moment nothing to apprehend. Some of the chief functionaries of that city had been repeatedly closeted with him, with Dykvelt, and with Bentinck, and had been induced to promise that they would promote, or at least that they would not oppose, the great design: some were exasperated by the commercial edicts of Lewis: some were in deep distress for kinsmen and friends who were harassed by the French dragoons : some shrank from the responsibility of causing a schism which might be fatal to the Batavian federation; and some were afraid of the common people, who. stimulated by the exhortations of zealous preachers, were ready to execute summary justice on any traitor to the Protestant cause. ’ The majority, therefore, of that town council which had long been devoted to France pronounced in favour of William’s undertaking. Thenceforth all fear of opposition in any part of the United Provinces was at an end; and the full sanction of the federation to his enterprise was, in secret sittings, formally given. * The Prince had already fixed upon a general well qualified * Wilsen MS. quoted by Wagenaar; Lord Lonsdale’s Memoirs; Avaux, Oct. T V -ft. 1688 . The formal declaration of the States General, dated Oct. J|., will be found in the Recueil des Traitds, vol. iv. no. 225. JAMES THE SECOND. 263 to be second in command. This -was indeed no light matter. c j I ) p- A random shot or the dagger of an assassin might in a moment 1688 _ ■ leave the expedition without a head. It was necessary that a successor should be ready to fill the vacant place. Yet it was impossible to make choice of any Englishman without giving offence either to the Whigs or to the Tories; nor had any Englishman then living shown that he possessed the military skill necessary for the conduct of a campaign. On the other hand it was not easy to assign preeminence to a foreigner without wounding the national sensibility of the haughty islanders. One man there was, and only one in Europe, to whom no objection could be found, Frederic, Count of Scliomberg, a German, sprung from a noble house of the Palatinate. He was generally esteemed the greatest living master of the art of war. His rectitude and piety, tried by strong temptations and never found wanting, commanded general respect and confidence. Though a Protestant, he had been, during many years, in the service of Lewis, and had, in spite of the ill offices of the Jesuits, extorted from his employer, by a series of great actions, the staff' of a Marshal of France. When persecution began to rage, the brave veteran steadfastly refused to purchase the royal favour by apostasy, resigned, without one murmur, all his honours and commands, quitted his adopted country for ever, and took refuge at the Court of Berlin. He had passed his seventieth year; but both his mind and his body were still in full vigour. He had been in England, and was much loved and honoured there. He had indeed a recommendation of which very few foreigners could then boast; for he spoke our language, not only intelligibly, but with grace and purity. He was, with the consent of the Elector of Brandenburg, and with the warm approbation of the chiefs of all English parties, appointed William’s lieutenant. * And now the Hague was crowded with British adventurers of all the various parties which the tyranny of James had turers at united in a strange coalition, old royalists who had shed their Ha^iin, * Abrdgd de la Vie de Frdddric Due de Schomberg, 1690; Sidney to William, June 30. 1688; Burnet, i. 617. 264 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap, blood for the throne, old agitators of the army of theParlia- —ment, Tories who had been persecuted in the days of the Exclusion Bill, Whigs who had fled to the Continent for their share in the Rye House Plot. Conspicuous in this great assemblage were Charles Gerard, Earl of Macclesfield, an ancient Cavalier who had fought for Charles the First and had shared the exile of Charles the Second; Archibald Campbell, who was the eldest son of the unfortunate Argyle, but had inherited nothing except an illustrious name and the inalienable affection of a numerous clan; Charles Paulet, Earl of Wiltshire, heir apparent of the Marquisate of Winchester; and Peregrine Osborne, Lord Dumblane, heir apparent of the Earldom of Danby. Mordaunt, exulting in the prospect of adventures irresistibly attractive to his fiery nature, was among the foremost volunteers. Fletcher of Saltoun had learned, while guarding the frontier of Christendom against the infidels, that there was once more a hope of deliverance for his country, and had hastened to offer the help of his sword. Sir Patrick Hume, who had, since his flight from Scotland, lived humbly at Utrecht, now emerged from his obscurity: but, fortunately, his eloquence could, on this occasion, do little mischief; for the Prince of Orange was by no means disposed to be the lieutenant of a debating society such as that which had ruined the enterprise of Argyle. The subtle and restless Wildman, who had some time before found England an unsafe residence, and had retired to Germany, now repaired from Germany to the Prince’s court. There too was Carstairs, a pres- byterian minister from Scotland, who in craft and courage had no superior among the politicians of his age. Fie had been entrusted some years before byFagel with important secrets, and had resolutely kept them in spite of the most horrible torments which could be inflicted by boot and thumbscrew. His rare fortitude had earned for him as large a share of the Prince’s confidence and esteem as was granted to any man except Bentinck. * Ferguson could not remain quiet when a revolution was preparing. He secured for him- * Burnet, i. 581.; Mackey's Memoirs. JAMES THE SECOND. 265 self a passage in the fleet, and made himself busy among his cr ^'- fellow emigrants: but he found himself generally distrusted 1688 _ and despised. He had been a great man in the knot of ignorant and hot-headed outlaws who had urged the feeble Monmouth to destruction: but there was no place for a low-minded agitator, half maniac and half knave, among the grave statesmen and generals who partook the cares of the resolute and sagacious William. The difference between the expedition of 1685 and the expedition of 1688 was sufficiently marked by the difference between the manifestoes which the leaders of those expeditions published. For Monmouth Ferguson had scribbled an absurd and brutal libel about the burning of London, the strangling of Godfrey, the butchering of Essex, and the poisoning of Charles. The Declaration of William was drawn up by the Grand Pensionary Fagel, who was highly renowned tion. as a publicist. Though weighty and learned, it was, in its original form, much too prolix; but it was abridged and translated into English by Burnet, who well understood the art of popular composition. It began by a solemn preamble, setting forth that, in every community, the strict observance of law was necessary alike to the happiness of nations and to the security of governments. ThePrince of Orange had therefore seen with deep concern that the fundamental laws of a kingdom, with which he was by blood and by marriage closely connected, had, by the advice of evil counsellors, been grossly and systematically violated. The power of dispensing with Acts of Parliament had been strained to such a point that the whole legislative authority had been transferred to the crown. Decisions at variance with the spirit of the constitution had been obtained from the tribunals by turning out Judge after Judge, till the bench had been filled with men ready to obey implicitly the directions of the government. Notwithstanding the King’s repeated assurances that he would maintain the established religion, persons notoriously hostile to that religion had been promoted, not only to civil offices, but also to ecclesiastical benefices. The government of the Church had, in defiance of express statutes, been entrusted J 266 HISTOEX OF ENGLAND. chav, to a new court of High Commission; and in that court one -jjjjg—avowed Papist had a seat. Good subjects, for refusing to violate their duty and their oaths, had been ejected from their property, in contempt of the Great Charter of the liberties of England. Meanwhile persons who could not legally set foot on the island had been placed at the head of seminaries for the corruption of youth. Lieutenants, Deputy Lieutenants, Justices of the Peace, had been dismissed in multitudes for refusing to support a pernicious and unconstitutional policy. The franchises of almost every borough in the realm had been invaded. The courts of justice were in such a state that their decisions, even in civil matters, had ceased to inspire confidence, and that their servility in criminal cases had brought on the kingdom the stain of innocent blood. All these abuses, loathed by the English nation, were to be defended, it seemed, by an army of Irish Papists. Nor was this all. The most arbitrary princes had never accounted it an offence in a subject modestly and peaceably to represent his grievances and to ask for relief. But supplication was now treated as a high misdemeanour in England. For no crime but that of offering to the Sovereign a petition drawn up in the most respectful terms, the fathers of the Church had been imprisoned and prosecuted; and every Judge who gave his voice in their favour had instantly been turned out. The calling of a free and lawful Parliament might indeed be an effectual remedy for all these evils: but such a Parliament, unless the whole spirit of the administration were changed, the nation could not hope to see. It was evidently the intention of the Court to bring together, by means of regulated corporations and of Popish returning officers, a body which would be a House of Commons in name alone. Lastly, there were circumstances which raised a grave suspicion that the child who was called Prince of Wales was not really born of the Queen. For these reasons the Prince, mindful of his near relation to the royal house, and grateful for the affection which the English people had ever shown to his beloved wife and to himself, had resolved, in compliance with the request of many Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and of many other AW JAMES THE SECOND. 267 persons of all ranks, to go over at the head of a force suffi- chap. cient to repel violence. He abjured all thought of conquest. -^7- He protested that, while his troops remained in the island, they should be kept under the strictest restraints of discipline, and that, as soon as the nation had been delivered from tyranny, they should be sent back. His single object was to have a free and legal Parliament assembled: and to the decision of such a Parliament he solemnly pledged himself to leave all questions both public and private. As soon as copies of this Declaration were handed about the Hague, signs of dissension began to appear among the English. Wildman, indefatigable in mischief, prevailed on some of his countrymen, and, among others, on the headstrong and volatile Mordaunt, to declare that they would not take up arms on such grounds. The paper had been drawn up merely to please the Cavaliers and the parsons. The injuries of the Church and the trial of the Bishops had been put too prominently forward; and nothing had been said of the tyrannical manner in which the Tories, before their rupture with the Court, had treated the Whigs. Wildman then brought forward a counter-project, prepared by himself, which, if it had been adopted, would have disgusted all the Anglican clergy and four fifths of the landed aristocracy. The leading Whigs strongly opposed him. Russell in particular declared that, if such an insane course were taken, there would be an end of the coalition from which alone the nation could expect deliverance. The dispute was at length settled by the authority of William, who, with his usual good sense, determined that the manifesto should stand nearly as Fagel and Burnet had framed it. * While these things were passing in Holland, James had at James length become sensible of his danger. Intelligence which a°s U ense l ° could not be disregarded came pouring in from various quar- of his ters. At length a despatch from Albeville removed all ° e doubts. It is said that, when the King had read it, the blood left his cheeks, and he remained some time speechless.** * Burnet, i. 175. 780. ** Eachard’s History of the Revolution, ii. 2. 268 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap. He might, indeed, -well be appalled. The first easterly wind - 168 ^ —would bring a hostile armament to the shores of his realm. All Europe, one single power alone excepted, was impatiently waiting for the news of his downfall. The help of that single power he had madly rejected. Nay, he had requited with insult the friendly intervention which might have saved him. The French armies which, but for his own folly, might have been employed in overawing the States General, were besieging Philipsburg or garrisoning Mentz. In a few days he might have to fight, on English ground, for his crown and for the birth-right of his infant son. His means were indeed His naval ; n appearance great. The navy was in a much more efficient meim - state than at the time of his accession: and the improvement is partly to be attributed to his own exertions. He had appointed no Lord High Admiral or Board of Admiralty, but had kept the chief direction of maritime affairs in his own hands, and had been strenuously assisted by Pepys. It is a proverb that the eye of a master is more to be trusted than that of a deputy: and, in an age of corruption and peculation, a department on which a sovereign, even of very slender capacity, bestows close personal attention is likely to be comparatively free from abuses. It would have been easy to find an abler minister of marine than James; but it would not have been easy to find, among the public men of that age, any minister of marine, except James, who would not have embezzled stores, taken bribes from contractors, and charged the crown with the cost of repairs which had never been made. The King was, in truth, almost the only person who could be trusted not to rob the King. There had therefore been, during the last three years, much less waste and pilfering in the dockyards than formerly. Ships had been built which were fit to go to sea. An excellent order had been issued increasing the allowances of Captains, and at the same time strictly forbidding them to carry merchandise from port to . port without the royal permission. The effect of these reforms was already perceptible; and James found no difficulty in fitting out, at short notice, a considerable fleet. Thirty ships of the line, all third rates and fourth rates, were col- JAMES THE SECOND. 269 lected in the Thames, under the command of Lord Dart- c ^ p - mouth. The loyalty of Dartmouth was above suspicion; and—p 688 '— he was thought to have as much professional skill and knowledge as any of the patrician sailors who, in that age, rose to the highest naval commands without a regular naval training, and who were at once flag officers on the sea and colonels of infantry on shore. * The regular army wa s the largest that any King of England had ever commanded, and was rapidly augmented. New means companies were incorporated with the existing regiments. Commissions for the raising of fresh regiments were issued. Four thousand men were added to the English establishment. Three thousand were sent for with all speed from Ireland. As many more were ordered to march southward from Scotland. James estimated the force with which he should be able to meet the invaders at near forty thousand troops, exclusive of the militia.** The navy and army were therefore far more than sufficient to repel a Dutch invasion. But could the navy, could the army, be trusted? Would not the trainbands flock by thousands to the standard of the deliverer? The party which had, a few years before, drawn the sword for Monmouth would undoubtedly be eager to welcome the Prince of Orange. And what had become of the party which had, during seven and forty years, been the bulwark of monarchy? Where were now those gallant gentlemen who had ever been ready to shed their blood for the crown? Outraged and insulted, driven from the bench of justice and deprived of all military command, they saw the peril of their ungrateful Sovereign with undisguised delight. Where were those priests and prelates who had, from ten thousand pulpits, proclaimed the duty of obeying the anointed delegate of God? Some of them had been imprisoned: some had been plundered: all had been * Pepys’s Memoirs relating to the Royal Navy, 1090; Clarke’s Life of James the Second, ii. 186. Orig. Mem.; Adda, ; Citters, - * nt ' ai ' w 7 ' Out. I. ’ ' Oct. 1. ** Clarke’s Life of James the Second, ii. 186. Orig. Mem.; Adda, gept.14.. „._ Sept. VI. oil -' U '' Titter- Sept-!il - it.*. ’ Litters, ^TT 270 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. CHAP. __IX._ JC88. He attempts to conciliate his subjects. placed under the iron rule of the High Commission, and had been in hourly fear lest some new freak of tyranny should deprive them of their freeholds and leave them without a morsel of bread. That Churchmen would even now so completely forget the doctrine which had been their peculiar boast as to join in active resistance seemed incredible. But could their oppressor expect to find among them the spirit which in the preceding generation had triumphed over the armies of Essex and Waller, and had yielded only after a desperate struggle to the genius and vigour of Cromwell? The tyrant was overcome by fear. He ceased to repeat that concession had always ruined princes: and sullenly owned that he must stoop to court the Tories once more. * There is reason to believe that Halifax was, at this time, invited to return to office, and that he was not unwilling to do so. The part of mediator between the throne and the nation was, of all parts, that for which he was best qualified, and of which he was most ambitious. How the negotiation with him was broken off is not known: but it is not improbable that the question of the dispensing power was the insurmountable difficulty. His hostility to that power had caused his disgrace three years before; and nothing that had since happened had been of a nature to change his views. James, on the other hand, was fully determined to make no concession on that point.** As to other matters he was less pertinacious. He put forth a proclamation in which he solemnly promised to protect the Church of England and to maintain the Act of Uniformity. He declared himself willing to make great sacrifices for the sake of concord. He would no longer insist that Roman Catholics should be admitted into the House of Commons ; and he trusted that his people would justly appreciate such a proof of his disposition to meet their wishes. Three days later he notified his intention to replace all the ma- * Adda, g 8 ‘ 1088. This despatch describes strongly James’s dread of an universal defection of his subjects. •* All the scanty light which we have respecting this negotiation is derived from Hercsby. His informant was a lady whom he does not name, and who certainly was not to be implicitly trusted. JAKES THE SECOND. 271 gisirates and .Deputy Lieutenants who had been dismissed for ™ t AP - refusing to support his policy. On the day after the ap- - 168 g;- pearance of this notification Compton’s suspension was taken off.* At the same time the King gave an audience to all the He gives Bishops who were then in London. They had requested ad-1 0 the mittance to his presence for the purpose of tendering their Blshop3, counsel in this emergency. The Primate was spokesman. He respectfully asked that the administration might be put into the hands of persons duly qualified, that all acts done under pretence of the dispensing power might be revoked, that the Ecclesiastical Commission might be annulled, that the wrongs of Magdalene College might be redressed, and that the old franchises of the municipal corporations might be restored. He hinted very intelligibly that there was one most desirable event which would completely secure the throne and quiet the distracted realm. If His Majesty would reconsider the points in dispute between the Churches of Rome and England, perhaps, by the divine blessing on the arguments which the Bishops wished to lay before him, he might be convinced that it was his duty to return to the religion of his father and of his grandfather. Thus far, Sancroft said, he had spoken the sense of his brethren. There remained a subject on which he had not taken counsel with them, but to which he thought it his duty to advert. He was indeed the only man of his profession who could advert to that subject without being suspected of an interested motive. The metropolitan see of York had been three years vacant. The Archbishop implored the King to fill it speedily with a pious and learned divine, and added that such a divine might without difficulty be found among those who then stood in the royal presence. The King commanded himself sufficiently to return thanks for this unpalatable counsel, and promised to consider what had been said. ** Of the dispensing power he would not yield one tittle. No unqualified person was removed from any * London Gazette, Sept. 24. 21., Oct. 1., 1C88. Tanner MSS.; Burnet, i. 784. Burnet has, I think, confounded this audience with an audience which took place a few weeks later. 272 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP, civil or military office. But some of Sancroft’s suggestions 1C88 - were adopted. Within forty-eight hours the Court of High Commission was abolished. ’ It was determined that the charter of the City of London, which had been forfeited six years before, should be restored; and the Chancellor was sent in state to carry back the venerable parchment to Guildhall.** A week later the public was informed that the Bishop of Winchester, who was by virtue of his office Visitor of Magdalene College, had it in charge from the King to correct whatever was amiss in that society. It was not without a long struggle and a bitter pang that James stooped to this last humiliation. Indeed he did not yield till the Vicar Apostolic Leyburn, who seems to have behaved on all occasions like a wise and honest man, declared that in his judgment the ejected President and Fellows had been wronged, and that, on religious as well as on political grounds, restitution ought to be made to them.*** In a few days appeared a proclamation restoring the forfeited franchises of all the municipal corporations. f His con- James flattered himself that concessions so great made in cessionc t p e S p ace 0 f a m0 nth would bring back to him the hearts eeiTed. 0 f p; s people. Nor can it be doubted that such concessions, made before there was reason to expect an invasion from Holland, would have done much to conciliate the Tories. But gratitude is not to be expected by rulers who give to fear what they have refused to justice. During three years the King had been proof to all argument and to all entreaty. Every minister who had dared to raise his voice in favour of the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the realm had been disgraced. * London Gazette, Oct. 8.1688. ■* Ibid. *** Ibid. Oct. 15. 1688; Adda, Oct. The Nuncio, though generally an enemy to violent courses, seems to have opposed the restoration of llough, probably from regard for the interests of GiiTard and the other Roman Catholics who were quartered in Magdalene College. Leyburn declared himself “nel sentimento che fosse stalo unospoglio, e che il possesso in cui si trovano ora li Cattolici fosse violenlo ed illegal?, onde non era privar questi di un dritto acquisto, ma rendere agli altri quello che era slato levato con violenza." + London Gazette, Oct. 18.1683. JAMES THE SECOND. 273 A Parliament eminently loyal had ventured to protest gently CI j£ p - and respectfully against a violation of the fundamental laws — 168 jy of England, and had been sternly reprimanded, prorogued, and dissolved. Judge after Judge had been stripped of the ermine for declining to give decisions opposed to the whole common and statute law. The most respectable Cavaliers had been excluded from all share in the government of their counties for refusing to betray the public liberties. Scores of clergymen had been deprived of their livelihood for observing their oaths. Prelates, to whose steadfast fidelity the King owed the crown which he wore, had on their knees besought him not to command them to violate the laws of God and of the land. Their modest petition had been treated as a seditious libel. They had been browbeaten, threatened, imprisoned, prosecuted, and had narrowly escaped utter ruin. Then at length the nation, finding that right was borne down by might, and that even supplication was regarded as a crime, began to think of trying the chances of war. The oppressor learned that an armed deliverer was at hand and would be eagerly welcomed by Whigs and Tories, Dissenters and Churchmen. All was immediately changed. That government which had requited constant and zealous service with spoliation and persecution, that government which to weighty reasons and pathetic intreaties had replied only by injuries and insults, became in a moment strangely gracious. Every Gazette now announced the removal of some grievance. It was then evident that on the equity, the humanity, the plighted word of the King, no reliance could be placed, and that he would govern well only so long as he was under the strong dread of resistance. His subjects were therefore by no means disposed to restore to him a confidence which he had justly forfeited, or to relax the pressure which had wrung from him the only good acts of his whole reign. The general impatience for the arrival of the Dutch became every day stronger. The gales which at this time blew obstinately from the west, and which at once prevented the Prince’s armament from sailing and brought fresh Irish regiments from Dublin to Chester, were bitterly cursed and reviled by the common people. The Macaulay, History. III. 18 27/i HISTORY OP ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. 11188 . weather, it was said, was Popish. Crowds stood in Cheapside gazing intently at the weathercock on the graceful steeple of Bow Church, and praying for a Protestant wind.* The general feeling was strengthened by an event which, though merely accidental, was not unnaturally ascribed to the perfidy of the King. TheBisliop of Winchester announced that, in obedience to the royal commands, he designed to restore the ejected members of Magdalene College. He fixed the twenty- first of October for this ceremony, and on the twentieth went down to Oxford. The whole University was in expectation. The expelled Fellows had arrived from all parts of the kingdom, eager to take possession of their beloved home. Three hundred gentlemen on horseback escorted the Visitors to his lodgings. As he passed, the bells rang, and the High Street was crowded with shouting spectators. He retired to rest. The next morning a joyous crowd assembled at the gates of Magdalene: buttheBishop did not make his appearance; and soon it was known that he had been roused from his bed by a royal messenger, and had been directed to repair immediately to Whitehall. This strange disappointment caused much wonder and anxiety: but in a few hours came news which, to minds disposed, not without reason, to think theworst, seemed completely to explain the King’s change of purpose. The Dutch armament had put out to sea, and had been driven back by a storm. The disaster was exaggerated by rumour. Many ships, it was said, had been lost. Thousands of horses had perished. All thought of a design on England must be relinquished, at least for the present year. Here was a lesson for the nation. While James expected immediate invasion and rebellion, he had given orders that reparation should be made to those whom he had unlawfully despoiled. As soon as he found himself safe, those orders had been revoked. This imputation, though at that time generally believed, and though, since that time, repeated by writers who ought to have been * “Vento Papista,” says Adda, 1088. The expression Protestant wind seems to have been first applied to the wind which kept Tyrconnel, during some time, from taking possession of the government of Ireland. Sec the first part of Lillibullero. JAMES THE SECOND. 275 well informed, was ■without foundation. It is certain that the chap. mishap of the Dutch fleet could not, by any mode of commu- — nication, have been known at Westminster till some hours after the Bishop of Winchester had received the summons which called him away from Oxford. The King, however, had little right to complain of the suspicions of his people. If they sometimes, without severely examining evidence, ascribed to his dishonest policy what was really the effect of accident or inadvertence, the fault was his own. That men who are in thehabit of breaking faith should be distrusted when they mean to keep it is part of their just and natural punishment.* It is remarkable that James, on this occasion, incurred one unmerited imputation solely in consequence of his eagerness to clear himself from another imputation equally unmerited. The Bishop of Winchester had been hastily summoned from Oxford to attend an extraordinary meeting of the Privy Council, or rather an assembly of Notables, which had been convoked at Whitehall. With the Privy Councillors were joined, in this solemn sitting, all the Peers Spiritual and Temporal who chanced to be in or near the capital, the Judges, the crown lawyers, the Lord Mayor and the Aldermen of the City of London. A hint had been given to Petre that he would do well to absent himself. In truth few of the Peers would have chosen to sit with him. Near the head of the board a chair of state was placed for the Queen Dowager. The Princess Anne had been requested to attend, but had excused herself on the plea of delicate health. James informed this great assembly that he thought it th°°Mrth necessary to produce proofs of the birth of his son. The arts of the of bad men had poisoned the public mind to such an extent wa”e° ot that very many believed the Prince of Wales to be a suppositi- [“ b l ™g Ued tious child. But Providence had graciously ordered things so Privy that scarcely any prince had ever come into the world in the Cou “ cll ‘ presence of so many witnesses. Those witnesses then appeared and gave their evidence. After all the depositions had been taken, James with great solemnity declared that the * All (he evidence on this point is collected in Howell’s edition of the State Trials. 18 276 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. itiss. imputation thrown on him was utterly false, and that he • would rather die a thousand deaths than wrong any of his children. All who were present appeared to be satisfied. The evidence was instantly published, and was allowed by judicious and impartial persons to be decisive.* But the judicious are always a minority; and scarcely anybody was then impartial. The whole nation was convinced that all sincere Papists thought it a duty to perjure themselves whenever they could, by perjury, serve the interests of their Church. Men who, having been bred Protestants, had for the sake of lucre pretended to be converted to Popery, were, if possible, less trustworthy than sincere Papists. The depositions of all who belonged to these two classes were therefore regarded as mere nullities. Thus the weight of the testimony on which James had relied was greatly reduced. What remained was malignantly scrutinised. To every one of the few Protestant witnesses who had said anything material some exception was taken. One was notoriously a greedy sycophant. Another had not indeed yet apostatized, but was nearly related to an apostate. The people asked, as they had asked from the first, why, if all was right, the King, knowing, as he knew, that many doubted the reality of his wife’s pregnancy, had not taken care that the birth should be more satisfactorily proved. Was there nothing suspicious in the false reckoning, in the sudden change of abode, in the absence of the Princess Anne and of the Archbishop of Canterbury? Why was no prelate of the Established Church in attendance? Why was not the Dutch Ambassador summoned? Why, above all, were not the Hydes, loyal servants of the crown, faithful sons of the Church, and natural guardians of the interest of their nieces, suffered to mingle with the crowd of Papists which was assembled in and near the royal bed-chamber? Why, in short, was there, in the long list of assistants, not a single name which commanded public confidence and respect? The true answer to these questions was that the King’s under- * It will be found with much illustrative matter in Howell's edition of the State Trials. JAMES THE SECOND. 277 standing was weak, that his temper was despotic, and that c, ]£ p ' he had willingly seized an opportunity of manifesting his 168S _ contempt for the opinion of his subjects. But the multitude, not contented with this explanation, attributed to deep laid villany what was really the effect of folly and perverseness. Nor was this opinion confined to the multitude. The Lady Anne, at her toilette, on the morning after the Council, spoke of the investigation with such scorn as emboldened the very tire-women who were dressing her to put in their jests. Some of the Lords who had heard the examination, and had appeared to be satisfied, were really unconvinced. Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph, whose piety and learning commanded general respect, continued to the end of his life to believe that a fraud had been practised. The depositions taken before the Council had not been many hours in the hands of the public when it was noised doriand. abroad that Sunderland had been dismissed from all his places. The news of his disgrace seems to have taken the politicians of the coffee-houses by surprise, but did not astonish those who had observed what was passing in the palace. Treason had not been brought home to him by legal, or even by tangible, evidence: but there was a strong suspicion among those who watched him closely that, through some channel or other, he was in communication with the enemies of that government in which he occupied so high a place. He, with unabashed forehead imprecated on his own head all evil here and hereafter if he was guilty. His only fault, he protested, was that he had served the crown too well. Had he not given hostages to the royal cause? Had he not broken down every bridge by which he could, in case of a disaster, effect his retreat? Had he not gone all lengths in favour of the dispensing power, sate in the High Commission, signed the warrant for the commitment of the Bishops, appeared as a witness against them, at the hazard of his life, amidst the hisses and curses of the thousands who filled Westminster Hall? Had he not given the last proof of fidelity by renouncing his religion, and publicly joining a Church which the nation detested? What had he to hope from a change? 278 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. Iti88. ■William lakes leave What had he not to dread? These arguments, though plausible, and though set off by the most insinuating address, could not remove the impression which whispers and reports arriving at once from a hundred different quarters had produced. The King became daily colder and colder. Sunderland attempted to support himself by the Queen’s help, obtained an audience of Her Majesty, and was actually in her apartment when Middleton entered, and, by the King’s orders, demanded the seals. That evening the fallen minister was for the last time closeted with the Prince whom he had flattered and betrayed. The interview was a strange" one. Sunderland acted calumniated virtue to perfection. He regretted not, he said, the Secretaryship of State or the Presidency of the Council, if only he retained his sovereign’s esteem. “Do not, Sir, do not make me the most unhappy gentleman in your dominions, by refusing to declare that you acquit me of disloyalty.” The King hardly knew what to believe. There was no positive proof of guilt; and the-energy and pathos with which Sunderland lied might have imposed on a keener understanding than that with which he had to deal. At the French embassy his professions still found credit. There he declared that he should remain a few days in London, and show himself at Court. He would then retire to his country seat at Althorpe, and try to repair his dilapidated fortunes by economy. If a revolution should take place he must fly to France. His ill requited loyalty had left him no other place of refuge.* The seals which had been taken from Sunderland were delivered to Preston. The same Gazette which announced this change contained the official intelligence of the disaster which had befallen the Dutch fleet.** That disaster was serious, though far less serious than the King and his few adherents, misled by their wishes, were disposed to believe. On the sixteenth of October, according to the English reckoning, was held a solemn sitting of the States of Holland. * Barillon, Oct. ,V " London Gazette, .. .. Oct.25. Oct. 27. Oct. 29. • H- It. ~—T s Z—r 1688 1 Adda, 2 -» Nov. 4. Nov. 6. Nov. 8. 1 7 Oct. 29. 1688. Oct. 26. Nov. 5 JAMES THE SECOND. 279 The Prince came to bid them farewell. He thanked them for the kindness with which they had watched over him when he 168S was left an orphan child, for the confidence which they had of the reposed in him during his administration, and for the as- a. f sistance which they had granted to him at this momentous crisis. He entreated them to believe that ho had always meant and endeavoured to promote the interest of his country. He was now quitting them, perhaps never to return. If he should fall in defence of the reformed religion and of the independence of Europe, he commended his beloved wife to their care. The Grand Pensionary answered in a faltering voice; and in all that grave senate there was none who could refrain from shedding tears. But the iron stoicism of William never gave way; and he stood among his weeping friends calm and austere as if he had been about to leave them only for a short dsit to his hunting grounds at Loo.* The deputies of the principal towns accompanied him to his yacht. Even the representatives of Amsterdam, so long the chief seal of opposition to his administration, joined in paying him tliii compliment. Public prayers were offered for him on that day in all the churches of the Hague. In the evening he arrived at Ilelvoetsluys and went on ba'rkTarni board of a frigate called the Brill. His flag was immediately sails ' hoisted. It displayed the arms of Nassau quartered with those of England. The motto, embroidered in letters three feet long, was happily chosen. The House of Orange had long used the elliptical device, “I will maintain.” The ellipsis was now filleuup with words of high import, “The liberties of England ant the Protestant religion.” The Prince had not been many hours on board when the Je t» wind became fair. Oh the nineteenth the armament put to back by sea, and traversed, befoie a strong breeze, about half the a slorra - distance between the Dutch and English coasts. Then the wind changed, blew hard fmm the west, and swelled into a violent tempest. The ships, scattered and in great distress, regained the shore of Holland as they best might. The Brill * Register of the Proceedings oi the States of Holland and West Friesland; Burnet, i. 182 . 280 HISTOKY OF ENGLAND. chap, reached Helvoetsluys on the twenty-first. The Prince’s fel- " ' icas. '— l° w passengers had observed with admiration that neither peril nor mortification had for one moment disturbed his composure. He now, though suffering from sea sickness, refused to go on shore; for he conceived that, by remaining on bosrd, he should in the most effectual manner notify to Europe chat the late misfortune had only delayed for a very short time the execution of his purpose. In two or three days the fleet reassembled. One vessel only had been cast away. Not a single soldier or sailor was missing. Some horses hid perished: but this loss the Prince with great expedition repaired; and, before the London Gazette had spread 1he news of his mishap, he was again ready to sail.* His De- His Declaration preceded him only by a few hours. On arrives 0 ui the first of November it began to be mentioned in mysterious England, whispers by the politicians of London, was passsd secretly from man to man, and was slipped into the boxes of the post office. One of the agents was arrested, and tbe packets of which he was in charge were carried to Whitehall. The King read, and was greatly troubled. His first impulse was to hide the paper from all human eyes. He threw into the fire every copy which had been brought to him, except one; and that one he would scarcely trust out of his own hands.** lames The paragraph in the manifesto which iisturbed him most questions was that in which it was said that some of .he Peers, Spiritual theLords. anc ; Temporal, had invited the Prince of Orange to invade England. Halifax, Clarendon, and Nottingham were then in London. They were immediately summoned to the palace and interrogated. Halifax, though conscious of innocence, refused at first to make any answe. - . “Your Majesty asks me, ” said he, “ whether I have committed high treason. If I am suspected, let me be brought before my peers. And how can your Majesty place any dependence on the answer of a culprit whose life is at stake? Eeen if I had invited His High- * London Gazelle, Oct. 29. 1088; Burnet, i. 182.; Benlinck lo his Wife, Oct. II. — T P 1<88. “ Cillers, Nov. A. 1088; Adda, Nov. JAMES THE SECOND. 281 ness over, I should without scruple plead Not Guilty. ” The King declared that he did not at all consider Halifax as a culprit, and that he had asked the question as one gentleman asks another who has been calumniated whether there be the least foundation for the calumny. “In that case,” said Halifax, “I have no objection to aver, as a gentleman speaking to a gentleman, on my honour, which is as sacred as my oath, that I have not invited the Prince of Orange over.”* Clarendon and Nottingham said the same. The King was still more anxious to ascertain the temper of the Prelates. If they were hostile to him, his throne was indeed in danger. But it could not be. There was something monstrous in the supposition that any Bishop of the Church of England could rebel against his Sovereign. Compton was called into the royal closet, and was asked whether he believed that there was the slightest ground for the Prince’s assertion. The Bishop was in a strait; for he was himself one of the seven who had signed the invitation; and his conscience, not a very enlightened conscience, would not suffer him, it seems, to utter a direct falsehood. “Sir,” he said, “I am quite confident that there is not one of my brethren who is not as guiltless as myself in this matter.” The equivocation was ingenious: but whether the difference between the sin of such an equivocation and the sin of a lie be worth any expense of ingenuity may perhaps be doubted. The King was satisfied. “I fully acquit you all, ” he said. “But I think it necessary that you should publicly contradict the slanderous charge brought against you in the Prince’s Declaration.” The Bishop very naturally begged that he might be allowed to read the paper which he was required to contradict; but the King would not suffer him to look at it. On the following day appeared a proclamation threatening with the severest punishment all who should circulate, or who should even dare to read, William’s manifesto.** The Primate and the few Spiritual Peers who happened to betheninLon- * Ronquillo, Nov. H. 1688. “Estas respuestas,” says Ronquillo, “son cierlas, aunque mas las encubrian en la corte.” ’* London Gazette, Nov. 5.1688. The Proclamation is dated Nov. 2. CHAP. IX. 16S8 282 IIISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap, don had orders to wait upon the King. Preston was in atten- ■ 168 g — dance with the Prince’s Declaration in his hand. “My Lords,” said James, “listen to this passage. It concerns you. ” Preston then read the sentence in which the Spiritual Peers were mentioned. The King proceeded: “I do not believe one word of this: I am satisfied of your innocence; but I think it fit to let you know of what you are accused. ” The Primate, with many dutiful expressions, protested that the King did him no more than justice. “I was born in your Majesty’s allegiance. I have repeatedly confirmed that allegiance by my oath. I can have but one King at one time. I have not invited the Prince over; and I do not believe that a single one of my brethren has done so.” “I am sure I have not,” said Crewe of Durham. “Nor I,” said Cartwright of Chester. Crewe and Cartwright might well be believed; for both had sate in the Ecclesiastical Commission. When Compton’s turn came, he parried the question with an adroitness which a Jesuit might have envied. “I gave your Majesty my answer yesterday. ” James repeated again and again that he fully acquitted them all. Nevertheless it would, in his judgment, be for his service and for their own honour that they should publicly vindicate themselves. He therefore required them to. draw up a paper setting forth their abhorrence of the Prince’s design. They remained silent: their silence was supposed to imply consent; and they were suffered to withdraw. * Meanwhile the fleet of William was on the German Ocean. It was on the evening of Thursday the first of November that he put to sea the second time. The wind blew fresh from the east. The armament, during twelve hours, held a course towards the north west. The light vessels sent out by the English Admiral for the purpose of obtaining intelligence brought back news which confirmed the prevailing opinion that the enemy would try to land in Yorkshire. All at once, on a signal from the Prince’s ship, the whole fleet tacked, and made sail for the British Channel. The same breeze which favoured the voyage of the invaders prevented Dart- * Tanner MSS. JAMES TIIE SECOND. 283 mouth from coming out of the Thames. His ships were forced CI ] 1 ^ 1 '- to strike yards and topmasts; and two of his frigates, which had gained the open sea, were shattered by the violence of the weather and driven back into the river. * The Dutch fleet ran fast before the gale, and reached the William Straits at about ten in the morning of Saturday the third ofm e ssal November. William himself, in the Brill, led the way. More than six hundred vessels, with canvass spread to a favourable wind, followed in his train. The transports were in the centre. The men of war, more than fifty in number, formed an outer rampart. Herbert, with the title of Lieutenant Admiral General, commanded the whole fleet. His post was in the rear, and many English sailors, inflamed against Popery, and attracted by high pay, served under him. It was not without great difficulty that the Prince had prevailed on some Dutch officers of high reputation to submit to the authority of a stranger. But the arrangement was eminently judicious. There was, in the King’s fleet, much discontent and an ardent zeal for the Protestant faith. But within the memory of old mariners the Dutch and English navies had thrice, with heroic spirit and various fortune, contended for the empire of the sea. Our sailors had not forgotten the broom with which Van Tromp had threatened to sweep the Channel, or the fire which De Ruyter had lighted in the dockyards of the Medway. Had therivalnationsbeen once more broughtfaceto faceontheele- ment of which both claimed the sovereignty, all otherthoughts might have given place to mutual animosity. A bloody and obstinate battle might have been fought. Defeatwould have been fatal to William’s enterprise. Evenvictorywouldhave deranged all his deeply meditated schemes of policy. He therefore wisely determined that the pursuers, if they overtook him, should be hailed in their own mother tongue, and adjured, by an admiral under whom they had served, and whom they esteemed, not to fight against old messmates for Popish tyranny. Such * Burnet, i. 787.; Rapin; Whittle’s Exact Diary; Expedition of the Prince of Orange to England, 1688; History of the Desertion, 1688; Dartmouth to James, Nov. 5. 1688, in Dalrymple. 284 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. I P! fsW'. chap. an appeal might possibly avert a conflict. If a conflict took ——— place, one English commander would be opposed to another; nor would the pride of the islanders be wounded by learning that Dartmouth had been compelled to strike to Herbert. * He passes Happily William’s precautions were not necessary. Soon snails, after midday he passed the Straits. His fleet spread to within a league of Dover on the north and of Calais on the south. The men of war on the extreme right and left saluted both fortresses at once. The troops appeared under arms on the decks. The flourish of trumpets, the clash of cymbals, and the rolling of drums were distinctly heard at once on the English and French shores. An innumerable company of gazers blackened the white beach of Kent. Another mighty multitude covered the coast of Picardy. Rapin de Thoyras, who, driven by persecution from his country, had taken service in the Dutch army and accompanied the Prince to England, described the spectacle, many years later, as the most magnificent and affecting that was ever seen by human eyes. At sunset the armament was off Beachy Head. Then the lights were kindled. The sea was in a blaze for many miles. But the eyes of all the steersmen were fixed throughout the night on three huge lanterns which flamed on the stern of the Brill.** Meanwhile a courier had been riding post from Dover Castle to Whitehall with news that the Dutch had passed the Straits and were steering westward. It was necessary to make an immediate change in all the military arrangements. Messengers were despatched in every direction. Officers were roused from their beds at dead of night. At three on the * Avaux, July I|. Aug. If. 1688. On this subject, Mr. De Jonge, who is connected by affinity with the descendants of the Dutch Admiral Evertsen, has kindly communicated to me some interesting information derived from family papers. In a letter to Benlinck, dated Sept. 1688, William insists strongly on the importance of avoiding an action, and begs Benlinck to represent this to Herbert. “Ce n’est pas le terns de faire voir sa bravoure, ni de se battre si l’on le peut dviter. Je luy l’ai ddja dit: mais il sera ndeessaire que vous le rdpdliez, et que vous le luy fassiez bien comprendre.” ** Rapin’s History; Whittle’s Exact Diary. I have seen a contemporary Dutch chart of the order in which the fleet sailed. J&; rw JAMES THE SECOND. 285 Sunday morning there was a great muster by torchlight in cr J^ p - Hyde Park. The King had sent several regiments northward i G88- in the expectation that William would land in Yorkshire. Expresses were despatched to recall them. All the forces except those which were necessary to keep the peace of the capital were ordered to move to the west. Salisbury was appointed as the place of rendezvous: but, as it was thought possible that Portsmquth might be the first point of attack, three battalions of guards and a strong body of cavalry set out for that fortress. In a few hours it was known that Portsmouth was safe; and these troops received orders to change their route and to hasten to Salisbury.* When Sunday the fourth of November dawned, the cliffs of the Isle of Wight were full in view of the Dutch armament. That day was the anniversary both of William’s birth and of his marriage. Sail was slackened during part of the morning; and divine service was performed on board of the ships. In the afternoon and through the night the fleet held on its course. Torbay was the place where the Prince intended to land. But the morning of Monday the fifth ofNovember was hazy. The pilot of the Brill could not discern the sea marks, and carried the fleet too far to the west. The danger was great. To return in the face of the wind was impossible. Plymouth was the next port. But at Plymouth a garrison had been posted under the command of Lord Bath. The landing might be opposed; and a check might produce serious consequences. There could be little doubt, moreover, that by this time the royal fleet had got out of the Thames and was hastening full sail down the Channel. Russell saw the whole extent of the peril, and exclaimed to Burnet, “You may go to prayers, Doctor. All is over.” At that moment the wind changed: a soft breeze sprang up from the south: the mist dispersed; the sun shone forth; and, under the mild light of an autumnal noon, the fleet turned back, passed round the lofty He i»mis cape of Berry Head, and rode safe in the harbour of Torbay.** atTorlls ^ * Adda, Nov. 1 5 r . 1C88; Newsletter in the Mackintosh Collection; Citters, Nov. T V ** Burnet, i. 188 .; Extracts from the Legge Papers in the Mackintosh Collection. Ji 286 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap. Since William looked on that harbour its aspect has greatly changed. The amphitheatre which surrounds the spacious basin now exhibits everywhere the signs of prosperity and civilisation. At the northeastern extremity has sprung up a great watering place, to which strangers are attracted from the most remote parts of our island by the Italian softness of the air; for in that climate the myrtle flourishes unsheltered; and even the winter is milder than the Northumbrian April. The inhabitants are about ten thousand in number. The newly built churches and chapels, the baths and libraries, the hotels and public gardens, the infirmary and the museum, the white streets, rising terrace above terrace, the gay villas peeping from the midst of shrubberies and flower beds, present a spectacle widely different from any that in the seventeenth century England could show. At the opposite end of the bay lies, sheltered by Berry Head, the stirring market town of Brixham, the wealthiest seat of our fishing trade. A pier and a haven were formed there at the beginning of the present century, but have been found insufficient for the increasing traffic. The population is about six thousand souls. The shipping amounts to more than two hundred sail. The tonnage exceeds many times the tonnage of the port of Liverpool under the Kings of the House of Stuart. But Torbay, when the Dutch fleet cast anchor there, was known only as a haven where ships sometimes took refuge from the tempests of the Atlantic. Its quiet shores were undisturbed by the bustle either of commerce or of pleasure; and the huts of ploughmen and fishermen were thinly scattered over what is now the site of crowded marts and of luxurious pavilions. The peasantry of the coast of Devonshire remembered the name of Monmouth with affection, and held Popery in detestation. They therefore crowded down to the seaside with provisions and offers of service. The disembarkation instantly commenced. Sixty boats conveyed the troops to the coast. Mackay was sent on shore first with "the British regiments. The Prince soon followed. He landed where the quay of Brixham now stands. The whole aspect of the place has been altered. Where we now see a port crowded'with JAMES THE SECOND. 287 shipping, and a market place swarming with buyers and sellers, the waves then broke on a desolate beach: but a fragment of- the rock on which the deliverer stepped from his boat has been carefully preserved, and is set up as an object of public veneration in the centre of that busy wharf. As soon as the Prince had planted his foot on dry ground he called for horses. Two beasts, such as the small yeomen of that time were in the habit of riding, were procured from the neighbouring village. William and Schomberg mounted and proceeded to examine the country. As soon as Burnet was on shore he hastened to the Prince. An amusing dialogue took place between them. Burnet poured forth his congratulations with genuine delight, and then eagerly asked what were His Highness’s plans. Military men are seldom disposed to take counsel with gownsmen on military matters; and William regarded the interference of unprofessional advisers, in questions relating to war, with even more than the disgust ordinarily felt by soldiers on such occasions. But he was at that moment in an excellent humour, and, instead of signifying his displeasure by a short and cutting reprimand, graciously extended his hand, and answered his chaplain’s question by another question: “Well, Doctor, what do you think of predestination now? ” The reproof was so delicate that Burnet, whose perceptions were not very fine, did not perceive it. He answered with great fervour that he should never forget the signal manner in which Providence had favoured their undertaking.* During the first day the troops who had gone on shore had many discomforts to endure. The earth was soaked with rain. The baggage was still on board of the ships. Officers of high rank were compelled to sleep in wet clothes on the wet ground: the Prince himself had no better quarters than a hut afforded. His banner was displayed on the thatched roof; and some bedding brought from his ship was spread for him on the * I think that nobody who compares Burnet’s account of this conversation with Dartmouth’s can doubt that I have correctly represented what passed. CHAP. IX. 1688 , 288 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap, floor.* There was some difficulty about landing the horses; -jjgjj— and it seemed probable that this operation would occupy several days. But on the following morning the prospect cleared. The wind was gentle. The water in the bay was as even as glass. Some fishermen pointed out a place where the ships could be brought within sixty feet of the beach. This was done; and in three hours many hundreds of horses swam safely to shore. The disembarkation had hardly been effected when the wind rose again, and swelled into a fierce gale from the west. The enemy coming in pursuit down the Channel had been stopped by the same change of weather which enabled William to land. During two days the King’s fleet lay on an unruffled sea in sight of Beachy Head. At length Dartmouth was able to proceed. He passed the Isle of Wight, and one of his ships came in sight of the Dutch topmasts in Torbay. Just at this moment he was encountered by the tempest, and compelled to take shelter in the harbour of Portsmouth.** At that time James, who was not incompetent to form a judgment on a question of seamanship, declared himself perfectly satisfied, that his Admiral had done all that man could do, and had yielded only to the irresistible hostility of the winds and waves. At a later period the unfortunate prince began, with little reason, to suspect Dartmouth of treachery, or at least of slackness.*** The weather had indeed served the Protestant cause so well that some men of more piety than judgment fully believed the ordinary laws of nature to have been suspended for the preservation of the liberty and religion of England. Exactly a hundred years before, they said, the Armada, invincible by man, had been scattered by the wrath of God. Civil freedom and divine truth were again in jeopardy; and again the * I have seen a contemporary Dutch print of the disembarkation. Some men are bringing the Prince’s bedding into the hut on which his flag is flying. ** Burnet, i. 189.; Legge Papers. "" On Nov. 9.1688, James wrote to Dartmouth thus: “Nobody could work otherwise than you did. I am sure all knowing seamen must be of the same mind.” But see Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 201. Orig. Mem. JAMES THE SECOND. 289 obedient elements had fought for the good cause. The wind had blown strong from the east while the Prince wished to sail 1C88 _ down the Channel, had turned to the south when he wished to enter Torbay, had sunk to a calm during the disembarkation, and, as soon as the disembarkation was completed, had risen to a storm, and had met the pursuers in the face. Nor did men omit to remark that, by an extraordinary coincidence, the Prince had reached our shores on a day on which the Church of England commemorated, by prayer and thanksgiving, the wonderful escape of the royal House and of the three Estates from the blackest plot ever devised by Papists. Carstairs, whose suggestions were sure to meet with attention from the Prince, recommended that, as soon as the landing had been effected, public thanks should be offered to God for the protection so conspicuously accorded to the great enterprise. This advice was taken, and with excellent effect. The troops, taught to regard themselves as favourites of heaven, were inspired with new courage; and the English people formed the most favourable opinion of a general and an army so attentive to the duties of religion. On Tuesday, the sixth of November, William’s army began to march up the country. Some regiments advanced as far as Newton Abbot. A stone, set up in the midst of that little town, still marks the spot where the Prince’s Declaration was solemnly read to the people. The movements of the troops were slow: for the rain fell in torrents; and the roads of England were then in a stat e which seemed frightful to persons accustomed to the excellent communications of Holland. William took up his quarters, during two days, at Ford, a seat of the ancient and illustrious family of Courtenay, in the neighbourhood of Newton Abbot. He was magnificently lodged and feasted there; but it is remarkable that the owner of the house, though a strong Whig, did not choose to be the first to put life and fortune in peril, and cautiously abstained from doing anything which, if the King should prevail, could be treated as a crime. Exeter, in the meantime, was greatly agitated. Lam- eEters plugh, the bishop, as soon as he heard that the Dutch were Exeler. Macaulay, History. III. 10 290 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. ciiap. IX. 1688 . at Torbay, set off in terror for London. The Dean fled from the deanery. The magistrates were for the King, the body of the inhabitants for the Prince. Every thing was in confusion when, on the morning of Thursday, the eighth of November, a body of troops, under the command of Mor- daunt, appeared before the city. With Mordaunt came Burnet, to whom William had entrusted the duty of protecting the clergy of the Cathedral from injury and insult.* The Mayor and Aldermen had ordered the gates to be closed, but yielded on the first summons. The deanery was prepared for the reception of the Prince. On the following day, Friday the ninth, he arrived. The magistrates had been pressed to receive him in state at the entrance of the city, but had steadfastly refused. The pomp of that day, however, could well spare them. Such a sight had never been seen in Devonshire. Many went forth half a day’s journey to meet the champion of their religion. All the neighbouring villages poured forth their inhabitants. A great crowd, consisting chiefly of young peasants, brandishing their cudgels, bad assembled on the top of Haldon Hill, whence the army, marching from Chudleigh, first descried the rich valley of the Exe, and the two massive towers rising from the cloud of smoke which overhung the capital of the West. The road, all down the long descent, and through the plain to the banks of the river, was lined, mile after mile, with spectators. From the West Gate to the Cathedral Close, the pressing and shouting on each side was such as reminded Londoners of the crowds on the Lord Mayor’s day. The houses were gaily decorated. Doors, windows, balconies, and roofs were thronged with gazers. An eye accustomed to the pomp of war would have found much to criticize in the spectacle. For several toilsome marches in the rain, through roads where one who travelled on foot sank at every step up to the ancles in clay, had not improved the appearance either of the men or of their accoutrements. But the people of Devonshire, altogether unused to the splendour of well ordered camps, were overwhelmed with delight and awe. Descriptions of the martial * Burnet, i. 190. JAMES THE SECOND. 291 pageant were circulated all over the kingdom. They con- cn * p . tained much that was well fitted to gratify the vulgar appetite 1688 for the marvellous. For the Dutch army, composed of men who had been born in various climates, and had served under various standards, presented an aspect at once grotesque, gorgeous, and terrible to islanders who had, in general, a very indistinct notion of foreign countries. First rode Macclesfield at the head of two hundred gentlemen, mostly of English blood, glittering in helmets and cuirasses, and mounted on Flemish war horses. Each was attended by a negro, brought from the sugar plantations on the coast of Guiana. The citizens of Exeter, who had never seen so many specimens of the African race, gazed with wonder on those black faces set olf by embroidered turbans and white feathers. Then with drawn broad swords came a squadron of Swedish horsemen in black armour and fur cloaks. They were regarded with a strange interest; for it was rumoured that they were natives of a land where the ocean was frozen and where the night lasted through half the year, and that they had themselves slain the huge bears whose skins they wore. Next, surrounded by a goodly company of gentlemen and pages, was borne aloft the Prince’s banner. On its broad folds the crowd which covered the roofs and filled the windows read with delight that memorable inscription, “The Protestant religion and the liberties of England.” But the acclamations redoubled when, attended by forty running footmen, the Prince himself appeared, armed on back and breast, wearing a white plume and mounted on a white charger. With how martial an air he curbed his horse, how thoughtful and commanding was the expression of his ample forehead and falcon eye, may still be seen on the canvass of Kneller. Once those grave features relaxed into a smile. It was when an ancient woman, perhaps one of the zealous Puritans who through twenty-eight years of persecution had waited with firm faith for the consolation of Israel, perhaps the mother of some rebel who had perished in the carnage of Sedgemoor, or in the more fearful carnage of the Bloody Circuit, broke from the crowd, rushed through the drawn 19 * ■^gsB*fS¥wr?f:- i l 292 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap, swords and curvetting horses, touched the hand of the de- ■ 168 g - - liverer, and cried out that now she was happy. Near to the Prince was one who divided with him the gaze of the multitude. That, men said, was the great Count Schomberg, the first soldier in Europe, since Turenne and Condd were gone, the man whose genius and valour had saved the Portuguese monarchy on the field of Montes Claros, the man who had earned a still higher glory by resigning the truncheon of a Marshal of France for the sake of the true religion. It was not forgotten that the two heroes who, indissolubly united by their common Protestantism, were entering Exeter together, had twelve years before been opposed to each other under the walls of Maestricht, and that the energy of the young Prince had not then been found a match for the cool science of the veteran who now rode in friendship by his side. Then came a long column of the whiskered infantry of Switzerland, distinguished in all the continental wars of two centuries by preeminent valour and discipline, but never till that week seen on English ground. And then marched a succession of bands designated, as was the fashion of that age, after their leaders, Bentinck, Solmes and Ginkell, Talmash and Mackay. With peculiar pleasure Englishmen might look on one gallant regiment which still bore the name of the honoured and lamented Ossory. The effect of the spectacle was heightened by the recollection of the renowned events in which many of the warriors now pouring through the West Gate had borne a share. For they had seen service very different from that of the Devonshire militia or of the camp at Hounslow. Some of them had repelled the fiery onset of the French on the field of Seneff; and others had crossed swords with the infidels in the cause of Christendom on that great day when the siege of Vienna was raised. The very senses of the multitude were fooled by imagination. Newsletters conveyed to every part of the kingdom fabulous accounts of the size and strength of the invaders. It was affirmed that they were, with scarcely an exception, above six feet high, and that they wielded such huge pikes, swords, and muskets, as had never before been seen in England. Nor did the wonder of the population JAMES THE SECOND. 293 diminish when the artillery arrived, twenty-one huge pieces of brass cannon, which were with difficulty tugged along by sixteen cart horses to each. Much curiosity was excited by a strange structure mounted on wheels. It proved to be a move- able smithy, furnished with all tools and materials necessary for repairing arms and carriages. But nothing raised so much admiration as the bridge of boats, which was laid with great speed on the Exe for the conveyance of waggons, and afterwards as speedily taken to pieces and carried away. It was made, if report said true, after a pattern contrived by the Christians who were warring against the Great Turk on the Danube. The foreigners inspired as much good will as admiration. Their politic leader took care to distribute the quarters in such a manner as to cause the smallest possible inconvenience to the inhabitants of Exeter and of the neighbouring villages. The most rigid discipline was maintained. Not only were pillage and outrage effectually prevented, but the troops were required to demean themselves with civility towards all classes. Those who had formed their notions of an army from the conduct of Kirke and his Lambs were amazed to see soldiers who never swore at a landlady or took an egg without paying for it. In return for this moderation the people furnished the troops with provisions in great abundance and at reasonable prices. * * See Whittle’s Diary, the Expedition of his Highness, and the Letter from Exon published at the lime. I have myself seen two manuscript newsletters describing the pomp of the Prince’s entrance into Exeter. A few months later a bad poet wrote a play, entitled “The late Revolution.” One scene is laid at Exeter. “Enter battalions of the Prince’s army, on their march into the city, with colours flying, drums beating, and the citizens shouting." A nobleman named Misopapas says, — “ Can you guess, my lord, How dreadful guilt and fear has represented Your army to the court? Y'our number and your stature Are both advanced; all six foot high at least, In bearskins clad, Swiss, Swedes, and Brandenburghers.” In a song which appeared just after the entrance into Exeter, the Irish are described as mere dwarfs in comparison of the giants whom William commanded: “Poor Berwick, how will thy dear joys ' Oppose this famed viaggio? CIIAP. ix. 1688. 294 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. .«S. chap. Much depended on the course which, at this great crisis, -jjjj— the clergy of the Church of England might take; and the members of the Chapter of Exeter were the first who were called upon to declare their sentiments. Burnet informed the Canons, now left without a head by the llight of the Dean, that they could not be permitted to use the prayer for the Prince of Wales, and that a solemn service must be performed in honour of the safe arrival of the Prince. The Canons did not choose to appear in their stalls; but some of the choristers and prebendaries attended. William repaired in military state to the Cathedral. As he passed under the gorgeous screen, that renowned organ, scarcely surpassed by any of those which are the boast of his native Holland, gave out a peal of triumph. He mounted the Bishop’s seat, a stately throne rich with the carving of the fifteenth century. Burnet stood below; and a crowd of warriors and nobles appeared on the right hand and on the left. The singers, robed in white, sang the Te Deum. When the chaunt was over, Burnet read the Prince’s Declaration: but as soon as the first words were uttered, prebendaries and singers crowded in all haste out of the choir. At the close Burnet cried in a loud voice, “God save the Prince of Orange 1” and many fervent voices answered, “Amen.”* * On Sunday, the eleventh of November, Burnet preached before the Prince in the Cathedral, and dilated on the signal mercy vouchsafed by God to the English Church and nation. At the same time a singular event happened in a humbler place of worship. Ferguson resolved to preach at the Presbyterian meeting house. The,minister and elders would not consent: but the turbulent and half-witted knave, fancying that the times of Fleetwood and Harrison were come again, forced the door, went through the congregation 3word in Thy tallest sparks will be mere toys To Brandenburgh and Swedish boys, Coraggiol Coraggio!” Addison alludes, in the Freeholder, to the extraordinary effect which these romantic stories produced. * Expedition of the Prince of Orange; Oldmixon, 755.; Whittle’s Diary; Eachard, iii. 911.; London Gazette, Nov. 15. 1688, JAMES TEE SECOND. 295 bind, mounted the pulpit, and there poured forth a fiery chap. infective against the King. The time for such follies had — goie by; and this exhibition excited nothing but derision and disgust. * Vhile these things were passing in Devonshire the ferment Conter- was g’eat in London. The Prince’s Declaration, in spite of , h0 King all precautions, was now in every man’s hands. On the sixth Ji‘‘J 0 l p S ° of November James, still uncertain on what part of the coast the invulers had landed, summoned the Primate and three other Bshops, Compton of London, White of Peterborough, and Spr.t of Rochester, to a conference in the closet. The King listened graciously while the prelates made warm professions cf loyalty, and assured them that he did not suspect them, “lut where,” said he, “is the paper that you were to bring me?', “Sir,” answered Sancroft, “we have brought no paper. Wiare not solicitous to clear our fame to the world. It is no new hing to us to be reviled and falsely accused. Our consciences cquit us: your Majesty acquits us: and we are satisfied.” ‘Yes,” said the King; “but a declaration from you is necessav to my service.” He then produced a copy of the Prince’s m^;fe S to. “See,” hesaid, “how you are mentioned here.” “Sir,” answered one of the Bishops, “not one person in 'we hundred believes this manifesto to be genuine.” “No” cried the King fiercely; “then those five hundred would b^g the Prince of Orange to cut my throat.” “Godforbid,” exlaimed the prelates in concert. But the King’s understand^, never very clear, was now quite bewildered. One oi^s peculiarities was that, whenever his opinion was not abated, he fancied that his veracity was questioned. “This jper not genuine! ” he exclaimed, turn- ning over the leaves ‘th his hands. “Am I not worthy to be believed? Is my word 0 t t 0 be taken?” “At all events, Sir,” said one of the Bishop, “this is not an ecclesiastical matter. It lies within the sphere eq, e civil power. God has entrusted your Majesty with the sw.^. an d is not for us to invade your functions.” Then Archbishop, with that gentle and •London Gazelle, Nov. 1 1688; Expedition of Hie Prince of Orange. 296 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. 1688 . temperate malice which inflicts the deepest wounds, declared ■ that he must be excused from setting his hand to any political document. “I and my brethren, Sir,” he said, “have alreidy smarted severely for meddling with affairs of state; ana we shall be very cautious how we do so again. We oncesub- scribed a petition of the most harmless kind: we preserted it in the most respectful manner; and we found that we hat committed a high offence. We were saved from ruin onlyby the merciful protection of God. And, Sir, the ground thea taken by your Majesty’s Attorney and Solicitor was that out of Parliament, we were private men, and that it wascriminal presumption in private men to meddle with politic. They attacked us so fiercely that for my part I gave mysef over for lost.” “I thank you for that, my Lord of Canterbiry,” said the King; “I should have hoped that you wou’l not have thought yourself lost by falling into my hands.” Soli a speech might havebecome the mouth of a merciful sovceign, but it came with a bad grace from a prince who had buued a woman alive for harbouring one of his flying enemies ,from a prince round whose knees his own nephew had clungn vain agonies of supplication. The Archbishop was not tcbe so silenced. He resumed his story, and recounted the isults which the creatures of the Court had offered to the Ctrch of England, among which some ridicule thrown on his o'u style occupied a conspicuous place. The King had notb’g to say but that there was no use in repeating old grievance and that he had hoped that these things had been quite figotten. He, who never forgot the smallest injury that head suffered, could not understand how others should remdber for a few weeks the most deadly injuries that he had infltcd. At length the conversation came ffk to the point from which it had wandered. The King fitted on having from the Bishops a paper declaring their alv rrence of the Prince’s enterprise. They, with many profte ons of the most submissive loyalty, pertinaciously refi/d. The Prince, they said, asserted that he had been inv/d by temporal as well as by spiritual peers. The imputation^- 8 common. Why should not the purgation be common also “I eee how it is,” said JAMES THE SECOND. 297 the King. “ Some of the temporal peers have been with you, c, ^ p ’ and have persuaded you to cress me in this matter.” The 1688 Bishops solemnly averred that it was not so. But it would, they said, seem strange that, on a question involving grave political and military considerations, the temporal peers should be entirely passed over, and the prelates 'alone should be required to take a prominent part. “But this,” said James, “ is my method. I am your King. It is for me to judge what is best. I will go my own way; and I call on you to assist me.” The Bishops assured him that they would assist him in their proper department, as Christian ministers with their prayers, and as peers of the realm with their advice in his Parliament. James, who wanted neither the prayers of heretics nor the advice of Parliaments, was bitterly disappointed. After a long altercation, “I have done,” he said, “I will urge you no further. Since you will not help me, I must trust to myself and to my own arms.” * The Bishops had hardly left the royal presence, when a courier arrived with the news that on the preceding day the Prince of Orange had landed in Devonshire. During the nisiurb- following week London was violently agitated. On Sunday, London* the eleventh of November, a rumour was circulated that knives, gridirons, and caldrons, intended for the torturing of heretics, were concealed in the monastery which had been established under the King’s protection at Clerkenwell. Great multitudes assembled round the building, and were about to demolish it, when a military force arrived. The crowd was dispersed, and several of the rioters were slain. An inquest sate on the bodies, and came to a decision which strongly indicated the temper of the public mind. The jury found that certain loyal and well disposed persons, who had gone to put down the meetings of traitors and public enemies at a mass house, had been wilfully murdered by the soldiers; and this strange verdict was signed by all the jurors. The ecclesiastics at Clerkenwell, naturally alarmed by these symptoms of popular feeling, were desirous to place their property in safety. * Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 210. Orig. Mem.; Sprat’s Narrative; Cillers, Nov. y’ (; . 1688. 298 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP.' IX. 1688 . Men of rank hc» gin to repair to tbe Prince. They succeeded in removing most of their furniture before ■ any report of their intentions got abroad. But at length the suspicions of the rabble were excited. The two last carts were stopped in Holborn, and all that they contained was publicly burned in the middle of the street. So great was the alarm among the Catholics that all their places of worship were closed, except those which belonged to the royal family and to foreign Ambassadors.* On the whole, however, things as yet looked not unfavourably for James. The invaders had been more than a week on English ground. Yet no man of note had joined them. No rebellion had broken out in the north or the east. No servant of the crown appeared to have betrayed his trust. The royal army was assembling fast at Salisbury, and, though inferior in discipline to that of William, was superior in numbers. The Prince was undoubtedly surprised and mortified by the slackness of those who had invited him to England. By the common people of Devonshire, indeed, he had been received with every sign of good will: but no nobleman, no gentleman of high consideration, had yet repaired to his quarters. The explanation of this singular fact is probably to be found in the circumstance that he had landed in a part of the island where he had not been expected. His friends in the north had made their arrangements for arising, on the supposition that he would be among them with an army. His friends in the west had made no arrangements at all, and were naturally disconcerted at finding themselves suddenly called upon to take the lead in a movement so important and perilous. They had also fresh in their recollection, and indeed full in their sight, the disastrous consequences of rebellion, gibbets, heads, mangled quarters, families still in deep mourning for brave sufferers who had loved their country well but not wisely. After a warning so terrible and so recent, some hesitation was natural. It was equally natural, however, that William, who, trusting to promises from England, had put to hazard, not only his own fame and fortunes, but also the * Luttrell's Diarv; Newsletter in the Mackintosh Collection; Adda, Nov. IS- 1088. JAMES THE SECOND. 299 prosperity and independence of his native land, should feel chap. deeply mortified. He was, indeed, so indignant, that he talked of falling back to Torbay, reembarking his troops, returning to Holland, and leaving those who had betrayed him to the fate which they deserved. At length, on Monday, the twelfth of November, a gentleman named Burrington, who resided in the neighbourhood of Crediton, joined the Prince’s standard, and his example was followed by several of his neighbours. Men of higher consequence had already set out from t-oveUce. different parts of the country for Exeter. The first of these was John Lord Lovelace, distinguished by his taste, by his magnificence, and by the audacious and intemperate vehemence of his Whiggism. He had been five or six times arrested for political offences. The last crime laid to his charge was, that he had contemptuously denied the validity of a warrant, signed by a Roman Catholic Justice of the Peace. Pie had been brought before the Privy Council and strictly examined, but to little purpose. He resolutely refused to criminate himself; and the evidence against him was insufficient. Pie was dismissed; but, before he retired, James exclaimed in great heat, “My Lord, this is not the first trick that you have played me.” “Sir,” answered Lovelace, with undaunted spirit, “I never played any trick to your Majesty, or to any other person. Whoever has accused me to your Majesty of playing tricks is a liar.” Lovelace had subsequently been admitted into the confidence of those who planned the Revolution. * His mansion, built by his ancestors out of the spoils of Spanish galleons from the Indies, rose on the ruins of a house of Our Lady in that beautiful valley through which the Thames, not yet defiled by the precincts of a great capital, nor rising and falling with the flow and ebb of the sea, rolls under woods of beech round the gentle hills of Berkshire. Beneath the stately saloon, adorned by Italian pencils, was a subterraneous vault, in which the bones of ancient monks had sometimes been found. In this dark chamber some zealous and daring opponents of the govern- * Johnstone, Feb. 21, 1088; (fitters o( the same date. 300 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap. m ent had held many midnight conferences during that anxious ■ jesa, - time when England was impatiently expecting the Protestant wind. * The season for action had now arrived. Lovelace, with seventy followers, well armed and mounted, quitted his dwelling, and directed his course westward. He reached Gloucestershire without difficulty. But Beaufort, who governed that- county, was exerting all his great authority and influence in support of the crown. The militia had been called out. A strong party had been posted at Cirencester. When Lovelace arrived there he was informed that he could not be suffered to pass. It was necessary for him either to relinquish his undertaking or to fight his way through. He resolved to force a passage; and his friends and tenants stood gallantly by him. A sharp conflict took place. The militia lost an officer and six or seven men; but at length the followers of Lovelace were overpowered: he was made a prisoner, and sent to Gloucester Castle.** Co1 - Others were more fortunate. On the day on which the cueslcf. m * skirmish took place at Cirencester, Richard Savage, Lord Colchester, son and heir of the Earl Rivers, and father, by a lawless amour, of that unhappy poet whose misdeeds and misfortunes form one of the darkest portions of literary history, came with between sixty and seventy horse to Exeter. With him arrived the bold and turbulent Thomas Wharton. A few hours later came Edward Russell, son of the Earl of Bedford, and brother of the virtuous nobleman whose blood had been shed on the scaffold. Another arrival still more important was speedily announced. Colchester, Wharton, and Russell belonged to that party which had been constantly Aiing(lon .opposed to the Court. James Bertie, Earl of Abingdon, had, on the contrary, been regarded as a supporter of arbitrary government. He had been true to Janies in the days of the Exclusion Bill. He had, as Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, acted with vigour and severity against the adherents of Monmouth, and had lighted bonfires to celebrate the defeat of Argyle. But dread of Popery had driven him into opposition * Lysons, Magna Britannia Berkshire. ** London Gazette, Nov. 15 . 1688; Luttrell’s Diary. ■ : rim*' JAMES THE SECOND. 301 and rebellion. He was the first peer of the realm who made c *^ p ' his appearance at the quarters of the Prince of Orange. * 1CSB ';“ But the King had less to fear from those who openly arrayed themselves against his authority, than from the dark conspiracy which had spread its ramifications through his army and his family. Of that conspiracy Churchill, unrivalled in sagacity and address, endowed by nature with a certain cool intrepidity which never failed him either in fighting or lying, high in military rank, and high in the favour of the Princess Anne, must be regarded as the soul. It was not yet time for him to strike the decisive blow. But even thus early he inflicted, by the instrumentality of a subordinate agent, a wound, serious if not deadly, on the royal cause. Edward Viscount Cornbury, eldest son of the Earl ofoeser- Clarendon, was a young man of slender abilities, loose prin-cornbury. ciples, and violent temper. He had been early taught to consider his relationship to the Princess Anne as the groundwork of his fortunes, and had been exhorted to pay her assiduous court. It had never occurred to his father that the hereditary loyalty of the Hydes could run any risk of contamination in the household of the King’s favourite daughter: but in that household the Churchills held absolute sway; and Cornbury became their tool. He commanded one of the regiments of dragoons which had been sent westward. Such dispositions had been made that, on the fourteenth of November, he was, during a few hours, the senior officer at Salisbury, and all the troops assembled there were subject to his authority. It seems extraordinary that, at such a crisis, the army on which every thing depended should have been left, even for a moment, under the command of a young Colonel who had neither abilities nor experience. There can be little doubt that so strange an arrangement was the result of deep design, and as little doubt to what head and to what heart the design is to be imputed. Suddenly three of the regiments of cavalry which had assembled at Salisbury were ordered to march westward. * Burnet, i. 190.; Life of William, 1703. 302 cnAi>. ix. 1688 . HISTORY OP ENGLAND. Cornbury put himself at their head, and conducted them first to Blandford and thence to Dorchester. From Dorchester, after a halt of an hour or two, they set out for Axminster. Some of the officers began to be uneasy, and demanded an explanation of these strange movements. Cornbury replied that he had instructions to make a night attack on some troops which the Prince of Orange had posted at Honiton. But suspicion was awake. Searching questions were put, and were evasively answered. At last Cornbury was pressed to produce his orders. He perceived, not only that it would be impossible for him to carry over all the three regiments, as he had hoped, but that he was himself in a situation of considerable peril. He accordingly stole away with a few followers to the Dutch quarters. Most of his troops returned to Salisbury: but some who had been detached from the main body, and who had no suspicion of the designs of their commander, proceeded to Honiton. There they found themselves in the midst of a large force which was fully prepared to receive them. Resistance was impossible. Their leader pressed them to take service under William. A gratuity of a month’s pay was offered to them, and was by most of them accepted.* The news of these events reached London on the fifteenth. James had been on the morning of that day in high good humour. Bishop Lamplugli had just presented himself at Court on his arrival from Exeter, and had been most graciously received. “My Lord,” said the King, “you are a genuine old Cavalier.” The archbishopric of York, which had now been vacant more than two years and a half, was immediately bestowed on Lamplugh as the reward of loyalty. That afternoon, just as the King was sitting down to dinner, arrived an express with the tidings of Cornbury’s defection. James turned away from his untasted meal, swallowed a crust of bread and a glass of wine, and retired to his closet. He afterwards learned that, as he was rising from table, several of the Lords in whom he reposed the greatest confidence were * Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 215.; Orig. Mem.; Burnet, i. 190; Clarendon’s Diary, Nov. 15.1688; London Gazette, Nov. 11. JAMES THE SECOND. 303 shaking hands and congratulating each other in the adjoining gallery. When the news was carried to the Queen’s apart- • ments she and her ladies broke out into tears and loud cries of sorrow. * The blow was indeed a heavy one. It was true that the direct loss to the crown and the direct gain to the invaders hardly amounted to two hundred men and as many horses. But where could the King henceforth expect to find those sentiments in which consists the strength of states and of armies? Cornbury was the heir of a house conspicuous for its attachment to monarchy. His father Clarendon, his uncle Rochester, were men whose loyalty was supposed to be proof to all temptation. What must be the strength of that feeling against which the most deeply rooted hereditary prejudices were of no avail, of that feeling which could reconcile a young officer of high birth to desertion, aggravated by breach of trust and by gross falsehood? That Cornbury was not a man of brilliant parts or enterprising temper made the event more alarming. It was impossible to doubt that he had in some quarter a powerful and artful prompter. Who that prompter was soon became evident. In the meantime no man in the royal camp could feel assured that he was not surrounded by traitors. Political rank, military rank, the honour of a nobleman, the honour of a soldier, the strongest professions, the purest Cavalier blood, could no longer afford security. Every man might reasonably doubt whether every order which he received from his superior was not meant to serve the purposes of the enemy. That prompt obedience without which an army is merely a rabble was necessarily at an end. What discipline could there be among soldiers who had just been saved from a snare by refusing to follow their commanding officer on a secret expedition, and by insisting on a sight of his orders ? Cornbury was soon kept in countenance by a crowd of deserters superior to him in rank and capacity: but during a few days he stood alone in his shame, and was bitterly * Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 218.; Clarendon's Diary, Nov. 15. iCSS; Cillers, Nov. if. CHAP. _ix. _ 1688 . 304 HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. 1688 . reviled by many who afterwards imitated his example and envied his dishonourable precedence. Among these was his own father. The first outbreak of Clarendon’s rage and sorrow was highly pathetic. “Oh Godl” he ejaculated, “that a son of mine should be a rebel! ” A fortnight later he made up his mind to be a rebel himself. Yet it would be unjust to pronounce him a mere hypocrite. In revolutions men live fast: the experience of years is crowded into hours: old habits of thought and action are violently broken; novelties, which at first sight inspire dread and disgust, become in a few days familiar, endurable, attractive. Many men of far purer virtue and higher spirit than Clarendon were prepared, before that memorable year ended, to do what they would have pronounced wicked and infamous when it began. The unhappy father composed himself as well as he could, and sent to ask a private audience of the King. It was granted. James said, with more than his usual graciousness, that he from his heart pitied Cornbury’s relations, and should not hold them at all accountable for the crime of their unworthy kinsman. Clarendon went home, scarcely daring to look his friends in the face. Soon, however, he learned with surprise that the act, which had, as he at first thought, for ever dishonoured his family, was applauded hy some persons of high station. His niece, the Princess ofDenmark, asked him why he shut himself up. He answered that he had been overwhelmed with confusion by his son’s villany. Anne seemed not at all to understand this feeling. “People,” she said, “are very uneasy about Popery. I believe that many of the army will do the same.” * And now the King, greatly disturbed, called together the principal officers who were still in London. Churchill, who was about this time promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General, made his appearance with that bland serenity which neither peril nor infamy could ever disturb. The meeting was attended by Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Grafton, whose audacity and activity made him conspicuous among the natural children of Charles the Second. Grafton was colonel of the first re- * Clarendon’s Diary, Nov. 15, 16, 11, 20.1688. JAMES THE SECOND. 505 giment of Foot Guards. He seems to have been at this time completely under Churchill’s influence, and was prepared to ■ desert the royal standard as soon as the favourable moment should arrive. Two other traitors were in the circle, Kirke and Trelawney, who commanded those two fierce and lawless bands then known as the Tangier regiments. Both of them had, like the other Protestant officers of the army, long seen with extreme displeasure the partiality which the King had shown to members of his own Church; and Trelawney remembered with bitter resentment the persecution of his brother the Bishop of Bristol. James addressed the assembly in terms worthy of a better man and of a better caus'e. It might be, he said, that some of the officers had conscientious scruples about fighting for him. If so he was willing to receive back their commissions. But he adjured them as gentlemen and soldiers not to imitate the shameful example of Cornbury. All seemed moved; and none more than Churchill. He was the first to vow with well feigned enthusiasm that he would shed the last drop of his blood in the service of his gracious master: Grafton was loud and forward in similar protestations; and the example was followed by Kirke and Trelawney.* Deceived by these professions, the King prepared to set out for Salisbury. Before his departure he was informed that a considerable number of peers, temporal and spiritual, desired to be admitted to an audience. They came, with Sancroft at their head, to present a petition, praying that a free and legal Parliament might be called, and that a negotiation might be opened with the Prince of Orange. The history of this petition is curious. The thought seems to have occurred at once to two great chiefs of parties who had long been rivals and enemies, Rochester and Halifax. They both, independently of one another, consulted the Bishops. The Bishops warmly approved of the suggestion. It was then proposed that a general meeting of peers should be called to deliberate on the form of an address to the King. It was term time; and in term time men of rank and fashion then * Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 219. Orig. Mem. Macaulay, History. III. 30 CHAP. IX. 1688. Petition of the Lords for a Parliament. 306 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. 1 ( 188 . lounged every day in Westminster Hall as they now lounge in the clubs of Pall Mall and Saint James’s Street. Nothing could be easier than for the Lords who assembled there to step aside into some adjoining room and to hold a consultation. But unexpected difficulties arose. Halifax became first cold and then adverse. It was his nature to discover objections to everything; and on this occasion his sagacity was quickened by rivalry. The scheme, which he had approved while he regarded it as his own, began to displease him as soon as he found that it was also the scheme of Rochester, by whom he had been long thwarted and at length supplanted, and whom he disliked as much as it was in his easy nature to dislike anybody. Nottingham was at that time much under the influence of Halifax. They both declared that they would not join in the address if Rochester signed it. Clarendon expostulated in vain. “I mean no disrespect,” said Halifax, “to my Lord Rochester: but he has been a member of the Ecclesiastical Commission: the proceedings of that court must soon be the subject of a very serious inquiry; and it is not fit that one who has sate there should take any part in our proceedings.” Nottingham, with strong expressions of personal esteem for Rochester, avowed the same opinion. The authority of the two dissentient Lords prevented several other noblemen from subscribing the address; but the Hydes and the Bishops persisted. Nineteen signatures were procured; and the petitioners waited in a body on the King.* He received their address ungraciously. He assured them, indeed, that he passionately desired the meeting of a free Parliament; and he promised them, on the faith of a King, that he would call one as soon as the Prince of Orange should have left the island. “But how,” said he, “can a Parliament be free when an enemy is in the kingdom, and can return near a hundred votes?” To the prelates he spoke with peculiar acrimony. “I could not,” he said, “prevail on you the other day to declare against this invasion: but you are ready enough to declare against me. Then you would not meddle with politics. You have no scruple about meddling * Clarendon’s Diary, from Nov. 8. lo Nov. IT. 1688. JAMES THE SECOND. 307 now. You have excited this rebellious temper among your CI J£ P - flocks, and now you foment it. You would be better employed - 16S ^ ■ in teaching them how to obey than in teaching me how to govern.” He was much incensed against his nephew Grafton, whose signature stood next to that of Sancroft, and said to the young man, with great asperity, “You know nothing about religion; you care nothing about it; and yet, forsooth, you must pretend to have a conscience.” “It is true, Sir,” answered Grafton, with impudent frankness, “that I have very little conscience: but I belong to a party which has a great deal.”’ Bitter as was the King’s language to the petitioners, it was far less bitter than that which he held after they had withdrawn. He had done, he said, far too much already in the hope of satisfying an undutiful and ungrateful people. He had always hated the thought of concession: but he had suffered himself to be talked over; and now he, like his father before him, had found that concession only made subjects more encroaching. He would yield nothing more, not an atom, and, after his fashion, he vehemently repeated many times, “Not an atom.” Not only would he make no overture's to the invaders, but he would receive none. If the Dutch sent flags of truce, the first messenger should be dismissed without an answer; the second should be hanged.** In Tlle King such a mood James set out for Salisbury. His last act before |°^ b ‘“ ry his departure was to appoint a Council of five Lords to represent him in London during his absence. Of the five, two were Papists, and by law incapable of office. Joined with them was Jeffreys, a Protestant indeed, but more detested by the nation than any Papist. To the other two members of this board, Preston and Godolphin, no serious objection could be made. On the day on which the King left London the Prince of Wales was sent to Portsmouth. That fortress was strongly * Clarke's Lite of James, ii. 212 . Orig. Mem.; Clarendon’s Diary, Nov. n. 1688; Cilters, Nov. |J.; Burnet, i. Till.; Some Deflections upon the most Humble Petition to the King’s most Excellent Majesty, 1688; Modest Vindication of the Petition; First Collection of Papers relating to English Affairs, 1688. " Adda, Nov.il, 1G88. 20 308 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap. garrisoned, and was under the government of Berwick. The ~ i688. ~ commanded by Dartmouth lay close at hand: and it was supposed that, if things went ill, the royal infant would, without difficulty, be conveyed from Portsmouth to France.* On the nineteenth James reached Salisbury, and took up his quarters in the episcopal palace. Evil news was now fast pouring in upon him from all sides. The western counties had at length risen. As soon as the news of Cornbury’s desertion was known, many wealthy landowners took heart and hastened to Exeter. Among them was Sir William Portman of Bryanstone, one of the greatest men in Dorsetshire, and Sir Francis Warre ofFIestercombe, whose interest was great in Somersetshire.** But the most important of the new comers Seymour, was Seymour, who had recently inherited a baronetcy which added little to his dignity, and who, in birth, in political influence, and in parliamentary abilities, was beyond comparison the foremost among the Tory gentlemen of England. At his first audience he is said to have exhibited his characteristic pride in a way which surprised and amused the Prince. “ I think, Sir Edward,” said William, meaning to be very civil, “ that you are of the family of the Duke of Somerset.” “Pardon me, Sir,” said Sir Edward, who never forgot that he was the head of the elder branch of the Seymours, “the Duke of Somerset is ofimy family.” *** wnhan^ The quarters of William now began to present the ap- Eieter. pearance of a court. More than sixty men of rank and fortune were lodged at Exeter; and the daily display of rich liveries, and of coaches drawn by six horses, in the Cathedral Close, gave to that quiet precinct something of the splendour and gaiety of Whitehall. The common people were eager to take arms; and it would have been easy to form many battalions of infantry. But Scliomberg, who thought little of soldiers fresh from the plough, maintained that, if the expe- * Clarke’s Life of James, 220, 221, * # Eachard’s History of the Revolution. * # * Seymour’s reply to William is related by many writers. It much resembles a story which is told of the Alanriquez family. They, it is said, took for their device the words, “Nos no descendemos ac los Reyes, sino los Reyes descienden'de nos.” — Carpentariana. JAMES THE SECOND. 309 dition could not succeed without such help, it would not succeed at all: and William, who had as much professional - 16SS _ feeling as Sehomberg, concurred in this opinion. Commissions therefore for raising new regiments were very sparingly given; and none but picked recruits were enlisted. It was now thought desirable that the Prince should give a public reception to the whole body of noblemen and gentlemen who had assembled at Exeter. He addressed them in a short but dignified and well considered speech. He was not, he said, acquainted with the faces of all whom he saw. But he had a list of their names, and knew how high they stood in the estimation of their country. He gently chid their tardiness, but expressed a confident hope that it was not yet too late to save the kingdom. “Therefore,” he said, “gentlemen, friends, and fellow Protestants, we bid you and all your followers most heartily welcome to our court and camp.”* Seymour, a keen politician, long accustomed to the tactics of faction, saw in a moment that the party which had begun to rally round the Prince stood in need of organization. It was as yet, he said, a mere rope of sand: no common object had been publicly and formally avowed: nobody was pledged to anything. As soon as the assembly at the Deanery broke up, he sent for Burnet, and suggested that an association should be formed, and that all the English adherents of the Prince should put their hands to an instrument binding them to be true to their leader and to each other. Burnet carried the suggestion to the Prince and to Shrewsbury, by both of whom it was approved. A meeting was held in the Cathedral. A short paper drawn up by Burnet was produced, approved, and eagerly signed. The subscribers engaged to pursue in concert the objects set forth in the Prince’s Declaration; to stand by him and by each other; to take signal vengeance on all who should make any attempt on his person; and, even if such an attempt should unhappily succeed, to persist in their * Fourth Collection of Papers, 1688 ; Letter from Exon.; Burnet, i. 192. 310 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. JX. IG88. Northern insurrection. undertaking till the liberties and the religion of the nation - should be effectually secured.’ About the same time a messenger arrived at Exeter from the Earl of Bath, who commanded at Plymouth. Bath declared that he placed himself, his troops, and the fortress which he governed at the Prince’s disposal. The invaders therefore had now not a single enemy in their rear. ” While the West was thus rising to confront the King, the North was all in a flame behind him. On the sixteenth Dela- mere took arms in Cheshire. He convoked his tenants, called upon them to stand by him, promised that, if they fell in the cause, their leases should be renewed to their children, and exhorted every one who had a good horse either to take the field or to provide a substitute.* * •** ” He appeared at Manchester with fifty men armed and mounted, and his force had trebled before he reached Boaden Downs. The neighbouring counties were violently agitated. It had been arranged that Danby jshould seize York, and that Devonshire should appear at Nottingham. At Nottingham no resistance was anticipated. But at York there was a small garrison under the command of Sir John Reresby. Danby acted with rare dexterity. A meeting of the gentry and freeholders of Yorkshire had been summoned for the twenty- second of November to address the King on the state of affairs. All the Deputy Lieutenants of the three Ridings, several noblemen, and a multitude of opulent esquires and substantial yeomen had been attracted to the provincial capital. Pour troops of militia had been drawn out under arms to preserve the public peace. The Common Hall was crowded with freeholders, and the discussion had begun, when a cry was suddenly raised that the Papists were up, and were slaying the Protestants. The Papists of York were much more likely to be employed in seeking for hiding places than in attacking enemies who outnumbered them in the proportion of a hun- * Burnet, i. 192.; History of the Desertion; Second Collection of Papers, lf>88. '* Letter of Bath to the Prince of Orange, Nov. 18. 1688; Dalrymple. •** First Collection of Papers, 1688; London Gazette, Nov. 22 . JAMES THE SECOND. 311 dred to one. But at that time no story of Popish atrocity c ^ p - could be so wild and marvellous as not to find ready belief. 1(j8 ^ The meeting separated in dismay. The whole city was in confusion. At this moment Danby at the head of about a hundred horsemen rode up to the militia, and raised the cry “No Popery! A free Parliament! The Protestant religion! ” The militia echoed the shout. The garrison was instantly surprised and disarmed. The governor was placed under arrest. The gates were closed. Sentinels were posted everywhere. The populace was suffered to pull down a Roman Catholic chapel; but no other harm appears to have been done. On the following morning the Guildhall was crowded with the first gentlemen of the shire, and with the principal magistrates of the city. The Lord Mayor was placed in the chair. Danby proposed a Declaration setting forth the reasons which had induced the friends of the constitution and of the Protestant religion to rise in arms. This Declaration was eagerly adopted, and received in a few hours the signatures of six peers, of five baronets, of six knights, and of many gentlemen of high consideration.* Devonshire meantime, at the head of a great body of friends and dependents, quitted the palace which he was rearing at Chatsworth, and appeared in arms at Derby. There he formally delivered to the municipal authorities a paper setting forth the reasons which had moved him to this enterprise. He then proceeded to Nottingham, which soon became the head quarters of the Northern insurrection. Here a proclamation was put forth couched in bold and severe terms. The name of rebellion, it was said, was a bugbear which could frighten no reasonable man. Was it rebellion to defend those laws and that religion which every King of England bound himself by oath to maintain? How that oath had lately been observed was a question on which, it was to bo hoped, a free Parliament would soon pronounce. In the meantime, the insurgents declared that they held it to be not rebellion, but legitimate self defence, to resist a tyrant who knew no law but his own will. The Northern rising became every day * Reresby’s Memoirs; Clarke’s Life of James ii. 231 . Orig. Mem. 312 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CnAP. IX. 1688 . Skirmish at Win- canton. more formidable. Four powerful and wealthy Earls, Manchester, Stamford, Rutland, and Chesterfield, repaired to Nottingham, and were joined there by Lord Cholmondley and by Lord Grey de Ruthyn.* All this time the hostile armies in the south were approaching each other. The Prince of Orange, when he learned that the King had arrived at Salisbury, thought it time to leave Exeter. He placed that city and the surrounding country under the government of Sir Edward Seymour, and set out on Wednesday the twenty-first of November, escorted by many of the most considerable gentlemen of the western counties, for Axminster, where he remained several days. The King was eager to fight; and it was obviously his interest to do so. Every hour took away something from his own strength, and added something to the strength of his enemies. It was most important, too, that his troops should be blooded. A great battle, however it might terminate, could not but injure the Prince’s popularity. All this William perfectly understood, and determined to avoid an action as long as possible. It is said that, when Schomberg was told that the enemy were advancing and were determined to fight, he answered, with the composure of a tactician confident in his skill, “That will be just as we may choose.” It was, however, impossible to prevent all skirmishing between the advanced guards of the armies. William was desirous that in such skirmishing nothing might happen which could wound the pride or rouse the vindictive feelings of the nation which he meant to deliver. lie therefore, with admirable prudence, placed his British regiments in the situations where there -was most risk of collision. The outposts of the royal army were Irish. The consequence was that, in the little combats of this short campaign, the invaders had on their side the hearty sympathy of all Englishmen. The first of these encounters took place at Wineanton. Mackay’s regiment, composed of British soldiers, lay near a body of the King’s Irish troops, commanded by their country- * Cibber’s Apology; History of the Desertion; Luttrell’s Diary; Second Collection of Papers, 1088 . JAMES THE SECOND. 313 man, the gallant Sarsfield. Mackay sent out a small party under a lieutenant named Campbell, to procure horses for the baggage. Campbell found what he wanted at Wincanton, and was just leaving that town on his return, when a strong detachment of Sarsfield’s troops approached. The Irish were four to one: but Campbell resolved to fight it out to the last. With a handful of resolute men he took his stand in the road. The rest of his soldiers lined the hedges which overhung the highway on the right and on the left. The enemy came up. “Stand,” cried Campbell: “for whom are you?” “I am for King James,” answered the leader of the other party. “And I for the Prince of Orange,” cried Campbell. “We will prince you,” answered the Irishman with a curse. “Fire!” exclaimed Campbell; and a sharp fire was instantly poured in from both the hedges. The King’s troops received three well aimed volleys before they could make any return. At length they succeeded in carrying one of the hedges; and would have overpowered the little band which was opposed to them, had not the country people, who mortally hated the Irish, given a false alarm that more of the Prince’s troops were coming up. Sarsfield recalled his men and fell back; and Campbell proceeded on his march unmolested with the baggage horses. This affair, creditable undoubtedly to the valour and discipline of the Prince’s army was magnified by report into a victory won against great odds by British Protestants over Popish barbarians who had been brought from Connaught to oppress our island.* A few hours after this skirmish an event took place which put an end to all risk of a more serious struggle between the armies. Churchill and some of his principal accomplices were assembled at Salisbury. Two of the conspirators, Kirke and Trelawney, had proceeded to Warminster, where their regiments wore posted. All was ripe for the execution of the long meditated treason. Churchill advised the King to visit Warminster, and to inspect the troops stationed there. James assented; and his * 'Whittle’s Diary; History of the Desertion; Lultreil’s Diary. CHAP. ix._ "Tsss. 314 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. .rrvr- " chap, coach was at the door of the episcopal palace when his nose ' , 68S . began to bleed violently. He was forced to postpone his expedition and to put himself under medical treatment. Three days elapsed before the hemorrhage was entirely subdued; and during those three days alarming rumours reached his ears. It was impossible that a conspiracy so widely spread as that of which Churchill was the head could be kept altogether secret. There was no evidence which could be laid before a jury or a court martial: but strange whispers wandered about the camp. Feversham, who held the chief command, reported that there was a bad spirit in the army. It was hinted to the King that some who were near his person were not his friends, and that it would be a wise precaution to send Churchill and Grafton under a guard to Portsmouth. James rejected this counsel. A propensity to suspicion was not among his vices. Indeed the confidence which he reposed in professions of fidelity and attachment was such as might rather have been expected from a good-hearted and inexperienced stripling that from a politician who was far advanced in life, who had seen much of the world, who had suffered much from villanous arts, and whose own character was by no means a favourable specimen of human nature. It would be difficult to mention any other man who, having himself so little scruple about breaking faith, was so slow to believe that his neighbours could break faith with him. Nevertheless the reports which he had received of the state of his army disturbed him greatly. He was now no longer impatient for a battle. He even began to tliink of retreating. On the evening of Saturday, the twenty-fourth of November, he called a council of war. The meeting was attended by those officers against whom he had been most earnestly cautioned. Feversham expressed an opinion that it was desirable to fall back. Churchill argued on the other side. The consultation lasted till midnight. At length the King declared that he had decided for a Desertion retreat. Churchill saw or imagined that he was distrusted, Cimrcnii. and, though gifted with a rare self command, could not con- JAMES THE SECOND. 315 ceal his uneasiness. Before the day broke he fled to the CI ] 1 * P - Prince’s quarters, accompanied by Grafton.* 1688 . Churchill left behind him a letter of explanation. It was written with that decorum which he never failed to preserve in the midst of guilt and dishonour. He acknowledged that he owed everything to the royal favour. Interest, he said, and gratitude impelled him in the same direction. Under no other government could he hope to be so great and prosperous as he had been: but all such considerations must yield to a paramount duty. He was a Protestant; and he could not conscientiously draw his sword against the Protestant cause. As to the rest he would ever be ready to hazard life and fortune in defence of the sacred person and of the lawful rights of his gracious master.** Next morning all was confusion in the royal camp. The King’s friends were in dismay. His enemies could not conceal their exultation. The consternation of James was increased by news which arrived on the same day from Warminster. Kirke, who commanded at that post, had refused to obey orders which he had received from Salisbury. There could no longer be any doubt that he too was in league with the Prince of Orange. It was rumoured that he had actually gone over with all his troops to the enemy: and the rumour, though false, was, during some hours, fully believed.*** A new light flashed on the mind of the unhappy King. He thought that he understood why he had been pressed, a few days before, to visit Warminster. There he would have found himself helpless, at the mercy of the conspirators, and in the vicinity of the hostile outposts. Those who might have attempted to defend him would have been easily overpowered. He would have been carried a prisoner to the head quarters of the invading army. Perhaps some still blacker treason might * Clarke’s Life of lames, ii. 222. Orig. Mem.; Barillon, 1088; Sheridan MS. ** First Collection of Papers, 1688. *** Letter from Middleton to Preston, dated Salisbury, Nov. 24. “Villany upon villany,” says Middleton, “the last still greater than tho former.” Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 224, 225. Orig. Mem. 316 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap, have been committed; for men who have once engaged in a —TtiiT - wicked and perilous enterprise are no longer their own masters, and are often impelled, by a fatality which is part of their just punishment, to crimes such as they would at first have shuddered to contemplate. Surely it was not without the special intervention of some guardian Saint that a King devoted to the Catholic Church had, at the very moment when he was blindly hastening to captivity, perhaps to death, been suddenly arrested by what he had then thought a disastrous malady. Retreatof All these things confirmed James in the resolution which army from kc had taken on the preceding evening. Orders were given Salisbury, for an immediate retreat. Salisbury was in an uproar. The camp broke up with the confusion of a flight. No man knew whom to trust or whom to obey. The material strength of the army was little diminished: but its moral strength had been destroyed. Many whom shame would have restrained from leading the way to the Prince’s quarters were eager to imitate an example which they never would have set; and many, who would have stood by their King while he appeared to be resolutely advancing against the invaders, felt no inclination to follow a receding standard. * James went that day as far as Andover. He was attended by his son-in-law Prince George, and by the Duke of Ormond. Both were among the conspirators, and would probably have accompanied Churchill, had he not, inconsequence of what had passed at the council of war, thought it expedient to take his departure suddenly. The impenetrable stupidity of Prince George served his turn on this occasion better than cunning would have done. It was his habit, when any news was told him, to exclaim in French, “Est-il-possible?” “Is it possible?” This catchword was now of great use to him. “Est-il-possible?” lie cried, when he had been made to understand that Churchill and Grafton were missing. And when the ill tidings came from Warminster, he again ejaculated, “Est-il-possible?” * History of the Desertion; Luttrell’s Diary. JAMES THE SECOND. 317 Prince George and Ormond were invited to sup with the C, I , * P - King at Andover. The meal must have been a sad one. The I688 , King was overwhelmed by his misfortunes. His son-in-law Desertion was the dullest of companions. “ I have tried Prince George g e l^ ce sober,” said Charles the Second; “and I have tried him «nd drunk; and, drunk or sober, there is nothing in him. Ormond, who was through life taciturn and bashful, was not likely to be in high spirits at such a moment. At length the repast terminated. The King retired to rest. Horses were in waiting for the Prince and Ormond, who, as soon as they left the table, mounted and rode off. They were accompanied by the Earl of Drumlanrig, eldest son of the Duke of Queens- berry. The defection of this young nobleman was no insignificant event. For Qucensberry was the head of the Protestant Episcopalians of Scotland, a class compared with whom the bitterest English Tories might be called Whiggish; and Drumlanrig himself was Lieutenant Colonel of Dundee’s regiment, a band more detested by the Whigs than even Kirke’s lambs. This fresh calamity was announced to the King on the following morning. He was less disturbed by the news than might have been expected. The shock which he had undergone twenty-four hours before had prepared him for almost any disaster; and it was impossible to be seriously angry with Prince George, who was hardly an accountable being, for having yielded to the arts of such a tempter as Churchill. “WhatI” said James, “Is Est-il-possible gone too? After all, a good trooper would have been a greater loss.”** In truth the King’s whole anger seems, at this time, to have been concentrated, and not without cause, on one object. He set off for London, breathing vengeance against Churchill, and learned, on arriving, a new crime of the arch deceiver, The Princess Anne had been some hours missing. Anne, who had no will but that of the Churchills, had of been induced by them to notify under her own hand to cessAnne. * Dartmouth's note on Burnet, i. 643. ** Clarendon’s Diary, Nov. 20.; Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 224.; Prince George’s letter to the King has often been printed. 318 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. "-iCr. ™ap. William, a week before, her approbation of his enterprise. Teas - She assured him that she was entirely in the hands of her friends, and that she would remain in the palace, or take refuge in the City, as they might determine.* On Sunday the twenty-fifth of November, she, and those who thought for her, were under the necessity of coming to a sudden resolution. That afternoon a courier from Salisbury brought tidings that Churchill had disappeared, that he had been accompanied by Grafton, that Kirke had proved false, and that the royal forces were in full retreat. There was, as usually happened when great news, good or bad, arrived in town, an immense crowd that evening in the galleries of Whitehall. Curiosity and anxiety sate on every face. The Queen broke forth into natural expressions of indignation against the chief traitor, and did not altogether spare his too partial mistress. The sentinels were doubled round that part of the palace which Anne occupied. The Princess was in dismay. In a few hours her father would be at Westminster. It was not likely that he would treat her personally with severity; but that he would permit her any longer to enjoy the society of her friend was not to be hoped. It could hardly be doubted that Sarah would be placed under arrest and would be subjected to a strict examination by shrewd and rigorous inquisitors. Her papers would be seized. Perhaps evidence affecting her life might be discovered. If so the worst might well be dreaded. The vengeance of the implacable King knew no distinction of sex. For offences much smaller than those which might probably be brought home to Lady Churchill he had sent women to the scaffold and the stake. Strong affection braced the feeble mind of the Princess. There was no tie which she would not break, no risk which she would not run, for the object of her idolatrous affection. “I will jump out of the window,” she cried, “rather than be found here by my father.” The favourite undertook to manage an escape. She communicated in all haste with some of the chiefs of the conspiracy. In a few hours every thing was arranged. That evening Anne retired to her * The letter, dated Nov. 18 ., will be found in Dalrymple. JAMES THE SECOND. 319 chamber as usual. At dead of night she rose, and, accom- c “Ap. panied by her friend Sarah and two other female attendants, - J683 _ stole down the back stairs in a dressing gown and slippers. The fugitives gained the open street unchallenged. A hackney coach was in waiting for them there. Two men guarded the humble vehicle. One of them was Compton, Bishop of London, the Princess’s old tutor: the other was the magnificent and accomplished Dorset, whom the extremity of the public danger had roused from his luxurious repose. The coach drove instantly to Aldersgate Street, where- the town residence of the Bishops of London then stood, within the. shadow of their Cathedral. There the Princess passed the night. On the following morning she set out for Epping Forest. In that wild tract Dorset possessed a venerable mansion, which has long since been destroyed. In his hospitable dwelling, the favourite resort, during many years, of wits and poets, the fugitives made a short stay. They could not safely attempt to reach William’s quarters; for the road thither lay through a country occupied by the royal forces. It was therefore determined that Anne should take refuge with the northern insurgents. Compton wholly laid aside, for the time, his sacerdotal character. Danger and conflict had rekindled in him all the military ardour which he had felt twenty-eight years before, when he rode in the Life Guards. He preceded the Princess’s carriage in a buff coat and jack- boots, with a sword at his side and pistols in his holsters. Long before she reached Nottingham, she was surrounded by a body guard of gentlemen who volunteered to escort her. They invited the Bishop to act as their colonel; and he consented with an alacrity which gave great scandal to rigid Churchmen, and did not much raise his character even in the opinion of Whigs.* When, on the morning of the twenty-sixth, Anne’s apart- * Clarendon’s Diary, Nov. 25, 26.1088; Citters, 7 — ; Ellis Cor- respondence, Dec. 19.; Duchess of Marlborough’s Vindication; Burnet, i. 192.; Compton to the Prince of Orange, Dec. 2 . 1688, in Dalrymple. The Bishop’s military costume is mentioned in innumerable pamphlets and lampoons. 320 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. 1688 . Conncil of Lords bold by James. - -ip-- ment was found empty, the consternation was great in Whitehall. While the Ladies of her Bedchamber ran up and down the courts of the palace, screaming and wringing their hands, while Lord Craven, who commanded the Foot Guards, was questioning the sentinels in the gallery, while the Chancellor was sealing up the papers of the Churchills, the Frincess’s nurse broke into the royal apartments crying out that the dear lady had been murdered by the Papists. The news flew to Westminster Hall. There the story was that Her Highness had been hurried away by force to a place of confinement. When it could no longer be denied that her flight had been voluntary, numerous fictions were invented to account for it. She had been grossly insulted; she had been threatened; nay, though she was in that situation in which woman is entitled to peculiar tenderness, she had been beaten by her cruel stepmother. The populace, which years of misrule had made suspicious and irritable, was so much excited by these calumnies that the Queen was scarcely safe. Many Roman Catholics, and some Protestant Tories whose loyalty was proof to all trials, repaired to the palace that they might be in readiness to defend her in the event of an outbreak. In the midst of this distress and terror arrived the news of Prince George’s flight. The courier who brought these evil tidings was fast followed by the King himself. The evening was closing in when James arrived, and was informed that his daughter had disappeared. After all that he had suffered, this affliction forced a cry of misery from his lips. “ God help me, ” he said; “my own children have forsaken me.”* That evening he sate in Council with his principal ministers till a late hour. It was determined that he should summon all the Lords Spiritual and Temporal who were then in London to attend him on the following day, and that he should solemnly ask their advice. Accordingly, on the afternoon of Tuesday the twenty-seventh, the Lords met in the dining room of the palace. The assembly consisted of nine prelates * Dartmouth's note on Burnet, i. 192.; Citlers, 1688; Clarke's Life of James, ii. 226. Orig. Mem.; Clarendon’s Diary, Nov. 26.; Revolution Politics. JAMES THE SECOND. 321 and between thirty and forty secular nobles, all Protestants. The two Secretaries of State, Middleton and Preston, though ■ not peers of England, were in attendance. The King himself presided. The traces of severe bodily and mental suffering were discernible in his countenance and deportment. He opened the proceedings by referring to the petition which had been put into his hands just before he set out for Salisbury. The prayer of that petition was that he would convoke a free Parliament. Situated as he then was, he had not, he said, thought it right to comply. But, during his absence from London, great changes had taken place. He had also observed that his people everywhere seemed anxious that the Houses should meet. He had therefore commanded the attendance of his faithful Peers, in order to ask their counsel. For a time there was silence. Then Oxford, whose pedigree, unrivalled in antiquity and splendour, gave him a kind of primacy in the meeting, said that in his opinion those Lords who had signed the petition to which His Majesty had referred ought now to explain their views. These words called up Rochester. He defended the petition, and declared that he still saw no hope for the throne or the country but in a Parliament. He would not, he said, venture to affirm that, in so disastrous an extremity, even that remedy would be efficacious: but he had no other remedy to propose. He added that it might be advisable to open a negotiation with the Prince of Orange. Jeffreys and Go- dolphin followed; and both declared that they agreed with Rochester. Then Clarendon rose, and, to the astonishment of all who remembered his loud professions of loyalty, and the agony of shame and sorrow into which he had been thrown, only a few days before, by the news of his son’s defection, broke forth into a vehement invective against tyranny and Popery. “Even now,” he said, “His Majesty is raising in London a regiment into which no Protestant is admitted.” “That is not true,” cried James, in great agitation from the head of the board. Clarendon persisted, and left this offensive topic only to pass to a topic still more offensive. He accused the unfortunate Macaulay, History. 111. 21 CHAP. ix._ 1688 . 322 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap. King of pusillanimity. Why retreat from Salisbury? Why -jjjg—not try the event of a battle? Could people be blamed for submitting to the invader when they saw their sovereign run away at the head of his army? James felt these insults keenly, and remembered them long.' Indeed even Whigs thought the language of Clarendon indecent and ungenerous. Halifax spoke in a very different tone. During several years of peril he had defended with admirable ability the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of his country against the prerogative. But his serene intellect, singularly unsusceptible of enthusiasm, and singularly averse to extremes, began to lean towards the cause of royalty at the very moment at which those noisy Royalists who had lately execrated the Trimmers as little better than rebels were everywhere, rising in rebellion. It was his ambition to be, at this conjuncture, the peacemaker between the throne and the nation. Ilis talents and character fitted him for that office; and, if he failed, the failure is to be ascribed to causes against which no human skill could contend, and chiefly to the folly, faithlessness, and obstinacy of the Prince whom he tried to save. Halifax now gave utterance to much unpalatable truth, but with a delicacy which brought,on him the reproach of flattery from spirits too abject to understand that what would justly be called flattery when offered to the powerful is a debt of humanity to the fallen. With many expressions of sympathy and deference, he declared it to be his opinion that the King must make up his mind to groat sacrifices. It was not enough to convoke a Parliament or to open a negotiation with the Prince of Orange. Some at least of the grievances of which the nation complained should be instantly redressed without waiting till redress was demanded by. the Houses or by the captain of the hostile army. Nottingham, in language equally respectful, declared that he agreed with Halifax. The chief concessions which these Lords pressed the King to make were three. He ought, they said, forthwith to dismiss all Roman Catholics from office, to separate himself wholly from France, and to grant an unlimited amnesty to those who were in arms against him. The last of these propo- ■r,j* JAMES THE SECOND. 323 sitions, it should seem, admitted of no dispute. For, though “ap- some of those who were banded together against the King had acted towards him in a manner which might not unreasonably excite his bitter resentment, it was more likely that he would soon be at their mercy than that they would ever be at his. It would have been childish to open a negotiation with William, and yet to denounce vengeance against men whom William could not without infamy abandon. But the clouded understanding and implacable temper of James held out long against the arguments of those who laboured to convince him that it would be wise to pardon offences which he could not punish. “I cannot do it,” he exclaimed. “I must make examples , Churchill above all; Churchill whom I raised so high. He and he alone has done all this. He has corrupted my army. He has corrupted my child. He would have put me into the hands of the Prince of Orange, but for God’s special providence. My Lords, you are strangely anxious for the safety of traitors. None of r you troubles himself about my safety. ” In answer to this burst of impotent anger,those who had recommended the amnesty represented with profound respect, but with firmness, that a prince attacked by powerful enemies can be safe only by conquering or by conciliating. “If your Majesty, after all that has happened, has still any hope of safety in arms, we have done: but if not, you can be safe only by regaining the affections of your people. ” After long and animated debate the King broke up the meeting. “MyLords,” he said, “you have used great freedom: butl do not take it ill of you. I have made up my mind on one point. I shall call a Parliament. The other suggestions which have been offered are of grave importance; and you will not be surprised that I take a night to reflect on them before I decide. ”* * Clarke's Life of James, ii. 238. Orig. Mem.; Burnet, i. 794.; Lullrell’s Diary; Clarendon’s Diary, Nov. 27. 168S; Cilters, and Nov. 3(1. Dec. 10. Citlers evidently had his intelligence from one of the Lords who were present. As the matter is important, I will give two short passages from his despatches. The King said, u Dat het by na voor hem 21 * 324 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. - c n* p - At first James seemed disposed to make excellent use of ■ 1688 — the time which he had taken for consideration. The Chan- ne ap _ cellor was directed to issue writs convoking a Parliament for poinis the thirteenth of January. Halifax was sent for to the closet, sioners’to had a long audience, and spoke with much more freedom than he had thought it decorous to use in the presence of a large assembly. He was informed that he had been appointed a Commissioner to treat with the Prince of Orange. With him were joined Nottingham and Godolphin. The King declared that he was prepared to make great sacrifices for the sake of peace. Halifax answered that great sacrifices would doubtless be required. “Your Majesty, ” he said, “must not expect that those who have the power in their hands will consent to any terms which would leave the laws at the mercy of the prerogative.” With this distinct explanation of his views, he accepted the Commission which the King wished him to undertake. * The concessions which a few hours before had been so obstinately refused were now made in the most liberal manner. A proclamation was put forth by which the King not only granted a free pardon to all who were in rebellion against him, but declared them eligible to be members of the approaching Parliament. It was not even required as a condition of eligibility that they should lay down their arms. unmogelyck was te pardoneren persoonen wie so hoog in syri reguarde scbuldig stondcri, vooral seer uylvarende jegens den Lord Churchill, wien hy hadde grool gemaakt, en nogtans meynde de eenigste oorsake van alie dese desertie en van de retraite van hare Coning ycke Iloogheden te wesen." One of the lords, probably Halifax or Nottingham, “seer hadde geurgeert op de sccuriteyt van de lords die nil met syn Hoogheyt geengageert staan. Soo hoor ick,” says Citters, “dat syn Majesteyt onder andercn soude gesegt hebben; ’Men spreekt al voor de securileyt voor andere, en niel voor de myne.’ \Yaar op een der Pairs resolut dan met groot respect soude geantwoordt hebben dat, soo syne Majesteyl’s wapenen in staat waren om hem te connen maintencren, dat dan sulk syne securiteyte ltoude wesen; soo niet, en soo de difficulteyt dan nog te surmonteren was, dat het den moesle gesehieden door de meeste condescendance, en hoe meer die was, en hy genegen om aan de natic contentement te gcven, dat syne securlteyt ook des te grooter soude wesen.” • Letter of the bishop of St. Asaph to the Prince of Orange, Dec. 17. 1688. JAMES THE SECOND. 325 The same Gazette which announced that the Houses were C! ™ p . about to meet contained a notification that Sir Edward Hales, 1688- " who, as a Papist, as a renegade, as the foremost champion of the dispensing power, and as the harsh gaoler of the Bishops, was one of the most unpopular men in the realm, had ceased to be Lieutenant of the Tower, and had been succeeded by his late prisoner, Bevil Skelton, who, though he held no high place in the esteem of his countrymen, was at least not disqualified by law for public trust. * But these concessions were meant only to blind the Lords ™ t j a 5' 0 ~ and the nation to the King’s real designs. He had secretly a feint, determined that, even in this extremity, he would yield nothing. On the very day on which he issued the proclamation of amnesty, he fully explained his intentions to Barillon. “This negotiation,” said James, “is a mere feint. I must send commissioners to my nephew, that I may gain time to ship off my wife and the Prince of Wales. You know the temper of my troops. None but the Irish will stand by me; and the Irish are not in sufficient force to resist the enemy. A Parliament would impose on me conditions which I could not endure. I should be forced to undo all that I have done for the Catholics, and to break with the King of France. As soon, therefore, as the Queen and my child are safe, I will leave England, and take refuge in Ireland, in Scotland, or with your master. ” ** Already James had made preparations for carrying this scheme into effect. Dover had been sent to Portsmouth with instructions to take charge of the Prince of Wales; and Dartmouth, who commanded the fleet there, had been ordered to obey Dover’s directions in all things concerning the royal infant, and to have a yacht manned by trusty sailors in readiness to sail for France at a moment’s notice.*** The King now sent positive orders that the child should instantly be conveyed to the nearest continental port.f Next to ,the Prince * London Gazette, Nov. 29. Dec. 3. 1C8S; Clarendon’s Diary, Nov. 29, 30. ** Barillon, December 1688. James to Dartmouth, Nov. 25. 1688. The letters are in Dalrymple. + James to Dartmouth, Dec. 1. 1688. 326 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap, of Wales the chief object of anxiety was the Great Seal. To —that symbol of kingly authority our jurists have always ascribed a peculiar and almost mysterious importance. It is held that, if the Keeper of the Seal should affix it, without taking the royal pleasure, to a patent of peerage or to a pardon, though he may be guilty of a high offence, the instrument cannot be questioned by any court of law, and can be annulled only by an Act of Parliament. James seems to have been afraid that his enemies might get this organ of his will into their hands, and might thus give a legal validity to acts which might affect him injuriously. Nor will his apprehensions be thought unreasonable when it is remembered that, exactly a hundred years later, the Great Seal of a King was used, with the assent of Lords and Commons, and with the approbation of many great statesmen and lawyers, for the purpose of transferring his prerogatives to his son. Lest the talisman which possessed such formidable powers should be abused, James determined that it should be kept within a few yards of his own closet. Jeffreys was therefore ordered to quit the costly mansion which he had lately built in Duke Street, and to take up his residence in a small apartment at Whitehall. * The King had made all his preparations for flight, when an unexpected impediment compelled him to postpone the execution of his design. His agents at Portsmouth began to entertain scruples. Even Dover, though a member of the Jesuitical cabal, showed signs of hesitation. Dartmouth was still less disposed to comply with the royal wishes. He had hitherto been faithful to the throne, and had done all that he could do, with a disaffected fleet, and in the face of an adverse wind, to prevent the Dutch from landing in England: but he was a zealous member of the Established Church, and was by no means friendly to the policy of that government which he thought himself bound in duty and honour to defend. The mutinous temper of the officers and men under his command had caused him much anxiety; and he had been greatly relieved by the news that a free Parliament had been * LuLlrell’s Diary. JAMES THE SECOND. S27 convoked, and that Commissioners liad been named to treat c 1 ^ap. with the Prince of Orange. The joy was clamorous through- —— out the fleet. An address, warmly thanking the King for these gracious concessions to public feeling, was drawn up on board of the flag ship. The Admiral signed first. Thirty- eight Captains wrote their names under his. This paper on its way to "Whitehall crossed the messenger who brought to Portsmouth the order that the Prince of Wales should instantly be conveyed to France. Dartmouth learned, with bitter grief and resentment, that the free Parliament, the general amnesty, the negotiation, were all parts of a great fraud on the nation, and that in this fraud he was expected to be an accomplice. In a pathetic and manly letter he declared ®” l t j ire _ that he had already carried his obedience to the farthest fuses to point to which a Protestant and an Englishman could go. To put the heir apparent of the British crown into the hands Wales of Lewis would be nothing less than treason against the mo- Franca, narcliy. The nation, already too much alienated from the Sovereign, would be roused to madness. The Prince of Wales would either not return at all, or would return attended by a French army. If His Royal Highness remained in the island, the worst that could be apprehended was that he would be brought up a member of the national Church; and that he might be so brought up ought to be the prayer of every loyal subject. Dartmouth concluded by declaring that he would risk his life in defence of the throne, but that he would be no party to the transporting of the Prince into France.* This letter deranged all the projects of James. He learned too that he could not on this occasion expect from his Admiral even passive obedience. For Dartmouth had gone so far as to station several sloops at the mouth of the harbour of Portsmouth with orders to suffer no vessel to pass out unexamined. * Second Collection of Papers, 1C88; Dartmouth’s Letter, dated December 3.1C88, will be found in Dalrymple; Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 233. Orig. Mem. James accuses Dartmouth of having got up an address from the fleet demanding a Parliament. This is a mere calumny. The address is one of thanks to the King for having called a Parliament, and was framed before Dartmouth had the least suspicion that His Majesty was deceiving tho nation. 328 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, CHAP. IX. 1688 . Agitation of London, Forged proclamation. A change of plan was necessary. The child must be brought back to London, and sent thence to France. An interval of some days must elapse before this could be done. During that interval the public mind must be amused by the hope of a Parliament and the semblance of a negotiation. Writs were sent out for the elections. Trumpeters went backward and forward between the capital and the Dutch headquarters. At. length passes for the King’s Commissioners arrived; and the three Lords set out on their embassy. They left the capital in a state of fearful distraction. The passions which, during three troubled years, had been gradually gathering force, now, emancipated from the restraint of fear, and stimulated by victory and sympathy, showed themselves without disguise, even in the precincts of the royal dwelling. The grand jury of Middlesex found a bill against the Earl of Salisbury for turning Papist. * The Lord Mayor ordered the houses of the Roman Catholics of the City to be searched for arms. The mob broke into the house of one respectable merchant who held the unpopular faith, in order to ascertain whether he had not run a mine from his cellars under the neighbouring parish church, for the purpose of blowing up parson and congregation.** The hawkers bawled about the streets a hue and cry after Father Petre, who had withdrawn himself, and not before it was time, from his apartments in the palace.*** Wharton’s celebrated song, with many additional verses, was chaunted more loudly than ever in all the streets of the capital. The very sentinels who guarded the palace hummed, as they paced their rounds, “The English confusion to Popery drink, Lillibullero bullen a la.” The secret presses of London worked without ceasing. Many papers daily came into circulation by means which the magistracy could not discover, or would not check. One of these has been preserved from oblivion by the skilful audacity with * Lultrell’s Diary. ** Adda, Dec. f,. 1888. *** The Nuncio says, “Se lo avesse fatto prima di ora, per il Rd ne sarebhe slato megiio." JAMES THE SECOND. 329 which it was written, and by the immense effect which it produced. It purported to be a supplemental declaration under the hand and seal of the Prince of Orange: but it was written in a style very different from that of his genuine manifesto. Vengeance alien from the usages of Christian and civilised nations was denounced against all Papists who should dare to espouse the royal cause. They should be treated, not as soldiers or gentlemen, but as freebooters. The ferocity and licentiousness of the invading army, which had hitherto been restrained with a strong hand, should be let loose on them. Good Protestants, and especially those who inhabited the capital, were adjured, as they valued all that was dear to them, and commanded, on peril of the Prince’s highest displeasure, to seize, disarm, and imprison their Roman Catholic neighbours. This document, it is said, was found by a Whig bookseller one morning under his shop door. He made haste to print it. Many copies were dispersed by the post, and passed rapidly from hand to hand. Discerning men had no difficulty in pronouncing it a forgery devised by some unquiet and unprincipled adventurer, such as, in troubled times, are always busy in the foulest and darkest offices of faction. But the multitude was completely duped. Indeed to such a height had national and religious feeling been excited against the Irish Papists that most of those who believed the spurious proclamation to be genuine were inclined to applaud it as a seasonable exhibition of vigour. When it was known that no such document had really proceeded from William, men asked anxiously what impostor had so daringly and so successfully personated his Highness. Some suspected Ferguson, others Johnson. At length, after the lapse of twenty-seven years, Hugh Speke avowed the forgery, and demanded from the House of Brunswick a reward for so eminent a service rendered to the Protestant religion. He asserted, in the tone of a man who conceives himself to have done something eminently virtuous and honourable, that, when the Dutch invasion had thrown Whitehall into consternation, he had offered his services to the Court, had pretended to be estranged from the Whigs, and CHAP. IX. 16SS. 330 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap. had promised to act as a spy upon them; that he had thus ~i688. — obtained admittance to the royal closet, had vowed fidelity, had been promised large pecuniary rewards, and had procured blank passes which enabled him to travel backwards across the hostile lines. All these things he protested that he had done solely in order that he might, unsuspected, aim a deadly blow at the government, and produce a violent outbreak of popular feeling against the Roman Catholics. The forged proclamation he claimed as one of his contrivances: but whether his claim were well founded may be doubted. He delayed to make it so long that we may reasonably suspect him of having waited for the death of those who could confute him; and he produced no evidence but his own.* Risings.in While these things happened in London, every post from parls^f ever y P art °f country brought tidings of some new in- thc surrection. Lumley had seized Newcastle. The inhabitants country. j ia( j -welcomed him with transport. The statue of the King, which stood on a lofty pedestal of marble, had been pulled down and hurled into the Tyne. The third of December was long remembered at Hull as the town taking day. That place had a garrison commanded by Lord Langdale, a Roman Catholic. The Protestant officers concerted with the magistracy a plan of revolt: Langdale and his adherents were arrested; and soldiers and citizens united in declaring for the Protestant religion and a free Parliament. ** The Eastern counties were up. The Duke of Norfolk, attended by three hundred gentlemen armed and mounted, appeared in the stately market-place of Norwich. The Mayor and Aldermen met him there, and engaged to stand by him againstPopery and arbitrary power.*** Lord Herbert of Clier- bury and Sir Edward Harley took up arms in Worcestershire.f * Sec Ihe Secret History of the Revolution, by Hugh Speke, 1715. In Ihe London Library is a copy of this rare work with a manuscript note which seems to be in Speke’s own hand. ** Brand's History of Newcastle; Tickell’s History of Hull. *** An account of what passed at Norwich may still be seen in several collections on the original broadside. See also the Fourth Collection of Papers, 1688. + Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 233.; MS. Memoir of the Harley family in the Mackintosh Collection. JAMES THE SECOND. 331 Bristol, the second city of the realm, opened its gates to CI jAP. Shrewsbury. Trelawney, the Bishop, who had entirely un- 1C3 j learned in the Tower the doctrine of nonresistance, was the first to welcome the Prince’s troops. Such was the temper of - the Inhabitants that it was thought unnecessary to leave any garrison among them.* The people of Gloucester rose and delivered Lovelace from confinement. An irregular army soon gathered round him. Some of his horsemen had only halters for bridles. Many of his infantry had only clubs for weapons. But this force, such as it was, marched unopposed through counties once devoted to the House of Stuart, and at length entered Oxford in triumph. The magistrates came in state to welcome the insurgents. The University itself, exasperated by recent injuries, was little disposed to pass censures on rebellion. Already some of the Heads of Houses had despatched one of their number to assure the Prince of Orange that they were cordially with him, and that they would gladly coin their plate for his service. The Whig chief, therefore, rode through the capital of Toryism amidst general acclamation. Before him the drums beat Lillibullero. Behind him came a long stream of horse and foot. The whole High Street was gay with orange ribands. For already the orange riband had the double signification which, after the lapse of one hundred and sixty years, it still retains. Already it was the emblem of the Protestant Englishman of civil and religious freedom, to the Roman Catholic Celt of subjugation and persecution.** While foes were thus rising up all round the King, friends were fast shrinking from his side. The idea of resistance had become familiar to every mind. Many who had been struck with horror when they heard of the first defections now blamed themselves for having been so slow to discern the signs of the times. There was no longer any difficulty *or * Citlers, Dec. -,V 1688. Letter of the Bishop of Bristol to the Prince of Orange, Dec. 5. 1688, in Dalrymple. " Citters, ^ ° v j 1688; Clarendon’s Diary, Dec. 11.; Song on Lord Lovelace’s entry into Oxford, 1688; Burnet, i. 193. 332 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap, danger in repairing to William. The King, in calling on the j 6a8 , nation to elect representatives, had, by implication, authorised all men to repairto the places where they had votes or interest; and many of those places were already occupied by invaders or insurgents. Clarendon eagerly caught at this opportunity of deserting the falling cause. He knew that his speech in the Council of Peers had given deadly offence: and he was mortified by finding that he was not to be one of the royal Commissioners. He had estates in Wiltshire. He determined that his son, the son of whom he had lately spoken with grief and horror, should be a candidate for that county; and, under pretence of looking after the election, he set out for the West. He was speedily followed by the Earl of Oxford, and by others who had hitherto disclaimed all connection with the Prince’s enterprise.* By this time the invaders, steadily though slowly advancing, were within seventy miles of London. Though midwinter was approaching, the weather was fine; the way was pleasant; and the turf of Salisbury Plain seemed luxuriously smooth to men who had been toiling through the miry ruts of the Devonshire and Somersetshire highways. The route of the army lay close by Stonehenge; and regiment after regiment halted to examine that mysterious ruin, celebrated all over the Continent as the greatest wonder of our island. William entered Salisbury with the samemilitary pomp which he had displayed at Exeter, and was lodged there in the palace which the King Clarendon ^ a d ocou P' e d a few days before.** joins the His train was now swelled by the Earls of Clarendon and Saiisiniry. Oxford, and by other men of high rank, who had, till within a few days, been considered as zealous Royalists. Cittersalso made his appearance at the Dutch head quarters. He had been during some weeks almost a prisoner in his house, near Whitehall, under the constant observation of relays of spies. Yet, in spite of those spies, or perhaps by their help, he had succeeded in obtaining full and accurate intelligence of all that passed in the palace; and now, full fraught with valuable in- * Clarendon’s Diary, Dec. 2, 3, 4, 5. 1688. ** Whittle's Exacl Diary; Eacliard’s History oflhe Revolution. JAMES THE SECOND. 333 formation about men and things, he came to assist the deli- CI |* P - Iterations of William.* 1638 . Thus far the Prince’s enterprise had prospered beyond the Dissen- anticipations of the most sanguine. And now, according to 111 the general law which governs human affairs, prosperity began Prince’s to produce disunion. The Englishmen assembled at Salis- camp ' bury were divided into two parties. One party consisted of Whigs who had always regarded the doctrines of passive obedience and of indefeasible hereditary right as slavish superstitions. Many of them had passed years in exile. All had been long shut out from participation in the favours of the crown. They now exulted in the near prospect of greatness and of vengeance. Burning with resentment, flushed with victory and hope, they would hear of no compromise. Nothing less than the deposition of their enemy would content them: nor can it be disputed that herein they were perfectly consistent. They had exerted themselves, nine years earlier, to exclude him from the throne, because they thought it likely that he would be a bad King. It could therefore scarcely be expected that they would willingly leave him on the throne, now that he had turned out a far worse King than any reasonable man could have anticipated. On the other hand, not a few of William’s followers were zealous Tories, who had, till very recently, held the doctrine of nonresistance in the most absolute form, but whose faith in that doctrine had, for a moment, given way to the strongs passions excited by the ingratitude of the King and by the peril of the Church. No situation could be more painful or perplexing than that of the old Cavalier who found himself in arms against the throne. The scruples which had not prevented him from repairing to the Dutch camp began to torment him cruelly as soon as he was there. His mind misgave him that he had committed a crime. At all events he had exposed himself to reproach, by acting in diametrical opposition to the professions of his whole life. He felt insurmountable disgust for his new allies. They were people whom, ever since he could remember, he had been reviling and perse* * titters, Nov. Dec. ft., 1C88. y 334 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap, cuting, Presbyterians, Independents, Anabaptists, old soldiers -jjjjj—of Cromwell, brisk boys of Shaftesbury, accomplices in the Rye House Plot, captains of the Western Insurrection. He naturally wished to find out some salvo which might sooth his conscience, which might vindicate his consistency, and which might put a distinction between him and the crew of schisma- tical rebels whom he had always despised and abhorred, but with whom he was now in danger of being confounded. He therefore disclaimed with vehemence all thought of taking the crown from that anointed head which the ordinance of heaven and the fundamental laws of the realm had made sacred. His dearest wish was to see a reconciliation effected on terms which would not lower the royal dignity. He was no traitor. He was not, in truth, resisting the kingly authority. He was in arms only becausehewas convinced that the best service which could be rendered to the throne was to rescue His Majesty, by a little gentle coercion, from the hands of wicked counsellors. The evils which the mutual animosity of these factions tended to produce were, to a great extent, averted by the ascendency and by the wisdom of the Prince. Surrounded by eager disputants, officious advisers, abject flatterers, vigilant spies, malicious talebearers, he remained serene and inscrutable. He preserved silence while silence was possible. When he was forced to speak, the earnest and peremptory tone in which he uttered his well weighed opinions soon silenced everybody else. Whatever some of his too zealous adherents might say, he uttered not a word indicating any design on the English crown. He was doubtless well aware that between him and that crown were still interposed obstacles which no prudence might be able to surmount, and which a single false step would make insurmountable. His only chance of obtaining the splendid prize was not to seize it rudely, but to wait till, without any appearance of exertion or stratagem on his part, his secret wish should be accomplished by the force of circumstances, by the blunders of his opponents, and by the free choice of the Estates of the Realm. Those who ventured to interrogate him learned nothing, and yet could not accuse him of shuffling. He quietly referred JAMES TIIE SECOND. 335 them to Ills Declaration, and assured them that his views had undergone no change since that instrument had been drawn up. So skilfully did he manage his followers that their discord seems rather to have strengthened than to have weakened his hands: but it broke forth with violence when his control was withdrawn, interrupted the harmony of convivial meetings, and did not respect even the sanctity of the house of God. Clarendon, who tried to hide from others and from himself, by an ostentatious display of loyal sentiments, the plain fact that he was a rebel, was shocked to hear some of his new associates laughing over their wine at the royal amnesty which had just been graciously offered to them. They wanted no pardon, they said. They would make the King ask pardon before they had done with him. Still more alarming and disgusting to every good Tory was an incident which happened at Salisbury Cathedral. As soon as the officiating minister began to read the collect for the King, Burnet, among whose many good qualities self-command and a fine sense of the becoming cannot be reckoned, rose from his knees, sate down in his stall, and uttered some contemptuous noises which disturbed the devotions of the congregation.* In a short time the factions which divided the Prince’s camp had an opportunity of measuring their strength. The royal Commissioners were on their way to him. Several days had elapsed since they had been appointed; and it was thought strange that, in a case of such urgency, there should be such delay. But in truth neither James nor William was desirous that negotiations should speedily commence; for James wished only to gain time sufficient for sending his wife and son into France; and the position of William became every day more commanding. At length the Prince caused it to be notified to the'Commissioners that he would meet them at Ilungerford. He probably selected this place because, lying at an equal distance from Salisbury and from Oxford, it was well situated for a rendezvous of his most important adherents. At Salisbury were those noblemen and gentlemen who had accompanied him from Holland or had joined him in • Clarendon’s Diary, Dec. 0, 7.1688. CHAP. IX. 1688 . 336 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap- the West; and at Oxford were many chiefs of the Northern • l6s ^ • insurrection. Tho Late on Thursday, the sixth of December, he reachedHun- reaches gerford. The little town was soon crowded with men of rank Hunger- and note who came thither from opposite quarters. The Prince was escorted by a strong body of troops. The northern Lords brought with them hundreds of irregular cavalry, whose accoutrements and horsemanship moved the mirth of men accustomed to the splendid aspect and exact movements of regular armies.* *• aMtead- While the Prince lay at Hungerford a sharp encounter inc - took place between two hundred and fifty of his troops and six hundred Irish, who were posted at Beading. The superior discipline of the invaders was signally proved on this occasion. Though greatly outnumbered, they, at one onset, drove the King’s forces in confusion through the streets of the town into the market-place. There the Irish attempted to rally; but, being vigorously attacked in front and fired upon at the same time by the inhabitants from the windows of the neighbouring houses, they soon lost heart, and fled with the loss of their colours and of fifty men. Of the conquerors only five fell. The satisfaction which-tliis news gave to the Lords and gentlemen who had joined William was unmixed. There was nothing in what had happened to gall their national feelings. The Dutch had not beaten the English, but had assisted an English town to free itself from the insupportable dominion of the Irish.* ThcEng’s On the morning of Saturday, the eighth of December, ?ioners' - the King’s Commissioners reached Hungerford. The Prince’s Hunger 11 body guard was drawn up to receive them with military reford. spect. Bentinck welcomed them, and proposed to conduct them immediately to his master. They expressed a hope that the Prince would favour them with a private audience; but they were informed that he had resolved to hear them and answer them in public. They were ushered into his bed- * Clarendon’s Diary, Dec. 1 . 1688 . *• History of the Desertion; Citters, Dec. ft. 1688 ; Exact Diary; Oldmixon, 160 . JAMES THE SECOND. 337 chamber, where they found him surrounded by a crowd of c ^- noblemen and gentlemen. Halifax, whose rank, age, and abili- i Csa . ties entitled him to precedence, was spokesman. The propo- Negolil _ sition which the Commissioners had been instructed to make li ° n> was that the points in dispute should be referred to the Parliament, for which the writs weje already sealing, and that in the mean time the Prince’s army would not come within thirty or forty miles of London. Halifax, having explained that this was the basis on which he and his colleagues were prepared to treat, put into William’s hands a letter from the King, and retired. William opened the letter and seemed unusually moved. It was the first letter which he had received from his father-in- law since they had become avowed enemies. Once they had been on good terms and had written to each other familiarly; nor had they, even when they had begun to regard each other with suspicion and aversion, banished from their correspondence those forms of kindness which persons nearly related by blood and marriage commonly use. The letter which the Commissioners had brought was drawn up by a secretary in diplomatic form and in the French language. “I have had many letters from the King,” said William, “but they were all in English, and in his own hand.” He spoke with a sensibility which he was little in the habit of displaying. Perhaps he thought at that moment how much reproach his enterprise, just, beneficent, and necessary as it was, must bring on him and on the wife who was devoted to him. Perhaps he repined at the hard fate which had placed him in such a situation that he could fulfil his public duties only by breaking through domestic ties, and envied the happier condition of those who are not responsible for the welfare of nations and Churches. But such thoughts, if they rose in his mind, were firmly suppressed. He requested the Lords and gentlemen whom he had convoked on this occasion to consult together, unrestrained by his presence, as to the answer which ought to be returned. To himself, however, he reserved the power of deciding in the last resort, after hearing their opinion. He then left them, and retired to Littlecote Hall, a manor house situated about two miles off', and renowned down to our Macaulay, History, III, 22 338 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap, own times, not more on account of its venerable architecture —and furniture than on account of a horrible and mysterious crime which was perpetrated there in the days of the Tudors.* Before he left Hungerford, lie was told that Halifax had expressed a great desire to see Burnet. In this desire there was nothing strange; for Halifax and Burnet had long been on terms of friendship. No two men, indeed, could resemble each other less. Burnet was utterly destitute of delicacy and tact. Halifax’s taste was fastidious, and his sense of the ludicrous morbidly quick. Burnet viewed every act and every character through a medium distorted and coloured by party spirit. The tendency of Halifax’s mind was always to see the faults of his allies more strongly than the faults of his opponents. Burnet was, with all his infirmities, and through all the vicissitudes of a life passed in circumstances not very favourable to piety, a sincerely pious man. The sceptical and sarcastic Halifax lay under the imputation of infidelity. Halifax therefore often incurred Burnet’s indignant censure; and Burnet was often the butt of Halifax’s keen and polished pleasantry. Yet they were drawn to each other by a mutual attraction, liked each other’s conversation, appreciated each other’s abilities, interchanged opinions freely, and interchanged also good offices in perilous times. It was not, however, merely from personal regard that Halifax now wished to see Bis old acquaintance. The Commissioners must have been anxious to know what was the Prince’s real aim. He had refused to see them in private; and little could be learned from what he might say in a formal and public interview. Almost all those who were admitted to his confidence were men taciturn and impenetrable as himself. Burnet was the only exception. He was notoriously garrulous and indiscreet. Yet circumstances had made it necessary to trust him; and he would doubtless, under the dexterous management of Halifax, have poured out secrets as fast as words. William knew this well, and, when he was informed that Halifax was * See a very interesting note on the fifth canto of Sir Waller Scott’s Rokeby. JAMES THE SECOND. 339 asking for the Doctor, could not refrain from exclaiming, “If they get together there -will be fine tattling.” Burnet was ■ forbidden to see the Commissioners in private; but he was assured in very courteous terms that his fidelity was regarded by the Prince as above all suspicion; and, that there might be no'ground for complaint, the prohibition was made general. That afternoon the noblemen and gentlemen whose advice William had asked met in the great room of the principal inn a,t Hungerford. Oxford was placed in the chair; and the King’s overtures were taken into consideration. It soon appeared that the assembly was divided into two parties, a party anxious to come to terms with the King, and a party bent on his destruction. The latter party had the numerical superiority: but it was observed that Shrewsbury, who of all the English nobles was supposed to enjoy the largest share of William’s confidence, though a Whig, sided on this occasion with the Tories. After much altercation the question was put. The majority was for rejecting the proposition which the royal Commissioners had been instructed to make. The resolution of the assembly was reported.to the Prince at Littlecote. On no occasion during the whole course of his eventful life did he show more prudence and self-command. He could not wish the negotiation to succeed. But he was far too wise a man not to know that, if unreasonable demands made by him should cause it to fail, public feeling would no longer be on his side. He therefore overruled the opinion of his too eager followers, and declared his determination to treat on the basis proposed by the King. Many of the Lords and gentlemen assembled at Hungerford remonstrated: a whole day was spent in bickering: but William’s purpose was immovable. He declared himself willing to refer all the questions in dispute to the Parliament which had just been summoned, and not to advance within forty miles of London. On his side he made some demands which even those who were least disposed to commend him allowed to be moderate. He insisted that the existing statutes should be obeyed till they should be altered by competent authority, and that all CUAP. IX. 1688 . 340 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap, persons who held offices without a legal qualification should — be forthwith dismissed. The deliberations of the Parliament, he justly conceived, could not be free if it was to sit surrounded by Irish regiments while he and his army lay at a distance of several marches. He therefore thought it reasonable that, since his troops were not to advance within forty miles of London on the west, the King’s troops should fall back as far to the east. There would thus be, round the spot where the Houses were to meet, a wide circle of neutral ground. Within that circle, indeed, there were two fastnesses of great importance to the people of the capital, the Tower, which commanded their dwellings, and Tilbury Fort, which commanded their maritime trade. It was impossible to leave these places ungarrisoned. William therefore proposed that they should be temporarily entrusted to the care of the City of London. It might possibly be convenient that, when the Parliament assembled, the King should repair to Westminster with a body guard. The Prince announced that, in that case, he should claim the right of repairing thither also with an equal number of soldiers. It seemed to him just that, while military operations were suspended, both the armies should be considered as alike engaged in the service of the English nation, and should be alike maintained out of the English revenue. Lastly, he required some guarantee that the King would not take advantage of the armistice for the purpose of introducing a French force into England. The point where there was most danger was Portsmouth. The Prince did not however insist that this important fortress should be delivered up to him, but proposed that it should, during the truce, be under the government of an officer in whom both himself and James could confide. ' The propositions of William were framed with a punctilious fairness, such as might have been expected rather from a disinterested umpire pronouncing an award than from a victorious prince dictating to a helpless enemy. No fault could be found with them by the partisans of the King. But among the Whigs there was much murmuring. They wanted no reconciliation with their old master. They thought them- JAMES THE SECOND. 341 selves absolved from all allegiance to hiin. They were not CI |£ P ' disposed to recognise the authority of a Parliament convoked - 1688 , by his writ. They were averse to an armistice; and they could not conceive why, if there was to be an armistice, it should be an armistice on equal terms. By all the laws of war the stronger party had a right to take advantage of his strength; and what was there in the character of James to justify any extraordinary indulgence? Those who reasoned thus little knew from how elevated a point of view, and with how discerning an eye, the leader whom they censured contemplated the whole situation of England and Europe. They were eager to ruin James, and would therefore either have refused to treat with him on any conditions, or have imposed on him conditions insupportably hard. To the success of William’s vast and profound scheme of policy it was necessary that James should ruin himself by rejecting conditions ostentatiously liberal. The event proved the wisdom of the course which the majority of the Englishmen at Hungerford were inclined to condemn. On Sunday, the ninth of December, the Prince’s demands were put in writing, and delivered to Halifax. The Commissioners dined at Littlecote. A splendid assemblage had been invited to meet them. The old hall, hung with coats of mail which had seen the wars of the Boses, and with portraits of gallants who had adorned the Court of Philip and Mary, was now crowded with Peers and Generals. In such a throng a short question and answer might be exchanged without attracting notice Halifax seized this opportunity, the first which had presented itself, of extracting all that Burnet knew or thought. “What is it that you want?” said the dexterous diplomatist; “do you wish to get the King into yourpower?” “Notatall,” saidBurnet; “we would not do the least harm to his person.” “And if he were to go away?” said Halifax. “There is nothing,” saidBurnet, “so much to be wished.” There can be no doubt that Burnet expressed the general sentiment of the Whigs in the Prince’s camp. They were all desirous that James should fly from the country: but only a few of the wisest among them understood how 342 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. J688, The Queen aud Prince of Wales sent to France. Lauzun. important it was that his flight should he ascribed by the nation to his own folly and perverseness, and not to harsh usage and well grounded apprehension. It seems probable that, even in the extremity to which he was now reduced, all his enemies united would have been unable to effect his complete overthrow had he not been his own worst enemy: but, while his Commissioners were labouring to save him, he was labouring as earnestly to make all their efforts useless. * His plans were at length ripe for execution. The pretended negotiation had answered its purpose. On the same day on which the three Lords reached Hungerford the Prince of Wales arrived at Westminster. It had been intended that he should come over London Bridge; and some Irish troops were sent to Southwark to meet him. But they were received by a great multitude with such hooting and execration that they thought it advisable to retire with all speed. The poor child crossed the Thames at Kingston, and was brought into Whitehall so privately that many believed him to be still at Portsmouth.** To send him and the Queen out of the country without delay was now the first object of James. But who could be trusted to manage the escape? Dartmouth was the most loyal of Protestant Tories ; and Dartmouth had refused. Dover was a creature of the Jesuits; and even Dover had hesitated. It was not very easy to find an Englishman of rank and honour who would undertake to place the heir apparent of the English crown in the hands of the King of France. In these circumstances, James bethought him of a French nobleman who then resided in London, Antonine, Count of Lauzun. Of this man it has been said that his life was stranger than the dreams of other people. At an early age he had been the intimate associate of Lewis, and had been encouraged to * My account of what passed at Hungerford is taken from Clarendon's Diary, Dec. 8, 9. 1688 ; Burnet, i. 794.; the Paper delivered to the Prince by the Commissioners, and the Prince’s Answer; Sir Patrick Hume’s Diary; Citters, Dec. ,V ** Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 237. Burnet, strange to say, had not heard, or had forgotten, that the prince was brought back to London, i. 796. JAMES THE SECOND. 34 ? expect the highest employments under the French crown. chap. Then his fortunes had undergone an eclipse. Lewis had 1688 ; driven from him the friend of his youth with bitter reproaches, and had, it was said, scarcely refrained from adding blows. The fallen favourite had been sent prisoner to a.fortress: but he had emerged from his confinement, had again enjoyed the smiles of his master, and had gained the heart of one of the greatest ladies in Europe, Anna Maria, daughter of Gaston, Duke of Orleans, granddaughter of King Henry the Fourth, and heiress of the immense domains of the house of Mont- pensier. The lovers were bent on marriage. The royal consent was obtained. During a few hours Lauzun was regarded by the court as an adopted member of the house of Bourbon. The portion which the princess brought with her might well have been an object of competition to sovereigns; three great dukedoms, an independent principality with its own mint and with its own tribunals, and an income greatly exceeding the whole revenue of the kingdom of Scotland. But this splendid prospect had been overcast. The match had been broken off. The aspiring suitor had been, during many years, shut up in an Alpine castle. At length Lewis relented. Lauzun was forbidden to appear in the royal presence, but was allowed to enjoy liberty at a distance from the court. He visited England, and was well received at the palace of James and in the fashionable circles of London; for in that age the gentlemen of France were regarded throughout Europe as models of grace; and many Chevaliers and Viscounts, who had never been admitted to the interior circle at Versailles, found themselves objects of general curiosity and admiration at Whitehall. Lauzun was in every respect the man for the present emergency. He had courage and a sense of honour, had been accustomed to eccentric adventures, and, with the keen observation and ironical pleasantry of a finished man of the world, had a strong propensity to knight errantry. All his national feelings and all his personal interests impelled him to undertake the adventure from which the most devoted subjects of the English crown seemed to shrink. As the guardian, at a perilous crisis, of the Queen 344 HISTORY Oil' ENGLAND. chap, of Great Britain and of the Prince of Wales, he might return -j——with honour to his native land; he might once more be admitted to see Lewis dress and dine, and might, after so many vicissitudes, recommence, 'in the decline of life, the strangely fascinating chase of royal favour. Animated by such feelings, Lauzun eagerly accepted the high trust which was offered to him. The arrangements for the flight were promptly made: a vessel was ordered to be in readiness at Gravesend: but to reach Gravesend was not easy. The City was in a state of extreme agitation. The slightest cause sufficed to bring a crowd together. No foreigner could appear in the streets without risk of being stopped, questioned, and carried before a magistrate as a Jesuit in disguise. It was, therefore, necessary to take the road on the south of the Thames. No precaution which could quiet suspicion was omitted. The King and Queen retired to rest as usual. When the palace had been some time profoundly quiet, James rose and called a servant who was in attendance. “ You will find,” 6aid the King, “ a man at the door of the antechamber; bring him hither.” The servant obeyed, and Lauzun was ushered into the royalbedchamber. “I confideto you,” said James, “my Queen and my son; everything must be risked to carry them into France.” Lauzun, with a truly chivalrous spirit, returned thanks for the dangerous honour which had been conferred on him, and begged permission to avail himself of the assistance of his friend Saint Victor, a gentleman of Provence, whose courage and faith had been often tried. The services of so valuable an assistant were readily accepted. Lauzun gave his hand to Mary; Saint Victor wrapped up in his warm cloak the ill fated heir of so many Kings. The party stole down the back stairs, and embarked in an open skiff. It was a miserable voyage. The night was bleak: the rain fell: the wind roared: the waves were rough: at length the boat reached Lambeth; and the fugitives landed near an inn, where a coach and horses were in waiting. Some time elapsed before the horses could be harnessed. Mary, afraid that her face might be known, would not enter the house. She remained with her child, cowering for shelter from the storm under the tower JAMES THE SECOND. 345 of Lambeth Church, and distracted by terror whenever the chap. ostler approached her with his lantern. Two of her women ■ 16S 3" attended her, one who gave suck to the Prince, and one whose office was to rock his cradle; but they could be of little use to their mistress; for both were foreigners who could hardly speak the English language, and who shuddered at the rigour of the English climate. The only consolatory circumstance was that the little boy was well, and uttered not a single cry. At length the coach was ready. Saint Victor followed it on horseback. The fugitives reached Gravesend safely, and embarked in the yacht which waited for them. They found there Lord Powis and his wife. Three Irish officers were also on board. These men had been sent thither in order that they might assist Lauzun in any desperate emergency; for it was thought not impossible that the captain of the ship might prove false; and it was fully determined that, on the first suspicion of treachery, he should be stabbed to the heart. There was, however, no necessity for violence. The yacht proceeded down the river with a fair wind; and Saint Victor, having seen her under sail, spurred back with the good news to Whitehall.* On the morning of Monday the tenth of December, the King learned that his wife and son had begun their voyage with a fair prospect of reaching their destination. About the same time a courier arrived at the palace with despatches from Ilungerford. Had James been a little more discerning, ora little less obstinate, those despatches would have induced him to reconsider all his plans. The Commissioners wrote hopefully. The conditions proposed by the conqueror were strangely liberal. The King himself could not refrain from exclaiming that they were more favourable than he could have expected. He might indeed not unreasonably suspect that they had been framed with no friendly design: but this mattered nothing; for, whether they were offered in the hope * Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 246.; P6re d’Orleans, Revolutions d'Angleterre, xi.; Madame de Sdvignd, Dec. jj. 1688; Dangeau, JVle— moires, Dcc.il. As to Lauzun, see the Memoirs of Mademoiselle and of the Duke of St, Simon, and the Characters of Labrujere, 346 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. IX. 1688 . The King’s preparations for flight. that, by closing -with them, he would lay the ground for a happy reconciliation, or, as is more likely, in the hope that, by rejecting them, he would exhibit himself to the whole nation as utterly unreasonable and incorrigible, his course was equally clear. In either case his policy was to accept them promptly and to observe them faithfully. But it soon appeared that William had perfectly understood the character with which he had to deal, and, in offering those terms which the Whigs at Hungerford had censured as too indulgent, had risked nothing. The solemn farce by which the public had been amused since the retreat of the royal army from Salisbury was prolonged during a few hours. All the Lords who were still in the capital were invited to the palace that they might be informed of the progress of the negotiation which had been opened by their advice. Another meeting of Peers was appointed for the following day. The Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs of London were also summoned to attend the King. He exhorted them to perform their duties vigorously, and owned that he had thought it expedient to send his wife and child out of the country, but assured them that he would himself remain at his post. While he uttered this unkingly and unmanly falsehood, his fixed purpose was to depart before daybreak. Already he had entrusted his most valuable moveables to the care of several foreign Ambassadors. His most important papers had been deposited with the Tuscan minister. But before the flight there was still something to be done. The tyrant pleased himself with the thought that he might avenge himself on a people who had been impatient of his despotism byinflicting on them at parting all the evils of anarchy. He ordered the Great Seal and the writs for the new Parliament to be brought to his apartment. The writs which could be found he threw into the fire. Those which had been already sent out he annulled by an instrument drawn up in legal form. To Feversham he wrote a letter which could be understood only as a command to disband the army. Still, however, the King concealed his intention of absconding even from his chief ministers. Just before he retired he directed Jeffreys to be in the closet early JAMES THE SECOND. 347 on the morrow; and, while stepping into bed, whispered to CI1 I -* 1 '- Mulgrave that the news from Hungerford was highly satis- 1(j88 . factory. Everybody withdrew except the Duke of Northumberland. This young man, a natural son of Charles the Second by the Duchess of Cleveland, commanded a troop of Life Guards, and was a Lord of the Bedchamber. It seems to have been then the custom of the court that, in the Queen’s absence, a Lord of the Bedchamber should sleep on a pallet in the King’s room; and it was Northumberland’s turn to perform this duty. At three in the morning of Tuesday the eleventh of De- His night, cember, James rose, took the Great Seal in his hand, laid his commands on Northumberland not to open the door of the bedchamber till the usual hour, and disappeared through a secret passage; the same passage probably through which Huddleston had been brought to the bedside of the late king. Sir Edward Hales was in attendance with a hackney coach. James was conveyed to Millbank, where he crossed the Thames in a small wherry. As he passedLambeth he flung the Great Seal into the midst of the stream, where, after many months, it was accidentally caught by a fishing net and dragged up. At Vauxhall he landed. A carriage and horses had been stationed there for him; and he immediately took the road towards Sheemess, where a hoy belonging to the Custom House had been ordered to await his arrival.* * History of the Desertion; Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 251. Orig. Mem.; Mulgrave’s Account of the Revolution; Burnet, i. 295. CHAPTER X. chap. Northumberland strictly obeyed the injunction -which - -fga fc— had been laid on him, and did not open the door of the royal The flight apartment till it was broad day. The antechamber was filled known CS courtiers who came to make their morning bow and with Lords who had been summoned to Council. The news of James’s flight passed in an instant from the galleries to the streets; and the whole capital was in commotion. Great agi- it was a terrible moment. The King was gone. The Prince had not arrived. No Regency had been appointed. The Great Seal, essential to the administration of ordinary justice, had disappeared. It was soon known that Feversham had, on the receipt of the royal order, instantly disbanded his forces. What respect for law or property was likely to be found among soldiers, armed and congregated, emancipated from'the restraints of discipline, and destitute of the necessaries of life? On the other hand, the populace of London had, during some weeks, shown a strong disposition to turbulence and rapine. The urgency of the crisis united for a short time all who had any interest in the peace of society. Rochester had till that day adhered firmly to the royal cause. He now saw that there was only one way of averting general confusion. “Call your troop of Guards together,” he said to Northumberland, “and declare for the Prince of Orange.” The advice was promptly followed. The principal officers of the army who were then in London held a meeting at Whitehall, and resolved that they would submit to William’s authority, and would, till his pleasure should be known, keep their men together and assist the civil power to preserve The Lords order.* The Peers repaired to Guildhall, and were received Guildhall, there with all honour by the magistracy of the city, in stnet- * History of the Desertion; Mulgrave’s Account of the Revolution; Eachard’s History of the Revolution JAMES THE SECOND. ness of law they were no better entitled than any other set of persons to assume the executive administration. But it- was necessary to the public safety that there should be a provisional government; and the eyes of men naturally turned to the hereditary magnates of the realm. The extremity of the danger drew Sancroft forth from his palace. He took the chair; and, under his presidency, the new Archbishop of York, five Bishops, and twenty-two temporal Lords, determined to draw up, subscribe, and publish a Declaration. By this instrument they declared that they were firmly attached to the religion and constitution of their country, and that they had cherished the hope of seeing grievances redressed and tranquillity restored by the Parliament which the King had lately summoned, but that this hope had been extinguished by liis flight. They had therefore determined to join with the Prince of Orange, in order that the freedom of the nation might be vindicated, that the rights of the Church might be secured, that a just liberty of conscience might be given to Dissenters, and that the Protestant interest throughout the world might be strengthened. Till His Highness should arrive, they were prepared to take on themselves the responsibility of giving such directions as might be necessary for the preservation of order. A deputation was instantly sent to lay this Declaration before the Prince, and to inform him that he was impatiently expected in London. * The Lords then proceeded to deliberate on the course which it was necessary to take for the prevention of tumult. They sent for the two Secretaries of State. Middleton refused to submit to what he regarded as an usurped authority: but Preston, astounded by his master’s flight, and not knowing what to expect, or whither to turn, obeyed the summons. A message was sent to Skelton, who was Lieutenant of the Tower, requesting his attendance at Guildhall. He came, and was told that his services were no longer wanted, and that he must instantly deliver up his keys. He was succeeded by Lord Lucas. At the same time the Peers ordered a letter to be written to Dartmouth, enjoining him to refrain from all * London Gazette. Dec. 13. 1688 . 349 CHAP. X. 350 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap, hostile operations against the Dutch fleet, and to displace all -■ fgg'^ the Popish officers who held commands under him. * The part taken in the proceedings by Sancroft, and by some other persons who had, up to that day, been strictly faithful to the principle of passive obedience, deserves especial notice. To usurp the command of the military and naval forces of the state, to remove the officers whom the King had set over his castles and his ships, and to prohibit his Admiral from giving battle to his enemies, was surely nothing less than rebellion. Yet several honest and able Tories of the school of Filmer persuaded themselves that they could do all these things without incurring the guilt of resisting their Sovereign. The distinction which they took was, at least, ingenious. Government, they said, is the ordinance of God. Hereditary monarchical government is eminently the ordinance of God. While the King commands what is lawful we must obey him actively. When he commands what is unlawful we must obey him passively. In no extremity are we justified in withstanding him by force. But, if he chooses to resign his office, his rights over us are at an end. While he governs us, though he may govern us ill, we are bound to submit: but, if he refuses to govern us at all, we are not bound to remain for ever without a government. Anarchy is not the ordinance of God; nor will he impute it to us as a sin that, when a prince, whom, in spite of extreme provocations, we have never ceased to honour and obey, has departed we know not whither, leaving no vicegerent, we take the only course which can prevent the entire dissolution of society. Had our Sovereign remained among us, we were ready, little as he.deserved our love, to die at his feet. Had he, when he quitted us, appointed a regency to govern us with vicarious authority during his absence, to that regency alone should we have looked for direction. But he has disappeared, having made no provision for the preservation of order or the administration of justice. With him, and with his Great Seal, has vanished the whole machinery by * Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 259.; Mulgrave’s Account of the Revolution; Legge Papers in the mackintosh Collection. JAMES THE SECOND. 351 which a murderer can be punished, by which the right to an chap. estate can be decided, by which the effects of a bankrupt TossT" can be distributed. His last act has been to free thousands of armed men from the restraints of military discipline, and to place them in such a situation that they must plunder or starve. Yet a few hours, and every man’s hand will be against his neighbour. Life, property, female honour, will be at the mercy of every lawless spirit. We are at . this moment actually in that state of nature about which theorists have written so much; and in that state we have been placed, not by our fault, but by the voluntary defection of him who ought to have been our protector. His defection may be justly called voluntary: for neither his life nor his liberty was in danger. His enemies had just consented to treat with him on a basis proposed by himself, and had offered immediately to suspend all hostile operations, on conditions which he could not deny to be liberal. In such circumstances it is that he has abandoned his trust. We retract nothing. We are in nothing inconsistent. We still assert our old doctrines without qualification. We still hold thUt it is in all cases sinful to resist the magistrate: but we say that there is no longer any magistrate to resist. He who was the magistrate, after long abusing his powers, has at last abdicated them. The abuse did not give us aright to depose him: but the abdication gives us a right to consider how we may best supply his place. It was on these grounds that the Prince’s party was now swollen by many adherents who had previously stood aloof from it. Never, within the memory of man, had there been so near an approach to entire concord among all intelligent Englishmen as at this conjuncture: and never had concord been more needed. Legitimate authority there was none. All those evil passions which it is the office of government to restrain, and which the best governments restrain but imperfectly, were on a sudden emancipated from control; avarice, licentiousness, revenge, the hatred of sect to sect, the hatred of nation to nation. On such occasions it will ever be found that the human vermin which, neglected by ministers of state 'jT- 352 HISTORY OF ENGLAND, CHAP. X. 168 S. Riots in London. and ministers of religion, barbarous in the midst of civilisation, heathen in the midst of Christianity, burrows among all physical and all moral pollution, in the cellars and garrets of great cities, will at once rise into a terrible importance. So it was now in London. When the night, the longest night, as it chanced, of the year, approached, forth came from every den of vice, from the bear garden at Hockley, and from the labyrinth of tippling houses and brothels in the Friars, thousands of housebreakers and highwaymen, cut- purses and ring-droppers. With these were mingled thousands of idle apprentices, who wished merely for the excitement of a riot. Even men of peaceable and honest habits were impelled by religious animosity to join the lawless part of the population. For the cry of No Popery, a cry which has more than once endangered the existence of London, was the signal for outrage and rapine. First the rabble fell on the Roman Catholic places of worship. The buildings were demolished. Benches, pulpits, confessionals, breviaries were heaped up and set on fire. A great mountain of books and furniture blazed on the site of the convent at Clerkenwell. Another pile was kindled before the ruins of the Franciscan house in Lincoln’s InnFields. The chapel in Lime Street, the chapel in Bucklersbury, were pulled down. The pictures, images and crucifixes were carried along the streets in triumph, amidst lighted tapers torn from the altars. The procession bristled thick with swords and staves, and on the point of every sword and of every staff was an orange. The King’s printing house, whence had issued, during the preceding three years, innumerable tracts in defence of Papal supremacy, image worship, and monastic vows, was, to use a coarse metaphor which then, for the first time, came into use, completely gutted. The vast stock of paper, much of which was still unpolluted by types, furnished an immense bonfire. From monasteries, temples, and public o'ffices, the fury of the multitude turned to private dwellings. Several houses were pillaged and destroyed: but the smallness of the booty disappointed the plunderers; and soon a rumour was spread that the most valuable effects of the Papists had been JAMES THE SECOND. 353 placed under the care of the foreign Ambassadors. To the chap. savage and ignorant populace the law of nations and the risk 168S 7 _ of bringing on their country the just vengeance of all Europe were as nothing. The houses of the Ambassadors were besieged. A great crowd assembled before Barillon’s door in St. James’s Square. He, however, fared better than might have been expected. For, though the government which he represented was held in abhorrence, his liberal housekeeping and exact payments had made him personally popular. Moreover he had taken the precaution of asking for a guard of soldiers; and, as several men of rank, who lived near him, had done the same, a considerable force was collected in the Square. The rioters, therefore, when they were assured that no arms or priests were concealed under his roof, left him unmolested. The Venetian Envoy was protected by a detachment of troops: but the mansions occupied by the ministers of the Elector Palatine and of the Grand Duke of Tuscany were destroyed. One precious box the Tuscan minister was able to save from the marauders. It contained nine volumes of memoirs, written in the hand of James himself. These volumes reached France in safety, and, after the lapse of more than a century, perished there in the havoc of a revolution far more terrible than that from which they had escaped. But some fragments still remain, and, though grievously mutilated, and imbedded in great masses of childish fiction, well deserve to be attentively studied. The rich plate of the Chapel Royal had been deposited at The Wildllouse, near Lincoln’s Inn Fields, the residence of thef^” 1 '^ Spanish ambassador Ronquillo. Ronquillo, conscious that London, had hesitated about the journey, and had, at one time, deter- mined to make another attempt to reach the Continent. But at length he yielded to the urgency of friends who were wiser than himself, and set out for Whitehall. He arrived there on the afternoon of Sunday, the sixteenth of December. He had been apprehensive that the common people, who, during his absence, had given so many proofs of their aversion to Popery, would offer him some affront. But the very violence of the recent outbreak had produced a remission. The storm had spent itself. Good humour and pity had succeeded to fury. In no quarter was any disposition shown to insult the King. Some cheers were raised as his coach passed through the City. The bells of some churches were rung; and a few bonfires were lighted in honour of his return.** His feeble mind, which had just before been sunk in despondency, was extravagantly elated by these unexpected signs of popular goodwill and compassion. He entered his dwelling in high spirits. It speedily resumed its old aspect. Roman Catholic priests, who had, during the preceding week, been glad to hide them- * Clarendon’s Diary, Dec. 16. 1GS8; Burnet, i. 800 . ** Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 262. Orig. Mem.; Burnet, i. 799. In the History of the Desertion (1689), it is affirmed that the shouts on this occasion were uttered merely by some idle boys, and that the great body of the people looked on in silence. Oldmixon, who was in the crowd, says the same; and Ralph, whose prejudices were very different from Old- mixon’s, tells us that the information which he had received from a respectable eye witness was to the same effect. The truth probably is that the signs of joy were in themselves slight, but seemed extraordinary because a violent explosion of public indignation had been expected. Barillon mentions that there had been acclamations and some bonfires, but adds, “Le people dans le fond est pour le Prince d’Orange,” Dec. i?. 1688. JAMES THE SECOND. 369 selves from the rage of the multitude in vaults and coklofts, ciiap. now came forth from their lurking places, and demanded pos- J638 , session of their old apartments in the palace. Grace was said at the royal table by a Jesuit. The Irish brogue, then the most hateful of all sounds to English ears, was heard everywhere in the courts and galleries. The King himself had resumed all his old haughtiness. He held a Council, his last Council, and, even in that extremity, summoned to the board persons not legally qualified to sit there. He expressed high displeasure at the conduct of those Lords who, during his absence , had dared to take the administration on themselves. It was their duty, he conceived, to let society be dissolved, to let the houses of Ambassadors be pulled down, to let London be set on fire, rather than assume the functions which he had thought fit to abandon. Among those whom he thus censured were some nobles and prelates who, in spite of all his errors, had been constantly true to him, and who, even after this provocation, never could be induced by hope or fear to transfer their allegiance from him to any other sovereign. * But his courage was soon cast down. Scarcely had he entered his palace when Zulestein was announced. William’s cold and stern message was delivered. The King still pressed for a personal conference with his nephew. “I would not have left Rochester,” he said, “if I had known that he wished me not to do so: but, since I am here, I hope that he will come to Saint James’s. ” “I must plainly tell your Majesty,” said Zulestein, “that His Highness will not come to London while there are any troops here which are not under his orders.” The King, confounded by this answer, remained silent. Zulestein retired; and soon a gentleman entered the bedchamber with the news that Feversliam had been put under arrest.** James was greatly disturbed. Yet the recollection of the applause with which he had been greeted still buoyed up his spirits. A wild hope rose in his mind. He * London Gazelle, Dec. 16. 1688; Mulgrave’s Account of Ihe Revolution; Uislory of ihe Deseriion; Burnet, i. 799.; Evelyn’s Diary. Dec. 13, 17. 1688. ’ Clarke’s Hislory of James, ii. 262. Orig. Mem. Macaulay, History. III. 24= / 370 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. X. 168S. Consultation at ■Windsor. fancied that London, so long the stronghold of Protestantism and Whiggism, was ready to take arms in his defence. He sent to ask the Common Council whether, if he took up his residence in the City, they would engage to defend him against the Prince. But the Common Council had not forgotten the seizure of the charter and the judicial murder of Cornish, and refused to give the pledge which was demanded. Then the King’s heart again sank within him. Where, ho asked, was he to look for protection? He might as well have Dutch troops about him as his own Life Guards. As to the citizens, he now understood what their huzzas and bonfires were worth. Nothing remained hut flight: and yet, he said, he knew that there was nothing which his enemies so much desired as that he would fly. * While he was in this state of trepidatibn, his fate was the subject of a grave deliberation at Windsor. The court of William was now crowded to overflowing with eminent men of all parties. Most of the chiefs of the Northern insurrection had joined him. Several of the Lords, who had, during the anarchy of the preceding week, taken upon themselves to act as a provisional government, had, as soon as the King returned, quitted London for the Dutch head quarters. One of these was Halifax. William had welcomed him with great satisfaction, but had not been able to suppress a sarcastic smile at seeing the ingenious and accomplished politician, who had aspired to be the umpire in that great contention, forced to abandon the middle course and to take a side. Among those who, at this conjuncture, repaired to Windsor were some men who had purchased the favour of James by ignominious services, and who were now impatient to atone, by betraying their master, for the crime of having betrayed their country. Such a man was Titus, who had sate at the Council board in defiance of law, and who had laboured to unite the Puritans with the Jesuits in a league against the constitution. Such a man was Williams, who had been converted by interest from a demagogue into a champion of prerogative, and who was now ready Barillon, Dec. 1688; Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 211. JAMES THE SECOND. 371 Air a second apostasy. These men the Prince, with just contempt, suffered to wait at the door of his apartment in vain- expectation of an audience. * On Monday, the seventeenth of December, all the Peers who were at Windsor were summoned to a solemn consultation at the Castle. The subject proposed for deliberation was what should be done with the King. William did not think it advisable to be present during the discussion. He retired; and Halifax was called to the chair. On one point the Lords were agreed. The King could not be suffered to remain where he was. That one prince should fortify himself in Whitehall and the other in Saint James’s, that there should be two hostile garrisons within an area of a hundred acres, was universally felt to be inexpedient. Such an arrangement could scarcely fail to produce suspicions, insults, and bickerings which might end in blood. The assembled Lords, therefore, thought it advisable that James should be sent out of London. Ham, which had been built and decorated by Lauderdale, on the banks of the Thames, out of the plunder of Scotland and the bribes of France, and which was regarded as the most luxurious of villas, was proposed as a convenient retreat. When the Lords had come to this conclusion, they requested the Prince to join them. Their opinion was then communicated to him by Halifax. William listened and approved. A short message to the King was drawn up. “Whom,” said William, “shall we send with it?” “Ought it not,” said Halifax, “to be conveyed by one of your Highness’s officers?” “Nay, my Lord,” answered the Prince; “by your favour, it is sent by the advice of your Lordships, and some of you ought to carry it.” Then, without pausing to give time for remonstrance, he appointed Halifax, Shrewsbury, and Delamere to be the messengers. ** The resolution of the Lords appeared to be unanimous. But there were in the assembly those who by no means ap- * Mulgrave’s Account of the Revolution; Clarendon’s Diary, Dec. 16. 1688. ** Burnet, i. 800.; Clarendon’s Diary, Dec. 11. 1688; Citters, Dec. 1|. 1688. 24 * cnAP. x. 1GSS. 372 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. cnAP. x. J688. t proved of the decision in which they affected to concur, ana who wished to see the King treated with a severity which they did not venture openly to recommend. It is a remarkable fact that the chief of this party was a peer who had been a vehement Tory, and who afterwards died a Nonjuror, Clarendon. The rapidity, with which, at this crisis, he went backward and forward from extreme to extreme, might seem incredible to people living in quiet times, but will not surprise those who have had an opportunity of watching the course of revolutions. He knew that the asperity, with which he had, in the royal presence, censured the whole system of government, had given mortal offence to his old master. On the other hand he might, as the uncle of the Princesses, hope to be great and rich in the new world which was about to commence. The English colony in Ireland regarded him as a friend and patron; and he felt that on the confidence and attachment of that great interest much of his importance depended. To such considerations as these the principles, which he had, during his whole life, ostentatiously professed, now gave way. He repaired to the Prince’s closet, and represented the danger of leaving the King at liberty. The Protestants of Ireland were in extreme peril. There was only one way to secure their estates and their lives; and that was to keep His Majesty close prisoner. It might not be prudent to shut him up in an English castle. But he might be sent across the sea and confined in the fortress of Breda till the affairs of the British Islands were settled. If the Prince were in possession of such a hostage, Tyrconnel would probably lay down the sword of state; and the English ascendency would be restored in Ireland without a blow. If, on the other hand, James should escape to France and make his appearance at Dublin, accompanied by a foreign army, the consequences must be disastrous. William owned that there was great weight in these reasons: but it couldnotbe. He knew his wife’s temper; and he knew that she never would consent to such a step. Indeed it would not be for his own honour to treat his vanquished kinsman so ungraciously. Nor was it quite clear that generosity might not be the best policy. Who ■TAMES THE SECOND. 373 could say what effect such severity as Clarendon recommended cn £ p - might produce on the public mind of England? Was it im- 1688i possible that the loyal enthusiasm, which the King’s misconduct had extinguished, might revive as soon as it was known that he was within the walls of a foreign fortress? On these grounds William determined not to subject his father-in-law to personal restraint; and there can be little doubt that the determination was wise. * James, while his fate was under discussion, remained at Whitehall, fascinated, as it seemed, by the greatness and nearness of the danger, and unequal to the exertion of either struggling or flying. In the evening news came that the Dutch had occupied Chelsea and Kensington. The King, however, prepared to go to rest as usual. The Coldstream Guards were on duty at the palace. They were commanded by William Earl of Craven, an aged man who, more than fifty years before, had been distinguished in war and love, who had led the forlorn hope at Creutznach with such courage that he had been patted on the shoulder by the great Gustavus, and who was believed to have won from a thousand rivals the heart of the unfortunate Queen of Bohemia. Craven was now in his eightieth year; hut time had not tamed his spirit.** It was past ten o’clock when he was informed that three The battalions of the Prince’s foot, mingled with some troops of noops horse, were pouring down the long avenue of Saint James’s Park, with matches lighted, and in full readiness for action, hail. Count Solmes, who commanded the foreigners, 6aid that his orders were to take military possession of the posts round Whitehall, and exhorted Craven to retire peaceably. Craven swore that he would rather be cut in pieces: but, when the King, who was undressing himself, learned what was passing, he forbade the stout old soldier to attempt a resistance which must have been ineffectual. By eleven the Coldstream * Burnet, i. 800.; Conduct of the Duchess of Marlborough; Mul- grave’s Account of the Revolution. Clarendon says nothing of this under the proper dale; but see his Diary, August 19.1689. *• Harte’s Life of Gustavus Adolphus. 374 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. X. 1688. Message from the Prince delivered to James. James sets out for Rochester. Guards had withdrawn; and Dutch sentinels were pacing the rounds on every side of the palace. Some of the King’s attendants asked whether he would venture to lie down surrounded by enemies. He answered that they could hardly use him worse than his own subjects had done, and, with the apathy of a man stupified by disasters, went to bed and to sleep.* Scarcely was the palace again quiet when it was again roused. A little after midnight the three Lords arrived from Windsor. Middleton was called up to receive them. They informed him that they were charged with an errand which did not admit of delay. The King was awakened from his first slumber; and they were ushered into his bedchamber. They delivered into his hand the letter with which they had been entrusted, and informed him that the Prince would be at Westminster in a few hours, and that His Majesty would do well to set out for Ham before ten in the morning. James made some difficulties. He did not like Ham. It was a pleasant place in the summer, but cold and comfortless at Christmas, and was moreover unfurnished. Halifax answered that furniture should be instantly sent in. The three messengers retired, but were speedily followed by Middleton, who told them that the King would greatly prefer Rochester to Ham. They answered that they had not authority to accede to His Majesty’s wish, but that they would instantly send off an express to the Prince, who was to lodge that night at Sion House. A courier started immediately, and' returned before daybreak with William’s consent. That consent, indeed, was most gladly given: for there could be no doubt that Rochester had been named because it afforded facilities for flight; and that James might fly was the first wish of his nephew.** On the morning of the eighteenth of December, a rainy and stormy morning, the royal barge was early at Whitehall * Clarke's Life of James, ii. 2G4. mostly from Orig. Mem.; Mul- grave’s Account of the Revolution; ltapin de Thoyras. It must be remembered that in these events Rapin was himself an actor. ** Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 265. Orig. Mem.; Mulgrave’s Account of the Revolution; Burnet, i. 801.; Citters, Dec. if. 1688. JAMES THE SECOND. 375 stairs: and round it were eight or ten boats filled with Dutch soldiers. Several noblemen and gentlemen attended the King to the waterside. It is said, and may well be believed, that many tears were shed. For even the most zealous friend of liberty could scarcely have seen, unmoved, the sad and ignominious close of a dynasty which might have been so great. Shrewsbury did all in his power to sooth the fallen Sovereign. Even the bitter and vehement Delamere was softened. But it was observed that Halifax, who was generally distinguished by his tenderness to the vanquished, was, on this occasion, less compassionate than his two colleagues. The mock embassy to Ilungerford was doubtless still rankling in his mind.* While the King’s barge was slowly working its way on rough billows down the river, brigade after brigade of the Prince’s troops came pouring into London from the west. It had been wisely determined that the duty of the capital should be chiefly done by the British soldiers in the service of the States General. The three English regiments were quartered in and round the Tower, the three Scotch regiments in Southwark. ** In defiance of the weather a great multitude assembled between Albemarle House and Saint James’s Palace to greet the Prince. Every hat, every cane, was adorned with an orange riband* The bells were ringing all over London. Candles for an illumination were disposed in the windows. Faggots for bonfires were heaped up in the streets. "William, however, who had no taste for crowds and shouting, took the road through the Park. Before nightfall he arrived at Saint James’s in a light carriage, accompanied by Schomberg. In a short time all the rooms and staircases in the palace were thronged by those who came to pay their court. Such was the press, that men of the highest rank were unable to elbow their way into the presence chamber.*** While Westminster * Cillers, Dec. ig. 1088 ; Evelyn’s Diary, same dale; Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 260 , 201. Oris- Mem. ** Cillers, Dec. Ig. 168S. LuiirelJ’s Diary; Evelyn’s Diary; Clarendon’s Diary, Dec. IS. 1688 ; Revolution Politics. / CHAP. X. 1688 . Arrival of William at St. James’s. 376 CHAP. X. 1688. HISTORY OP ENGLAND. was in this state of excitement, the Common Council was preparing at Guildhall an address of thanks and congratulation. The Lord Mayor was unable to preside. He had never held up his head since the Chancellor had been dragged into the justice room in the garb of a collier. But the Aldermen and the other officers of the corporation were in their places. On the following day the magistrates of the City went in state to pay their duty to their deliverer. Their gratitude was eloquently expressed by their Recorder, Sir George Treby. Some princes of the House of Nassau, he said, had been the chief officers of a great republic. Others had worn the imperial crown. But the peculiar title of that illustrious line to the public veneration was this, that God had set it apart and consecrated it to the high office of defending truth and freedom against tyrants from generation to generation. On the same day all the prelates who were in town, Sancroft excepted, waited on the Prince in a body. Then came the clergy of London, the foremost men of their profession in knowledge, eloquence, and influence, with their bishop at their head. With them were mingled some eminent dissenting ministers, whom Compton, much to his honour, treated with marked courtesy. A few months earlier, or a few months later, such courtesy would have been considered by many Churchmen as treason to the Church. Even then it was but too plain to a discerning eye that the armistice to which the Protestant sects had been forced would not long outlast the danger from which it h^d sprung. About a hundred Nonconformist divines, resident in the capital, presented a separate address. They were introduced by Devonshire, and were received with every mark of respect and kindness. The lawyers paid their homage, headed by Maynard, who, at ninety years of age, was as alert and clear-headed as when he stood up in Westminster Hall to accuse Strafford. “Mr. Serjeant,” said the Prince, “you must have survived all the lawyers of your standing.” “Yes, Sir,” said the old man, “and, but for your Highness, I should have survived the laws too.”* * Fourlh Collection of Papers relating to the present juncture of JAMES THE SECOND. 377 But, though the addresses were numerous and full of chap. eulogy, though the acclamations were loud, though the illu- — ■ minations were splendid, though Saint James’s Palace was too small for the crowd of courtiers, though the theatres were every night, from the pit to the ceiling, one blaze of orange ribands, William felt that the difficulties of his enterprise were but beginning. He had pulled a government down. The far harder task of reconstruction was now to be performed. From the moment of his landing till he reached London he had exercised the authority which, by the laws of war, acknowledged throughout the civilised world, belongs to the commander of an army in the field. It was now necessary that he should exchange the character of a general for that of a magistrate ; and this was no easy task. A single false step might be fatal; and it was impossible to take any step without offending prejudices and rousing angry passions. Some of the Prince’s advisers pressed him to assume the nc is ad- crown at once as his own by right of conquest, and then, as King, to send out, under his Great Seal, writs calling a Par- the liament. This course was strongly recommended by some righTot J eminent lawyers. It was, they said, the shortest way to what could otherwise be attained only through innumerable difficulties and disputes. It was in strict conformity with the auspicious precedent set after the battle of Bosworth by Henry the Seventh! It would also quiet the scruples which many respectable people felt as to the lawfulness of transferring allegiance from one ruler to another. Neither the law of England nor the Church of England recognised any right in subjects to depose a sovereign. But no jurist, no divine, had ever denied that a nation, overcome in war, might, without sin, submit to the decision of the God of battles. Thus, after the Chaldean conquest the most pious and patriotic Jews did not think that they violated their duty to their native King by serving with loyalty the new master whom Providence had set over them. The three confessors, who had been marvellously preserved in the furnace, held high affairs in England, 1088; Barnet, 1.802, 803.; Calamy's Life and Times of Baxter, chap. xiv. jT 378 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. ciup. office in the province of Babylon. Daniel was minister sue,- • )68 ' 8 ; ~ cessively of the Assyrian who subjugated. Judah, and of the Persian who subjugated Assyria. Nay, Jesus himself, who was, according to thellesli, a prince of the house of David, had, by commanding his countrymen to pay tribute to Catsar, pronounced that foreign conquest annuls hereditary right and is a legitimate title to dominion. It was therefore probable that great numbers of Tories, though they could not, with a clear conscience, choose a King for themselves, would accept, without hesitation, a King given to them by the event of war. * On the other side, however, there were reasons which greatly preponderated. The Prince could not claim the crown as won by his sword without a gross violation of faith. In his Declaration he had protested that he had no design of conquering England; that those who imputed to him such a design foully calumniated, not only himself, but the patriotic noblemen and gentlemen who had invited him over; that the force which he brought with him was evidently inadequate to an enterprise so arduous ; and that it was his full resolution to refer all the public grievances, and all his own pretensions, to a free Parliament. For no earthly object could it be right or wise that he should forfeit his word so solemnly pledged in the face of all Europe. Nor was it certain that, by calling himself a conqueror, he would have removed the scruples which made rigid Churchmen unwilling to acknowledge him as King. For, call himself what he might, all the world knew that he was not really a conqueror. It was notoriously a mere fiction to say that this great kingdom, with a mighty fleet on the sea, with a regular army of forty thousand men, and with a militia of a hundred aud thirty thousand men, had been, without one siege or battle, reduced to the state of a province by fifteen thousand invaders. Such a fiction was not likely to quiet consciences really sensitive: but it could scarcely fail to gall the national pride, already sore and irritable. The English soldiers were in a temper which required the most delicate management. They were conscious that, in the late cam- * Burnet, i. 803. JAMES THE SECOND. 379 paign, their part had not been brilliant. Captains and pri- CH X A1> - vates were alike impatient to prove that they had notgivenway i 6SS . before an inferior force from want of courage. Some Dutch officers had been indiscreet enough to boast, at a tavern over their wine, that they had driven the King’s army before them. This insult had raised among the English troops a ferment which, but for the Prince’s prompt interference, would probably have ended in a terrible slaughter.* What, in such circumstances, was likely to be the effect of a proclamation announcing that the commander of the foreigners considered the whole island as a lawful prize of war? It was also to be remembered that, by putting forth such a proclamation, the Prince would at once abrogate all the rights of which he had declared himself the champion. For the authority of a foreign conqueror is not circumscribed by the customs and statutes of the conquered nation, but is, by its own nature, despotic. Either, therefore, it was not competent to William to declare himself King, or it was competent to him to declare the Great Charter and the Petition of Right nullities, to abolish trial by jury, and to raise taxes without the consent of Parliament. He might, indeed, reestablish the ancient constitution of the realm. But, if he did so, he did so in the exercise of an arbitrary discretion. English liberty would thenceforth be held by a base tenure. It would be, not, as heretofore, an immemorial inheritance, but a recent gift which the generous master who had bestowed it might, if such had been his pleasure, have withheld. William therefore righteously and prudently determined to observe the promises contained in his Declaration, and to leave to the legislature the office of settling the government. So carefully did he avoid whatever looked like usurpation that ml/ther he would not, without some semblance of parliamentary u>e Lords authority, take upon himself even to convoke the Estates of members the Realm, or to direct the executive administration during the elections. Authority strictly parliamentary there was ot none in the state: but it was possible to bring together, in an. * Gazette de France, 1G89. 7 tub. a. 380 HISTOBY OF ENGLAND. chap. f ew hours, an assembly which would be regarded by the — nation with a large portion of the respect due to a Parliament. One Chamber might be formed of the numerous Lords Spiritual and Temporal who were then in London, and another of old members of the House of Commons and of the magistrates of the City. The scheme was ingenious, and was promptly executed. The Peers were summoned to St. James’s on the twenty-first of December. About seventy attended. The Prince requested them to consider the state of the country, and to lay before him the result of their deliberations. Shortly after appeared a notice inviting all gentlemen who had sate in the House of Commons during the reign of Charles the Second to attend His Highness on the morning of the twenty- sixth. The Aldermen of London were also summoned; and the Common Council was requested to send a deputation.* It has often been asked, in a reproachful tone, why the invitation was not extended to the members of the Parliament which had been dissolved in the preceding year. The answer is obvious. One of the chief grievances of which the nation complained was the manner in which that Parliament had been elected. The majority of the burgesses had been returned by constituent bodies remodelled in a manner which was generally regarded as illegal, and which the Prince had, in his Declaration, condemned. James himself had, just before his downfall, consented to restore the old municipal franchises. It would surely have been the height of inconsistency in William, after taking up arms for the purpose of vindicating the invaded charters of corporations, to recognise persons chosen in defiance of those charters as the legitimate representatives of the towns of England. On Saturday the twenty-second the Lords met in their own house. That day was employed in settling the order of proceeding. A clerk was appointed: and, as no confidence could be placed in any of the twelve Judges, some serjeants and barristers of great note were requested to attend, for the * History of the Desertion; Clarendon’s Diary, Dec. 21. 1688; Burnet, i. 803. and Onslow’s note. JAMES THE SECOND. 381 purpose of giving advice on legal points. It was resolved that chap, on the Monday the state of the kingdom should be taken into 16S3 y consideration.* The interval between the sitting of Saturday and the sitting of Monday was anxious and eventful. A strong party among the Peers still cherished the hope that the constitution and religion of England might he secured without the deposition of the King. This party resolved to move a solemn address to him, imploring him to consent to such terms as might remove the discontents and apprehensions which his past conduct had excited. Sancroft, who, since the return of James from Kent to Whitehall, had taken no part in public affairs, determined to come forth from his retreat on this occasion, and to put himself at the head of the Royalists. Several messengers were sent to Rochester with letters for the King. He was assured that his interests would be strenously defended, if only he could, at this last moment, make up his mind to renounce designs abhorred by his people. Some respectable Roman Catholics followed him, in order to implore him, for the sake of their common faith, not to carry the vain contest further.** The advice was good; but James was in no condition to take it. His understanding had always been dull and feeble; and, such as it was, womanish tremors and childish fancies now disabled him from using it. He was aware that his flight was the thing which his adherents most dreaded and which his enemies most desired. Even if there had been serious personal risk in remaining, the occasion was one on which he ought to have thought it infamous to flinch: for the question was whether he and his posterity should reign on an ancestral throne or should be vagabonds and beggars. But in his mind all other feelings had given place to a craven fear for his life. To the earnest entreaties and unanswerable arguments of the agents whom his friends had sent to Rochester, he had only one answer. His head was in danger. In vain he was assured * Clarendon’s Diary, Dec. 21.1688; Cilters, same dale. ** Clarendon’s Diary, Dec. 21, 22. 1688; Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 268, 210 . Orig. Mem. 382 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. X 1688 . Flight of James from Rochester. that there was no ground for such an apprehension, tlmt. common sense, if not principle, would restrain the Prince ol Orange from incurring the guilt and shame of regicide and parricide, and that many, who never would consent to depose their Sovereign while he remained on English ground, would think themselves absolved from their allegiance by his desertion. Fright overpowered every other feeling. James determined to depart; and it was easy for him to do so. He was negligently guarded: all persons were suffered to repair to him: vessels ready to put to sea lay at no great distance; and their boats might come close to the garden of the house in which he was lodged. Had he been wise, the pains which his keepers took to facilitate his escape would have sufficed to convince him that he ought to stay where he was. In truth the snare was so ostentatiously exhibited that it could impose on nothing but folly bewildered by terror. The arrangements were expeditiously made. On the evening of Saturday the twenty-second the King assured some of the gentlemen, who had been sent to him from London with intelligence and advice, that he would see them again in the morning. He went to bed, rose at dead of night, and, attended by Berwick, stole out at a back door, and went through the garden to the shore of the Medway. A small skiff was in waiting. Soon after the dawn of Sunday the fugitives were on board of a smack which was running down the Thames.* That afternoon the tidings of the flight reached London. The King’s adherents were confounded. The Whigs could not conceal their joy. The good news encouraged the Prince to take a bold and important step. He was informed that communications were passing between the French embassy and the party hostile to him. It was well known that at that embassy all the arts of corruption were well understood; and there could be little doubt that, at such a conjuncture, neither intrigues nor pistoles would be spared. Bariflon was most desirous to remain a few days longer in London, and for that * Clarendon, Dec. 23.16S8; Clarke’s Life of James, ii. 211, 213, 215. Grig. Mem. JAMES THE SECOND. 383 P-ad omitted no art which could conciliate the victorious party. C “ AP> In the streets he quieted the populace, who looked angrily 1688- " at his coach, by throwing money among them. At his table he publicly drank the health of the Prince of Orange. But William was not to be so cajoled. He had not, indeed, taken on himself to exercise regal authority: but he was a general: and, as such, he was not bound to tolerate, within the territory of which he had taken military occupation, the presence of one whom he regarded as a spy. Before that day closed Barillon was informed that he must leave England within twenty-four hours. lie begged hard for a short delay: but minutes were precious; the order was repeated in more peremptory terms; and he unwillingly set off for Dover. That no mark of contempt and defiance might be omitted, he was escorted to the coast by one of his Protestant countrymen whom persecution had driven into exile. So bitter was the resentment excited by the French ambition and arrogance that even those Englishmen who were not generally disposed to take a favourable view of William’s conduct loudly applauded him for retorting with so much spirit the insolence with which Lewis had, during many years, treated every court in Europe.* On Monday the Lords met again. Halifax was chosen Debates to preside. The Primate was absent, the Royalists sad and i'uuons’o^ gloomy, the Whigs eager and in high spirits. It was known theLorlis . that James had left a letter behind him. Some of his friends moved that it might be produced, in the faint hope that it might contain propositions which might furnish a basis for a happy settlement. On this motion the previous question was put and carried. Godolpliin, who was known not to be unfriendly to his old master, uttered a few words which were decisive. “I have seen the paper,” he said; “and I grieve to say that there is nothing in it which will give your Lord- ships any satisfaction.” In truth it contained no expression of regret for past errors; it held out no hope that those errors would for the future be avoided; and it threw the blame of all that had happened on the malice of William and on the * Cillers, Jan. A. 1689; Wilsen MS. quoled by Wagenaar, book lx. 384 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap, blindness of a nation deluded by the specious names of ve- ■ 168 ' 8 - ligion and property. None ventured to propose that a negotiation should be opened with a prince whom the most rigid discipline of adversity seemed only to have made more obstinate in wrong. Something was said about inquiring into the birth of the Prince of Wales: but the Whig peers treated the suggestion with disdain. “I did not expect, my Lords,” exclaimed Philip Lord Wharton, an old Roundhead, who had commanded a regiment against Charles the First at Edge- hill, “I did not expect to hear anybody at this time of day mention the child who was called Prince of Wales; and I hope that we have now heard the last of him.” After long discussion it was resolved that two addresses should be presented to William. One address requested him to take on himself provisionally the administration of the government; the other recommended that he should, by circular letters subscribed with his own hand, invite all the constituent bodies of the kingdom to send up representatives to Westminster. At the same time the Peers took upon themselves to issue an order banishing all Papists, except a few privileged persons, from London and the vicinity. * The Lords presented their addresses to thePrince on the following day, without waiting for the issue of the deliberations of the commoners whom he had called together. It seems, indeed, that the hereditary nobles were disposed at this moment to be punctilious in asserting their dignity, and were unwilling to recognise a coordinate authority in an assembly unknown to the law. They conceived that they were a real House of Lords. The other Chamber they despised as only a mock House of Commons. William, however, wisely excused himself from coming to any decision till he had ascertained the sense of the gentlemen who had formerly been honoured with the confidence of the counties and towns of England.** * Halifax’s notes; Lansdowne MS. 255.; Clarendon’s Diary, Dec. 24. 1688; London Gazette, Dec. 31. '* Alters, 1682 ‘ THE INTERREGNUM, 385 The commoners who had been summoned met in Saint C ” AI ’- Stephen’s Chapel, and formed a numerous assembly. They—replaced in the chair Henry Powle, who had represented Ciren- Debates cester in several Parliaments, and had been eminent among f^ 0 r „ e s s „( the supporters of the Exclusion Bill. the com- Addresses were proposed and adopted similar to those summon- which the Lords had already presented. No difference ofp^JJ the opinion appeared on any serious question; and some feeble attempts which were made to raise a debate on points of form were put down by the general contempt. Sir Robert Sawyer declared that he could not conceive how it was possible for the Prince to administer the government without some distinguishing title, such as Regent or Protector. Old Maynard, who, as a lawyer, had no equal, and who was also a politician versed in the tactics of revolutions, was at no pains to conceal his disdain for so puerile an objection, taken at a moment when union and promptitude were of the highest importance. “We shall sit here very long,” he said, “if we sit till Sir Robert can conceive how such a thing is possible;" and the assembly thought the answer as good as the cavil deserved.* The resolutions of the meeting were communicated to the Mention Prince. He forthwith announced his determination to comply cllled - with the joint request of the two Chambers which he had called together, to issue letters summoning a Convention of the Estates of the Realm, and, till the Convention should meet, to take on himself the executive administration.** He had undertaken no light task. The whole machine Exertion* of government was disordered. The Justices of the Peace pmlce to had abandoned their functions. The officers of the revenue ™j l ° r ro had ceased to collect the taxes. The army which Feversham had disbanded was still in confusion, and ready to break out into mutiny. The fleet was in a scarcely less alarming state. ' The objector was designated in contemporary books and pamphlets only by his initials; and these were sometimes misinterpreted. Eachard attributes the cavil to Sir Robert Southwell. But I have no doubt that Oldmixon is right in putting it into the mouth of Sawyer. '■ History of the Desertion; Life of William, 1103; Citters, —-■ 28 ' 1 Jan.7. 168§. Macaulay, History. HI. 25 386 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. _ X. 1688. His tolerant policy. Large arrears of pay were due to the civil and military ser- ■ vants of the crown; and only forty thousand pounds remained in the Exchequer. The Prince addressed himself with vigour to the work of restoring order. He published a proclamation by which all magistrates were continued in office, and another containing orders for the collection of the revenue.* The new modelling of the army went rapidly on. Many of the noblemen and gentlemen whom James had removed from the command of the English regiments were reappointed. A way was found of employing the thousands of Irish soldiers whom James had brought into England. They could not safely be suffered to remain in a country where they were objects of religious and national animosity. They could not safely be sent home to reinforce the army of Tyrconnel. It was therefore determined that they should be sent to the Continent, where they might, under the banners of the House of Austria, render indirect but effectual service to the cause of the English constitution and of the Protestant religion. Dartmouth was removed from his command; and the navy was conciliated by assurances that every sailor should speedily receive his due. The City of London undertook to extricate the Prince from his financial difficulties. The Common Council, by an unanimous vote, engaged to find him two hundred thousand pounds. It was thought a great proof, both of the wealth and of the public spirit of the merchants of the capital, that, in forty-eight hours, the whole sum was raised on no security but the Prince’s word. A few weeks before, James had been unable to procure a much smaller sum, though he had offered to pay higher interest, and to pledge valuable property.** In a very few days the confusion which the invasion, the insurrection, the flight of James, and the suspension of all regular government had produced was at an end, and the • London Gazelle, Jan. 3, 7. lGSJ. ” London Gazelle, Jan. 10,17.158;; Lutlrell’s Diary; Legge Papers; Cillers, Jan. A- iV lb 1089; llonquillo, Jan. lb ; Consullalion of the Spanish Council of Slale, THE INTERREGNUM. 387 kingdom wore again its accustomed aspect. There was a chap. general sense of security. Even the classes which were most ■ 16a ' 8 — obnoxious to public hatred, and which had most reason to apprehend a persecution, were protected by the politic clemency of the conqueror. Persons deeply implicated in the illegal transactions of the late reign not only walked the streets in safety, but offered themselves as candidates for seats in the Convention. Mulgrave was received not ungraciously at St. James’s. Feversham was released from arrest, and was permitted to resume the only office for which he was qualified, that of keeping the bank at the Queen Dowager’s basset table. But no body of men had so much reason to feel grateful to William as the Roman Catholics. It would not have been safe to rescind formally the severe resolutions which the Peers had passed against the professors of a religion generally abhorred by the nation: but, by the prudence and humanity of the Prince, those resolutions were practically annulled. On his line of march from Torbay to London, he had given orders that no outrage should be committed on the persons or dwellings of Papists. He now renewed those orders, and directed Burnet to see that they were strictly obeyed. A better choice could not have been made; for Burnet was a man of such generosity and good nature, that his heart always warmed towards the unhappy; and at the same time his known hatred of Popery was a sufficient guarantee to the most zealous Protestants that the interests of their religion would be safe in his hands. ■ He listened kindly to the complaints of the Roman Catholics, procured passports for those who wished to go beyond sea, and went himself to Newgate to visit the prelates who were imprisoned there. He ordered them to be removed to a more commodious apartment and supplied with every indulgence. He solemnly assured them that not a hair of their heads should be touched, and that, as soon as the Prince could venture to act as he wished, they should be set at liberty. The Spanish minister reported to his government, and, through his government, to the Pope, that no Catholic need feel any scruple of conscience on account of the late revolution in England, that for the danger 25 * 388 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. CHAP. X._ 1688. Satisfaction of Homan Catholic powers. State of feeling in France. to which the members of the true Church were exposed James alone was responsible, and that William alone had saved them from a sanguinary persecution.* There was, therefore, little alloy to the satisfaction with which the princes of the House of Austria and the Sovereign Pontiff learned that the long vassalage of England was at an end. When it was known at Madrid that William was in the full career of success, a single voice in the Spanish Council of State faintly expressed regret that an event which, in a political point of view, was most auspicious, should be prejudicial to the interests of the true Church.** But the tolerant policy of the Prince soon quieted all scruples, and his elevation was seen with scarcely less satisfaction by the bigoted Grandees of Castile than by the English Whigs. With very different feelings had the news of this great revolution been received in France. The politics of a long, eventful, and glorious reign had been confounded in a day. England was again the England of Elizabeth and of Cromwell; and all the relations of all the states of Christendom were completely changed by the sudden introduction of this new power into the system. The Parisians could talk of nothing but what was passing in London. National and religious feeling impelled them to take the part of James. They knew nothing of the English constitution. They abominated the English Church. Our revolution appeared to them, not as • Burnet, i. 802.; Ronquillo, Jan. T V Feb. 1089. The originals of these despatches were entrusted to me by the kindness of the late Lady Holland and of the present Lord Holland. From the latter despatch I will quote a very few words: “La tema de S. M. Britanica 4 seguir imprudentes consejos perdid 4 los Catolicos aquella quielud en que les dexo Carlos segundo. V. E. asegure 4 su Santidad que mas sacard del Principe para los Catolicos que pudiera sacar del ltey.’’ ** On December if. 1688, the Admiral of Castile gave his opinion thus: “Esta materia es de calidad que no puede dexar de padecer nu- estra sagrada religion 6 el servicio de V. M.; porque, si el Principe de Orange tiene buenos succesos, nos aseguraremos de Franceses, pero po- ligrar4 la religion.” The Council was much pleased on February Jg. by a letter of the Prince, in which he promised “que los Catolicos que se porlaren con prudencia no sean molestados, y gocen libertad do conciencia, por ser contra su dictamen el forzar ni casligar por esta razon 4 nadie.” THE IKTEEEEGNUM. 389 the triumph of public liberty over despotism, but as a frightful domestic tragedy in which a venerable and pious Servius ■ was hurled from his throne by a Tarquin, and crushed under the chariot wheels -of a Tullia. They cried shame on the traitorous captains, execrated the unnatural daughters, and regarded William with a mortal loathing, tempered, however, by the respect which valour, capacity, and success seldom fail to inspire. * The Queen, exposed to the night wind and rain, with the infant heir of three crowns clasped to her breast, the King stopped, robbed, and outraged by ruffians, were objects of pity and of romantic interest to all France. But Lewis saw with peculiar emotion the calamities of the House of Stuart. All the selfish and all the generous parts of his nature were moved alike. After many years of prosperity he had at length met with a great check. He had reckoned on the support or neutrality of England. He had now nothing to expect from her but energetic and pertinacious hostility. A few weeks earlier he might not unreasonably have hoped to subjugate Flanders and to give law to Germany. At present he might think himself fortunate if he should be able to defend his own frontiers against a confederacy such as Europe had not seen during many ages. From this position, so new, so embarrassing, so alarming, nothing but a counterrevolution or a civil war in the British Islands could extricate him. He was therefore impelled by ambition and by fear to espouse the cause of the fallen dynasty. And it is but just to say that motives nobler than ambition or fear had a large share in determining his course. His heart was naturally compassionate; and this was an occasion which could not fail to call forth all his compassion. His situation had prevented his good feelings from fully developing themselves. Sympathy is rarely strong where there is a great inequality of condition; and he was raisedso high above the massof his fellow creatures that their distresses excited in him only a languid pity, such as that with which we regard the sufferings of the inferior In the chapter of La Brnyere, entitled “Sur les Jugemens,” is a passage which deserves to be read, as showing in what light our revolution appeared to a Frenchman of distinguished abilities. CIIAP. x. i 390 HISTOKT OF ENGLAND. chap, animals, of a famished redbreast or of an overdriven post- —— horse. The devastation of the Palatinate and the persecution of the Huguenots had therefore given him no uneasiness -which pride and bigotry could not effectually sooth. But all the tenderness of which he was capable was called forth by the misery of a great King who had a few weeks ago been served on the knee by Lords, and who was now a destitute exile. With that tenderness was mingled, in the soul of Lewis, a not ignoble vanity. He would exhibit to the world a pattern of munificence and courtesy. He would show mankind what ought to be the bearing of a perfect gentleman in the highest station and on the greatest occasion; and, in truth, his conduct was marked by a chivalrous generosity and urbanity, such as had not embellished the annals of Europe since the Black Prince had stood behind the chair of King John at the supper on the field of Poitiers. necep- As soon as the news that the Queen of England was on the a” Queen French coast had been brought to Versailles, a palace was °f E ng- prepared for her reception. Carriages and troops of guards France, were despatched to await her orders. Workmen were employed to mend the Calais road that her journey might be easy. Lauzun was not only assured that his past offences were forgiven for her sake, but was honoured with a friendly letter in the handwriting of Lewis. Mary was on the road towards the French court when news came that her husband had, after a rough voyage, landed safe at the little village of Ambleteuse. Persons of high rank were instantly despatched from Versailles to greet and escort him. Meanwhile Lewis, attended by his family and his nobility, went forth in state to receive the exiled Queen. Before his gorgeous coach went the Swiss halberdiers. On each side of it and behind it rode the body guards with cymbals clashing and trumpets pealing. After the King, in a hundred carriages each drawn by six horses, came the most splendid aristocracy of Europe, all feathers, ribands, jewels, and embroidery. Before the procession had gone far it was announced that Mary was approaching. Lewis alighted and advanced on foot to meet her. She broke forth into passionate expressions of gratitude. “Madam,” said her THE INTERREGNUM. S91 host, “it is but a melancholy service that I am rendering you chap. to-day. I hope that I may be able hereafter to render you—■ services greater and more pleasing. ” He embraced the little Prince of Wales, and made the Queen seat herself in the royal state coach on the right hand. The cavalcade then turned towards Saint Germains. At Saint Germains, on the verge of a forest swarming with beasts of chase, and on the brow of a hill which looks down on the windings of the Seine, Francis the First had built a castle, and Henry the Fourth had constructed a noble terrace. Of the residences of the French kings none stood in a more salubrious air or commanded a fairer prospect. The huge size and venerable age of the trees, the beauty of the gardens, the abundance of the springs, were widely famed. Lewis the Fourteenth had been, born there, had, when a young man, held his court there, had added several stately pavilions to the mansion of Francis, and had completed the terrace of Henry. Soon, however, the magnificent King conceived an inexplicable disgust for his birthplace. He quitted Saint Germains for Versailles, and expended sums almost fabulous in the vain attempt to create a paradise on a spot singularly sterile and unwholesome, all sand or mud, without wood, without water, and without game. Saint Germains had now been selected to be the abode of the royal family of England. Sumptuous furniture had been hastily sent in. The nursery of the Prince of Wales had been carefully furnished with everything that an infant could require. One of the attendants presented to the Queen the key of a superb casket which stood in her apartmeut. . She opened the casket, and found in it six thousand pistoles. On the following day James arrived at Saint Germains. Arrival of Lewis was already there to welcome him. The unfortunate at exile bowed so low that it seemed as if he was about to em- Ger_ brace the knees of his protector. Lewis raised him, and embraced him with brotherly tenderness. The two Kings then entered the Queen’s room. “Here is a gentleman,” said Lewis to Mary, “whom you will be glad to see.” Then, after entreating his guests to visit him next day at Versailles, and to 392 niSTORY OP ENGLAND. chap, let him have the pleasure of showing them his buildings, "nisi—pictures, and plantations, he took the unceremonious leave of an old friend. In a few hours the royal pair were informed that, as long as they would do the King of France the favour to accept of his hospitality, forty-five thousand pounds sterling a year would be paid them from his treasury. Ten thousand pounds sterling were sent for outfit. The liberality of Lewis, however, was much less rare and admirable than the exquisite delicacy with which he laboured to sooth the feelings of his guests and to lighten the almost intolerable weight of the obligations which he laid upon them. He who had hitherto, on all questions of precedence, been sensitive, litigious, insolent, who had been more than once ready to plunge Europe into war rather than concede the most frivolous point of etiquette, was now punctilious indeed, but punctilious for his unfortunate friends against himself. He gave orders that Mary should receive all the marks of respect that had ever been paid to his own deceased wife. A question was raised whether the Princes of the House of Bourbon were entitled to be indulged with chairs in the presence of the Queen. Such trifles were serious matters at the old court of France. There were precedents on both sides: but Lewis decided the point against his own blood. Some ladies of illustrious rank omitted the ceremony of kissing the hem of Mary’s robe. Lewis remarked the omission, and noticed it in such a voice and with such a look that the whole peerage was ever after ready to kiss her shoe. When Esther, just written by Racine, was acted at Saint Cyr, Mary had the seat of honour. James was at her right hand. Lewis modestly placed himself on the left. Nay, he was well pleased that, in his own palace, an outcast living on his bounty should assume the title of King of France, should, as King of France, quarter the lilies with the English lions, and should, as King of France, dress in violet on days of court mourning. The demeanour of the French nobility on public occasions was absolutely regulated by their sovereign: but it was beyond even his power to prevent them from thinking THE INTERREGNUM. 393 freely, and from expressing what they thought, in private chap. circles, with the keen and delicate wit characteristic of their 1 16a ' 8 — nation and of their order. Their opinion of Mary was favourable. They found her person agreeable and her deportment dignified. They respected her courage and her maternal affection; and they pitied her ill fortune. But James they regarded with extreme contempt. They were disgusted by his insensibility, by the cool way in which he talked to every body of his ruin, and by the childish pleasure which he took in the pomp and luxury of Versailles. This strange apathy they attributed, not to philosophy or religion, but to stupidity and meanness of spirit, and remarked that nobody who had had the honour to hear His Britannic Majesty tell his own story could wonder that he was at Saint Germains and his son- in-law at Saint James’s. * In the United Provinces the excitement produced by the S[ale of tidings from England was even greater than in France. This feeling in was the moment at which the Batavian federation reached the p' r o - mle<1 highest point of power and glory. From the day on which the vinces - expedition sailed, the anxiety of the whole Dutch nation had been intense. Never had there been such crowds in the churches. Never had the enthusiasm of the preachers been so ardent. The inhabitants of the Hague could not be restrained from insulting Albeville. His house was so closely beset by the populace, day and night, that scarcely any person ventured to visit him; and he was afraid that his chapel would be burned to the ground.** As mail after mail arrived with news of the Prince’s progress, the spirits of his countrymen rose higher and higher; and when at length it was known that he had, on the invitation of the Lords and of an assembly of eminent commoners, taken on himself the executive administration, a general cry of pride and joy rose from all the Dutch factions. An extraordinary mission was, with great speed, despatched to congratulate him. Dykvelt, * My account of the reception of James and his wife in France is taken chiefly from the letters of Madame de Sdvignd and the Memoirs of Dangeau. ** Albeville to Preston, ^ 1688 , in the Mackintosh Collection. 394 HISTORT OP ENGLAND. CHAP. X. 1688 . Election of members to serve in the Conven-^ lion. whose adroitness and intimate knowledge of English politics made his assistance, at such a conjuncture, peculiarly valuable, was one of the Ambassadors; and with him was joined Nicholas Witsen, a Burgomaster of Amsterdam, who seems to have been selected for the purpose of proving to all Europe that the long feud between the House of Orange and the chief city of Holland was at an end. On the eighth of January Dykvelt and "Witsen made their appearance at Westminster. William talked to them with a frankness and an effusion of heart which seldom appeared in his conversations with Englishmen. His first words were, “Well, and what do our friends at home say now?” In truth, the only applause by which his stoical nature seems to have been strongly moved was the applause of his dear native country. Of his immense popularity in England he spoke with cold disdain, and predicted, too truly, the reaction which followed. “Here,” said he, “the cry is all Hosannah to-day, and will, perhaps, be Crucify him to-morrow.” * On the following day the first members of the Convention were chosen. The City of London led the way, and elected, without any contest, four great merchants who were zealous Whigs. The King and his adherents had hoped that many returning officers would treat the Prince’s letter as a nullity, but the hope was disappointed. The elections went on rapidly and smoothly. There were scarcely any contests. For the nation had, during more than a year, been kept in constant expectation of a Parliament. Writs, indeed, had been twice issued, and twice recalled. Some constituent bodies had, under those writs, actually proceeded to the * “’Tis hier nu Hosanna: maar ’t zal, veelligt, baast Kruisl hem, kruist hem, zyn.” Witsen, MS. in Wagenaar, book lxi. It is an odd coincidence that, a very few years before, Richard Duke, a Tory poet, once well known, but now scarcely remembered, except by Johnson’s biographical sketch, had used exactly the same illustration about James: “ Was not of old the Jewish rabble’s cry, Hosannah first, and after crucify?” The Review. Despatch of the Dutch Ambassadors Extraordinary, Jan. A- 1G89, Cillers, same date. THE INTERREGNUM. 395 choice of representatives. There was scarcely a county in chap. which the gentry and yeomanry had not, many months be-—— fore, fixed upon candidates, good Protestants, whom no exertions must be spared to carry, in defiance of the King and of the Lord Lieutenant; and these candidates were now generally returned without opposition. The Prince gave strict orders that no person in the public service should, on this occasion, practise those arts which had brought so much obloquy on the late government. He especially directed that no soldiers should be suffered to appear in any town where an election was going on.’ His admirers were able to boast, and his enemies seem not to have been able to deny, that the sense of the constituent bodies was fairly taken. It is true that he risked little. The party which was attached to him was triumphant, enthusiastic, full of life and energy. The party from which alone he could expect serious opposition was disunited and disheartened, out of humour with itself, and still more out of humour with its natural chief. A great majority, therefore, of the shires and boroughs returned Whig members. It was not over England alone that William’s guardianship Affairs of now extended. Scotland had risen on her tyrants. All the Scolland - regular soldiers by whom she had long been held down had been summoned by James to his help against the Dutch invaders, with the exception of a very small force, which, under the command of the Duke of Gordon, a great Roman Catholic Lord, garrisoned the Castle of Edinburgh. Every mail which had gone northward during the eventful month of November had carried news which stirred the passions of the oppressed Scots. While the event of the military operations was still doubtful, there were at Edinburgh riots and clamours which became more menacing after James had retreated from Salisbury. Great crowds assembled at first by night, and then by broad daylight. Popes were publicly burned: loud shouts were raised for a free Parliament: placards were stuck up setting prices on the heads of the ministers of the crown. Among those ministers Perth, as * Loudon Gazette, Jan. T. 168J. 396 HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. chap, filling the great place of Chancellor, as standing high in the —^—royal favour, as an apostate from the reformed faith, and as the man who had first introduced the thumbscrew into the jurisprudence of his country, was the most detested. His nerves were weak, his spirit abject; and the only courage which he possessed was that evil courage which braves infamy, and which looks steadily on the torments of others. His post, at such a time, was at the head of the Council board: but his heart failed him; and he determined to take refuge at his country seat from the danger which, as he judged by the looks and cries of the fierce and resolute populace of Edinburgh, was not remote. A strong guard escorted him safe to Castle Drummond: but scarcely had he departed when the city rose up. A few troops tried to suppress the insurrection, but were overpowered. The palace of Holy- rood, which had been turned into a Roman Catholic seminary and printing house, was stormed and sacked. Huge heaps of Popish books, beads, crucifixes, and pictures were burned in the High Street. In the midst of the agitation came down the tidings of the King’s flight. The members of the government gave up all thought of contending with the popular fury, and changed sides with a promptitude then common among Scottish politicians. The Privy Council by one proclamation ordered that all Papists should be disarmed, and by another invited Protestants to muster for the defence of pure religion. The nation had not waited for the call. Town and country were already up in arms for the Prince of Orange. Nithisdale and Clydesdale were the only regions in which there was the least chance that the Roman Catholics would make head; and both Nithisdale and Clydesdale were soon occupied by bands of armed Presbyterians. Among the insurgents were some fierce and moody men who had formerly disowned Argyle, and who were now equally eager to disown William. His Highness, they said, was plainly a malignant. There was not a word about the Covenant in his Declaration. The Dutch were a people with whom no true servant of the Lord would unite. They consorted with Lutherans; and a Lutheran was as much a child of perdition as a J esuit. The general voice of THE INTERREGNUM. the kingdom, however, effectually drowned the growl of this hateful faction. * The commotion soon reached the neighbourhood of Castle Drummond. Perth found that he was no longer safe among his own servants and tenants. He gave himself up to an agony as bitter as that into which his merciless tyranny had often thrown better men. He wildly tried to find consolation in the rites of his new Church. He importuned his priests for comfort, prayed, confessed, and communicated: but his faith was weak; and he owned that, in spite of all his devotions, the strong terrors of death were upon him. At this time he learned that he had a chance of escaping on board of a ship which lay off Brentisland. He disguised himself as well as he could, and, after a long and difficult journey by unfrequented paths over the Ochill mountains, which were then deep in snow, he succeeded in embarking: but, in spite of all his precautions, he had been recognised, and the alarm had been given. As soon as it was known that the cruel renegade was on the waters, and that he had gold with him, pursuers, inflamed at once by hatred and by avarice, were on his track. A skiff, commanded by an old buccaneer, overtook the flying vessel and boarded her. Perth was dragged out of the hold on deck in woman’s clothes, stripped, hustled, and plundered. Bayonets were held to his breast. Begging for life with unmanly cries, he was hurried to the shore and flung into the common gaol ofKirkaldy. Thence, by order of the Council over which he had lately presided, and which was filled with men who had been partakers in his guilt, he was removed to Stirling Castle. It was on a Sunday, during the time of public worship, that he was conveyed under a guard to his place of confinement: but even rigid Puritans forgot the sanctity of the day and of the work. The churches poured forth their congregations as the torturer passed by, and the noise of threats, execrations, and screams of hatred accompanied him to the gate of his prison.** * The Sixth Collection of Papers, 1689; Wodrow, 111. xii. 4. App. 150, 151.; Faithful Contendings Displayed; Burnet, i. 804. „ ** Perth to Lady Errol, Dec. 29. 1688; to Melfort, Dec. 21. 1688; Sixth Collection of Papers, 1689. Sv *■}, i 1 ' k, pV: 1 . 398 HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. X. Several eminent Scotsmen were in London when the ■Prince arrived there; and many others now hastened thither to pay their court to him. On the seventh of January he requested them to attend him at Whitehall. The assemblage was large and respectable. The Duke of Hamilton and his eldest son, the Earl of Arran, the chiefs of a house of almost regal dignity, appeared at the head of the procession. They were accompanied by thirty Lords and about eighty gentlemen of note. William desired them to consult together, and to let him know in what way he could best promote the welfare of their country. He then withdrew, and left them to deliberate unrestrained by his presence. They repaired to the Council chamber, and put Hamilton into the chair. Though there seems to have been little difference of opinion, their debates lasted three days, a fact which is sufficiently explained by the circumstance that Sir Patrick Hume was one of the debaters. Arran ventured to recommend a negotiation with the King. But this motion was ill received by the mover’s father and by the whole assembly, and did not even find a seconder. At length resolutions were carried closely resembling the resolutions which the English Lords and Commoners had presented to the Prince a few days before. He was requested to call together a Convention of the Estates of Scotland, to fix the fourteenth of March for the day of meeting, and, till that day, to take on himself the civil and military administration. To this request he acceded; and thenceforth the government of the whole island was in his hands.* state of The decisive moment approached; and the agitation of the Ins'iand. n public mind rose to the height. Knots of politicians were everywhere whispering and consulting. The coffee-houses were in a ferment. The presses of the capital never rested. Of the pamphlets which appeared at that time, enough may still be collected to form several volumes; and from those pamphlets it is not difficult to gather a correct notion of the state of parties. There was a very small faction which wished to recall James without stipulations. There was also a very small faction which wished to set up a commonwealth, and to entrust * Burnet, i.805.; Sixth Collection of Papers, 1089. f THE INTERREGNUM 1 the administration to a council of state under the presidency of the Prince of Orange. But these extreme opinions were generally held in abhorrence. Nineteen twentieths of the nation consisted of persons in whom love of hereditary monarchy and love of constitutional freedom were combined, though in different proportions, and who were equally opposed to the total abolition of the kingly office and to the unconditional restoration of the King. But, in the wide interval which separated the bigots who still clung to the doctrines of Filmer from the enthusiasts who still dreamed the dreams of Harrington, there was room for many shades of opinion. If we neglect minute sub divisions, we shall find that the great majority of the nation and of the Convention was divided into four bodies. Three of these bodies consisted of Tories. The Whig party formed the fourth. The amity of the Whigs and Tories had not survived the peril which had produced it. On several occasions, during the Prince’s march from the West, dissension had appeared among his followers. While the event of his enterprise was doubtful, that dissension had, by his skilful management, been easily quieted. But, from the day on which he entered Saint James’s palace in triumph, such management could no longer be practised. His victory, by relieving the nation from the strong dread of Popish tyranny, had deprived him of half his influence. Old antipathies, which had slept when Bishops were in the Tower, when Jesuits were at the Council board, when loyal clergymen were deprived of their bread by scores, when loyal gentlemen were put out of the commission of the peace by hundreds, were again strong and active. The Royalist shuddered at the thought that he was allied with all that from his youth up he had most hated, with old parliamentary Captains who had stormed his country house, with old parliamentary Commissioners who had sequestrated his estate, with men who had plotted theRyeHouse butchery and headed the Western rebellion. That beloved Church, too, for whoso sake he had, after a painful struggle, broken through his allegiance to the throne, was she really in safety? Or had he rescued her from one enemy only that she might be exposed 400 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. X. 1688 . Sherlock’s plan. to another? The Popish priests, indeed, were in exile, in hiding, or in prison. No Jesuit or Benedictine who valued his life now dared to show himself in the habit of his Order. But the Presbyterian and Independent teachers went in long procession to salute the chief of the government, and were as graciously received as the true successors of the Apostles. Some schismatics avowed the hope that every fence which excluded them from ecclesiastical preferment would soon be levelled; that the Articles would be softened down; that the Liturgy would be garbled; that Christmas would cease to be a feast; that Good Friday would cease to be a fast; that canons on whom no Bishop had ever laid his hand would, without the sacred vestment of white linen, distribute, in the choirs of Cathedrals, the eucharistic bread and wine to communicants lolling on benches. The Prince, indeed, was not a fanatical Presbyterian; but he was at best a Latitudi- narian. He had no scruple about communicating in the Anglican form; but he cared not in what form other people communicated. His wife, it was to be feared, had imbibed too much of his spirit. Her conscience was under the direction of Burnet. She heard preachers of different Protestant sects. She had recently said that she saw no essential difference between the Church of England and the other reformed Churches.* It was necessary, therefore, that the Cavaliers should, at this conjuncture, follow the example set by their fathers in 1641, should draw off from Roundheads and sectaries , and should, in spite of all the faults of the hereditary monarch, uphold the cause of hereditary monarchy. The body which was animated by these sentiments was large and respectable. It included about one half of the House of Lords, about one third of the House of Commons, a majority of the country gentlemen, and at least nine tenths of the clergy; but it was torn by dissensions, and beset on every side by difficulties. One section of this great party, a section which was especially strong among divines, and of which Sherlock was the chief organ, wished that a negotiation should be opened with * Albeville, Nov. ft. 1688. THE INTERREGNUM* 401 James, and that he should be invited to return to Whitehall (;H x u ’- on such conditions as might fully secure the civil and eccle- - )6 g ^~ siastical constitution of the realm.* It is evident that this plan, though strenuously supported by the clergy, was altogether inconsistent with the doctrines which the clergy had been teaching during many years. It was, in truth, an attempt to make a middle way where there was no room for a middle way, to effect a compromise between two things which do not admit of compromise, resistance and nonresistance. The Tories had formerly taken their stand on the principle of nonresistance. But that ground most of them had now abandoned, and were not disposed again to occupy. The Cavaliers of England had, as a class, been so deeply concerned, directly or indirectly, in the late rising against the King, that they could not, for very shame, talk at that moment about the sacred duty of obeying Nero; nor, indeed, were they disposed to recall the prince under whose misgovernment they had suffered so much, without exacting from him terms which might make it impossible for him again to abuse his power. They were, therefore, in a false position. Their old theory, sound or unsound, was at least complete and coherent. If that theory were sound, the King ought to be immediately invited back, and permitted, if such were his pleasure, to put Seymour and Danby, the Bishop of London and the Bishop of Bristol, to death for high treason, to reestablish the Ecclesiastical Commission, to fill the Church with Popish dignitaries, and to place the army under the command of Popish officers. But if, as the Tories themselves now seemed to confess, that theory was unsound, why treat with the King? If it was admitted that he might lawfully be excluded till he gave satisfactory guarantees for the security of the constitution in Church and State, it was not easy to deny that he might lawfully be excluded for ever. For what satisfactory guarantee could he give? How was it possible to draw up an Act of Parliament in language clearer than the language of the Acts of Parliament which required that the Dean of Christ * See the pamphlet entitled Letter to a Member of the Convention, and the answer, 1689; Burnet, i. 809. Macaulay, History. III. 26 402 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap. Church should be a Protestant? How was it possible to put - —any promise into words stronger than those in which James had repeatedly declared that he would strictly respect the legal rights of the Anglican clergy? If law or honour could have bound him, he would never have been forced to fly from his kingdom. If neither law nor honour could bind him, could he safely be permitted to return? It is probable, however, that, in spite of these arguments, a motion for opening a negotiation with James would have been made in the Convention, and would have been supported by the great body of Tories, had he not been, on this, as on every other, occasion, his own worst enemy. Every post which arrived from Saint Germains brought intelligence which damped the ardour of his adherents. He did not think it worth his while to feign regret for his past errors, or to promise amendment. He put forth a manifesto, telling his people that it had been his constant care to govern them with justice and moderation, and that they had been cheated into sancroft’s ru ; n fly imaginary grievances.* The effect of his folly and plan ‘ obstinacy was that those who were most desirous to see him restored to his throne on fair conditions felt that, by proposing at that moment to treat with him, they should injure the cause which they wished to serve. They therefore determined to coalesce with another body of Tories of whom San- croft was the chief. Sancroft fancied that he had found out a device by which provision might be made for the government of the country without recalling James, and yet without despoiling him of his crown. This device was a Regency. The most uncompromising of those divines who had inculcated the doctrine of passive obedience had never maintained that such obedience was due to a babe or to a madman. It was universally acknowledged that, when the rightful sovereign was intellectually incapable of performing his office, a deputy might be appointed to act in his stead, and that any person who should resist the deputy, and should plead as an excuse for doing so the command of a prince who was in the cradle, or * Letter to the Lords of the Council, Xan. A. 168 $; Clarendon’s Diary, Jan. THE INTERREGNUM. 403 who was raving, would justly incur the penalties of rebellion, ctup. Stupidity, perverseness, and superstition, — such was the ■ j688 reasoning of the Primate, — had made James as unfit to rule his dominions as any child in swaddling clothes, or as any maniac who was grinning and chattering in the straw of Bedlam. That course must therefore be taken which had been taken when Henry the Sixth was an infant, and again when he became lethargic. James could not be King in effect: but he must still continue to be King in semblance. Writs must still run in his name. His image and superscription must still appear on the coin and on the Great Seal. Acts of Parliament must still be called from the years of his reign. But the administration must be taken from him and confided to a Regent named by the Estates of the Realm. In this way, Sancroft gravely maintained, the people would remain true to their allegiance: the oaths of fealty which they had sworn to their King would be strictly fulfilled; and the most orthodox Churchmen might, without any scruple of conscience, take office under the Regent.* * It seems incredible that any man should really have been imposed upon by such nonsense. I therefore think it right to quote Sancroft’s words, which are still extant in his own handwriting: — “The political capacity or authority of the King, and his name in the government, are perfect and cannot fail; but his person being human and mortal, and not otherwise privileged than the rest of mankind, is subject to all the defects and failings of it. He may therefore be incapable of directing the government and dispensing the public treasure, &c. cither by absence, by infancy, lunacy, deliracy, or apathy, whether by nature or casual infirmity, or lastly, by some invincible prejudices of mind, contracted and fixed by education and habit, with unalterable resolutions superinduced, in matters wholly inconsistent and incompatible with the laws, religion, peace, and true policy of the kingdom. In all these cases (I say) there must be some one or more persons appointed to supply such defect, and vicariously to him, and by his power and authority, to direct public affairs. And this done, I say further, that all proceedings, authorities, commissions, grants, &c. issued as formerly, are legal and valid to all intents, and the people’s allegiance is the same still, their oaths and obligations no way thwarted.So long as the government moves by the King’s authority, and in his name, all those sacred ties and settled forms of proceedings are kept, and no man’s conscience burthened with anything he needs scruple to undertake.” — Tanner MS.; Doyly’s Life of Sancroft. 26 * 404 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP, S. I68S. Danby’s plan. Tlie opinion of Sancroft had great weight with the whole Tory party, and especially with the clergy. A week before the day for which the Convention had been summoned, a grave party assembled at Lambeth Palace, heard prayers in the chapel, dined with the Primate, and then consulted on the state of public affairs. Five suffragans of the Archbishop, who had shared his perils and his glory in the preceding summer, were present. The Earls of Clarendon and Ailesbury represented the Tory laity. The unanimous sense of the meeting appeared to be that those who had taken the oath of allegiance to James might justifiably withdraw their obedience from him, but could not with a safe conscience call any other by the name of King. * * Thus two sections of the Tory party (a section which looked forward to an accommodation with James, and a section which was Opposed to any such accommodation,) agreed in supporting the plan of Regency. But a third section, which, though not very numerous, had great weight and influence, recommended a very different plan. The leaders of this small band were Danby and the Bishop of London in the House of Lords, and Sir Robert Sawyer in the House of Commons. They conceived that they had found out a way of effecting a complete revolution under strictly legal forms. It was contrary to all principle, they said, that the King should be deposed by his subjects; nor was it necessary to depose him. He had himself, by his flight, abdicated his power and dignity. A demise had actually taken place. All constitutional lawyers held that the throne of England could not be one moment vacant. The next heir had therefore succeeded. Who, then, was the next heir? As to the infant who had been carried into France, his entrance into the world had been attended by many suspicious circumstances. It was due to the other members of the royal family and to the nation that all doubts should be cleared up. An investigation had been solemnly demanded, in the name of It was not altogether without reason that the creatures of James made themselves merry with the good Archbishop’s English. * Evelyn, Jan. 15.168|. THE INTERREGNUM. 405 the Princess of Orange, by her husband, and would have been chap. instituted if the parties who were accused of fraud had not - 16 ^~ taken a course which, in any ordinary case, would have been considered as a decisive proof of guilt. They had not chosen to await the issue of a solemn parliamentary proceeding: they had stolen away into a foreign country: they had carried with them the child: they had carried with them all those French and Italian women of the bedchamber who, if there had been foul play, must have been privy to it, and who ought therefore to have been subjected to a rigorous cross examination. To admit the boy’s claim without inquiry was impossible; and those who called themselves his parents had made inquiry impossible. Judgment must therefore go against him by default. If he was wronged, he was wronged, not by the nation, but by those whose strange conduct at the time of his birth had justified the nation in demanding investigation, and who had then avoided investigation by flight. He might therefore, with perfect equity, be considered as a pretender. And thus the crown had legally devolved on thePrincess of Orange. She was actually Queen Regnant. The Houses had nothing to do but to proclaim her. She might, if such were her pleasure, make her husband her first minister, and might even, with the consent of Parliament, bestow on him the title of King. The persons who preferred this scheme to any other were few; and it was certain to be opposed, both by all who still bore any good will to James, and by all the adherents of William. Yet Danby, confident in his own knowledge of parliamentary tactics, and well aware how much, when great parties are nearly balanced, a small flying squadron can effect, was not without hopes of being able to keep the event of the contest in suspense till both Whigs and Tories, despairing of complete victory, and afraid of the consequences of delay, should suffer him to act as umpire. Nor is it impossible that he might have succeeded if his efforts had been seconded, nay, if they had not been counteracted, by her whom he wished to raise to the height of human greatness. Quicksighted as he was and versed in affairs, he was altogether ignorant of the 406 history of ekgland. CHAP. X. 1688 . TheTOg plan. character of Mary, and of the feeling -with which she regarded her husband; nor was her old preceptor, Compton, better informed. William’s manners were dry and cold; his constitution was infirm, and his temper by no means bland; he was not a man who would commonly bo thought likely to inspire a fine young woman of twenty-six with a violent passion. It was known that he had not always been strictly constant to his wife; and talebearers had reported that she did not live happily with him. The most acute politicians therefore never suspected that, with all his faults, he had obtained such an empire over her heart as princes the most renowned for their success in gallantry, Francis the First and Henry the Fourth, Lewis the Fourteenth and Charles the Second, had never obtained over the heart of any woman, and that the three kingdoms of her forefathers were valuable in her estimation chiefly because, by bestowing them on him, she could prove to him the intensity and disinterestedness of her affection. Danby, in profound ignorance of her sentiments, assured her that he would defend her rights, and that, if she would support him, he hoped to place her alone on the throne. * The course of the Whigs, meanwhile, was simple and consistent. Their doctrine was that the foundation of our government was a contract expressed on one side by the oath of allegiance, and on the other by the coronation oath, and that the duties imposed by this contract were mutual. They held that a sovereign who grossly abused his power might lawfully be withstood and dethroned by his people. That James had grossly abused his power was not disputed; and the whole Whig party was ready to pronounce that he had forfeited it. Whether the Prince of Wales was supposititious, was a point not worth discussing. There were now far stronger reasons than any which could be drawn from the circumstances of his birth for excluding him from the throne. A child, brought to the royal couch in a warming pan, might possibly prove a good King of England. But there could be no such hope for a child educated by a father who was the most stupid and ob- * Clarendon's Diary, Dec. 24.1688; Burnet, i. 819.; Proposals humbly offered in behalf of the Princess of Orange, Jan. 28.168ij. TIIE INTERREGNUM. 407 stinate of tyrants, in a foreign country, the seat of despotism and superstition; in a country where the last traces of liberty • had disappeared; where the States General had ceased to meet; where parliaments had long registered without one remonstrance the most oppressive edicts of the sovereign; where valour, genius, learning, seemed to exist only for the purpose of aggrandising a single man; where adulation was the main business of the press, the pulpit, andthestage; and where one chief subject of adulation was the barbarous persecution of the Reformed Church. Was the boy likely to learn, under such tuition and in such a situation, respect for the institutions of his native land? Could it be doubted that he would be brought up to be the slave of the Jesuits and the Bourbons, and that he would be, if possible, more bitterly prejudiced than any preceding Stuart against the laws of England? Nor did the Whigs think that, situated as the country then was, a departure from the ordinary rule of succession was in itself an evil. They were of opinion that, till that rule had been broken, the doctrines of indefeasible hereditary right and passive obedience would be pleasing to the court, would be inculcated by the clergy, and would retain a strong hold on the public mind. The notion would still prevail that the kingly office is the ordinance of God in a sense different from that in which all government is his ordinance. It was plain that, till this superstition was extinct, the constitution could never be secure. For a really limited monarchy cannot long exist in a society which regards monarchy as something divine, and the limitations as mere human inventions. Royalty, in order that it might exist in perfect harmony with our liberties, must be unable to show any higher or more venerable title than that by which we hold our liberties. The King must be henceforth regarded as a magistrate, a great magistrate indeed and highly to be honoured, but subject, like all other magistrates, to the law, and deriving his power from heaven in no other sense than that in which the Lords and the Commons may be said to derive their power from heaven. The best way of effecting this salutary change would CHAP. _x._ less. 408 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. CHAP. X. 1686 . Meeting of the Convention. Leading members of the House of Commons. be to interrupt the course of descent. Under sovereigns who • would consider it as little short of high treason to preach non- resistance and the patriarchal theory of government, under sovereigns whose authority, springing from resolutions of the two Houses, could never rise higher than its source, there would be little risk of oppression such as had compelled two generations of Englishmen to rise in arms against two generations of Stuarts. On these grounds the Whigs were prepared to declare the throne vacant, to fill it by election, and to impose on the prince of their choice such conditions as might secure the country against misgovernment. The time for the decision of these great questions had now arrived. At break of day, on the twenty-second of January, the House of Commons was crowded with knights and burgesses. On the benches appeared many faces which had been well known in that place during the reign of Charles the Second, but had not been seen there under his successor. Most of those Tory squires, and of those needy retainers of the court, who had been returned in multitudes to the Parliament of 1685, had given place to the men of the old country party, the men who had driven the Cabal from power, who had carried the Habeas Corpus Act, and who had sent up the Exclusion Bill to the Lords. Among them was Powle, deeply read in the history and law of Parliament, and distinguished by the species of eloquence which is required when grave questions are to be solemnly brought under the notice of senates; and Sir Thomas Littleton, versed in European politics, and gifted with a vehement and piercing logic which had often, when, after a long sitting, the candles had been lighted, roused the languishing House, and decided the event of the debate. There, too, was William Sacheverell, an orator whose great parliamentary abilities were, many years later, a favourite theme of old men who lived to see the conflicts of Walpole and Pulteney.* With these eminent persons was joined Sir Robert Clayton, the wealthiest merchant of London, whose palace in the Old Jewry surpassed in splendour the aristocratical mansions of Lincoln’s * Burnet, i. 389., and the notes of Speaker Onslow. THE INTERREGNUM. Inn Fields and Covent Garden, -whose villa among the Surrey hills was described as a garden of Eden, whose banquets vied with those of Kings, and whose judicious munificence, still attested by numerous public monuments, had obtained for him in the annals of the City a place second only to that of Gresham. In the Parliament which met at Oxford in 1681, Clayton had, as member for the capital, and at the request of his constituents, moved for leave to bring in the Bill of Exclusion, and had been seconded by Lord Russell. In 1685 the City, deprived of its franchises and governed by the creatures of the court, had returned four Tory representatives. But the old charter had now been restored; and Clayton had been again chosen by acclamation. * Nor must John Birch be passed over. He had begun life as a carter, but had, in the civil wars, left his team, had turned soldier, had risen to the rank of Colonel in the army of the Commonwealth, had, in high fiscal offices, shown great talents for business, had sate many years in Parliament, and, though retaining to the last the rough manners and plebeian dialect of his youth, had, by strong sense and mother wit, gained the ear of the Commons, and was regarded as a formidable opponent by the most accomplished debaters of his time.** These were the most conspicuous among the veterans who now, after a long seclusion, returned to public life. But they were all speedily thrown into the shade by two younger Whigs, who, on this great day, took their seats for the first time, who soon rose to the highest honours of the state, who weathered together the fiercest storms of faction, and who, having been long and widely renowned as statesmen, as orators, and as munificent patrons of genius and learning, died, within a few months of each other, soon after the accession of the House of Brunswick. These were Charles Montague and John Somers. One other name must be mentioned, a name then known only to a small circle of philosophers, but now pronounced * Evelyn’s Diary, Sept. 26. 1612, Oct. 12. 1619, July 13. 1100; Seymour's Survey of London. ** Burnet, i. 388.; and Speaker Onslow’s note. 410 niSTORT OP ENGLAND. chap, beyond the Ganges and the Mississippi with reverence ex- ~7 68a ' . '~ ceeding that which is paid to the memory of the greatest warriors and rulers. Among the crowd of silent members appeared the majectic forehead and pensive face of Isaac Newton. The renowned University on which his genius had already begun to impress a peculiar character, still plainly discernible after the lapse of a hundred and sixty years, had sent him to the Convention; and he sate there, in his modest greatness, the unobtrusive but unflinching friend of civil and religious freedom. Choice of The first act of the Commons was to choose a Speaker; ,Speakcr 'and the choice which they made indicated in a manner not to be mistaken their opinion touching the great questions which they were about to decide. Down to the very eve of the meeting, it had been understood that Seymour would be placed in the chair. He had formerly sate there during several years. He had great and various titles to consideration; descent, fortune, knowledge, experience, eloquence. He had long been at the head of a powerful band of members from the Western counties. Though a Tory, he had in the last Parliament headed, with conspicuous ability and courage, the opposition to Popery and arbitrary power. He had been among the first gentlemen who had repaired to the Dutch head quarters at Exeter, and had been the author of that association by which the Prince’s adherents had bound themselves to stand or fall together. But, a few hours before the Houses met, a rumour was spread that Seymour was against declaring the throne vacant. As soon, therefore, as the benches had filled, the Earl of Wiltshire, who represented Hampshire, stood up, and proposed that Powle should be Speaker. Sir Vere Fane, member for Kent, seconded the motion. A plausible objection might have been raised; for it was known that a petition was about to be presented against Powle’s return: but the general cry of the House called him to the chair; and the Tories thought it prudent to acquiesce.* The mace was then laid on the table; the list of members * Ciltcrs, 1G89; Grey’s Debates. THE INTERREGNUM. 411 was called over; and the names of the defaulters were CH j u ’- noted. jess. Meanwhile the Peers, about a hundred in number, had met, had chosen Halifax to be their Speaker, and had appointed several eminent lawyers to perform the functions which, in regular Parliaments, belong to the Judges. There was, in the course of that day, frequent communication between the Houses. They joined in requesting that the Prince would continue to administer the government till he should hear further from them, in expressing to him their gratitude for the deliverance which he, under God, had wrought for the nation, and in directing that the thirty-first of January should be observed as a day of thanksgiving for that deliverance. * Thus far no difference of opinion had appeared: but both sides were preparing for the conflict. The Tories were strong in the Upper House, and weak in the Lower; and they knew that, at such a conjuncture, the House which should be the first to come to a resolution would have a great advantage over the other. There was not the least chance that the Commons would send up to the Lords a vote in favour of the plan of Regency: but, if such a vote were sent down from the Lords to the Commons, it was not absolutely impossible that many even of the Whig representatives of the people might be disposed to acquiesce rather than take the grave responsibility of causing discord and delay at a crisis which required union and expedition. The Commons had determined that, on Monday the twenty-eighth of January, they would take into consideration the state of the nation. The Tory Lords therefore proposed, on Friday the twenty-fifth, to enter instantly on the great business for which they had been called together. But their motives were clearly discerned and their tactics frustrated by Halifax, who, ever since his return from Hungerford, had seen that the settlement of the government could be effected on Whig principles only, and who had therefore, for*the lime, allied himself closely with * Lords’ and Commons’ Journals , Jan. 22. 1088; Cilters and Clarendon’s Diary of Ihe same dale. jT 412 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. X. 1088 . Debate on the state of the nation. the Whigs. Devonshire moved that Tuesday the twenty- ninth should be the day. “By that time,” he said with more truth than discretion, “we may have some lights from below which may be useful for our guidance.” His motion was carried; but his language was severely censured by some of his brother peers as derogatory to their order.* On the twenty-eighth the Commons resolved themselves into a committee of the whole House. A member who had, more than thirty years before, been one of Cromwell’s Lords, Richard Hampden, son of the illustrious leader of the Round- heads, and father of the unhappy man who had, by large bribes and degrading submissions, narrowly escaped with life from the vengeance of James, was placed in the chair, and the great debate began. It was soon evident that an overwhelming majority considered James as no longer King. Gilbert Dolben, son of the late Archbishop of York, was the first who declared himself to be of that opinion. He was supported by many members, particularly by the bold and vehement Wharton, by Sawyer, whose steady opposition to the dispensing power had, in some measure, atoned for old offences, by Maynard, whose voice, though so feeble with age that it could not be heard on distant benches, still commanded the respect of all parties, and by Somers, whose luminous eloquence and varied stores of knowledge were on that day exhibited, for the first time, within the walls of Parliament. The unblushing forehead and voluble tongue of Sir William Williams were found on the same side. Already he had been deeply concerned in the excesses both of the worst of oppositions and of the worst of governments. He had persecuted innocent Papists and innocent Protestants. He had been the patron of Oates and the tool of Petre. His name was associated with seditious violence which was remembered with regret and shame by all respectable Whigs, and with freaks of despotism abhorred by all respectable Tories. How men live under such infamy it is not easy to understand: but even such infamy was not enough for Williams. He was not ashamed to attack the fallen master * Lords’ Journals, Jan. 25. 168|; Clarendon's Diary, Jan. 23, 25. THE INTERREGNUM. 413 to -whom he had hired himself out for ivork which no honest man in the Inns of Court would undertake, and from whom he had, within six months, accepted a baronetcy as the reward of servility. Only three members ventured to oppose themselves to what was evidently the general sense of the assembly. Sir Christopher Musgrave, a Tory gentleman of great weight and ability, hinted some doubts. Heneage Finch let fall some expressions which were understood to mean that he wished a negotiation to be opened with the King. This suggestion was so ill received that he made haste to explain it away. He protested that he had been misapprehended. He was convinced that, under such a prince, there could be no security for religion, liberty, or property. To recall King James, or to treat with him, would be a fatal course; but many who would never consent that he should exercise the regal power had conscientious scruples about depriving him of the royal title. There was one expedient which would remove all difficulties, a Regency. This proposition found so little favour that Finch did not venture to demand a division. Richard Fan- shaw, Viscount Fanshaw of the kingdom of Ireland, said a few words in behalf of James, and recommended an adjournment: but the recommendation was met by a general outcry. Member after member stood up to represent the importance of despatch. Every moment, it was said, was precious: the public anxiety was intense: trade was suspended. The minority sullenly submitted, and suffered the predominant party to take its own course. What that course would be was not perfectly clear. For the maj'ority was made up of two classes. One class consisted of eager and vehement Whigs, who, if they had been able to take their own course, would have given to the proceedings of the Convention a decidedly revolutionary character. The other class admitted that a revolution was necessary, but regarded it as a necessary evil, and wished to disguise it, as much as possible, under the show of legitimacy. The former class demanded a distinct recognition of the right of subj’ects to dethrone bad princes. The latter class desired to rid the CHAP. x. 1688 . 414 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap, country of one bad prince, without promulgating any doctrine - 1688 — which might be abused for the purpose of weakening the just and salutary authority of future monarchs. The former class dwelt chiefly on the King’s misgovernment; the latter on his flight. The former class considered him as having forfeited his crown; the latter as having resigned it. It was not easy to draw up any form of words which would please all whose assent it was important to obtain; but at length, out of many suggestions offered from different quarters, a resolution was Resoiu- framed which gave general satisfaction. It was moved that daring" King James the Second, having endeavoured to subvert the Die throne constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original contract between King and people, and, by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons, having violated the fundamental laws, and having withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, had abdicated the government, and that the throne had thereby become vacant. This resolution has been many times subjected to criticism as minute and severe as was ever applied to any sentence written by man: and perhaps there never was a sentence written by man which would bear such criticism less. That a King by grossly abusing his power may forfeit it is true. That a King, who absconds without making any provision for the administration, and leaves his people in a state of anarchy, may, without any violent straining of language, be said to have abdicated his functions is also true. But no accurate writer would affirm that long continued misgovernment and desertion, added together, make up an act of abdication. It is evident too that the mention of the Jesuits and other evil advisers of James weakens, instead of strengthening, the case against him. For surely more indulgence is due to a man misled by pernicious counsel than to a man who goes wrong from the mere impulse of his own mind. It is idle, however, to examine these memorable words as we should examine a chapter of Aristotle or of Hobbes. Such words are to be considered, not as words, but as deeds. If they effect that which they are intended to effect, they are rational, though they may be contradictory. If they fail of attaining their end, they THE INTERREGNUM. 415 are absurd, though they carry demonstration with them. chap. Logic admits of no compromise. The essence of politics is 1 168B " • compromise. It is therefore not strange that some of the most important and most useful political instruments in the world should be among the most illogical compositions that ever were penned. The object of Somers, of Maynard, and of the other eminent men who shaped this celebrated motion was, not to leave to posterity a model of definition and partition, but to make the restoration of a tyrant impossible, and to place on the throne a sovereign under whom law and liberty might be secure. This object they attained by using language which, in a philosophical treatise, would justly be reprehended as inexact and confused. They cared little whether their major agreed with their conclusion, if the major secured two hundred votes, and the conclusion two hundred more. In fact the one beauty of the resolution is its inconsistency. There was a phrase for every subdivision of the majority. The mention of the original contract gratified the disciples of Sidney. The word abdication conciliated politicians of a more timid school. There were doubtless many fervent Protestants who were pleased with the censure cast on the Jesuits. To the real statesman the single important clause was that which declared the thronevacant; and, if that clause could be carried , he cared little by what preamble it might be introduced. The force which was thus united made all resistance hopeless. The motion was adopted by the Committee without a division. It was ordered that the report should be instantly made. Powle returned to the chair: the mace was laid on the table: Hampden brought up the resolution: the House instantly agreed to it, and ordered him to carry it to the Lords.* On the following morning the Lords assembled early. The it is sent benches both of the spiritual and of the temporal peers were lho crowded. Hampden appeared at the bar, and put the resolution of the Commons into the hands of Halifax. The Upper ■ Commons’ Journals, Jan. 28. 168J.; Grey's Debates; Citlers, ^ d> e report in Grey’s Debates be correct, Citlers must have been misinformed as to Sawyer’s speech. 416 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap. House then resolved itself into a committee; and Danby took ' less7~ the cha!r \ The discussion was soon interrupted by the reappearance of Hampden with another message. The House resumed and was informed that the Commons had just voted it inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant nation to be governed by a Popish King. To this resolution, irreconcilable as it obviously was with the doctrine of indefeasible hereditary right, the Peers gave an immediate and unanimous assent. The principle which was thus affirmed has always, down to our own time, been held sacred by all Protestant statesmen, and has never been considered by any reasonable Roman Catholic as objectionable. If, indeed, our sovereigns were, like the Presidents of the United States, mere civil functionaries, it would not be easy to vindicate such a restriction. But the headship of the English Church is annexed to the English crown; and there is no intolerance in saying that a Church ought not to bo subjected to a head who regards her as schis- matical and heretical.* Debate in After this short interlude the Lords again went into com- ou\he rds mittee. The Tories insisted that their plan should be dis- pi»n of cussed before the vote of the Commons which declared the iiegencjr, ^p rone vacant was considered. This was conceded to them; and the question was put whether a Regency, exercising kingly power during the life of James, in his name, would be the best expedient for preserving the laws and liberties of the nation? The contest was long and animated. The chief speakers in favour of a Regency were Rochester and Nottingham. Halifax and Danby led the other side. The Primate, strange to say, did not make his appearance, though earnestly importuned by the Tory peers to place himself at their head. His absence drew on him many contumelious censures; nor have even his eulogists been able to find any explanation of it which raises his character.** The plan of Regency was his * Lords’ and Commons’ Journals, Jan. 29.168J. ** Clarendon’s Diary, Jan. 21, 168|; Burnet, i. 810.; Doyly’s Life of Sancroft. THE INTERREGNUM. own. He had, a few days before, in a paper written with his own hand, pronounced that plan to be clearly the best that could be adopted. The deliberations of the Lords who supported that plan had been carried on under his roof. His situation made it his clear duty to declare publicly what he thought. Nobody can suspect him of personal cowardice or of vulgar cupidity. It was probably from a nervous fear of doing wrong that, at this great conjuncture, ho did nothing: but he should have known that, situated as he was, to do nothing was to do wrong. A man who is too scrupulous to take on himself a grave responsibility at an important crisis ought to be too scrupulous to accept the place of first minister of the Church and first peer of the realm. It is not strange, however, that Sancroft’s mind should have been ill at ease; for he could hardly be blind to the obvious truth that the scheme which he had recommended to his friends was utterly inconsistent with all that he and his brethren had been teaching during many years. That the King had a divine and indefeasible right to the regal power, and that the regal power, even when most grossly abused, could not, without sin, be resisted, was the doctrine in which the Anglican Church had long gloried. Did this doctrine then really mean only that the King had a divine and indefeasible right to have his effigy and name cut on a seal which was to be daily employed in despite of him for the purpose of commissioning his enemies to levy war on him, and of sending his friends to the gallows for obeying him? Did the whole duty of a good subject consist in using the word King? If so, Fairfax at Naseby and Bradshaw in the High Court of Justice had performed all the duty of good subjects. For Charles had been designated by the generals who commanded against him, and even by the judges who condemned him, as King. Nothing in the conduct of the Long Parliament had been more severely blamed by the Church than the ingenious device of using the name of Charles against himself. Every one of her ministers had been required to sign a declaration condemning as traitorous the fiction by which the authority of the sovereign had Macaulay, History. III. 27 418 HISTOEY OF ENGLAND. chap, been separated from his person.* Yet this traitorous fiction — -was now considered by the Primate and by many of his suffragans as the only basis on which they could, in strict conformity with Christian principles, erect a government. The distinction which Sancroft had borrowed from the Roundheads of the preceding generation subverted from the foundation that system of politics which the Church and the Universities pretended to have learned from Saint Paul. The Holy Spirit, it had been a thousand times repeated, had commanded the Romans to be subject to Nero. The meaning of the precept now appeared to be only that the Romans were to call Nero Augustus. They were perfectly at liberty to chase him beyond the Euphrates, to leave him a pensioner on the bounty of the Parthians, to withstand him by force if he attempted to return, to punish all who aided him or corresponded with him, and to transfer the Tribunitian power and the Consular power, the Presidency of the Senate and the command of the Legions, to Galba or Vespasian. The analogy which the Archbishop imagined that lie had discovered between the case of a wrong-headed King and the case of a lunatic King will not bear a moment’s examination. It was plain that James was not in that state of mind in which, if he had been a country gentleman or a merchant, any tribunal would have held him incapable of executing a contract or a will. He was of unsound mind only as all bad Kings are of unsound mind; as Charles the First had been of unsound mind when he went to seize the five members; as Charles the Second had been of unsound mind when he concluded the treaty of Dover. If this sort of mental unsoundness did not justify subjects in withdrawing their obedience from princes, the plan of a Regency was evidently indefensible. If this sort of mental unsoundness did justify subjects in withdrawing their obedience from princes, the doctrine of nonresistance was completely given up; and all that any moderate Whig had ever contended for was fully admitted. As to the oath of allegiance about which Sancroft and his disciples were so anxious, one thing at least is clear, that, " See llie Acl of Uniformity. THE INTERREGNUM. ■whoever might be right, they were wrong. The Whigs held that, in the oath of allegiance, certain conditions were implied, that the King had violated these conditions, and that the oath had therefore lost its force. But, if the Whig doctrine were false, if the oath were still binding, could men of sense really believe that they escaped the guilt of perjury by voting for a Regency? Could they affirm that they bore true allegiance to James while they were, in defiance of his protestations made before all Europe, authorising another person to receive the royal revenues, to summon and prorogue Parliaments, to create Dukes and Earls, to name Bishops and Judges, to pardon offenders, to command the forces of the state, and to conclude treaties with foreign powers? Had Pascal been able to find, in all the folios of the Jesuitical casuists, a sophism more contemptible than that which now, as it seemed, sufficed to quiet the consciences of the fathers of the Anglican Church? Nothing Could be more evident than that the plan of Regency could be defended only on Whig principles. Between the rational supporters of that plan and the majority of the House of Commons there could be no dispute as to the question of right. All that remained was a question of expediency. And would any statesman seriously contend that it was expedient to constitute a government with two heads, and to give to one of those heads regal power without regal dignity, and to the other regal dignity without regal power? It was notorious that such an arrangement, even when made necessary by the infancy or insanity of a prince, had serious disadvantages. That times of Regency were times of weakness, of trouble and of disaster, was a truth proved by the whole history of England, of France, and of Scotland, and had almost become a proverb. Yet, in a case of infancy or of insanity, the King was at least passive. He could not actively counterwork the Regent. What was now proposed was that England should have two first magistrates, of ripe age and sound mind, waging with each other an irreconcilable war. It was absurd to talk of leaving James merely the kingly name, and depriving him of all the kingly power. For the 37 ' 419 CHAP. X. 1 ,4 420 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap. x. ICS8. name was a part of the power. The word King was a word of conjuration. It was associated in the minds of many Englishmen with the idea of a mysterious character derived from above, and in the minds of almost all Englishmen with the idea of legitimate and venerable authority. Surely, if the title carried with it such power, those who maintained that James ought to bo deprived of all power could not deny that he ought to be deprived of the title. And how long was the anomalous government planned by the genius of Sancroft to last? Every argument which could bo urged for setting it up at all might be urged with equal force for retaining it to the end of time. If the boy who had been carried into France was really born of the Queen, he would hereafter inherit the divine and indefeasible right to be called King. The same right would very probably be transmitted from Papist to Papist through the whole of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Both the Houses had unanimously resolved that England should not be governed by a Papist. It might well bo, therefore, that, from generation to generation, Regents would continue to administer the government in the name of vagrant and mendicant Kings. There was no doubt that the Regents must be appointed by Parliament. The effect, therefore, of this contrivance, a contrivance intended to preserve unimpaired the sacred principle of hereditary monarchy, would be that the monarchy would become really elective. Another unanswerable reason was urged against Sancroft’s plan. There was in the statute book a law which had been passed soon after the close of the long and bloody contest between the Houses of York and Lancaster, and which had been framed for the purpose of averting calamities such as the alternate victories of those Houses had brought on the nobility and gentry of the realm. By this law it was provided that no person should, by adhering to a King in possession, incur the penalties of treason. When the regicides were brought to trial after the Restoration, some of them insisted that their case lay within the equity of this act. They had obeyed, they said, the government which was in possession, and THE INTERREGNUM. were therefore not traitors. The Judges admitted that this would have been a good defence if the prisoners had acted under the authority of an usurper who, like Henry the Fourth and Richard the Third, bore the regal title, but declared that such a defence could not avail men who had indicted, sentenced, and executed one who, in the indictment, in the sentence, and in the death warrant, was designated as King. It followed, therefore, that whoever should support a Regent in opposition to James would run great risk of being hanged, drawn, and quartered, if ever James should recover supreme power; but that no person could, without such a violation of law as Jeffreys himself would hardly venture to commit, be punished for siding with a King who was reigning, though wrongfully, at Whitehall, against a rightful King who was in exile at Saint Germains. * It should seem that these arguments admit of no reply; and they were doubtless urged with force by Danby, who had a wonderful power of making every subject which he treated clear to the dullest mind, and by Halifax, who, in fertility of thought and brilliancy of diction, had no rival among the orators of that age. Yet so numerous and powerful were the Tories in the Upper House that, notwithstanding the weakness of their case, the defection of their leader, and the ability of their opponents, they very nearly carried the day. A hundred Lords divided. Forty-nine voted for a Regency, fifty-one against it. In the minority were the natural children of Charles, the brotliers-in-law of James, the Dukes of Somerset and Ormond, the Archbishop of York and eleven Bishops. No prelate voted in the majority except Compton and Trelawney.** * Slat. 2 lien. I. c. 1.: Lord Coke’s Institutes, part iii. chap. i.; Trial of Cook for high treason, in the Collection of Stale Trials; Burnet, i. 813. and Swift’s note. “ Lords’ Journals, Jan. 29.16SJ; Clarendon’s Diary; Evelyn’s Diary; Cillers; Eachard's History of the Revolution; Burnet, i. 813.; History of the Reestablishment of the Government, 1089. The numbers of the Contents and Not Contents are not given in the journals, and are differently reported by different writers. I have followed Clarendon, who look the trouble to make out lists of the majority and minority. 422 CHAP. X. 168 S. HISTORY OF ENGLAND. It was near nine in the evening before the House rose. The following day was the thirtieth of January, the anniversary of the death of Charles the First. The great body of the Anglican clergy had, during many years, thought it a sacred duty to inculcate on that day the doctrines of non- resistance and passive obedience. Their old sermons were now of little use; and many divines were even in doubt whether they could venture to read the whole Liturgy. The Lower House had declared that the throne was vacant. The Upper had not yet expressed any opinion. It was therefore not easy to decide whether the prayers for the sovereign ought to be used. Every officiating minister took his own course. In most of the churches of the capital the petitions for James were omitted: but at Saint Margaret’s, Sharp, Dean of Norwich, who had been requested to preach before the Commons, not only read to their faces the whole service as it stood in the book, but, before his sermon, implored, in his own words, a blessing on the King, and, towards the close of his discourse, declaimed against the Jesuitical doctrine that princes might lawfully be deposed by their subjects. The Speaker, that very afternoon, complained to the House of this affront. “You pass a vote one day,” he said; “and on the next day it is contradicted from the pulpit in your own hearing.” Sharp was strenuously defended by the Tories, and had friends even among the Whigs: for it was not forgotten that he had incurred serious danger in the evil times by the courage with which, in defiance of the royal injunction, he had preached against Popery. Sir Christopher Musgrave very ingeniously remarked that the House had not ordered the resolution which declared the throne vacant to be published. Sharp, therefore, was not only not bound to know anything of that resolution, but could not have taken notice of it without a breach of privilege for which he might have been called to the bar and reprimanded on his knees. The majority felt that it was not wise at that conjuncture to quarrel with the clergy; and the subject was suffered to drop. * Grey's Debates; Evelyn’s Diary; Life of Archbishop Sharp, by THE 1NTEKBEGNUM. 423 While the Commons were discussing Sharp’s sermon, the chap. Lords had again gone into a committee on the state of the I6S8 _ nation, and had ordered the resolution which pronounced the throne vacant to be read clause by clause. The first expression on which a debate arose was that which recognised the original contract between King and people. It was not to be expected that the Tory peers would suffer a phrase which contained the quintessence of Whiggism to pass unchallenged. A division took place ; and it was determined by fifty-three votes to forty-six that the words should stand. The severe censure passed by the Commons on the administration of James was next considered, and was approved without one dissentient voice. Some verbal objections were made to the proposition that James had abdicated the government. It was urged that he might more correctly be said to have deserted it. This amendment was adopted, it should seem, with scarcely any debate, and without a division. By this time it was late; and the Lords again adjourned.* * Up to this moment the small body of peers which was schism under the guidance of Danby had acted in firm union with u, C e WeBI1 Halifax and the Whigs. The effect of this union had been J™** that the plan of Regency had been rejected, and the doctrine followers of the original contract affirmed. The proposition that James otDanl ’ J ' had ceased to be King had been the rallying point of the two parties which had made up the majority. But from that point their path diverged. The next question to be decided was whether the throne was vacant; and this was a question not merely verbal, but of grave practical importance. If the throne was vacant, the Estates of the Realm might place William in it. If it was not vacant, he could succeed to it only after his wife, after Anne, and after Anne’s posterity. It was, according to the followers of Danby, an established maxim that our country could not be, even for a moment, without a rightful prince. The man might die; but the magistrate liis son; Apology for the New Separation, in a letter to Dr. John Sharp, Archbishop of York, 1091. * Lords’ Journals, Jan. 30. 108|; Clarendon’s Diary. 424 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. ciiap. was immortal. The man might abdicate; but the magistrate i68s. was irremovcablc. If, these politicians said, we once admiJ that the throne is vacant, we admit that it is elective. The sovereign whom we may place on it will be a sovereign, not after the English, but after the Polish, fashion. Even if we choose the very person who would reign by right of birth, still that person will reign not by right of birth, but in virtue of our choice, and will take as a gift what ought to be regarded as an inheritance. That salutary reverence with which the blood royal and the order of primogeniture have hitherto been regarded will be greatly diminished. Still more serious will the evil be, if we not only fill the throne by election, but fill it with a prince who has doubtless the qualities of a great and good ruler, and who has wrought a W’onderful deliverance for us, but who is not first nor even second in the order of succession. If we once say that merit, however eminent, shall be a title to the crown, we disturb the very foundations of our polity, and furnish a precedent of which every ambitious warrior or statesman who may have rendered any great service to the public will be tempted to avail himself. This danger we avoid if we logically follow out the principles of the constitution to their consequences. There has been a demise of the crown. At the instant of the demise the next heir became our lawful sovereign. We consider the Princess of Orange as next heir; and we hold that she ought, without any delay, to be proclaimed, what she already is, our Queen. The Whigs replied that it was idle to apply ordinary rules to a country in a state of revolution, that the great question now depending was not to be decided by the saws of pedantic Templars, and that, if it were to be so decided, such saws might be quoted on one side as well as the other. If it were a legal maxim that the throne could never be vacant, it was also a legal maxim that a living man could have no heir. James was still living. How then could the Princess of Orange be his heir? The truth was that the laws of England had made full provision for the succession when the power of a sovereign and his natural life terminated together, but had made no provison for the very rare cases in which his power terminated THE INTERREGNUM. 425 before the close of his natural life; and with one of those very rare cases the Convention had now to deal. That James no longer filled the throne both Houses had pronounced. Neither common law nor statute law designated any person as entitled to fill the throne between his demise and his decease. It followed that the throne was vacant, and that the Houses might invite the Prince of Orange to fill it. That he was not next in order of birth was true: but this was no disadvantage: on the contrary, it was a positive recommendation. Hereditary monarchy was a good political institution, but was by no means more sacred than other good political institutions. Unfortunately, bigoted and servile theologians had turned it into a religious mystery, almost as awful and as incomprehensible as transubstantiation itself. To keep the institution, and yet to get rid of the abject and noxious superstitions with which it had of late years been associated and which had made it a curse instead of a blessing to society, ought to be the first object of English statesmen; and that object would be best attained by slightly deviating for a time from the general rule of descent, and by then returning to it. Many attempts were made to prevent an open breach between the party of the Prince and the party of the Princess. A great meeting was held at the Earl of Devonshire’s House, and the dispute was warm. Halifax was the chief speaker for William, Danby for Mary. Of the mind of Mary Danby knew nothing. She had been some time expected in London, but had been detained in Holland, first by masses of ice which had blocked up the rivers, and, when the thaw came, by strong westerly winds. Had she arrived earlier the dispute would probably have been at once quieted. Halifax on the other side had no authority to say anything in William’s name. The Prince, true to his promise that he would leave the settlement of the government to the Convention, had maintained an impenetrable reserve, and had not suffered any word, look, or gesture, indicative either of satisfaction or of displeasure, to escape him. One of his countrymen, who had a large share of his confidence, had been invited to the meeting, CHAP. x. 1688. Meeting at the Earl of Devonshire’s. 426 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap. an d -was earnestly pressed by the Peers to give them some in- — formation. He long excused himself. At last he so far yielded to their urgency as to say, “I can only guess at His Highness’s mind. If you wish to know what I guess, I guess that he would not like to be his wife’s gentleman usher: but I know nothing.” “I know something now, however,” said Danby. “I know enough, and too much.” He then departed; and the assembly broke up.* On the thirty-first of January the debate which had terminated thus in private was publicly renewed in the House of Peers. That day had been fixed for the national thanksgiving. An office had been drawn up for the occasion by several Bishops, among whom were Ken and Sprat. It is perfectly free both from the adulation and from the malignity by which such compositions were in that age too often deformed, and sustains, better perhaps than any occasional service which has been framed during two centuries, a comparison with that great model of chaste, lofty, and pathetic eloquence, the Book of Common Prayer. The Lords went in the morning to Westminster Abbey. The Commons had desired Burnet to preach before them at Saint Margaret’s. He was not likely to fall into the same error which had been committed in the same place on the preceding day. His vigorous and animated discourse doubtless called forth the loud hums of his auditors. It was not only printed by command of the House, but was translated into French for the edification of foreign Protestants.** The day closed with the festivities usual on such occasions. The whole town shone brightly with fireworks and bonfires: the roar of guns and the pealing of bells lasted till the night was far spent: but, before the lights were extinct * Dartmouth’s note on Burnet, i. 303. Dartmouth says that it was from Fagel that the Lords extracted the hint. This was a slip of the pen very pardonable in a hasty marginal note; but Dalrymple and others ought not to have copied so palpable a blunder. Fagel died in Holland, on the 5th of December 1B88, when William was at Salisbury and James at Whitehall. The real person was, I suppose, Dykvelt, Benlinck, or Zulestein, most probably Dykvelt. *■ Both the service and Burnet’s sermon are still to be found in our great libraries, and will repay the trouble of perusal. THE INTERREGNUM. 427 and the streets silent, an event had taken place which threw chap. a damp on the public joy. " 168 ' 8 ■ The Peers had repaired from the Abbey to their house, Dcbate in and had resumed the discussion on the state of the nation, the Lords The last words of the resolution of the Commons were taken question into consideration; and it soon became clear that the majority JJ ia elhcr was not disposed to assent to those words. To near fifty throne Lords who held that the regal title still belonged to James were now added seven or eight who held that it had already devolved on Mary. The Whigs, finding themselves outnumbered, tried to compromise the dispute. They proposed to omit the words which pronounced the throne vacant, and simply to declare the Prince and Princess King and Queen. It was manifest that such a declaration implied, though it did not expressly affirm, all that the Tories were unwilling to concede. For nobody could pretend that William had succeeded to the regal office by right of birth. To pass a resolution acknowledging him as King was therefore an act of election; and how could there be an election without a vacancy? The proposition of the Whig Lords was rejected by Majority fifty-two votes to forty-seven. The question was then .put negative, whether the throne was vacant. The contents were only forty-one: the noncontents fifty-five. Of the minority thirty- six protested. * • During the two following days London was in an unquiet Agitation and anxious state. The Tories began to hope that they might London, be able again to bring forward their favourite plan of Regency with better success. Perhaps the Prince himself, when he found that he had no chance of wearing the crown, might prefer Sancroft’s scheme to Danby’s. It was better doubtless to be a King than to be a Regent: but it was better to be a Regent than to be a gentleman usher. On the other side the lower and fiercer class of Whigs, the old emissaries of Shaftesbury, the old associates of College, began to stir in the City. Crowds assembled in Palace Yard, and held threatening language. Lord Lovelace, who was suspected of having encouraged these assemblages, informed the Peers * Lords’ Journals, Jan. 31.1685. 428 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. chap, that he was charged with a petition requesting them instantly ■ jegg. to declare the Prince and Princess of Orange King and Queen. He was asked by whom the petition was signed. “There are no hands to it yet,” he answered; “but, when I bring it here next, there shall be hands enough.” This menace alarmed and disgusted his own party. The leading Whigs were, in truth, even more anxious than the Tories that the deliberations of the Convention should be perfectly free, and that it should not be in the power of any adherent of James to allege that either House had acted under force. A petition, similar to that which had been entrusted to Lovelace, was brought into the House of Commons, but was contemptuously rejected. Maynard was foremost in protesting against the attempt of the rabble in the streets to overawe the Estates of the Realm. William sent for Lovelace, expostulated with him strongly, and ordered the magistrates to act with vigour against all unlawful assemblies. * Nothing in the history of our revolution is more deserving of admiration and of imitation than the manner in which the two parties in the Convention, at the very moment at which their disputes ran highest, joined like one man to resist the dictation of the mob of the capital. Letter of But, though the Whigs were fully determined to maintain theCon- or< ler and to respect the freedom of debate, they were equally remicm. determined to make no concession. On Saturday the second of February the Commons, without a division, resolved to adhere to their resolution as it originally stood. James, as usual, came to the help of his enemies. A letter from him to the Convention had just arrived in London. It had been transmitted to Preston by the apostate Melfort, who was now high in favour at Saint Germains. The name of Melfort was an abomination to every Churchman. That he was still a confidential minister was alone sufficient to prove that his master’s folly and perverseness were incurable. No member of either House ventured to propose that a paper which came * Citters, Feb. T V 1689; Clarendon’s Diary, Feb. 2. The story is greatly exaggerated in the work entitled Revolution Politics, an eminently absurd book, yet of some value as a record of the foolish reports of the day. Grey’s Debates. THE interregnum:. 429 from such a quarter should be read. The contents, however, chap. were well known to all the town. His Majesty exhorted the - 1688- ■ Lords and Commons not to despair of his clemency, and graciously assured them that he would pardon those who had betrayed him, some few excepted, whom lie did not name. . How was it possible to do any thing for a prince who, vanquished, deserted, banished, living on alms, told those who wore the arbiters of his fate that, if they would set him on his throne again, he would hang only a few of them? * The contest between the two branches of the legislature Debate., lasted some days longer. On Monday the fourth of February the Peers resolved that they would insist on their amendments: but a protest to which thirty-nine names were subscribed was entered on the journals.** On the following day Negotia- the Tories determined to try their strength in the Lower tltm "' House. They mustered there in great force. A motion was made to agree-to the amendments of the Lords. Those who were for the plan of Sancroft and those who were for the plan of Danby divided together; but they were beaten by two hundred and eighty-two votes to a hundred and fifty-one. The House then resolved to request a free conference with tho Lords.*** At the same time strenuous efforts were making without Letter of the walls of Parliament to bring the dispute between the two iessof”' branches of the legislature to a close. Burnet thought that o™nge 10 the importance of the crisis justified him in publishing the great secret which the Princess had confided to him. He knew, he said, from her own lips, that it had long been her * The letter of James, dated 1GS9, will he found in Kennet. ' l?ob. d. ’ jft is most disingenuously garbled in Clarke’s Life of James. See Clarendon’s Diary, Feb. 2, 4.; Grey’s Debates; Lords* Journals, Feb. 2, 4. 1GSJ. ** It has been asserted by several writers, and, among others, by Ralph and by M. Mazure, that Danby signed this protest. This is a mistake. Probably some person who examined the journals before they were printed mistook Derby for Danby. Lords’Journals, Feb. 4. 1 G 8 *-. Evelyn, a few days before, wrote Derby, by mistake, for Danby. Diary, Jan. 29. 1 G 8 |. ■" Commons' Journals, Feb. 5.1G8J. 430 HISTORY OP ENGLAND. CHAP. X. 1C68. The Princess Anne acquiesces in the Whig plau. full determination, even if she came to the throne in the regular course of descent, to surrender her power, with the sanction of Parliament, into the hands of her husband. Danby received from her an earnest, and almost angry, reprimand. She was, she wrote, the Prince’s wife; she had no other wish than to be subject to him; the most cruel injury that could be done to her would be to set her up as his competitor; and she never could regard any person who took such a course as her true friend.* The Tories had still one hope. Anne might insist on her own rights, and on those of her children. No effort was spared to stimulate her ambition, and to alarm her conscience. Her uncle Clarendon was especially active. A few weeks only had elapsed since the hope of wealth and greatness had impelled him to bely the boastful professions of his whole life, to desert the royal cause, to join with the Wildmans and Fergusons, nay, to propose that the King should be sent a prisoner to a foreign land and immured in a fortress begirt by pestilential marshes. The lure which had produced this strange transformation was the Viceroyalty of Ireland. Soon, however, it appeared that the proselyte had little chance of obtaining the splendid prize on which his heart was set. He found that others were consulted on Irish affairs. His advice was never,asked, and, when obtrusively and importunately offered, was coldly received. He repaired many times to Saint James’s Palace, but could scarcely obtain a word or a look. One day the Prince was writing; another day he wanted fresh air and must ride in the Park; on a third he was closeted with officers on military business and could see nobody. Clarendon saw that he was not likely to gain anything by the sacrifice of his principles, and determined to take them back again. In December ambition had converted him into a rebel. In January disappointment reconverted him into a royalist. The uneasy consciousness that he had not been a consistent Tory gave a peculiar acrimony to his Toryism. ** In the House of * Burnet, i. 819. ** Clarendon’s Diary , Jan. 1,4, 8, 9,10,11,12,13,14.168}; Burnet, i. son. THE INTERREGNUM. 431 Lords lie had done all in his power to prevent a settlement. CI ^ 1 '- He now exerted, for the same end, all his influence over the 16S8 Princess Anne. But his influence over her was small indeed when compared with that of the Churchills, who wisely called to their help two powerful allies, Tillotson, who, as a spiritual director, had, at that time, immense authority, and Lady Russell, whose noble and gentle virtues, proved by the most cruel of all trials, had gained for her the reputation of a saint. The Princess of Denmark, it was soon known, was willing that William should reign for life; and it was evident that to defend the cause of the daughters of James against themselves was a hopeless task. * And now William thought that the time had come when he William ought to explain himself. He accordingly sent for Halifax, t^views. Danby, Shrewsbury, and some other political leaders of great note, and, with that air of stoical apathy under which he had, from a boy, been in the habit of concealing his strongest emotions, addressed to them a few deeply meditated and weighty words. He had hitherto, he said, remained silent; he had used neither solicitation nor menace: he had not even suffered a hint of his opinions or wishes to get abroad: but a crisis had now arrived at which it was necessary for him to declare his intentions. He had no right and no wish to dictate to the Convention. All that he claimed was the privilege of declining any office which he felt that he could not hold with honour to himself and with benefit to the public. A strong party was for a Regency. It was for the Houses to determine whether such an arrangement would be for the interest of the nation. He had a decided opinion on that point; and he thought it right to say distinctly that he would not be Regent. Another party was for placing the Princess on the throne, and for giving to him, during her life, the title of King, and such a share in the administration as she might be pleased to allow him. He could not stoop to such a post. He esteemed * Clarendon's Diary. Feb. 5.16815; Duchess of Marlborough’s Vindication; Mulgrave’s Account of the Revolution. 432 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap, the Princess as much as it -was possible for man to esteem -jjjjj— woman: but not even from her would he accept a subordinate and a precarious place in the government. lie was so made that he could not submit to bo tied to the apron strings even of the best of wives, lie did not desire to take any part in English affairs; but, if he did consent to take a part, there was one part only which he could usefully or honourably take. If the Estates offered him the crown for life, he would accept it. If not, he should, without repining, return to his native country. He concluded by saying that he thought it reasonable that the Lady Anne and her posterity should be preferred in the succession to any children whom he might have by any other wife than the Lady Mary.* The meeting broke up; and what the Prince had said was in a few hours known all over London. That he must be King was now clear. The only' question was whether he should hold the regal dignity alone or conjointly with the Princess. Halifax and a few other politicians, who saw in a strong light the danger of dividing the supreme executive authority, thought it desirable that, during William’s life, Mary should be only Queen Consort and a subject. But this arrangement, though much might doubtless be said for it in argument, shocked the general feeling even of those Englishmen who were most attached to the Prince. His wife had given an unprecedented proof of conjugal submission and affection; and the very least return that could be made to her would be to bestow on her the dignity of Queen Regnant. William Herbert, one of the most zealous of the Prince’s adherents, was so much exasperated that he sprang out of the bed to which he was confined by gout, and vehemently declared that he never would have drawn a sword in His Highness’s cause if he had foreseen that so shameful an arrangement would be made. No person took the matter up so eagerly as Burnet. * Burnet, i. 820. Burnet says that he has not related the events of this stirring time in chronological order. I have therefore been forced to arrange them by guess: but I think that I can scarcely be wrong in supposing that the letter of the Princess of Orange to Danby arrived, and that the Prince’s explanation of his views was given, between Thursday the 3lst of January, and Wednesday the 6lb of February. THE INTERREGNUM. 433 His blood boiled at the wrong done to bis kind patroness, chap. He expostulated vehemently with Bentinck, and begged to be —loisi permitted to resign the chaplainship. “While I am His Highness’s servant,” said the brave and honest divine, “it would be unseemly in me to oppose any plan which may have his countenance. I therefore desire to be set free, that I may fight the Princess’s battle with every faculty that God has given me.” Bentinck prevailed on Burnet to defer an open declaration of hostilities till William’s resolution should be distinctly known. In a few hours the scheme which had excited so much resentment was entirely given up; and all those who considered James as no longer King were agreed as to the way in which the throne must be filled. William and Mary must be King and Queen. The heads of both must appear together on the coin: writs must run in the names of both: both must enjoy all the personal dignities and immunities of royalty: but the administration, which could not be safely divided, must belong to William alone. * And now the time arrived for the free conference between f e h r ' n '™' the Houses. The managers for the Lords, in their robes, J > ' e tweon took their seats along one side of the table in the Painted Houses. Chamber: but the crowd of members of the House of Commons on the other side was so great that the gentlemen who were to argue the question in vain tried to get through. It was not without much difficulty and long delay that the Serjeant at Arms was able to clear a passage.** At length the discussion began. A full report of the speeches on both sides has come down to us. There are few students of history who have not taken up that report with eager curiosity and laid it down with disappointment. The question between the Houses was argued on both sides as a question of law. The objections which the Lords made to the resolution of the Commons were verbal and technical, and were met by verbal and technical answers. Somers vindi- * Miilgrave’s Account of the Revolution. In the first three editions, I told this story incorrectly. The fault was chiefly my own, but partly Burnet's, by whose careless use of the pronoun, he , I was misled. Burnet, i. 818. ** Commons’ Journals, Feb. 6 . 168 |. Macaulayj History. III. 28 434 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap, cated the use of the word abdication by quotations from Gro- —tius and Brissonius, Spigelius and Bartolus. When he was challenged to show any authority for the proposition that England could be without a sovereign, he produced the Parliament roll of the year 1399, in which it was expressly set forth that the kingly office was vacant during the interval between the resignation of Richard the Second and the enthroning of Henry the Fourth. The Lords replied by producing the Parliament roll of the first year of Edward the Fourth, from which it appeared that the record of 1399 had been solemnly annulled. They therefore maintained that the precedent on which Somers relied was no longer valid. Treby then came to Somers’s assistance, and brought forth the Parliament roll of the first year of Henry the Seventh, which repealed the act-of Edward the Fourth, and consequently restored the validity of the record of 1399. After a colloquy of several hours the disputants separated.* The Lords assembled in their own house. It was well understood that they were about to yield, and that the conference had been a mere form. The friends of Mary had found that, by setting her up as her husband’s rival, they had deeply displeased her. Some of the Peers who had formerly voted for a Regency had determined to absent themselves or to support the resolution of the Lower House. Their opinion, they said, was unchanged: but any government was better than no government, and the country could not bear a prolongation of this agony of suspense. Even Nottingham, who, in the Painted Chamber, had taken the lead against the Commons, declared that, though his own conscience would not suffer him to give way, he was glad that the consciences of other men were less squeamish. Several Lords who had not yet voted in the Convention had been induced to attend; Lord Lexington, who had just hurried over from the Continent; the Earl of Lincoln, who was half mad; the Earl of Carlisle, who limped in on crutches; and the Bishop of Durham, who had been in hiding and had intended to fly beyond sea, but had received an intimation that, if he * See the Lords’ and Commons’ Journals of Feb. 6. 168|, and the Report of the Conference. : H-4- THE INTEKREGNHM. 435 would vote for the settling of the government, his conduct in chap. the Ecclesiastial Commission should not be remembered —Jeasl— against him. Danby, desirous to heal the schism which he had caused, exhorted the House, in a speech distinguished by even more than his usual ability, not to persevere in a contest which might be fatal to the state. He was strenuously supported by Halifax. The spirit of the opposite party was j i h e c 1 j i ords quelled. When the question was put whether King James had abdicated the government, only three lords said Not Content. On the question whether the throne was vacant, a division was demanded. The Contents were sixty-two; the Not Contents forty-seven. It was immediately proposed and carried, without a division, that the Prince and Princess of Orange should be declared King and Queen of England.* Nottingham then moved that the wording of the oaths of allegiance and supremacy should be altered in such a way that they might be conscientiously taken by persons who, like himself, disapproved of what the Convention had done, and yet fully purposed to be loyal and dutiful subjects of the new sovereigns. To this proposition no objection was made. Indeed there can be little doubt that there was an understanding on the subject between the Whig leaders and those Tory Lords whose votes had turned the scale on the last division. The new oaths were sent down to the Commons, together with the resolution that the Prince and Princess should be declared King and Queen.** It was now known to whom the crown would be given. New laws On what conditions it should be given, still remained to be Grille decided. The Commons had appointed a committee to con- “yjjjrty. sider what steps it might be advisable to take, in order to secure law and liberty against the aggressions of future sovereigns; and the committee had made a report.*** This report recommended, first, that those great principles of the * Lords’Journals, Feb. 6 . 168J; Clarendon’s Diary; Burnet, i. 822. and Dartmouth's note; Citters, Feb. T " r . I have followed Clarendon as to the numbers. Some writers make the majority smaller and some larger. ** Lords’ Journals, Feb. 6 , 7 . 1 GS§; Clarendon’s Diary. *"* Commons’ Journals, Jan. 29. Feb. 2,168|. 28 * 436 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. dup. constitution which had been violated by the dethroned King ~ i683. should be solemnly asserted, and, secondly, that many new laws should be enacted, for the purpose of curbing the prerogative and purifying the administration of justice. Most of the suggestions of the committee were excellent; but it was utterly impossible that the Houses could, in a month, or even in a year, deal properly with matters so numerous, so various, and so important. It was proposed, among other things, that the militia should be remodelled, that the power which the sovereign possessed of proroguing and dissolving Parliaments should be restricted; that the duration of Parliaments should be limited; that the royal pardon should no longer be pleadable to a parliamentary impeachment; that toleration should be granted to Protestant Dissenters; that the crime of high treason should be more precisely defined; that trials for high treason should be conducted in a manner more favourable to innocence; that the Judges should hold their places for life; that the mode of appointing Sheriffs should be altered; that juries should be nominated in such a way as might exclude partiality and corruption; that the practice of filing criminal informations in the King’s Bench should be abolished; that the Court of Chancery should be reformed; that the fees of public functionaries should be regulated; and that the law of Quo Warranto should be amended. It was evident that cautious and deliberate legislation on these subjects must be the work of more than one laborious session; and it was equally evident that hasty and crude legislation on subjects so grave could not but produce new grievances, worse than those which it might remove. If the committee meant to give a list of the reforms which ought to be accomplished before the throne was filled, the list was absurdly long. If, on the other hand, the committee meant to give a list of all the reforms which the legislature would do well to make in proper season, the list was strangely imperfect. Indeed, as soon as the report had been read, member after member rose to suggest some addition. It was moved and carried that the selling of offices should be prohibited, that the Habeas Corpus Act should bo made more efficient, and that the law of Man- THE INTERREGNUM. 437 damus should be revised. One gentleman fell on the chim- ciiap. neymen, another on the excisemen; and the House resolved ■ 168S that the malpractices of both chimneymen and excisemen should be restrained. It is a most remarkable circumstance that, while the whole political, military, judicial, and fiscal system of the kingdom was thus passed in review, not a single representative of the people proposed the repeal of the statute which subjected the press to a censorship. It was not yet understood, even by the most enlightened men, that the liberty of discussion is the chief safeguard of all other liberties. * The House was greatly perplexed. Some orators vehe- Disputes mently said that too much time had already been lost, and promise 1 , that the government ought to be settled without the delay of a day. Society was unquiet: trade was languishing: the English colony in Ireland was in imminent danger of perishing: a foreign war was impending: the exiled King might, in a few weeks, be at Dublin with a French army, and from Dublin he might soon cross to Chester. Was it not insanity, at such a crisis, to leave the throne unfilled, and, while the very existence of Parliaments was in jeopardy, to waste time in debating whether Parliaments should be prorogued by the sovereign or by themselves? On the other side it was asked whether the Convention could think that it had fulfilled its mission by merely pulling down one prince and putting up another. Surely now or never was the time to secure public liberty by such fences as might effectually prevent the encroachments of prerogative.** There was doubtless great weight in what was urged on both sides. The able chiefs of the Whig party, among whom Somers was fast rising to ascendency, proposed a middle course. The House had, they said, two objects in view, which ought to be kept distinct. One object was to secure the old polity of the realm against illegal attacks: the other was to improve that polity by legal reforms. The former object might be attained by solemnly putting on record, in the resolution which called the new • Commons’ Journals, Feb. 2. 168J. ** Grey’s Debates; Burnet, i. 822 . 438 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. X. 168S. The Declaration of Bight. sovereigns to the throne, the claim of the English nation to its •ancient franchises, so that the King might hold his crown, and the people their privileges, by one and the same title deed. The latter object would require a whole volume of elaborate statutes. The former object might be attained in a day; the latter, scarcely in five years. As to the former object, all parties were agreed: as to the latter, there were innumerable varieties of opinion. No member of either House would hesitate for a moment to vote that the King could not levy taxes without the consent of Parliament: but it would be hardly possible to frame any new law of procedure in cases of high treason which would not give rise to long debate, and be condemned by some persons as unjust to the prisoner, and by others as unjust to the crown. The business of an extraordinary convention of the Estates of the Realm was not to do the ordinary work of Parliaments, to regulate the fees of masters in Chancery, and to provide against the exactions of gaugers, but to put right the great machine of government. When this had been done, it would be time to inquire what improvement our institutions needed: nor would anything be risked by delay; for no sovereign who reigned merely by the choice of the nation could long refuse his assent to any improvement which the nation, speaking through its representatives, demanded. On these grounds the Commons wisely determined to postpone all reforms till the ancient constitution of the kingdom should have been restored in all its parts, and forthwith to fill the throne without imposing on William and Mary any other obligation than that of governing according to the existing laws of England. In order that the questions which had been, in dispute between the Stuarts and the nation might never again be stirred, it was determined that the instrument by which the Prince and Princess of Orange were called to the throne, and by which the order of succession was settled, should set forth, in the most distinct and solemn manner, the fundamental principles of the constitution. This instrument, known by the name of the Declaration of Right, was prepared by a committee, of which Somers was chairman. The fact THE INTERREGNUM. 439 that the low bom young barrister was appointed to so honour- chap. able and important a post in a Parliament filled with able and — jg 88 y experienced men, only ten days after he had spoken in the House of Commons for the first time, sufficiently proves the superiority of his abilities. In a few hours the Declaration was framed and approved by the Commons. The Lords assented to it with some amendments of no great importance.* The Declaration began by recapitulating the crimes and errors which had made a revolution necessary. James had invaded the province of the legislature; had treated modest petitioning as a crime; had oppressed the Church by means of an illegal tribunal; had, without the consent of Parliament, levied taxes and maintained a standing army in time of peace; had violated the freedom of election, and perverted the course of justice. Proceedings which could lawfully be questioned only in Parliament had been made the subjects of prosecution in the King’s Bench. Partial and corrupt juries had been returned: excessive bail had been required from prisoners: excessive fines had been imposed: barbarous and unusual punishments had been inflicted: the estates of accused persons had been granted away before conviction. He, by whose authority these things had been done, had abdicated the government. The Prince of Orange, whom God had made the glorious instrument of delivering the nation from superstition and tyranny, had invited the Estates of the Realm to meet and to take counsel together for the securing of religion, of law, and of freedom. The Lords and Commons, having deliberated, had resolved that they would first, after the example of their ancestors, assert the ancient rights and liberties of England. Therefore it was declared that the dispensing power, lately assumed and exercised, had no legal existence; that, without grant of Parliament, no money could be exacted by the sovereign from the subject; that, without consent of Parliament, no standing army could be kept up in time of peace. The right of subjects to petition, the right of electors to choose representatives freely, the right ofParlia- ' Commons’ Journals, Feb. 4, 8,11, 12 .; Lords’ Journals, Feb. 9,11, 12.168}. 440 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. ciup. ments to freedom of debate, the right of the nation to a pure - 188 'g ~ and merciful administration of justice according to the spirit of its own mild laws, were solemnly affirmed. All these things the Convention claimed, in the name of the whole nation, as the undoubted inheritance of Englishmen. Having thus vindicated the principles of the constitution, the Lords and Commons, in the entire confidence that the deliverer would hold sacred the laws and liberties which he had saved, resolved that William and Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, should be declared King and Queen of England for their joint and separate lives, and that, during their joint lives, the administration of the government should be in the Prince alone. After them the crown was settled on the posterity of Mary, then on Anne and her posterity, and then on the posterity of William. Arrival of By this time the wind had ceased to blow from the west. Mary. The ship in which the Princess of Orange had embarked lay off Margate on the eleventh of February, and, on the following morning, anchored at Greenwich.* She was received with many signs of joy and affection: but her demeanour shocked the Tories, and was not thought faultless even by the Whigs. A young woman, placed, by a destiny as mournful and awful as that which brooded over the fabled houses of Labdacus and Pelops, in such a situation that she could not, without violating her duty to her God, her husband, and her country, refuse to take her seat on the throne from which her father had just been hurled, should have been sad, or at least serious. Mary was not merely in high, but in extravagant, spirits. She entered Whitehall, it was asserted, with a girlish delight at being mistress of so fine a house, ran about the rooms, peeped into the closets, and examined the quilt of the state bed, without seeming to remember by whom those magnificent apartments had last been occupied. Burnet, who had, till then, thought her an angel in human form, could not, on this occasion, refrain from blaming her. He was the more astonished because, when he took leave of her at the Hague, she had, though fully convinced that she was in the * London Gazelle, Feb. 14. 108f; Cillers, Feb. 15. THE INTERREGNUM. 441 path of duty, been deeply dejected. To him, as toherspi- chap. ritual guide, she afterwards explained her conduct. William —■ had written to inform her that some of those who had tried to separate her interest from his still continued their machinations: they gave it out that she thought herself wronged; and, if she wore a gloomy countenance, the report would he confirmed. He therefore intreated her to make her first appearance with an air of cheerfulness. Her heart, she said, was far indeed from cheerful; but she had done her best; and, as she was afraid of not sustaining well a part which was uncongenial to her feelings, she had overacted it. Her deportment was the subject of reams of scurrility in prose and verse: it lowered her in the opinion of some whose esteem she valued; nor did the world know, till she was beyond the reach of praise and censure, that the conduct which had brought on her the reproach of levity and insensibility was really a signal instance of that perfect disinterestedness and self-devotion of which man seems to be incapable, but which is sometimes found in woman.* On the morning of Wednesday, the thirteenth of February, Tender the court of Whitehall and all the neighbouring streets were ceptance filled with gazers. The magnificent Banqueting House, the “ r f 0 l ^ n ° masterpiece of Inigo, embellished by masterpieces of Rubens, bad been prepared for a great ceremony. The walls were lined by the yeomen of the guard. Near the northern door, on the right hand, a large number of Peers had assembled. On the left were the Commons with their Speaker, attended by the mace. The southern door opened: and the Prince and Princess of Orange, side by side, entered, and took their place under the canopy of state. Both Houses approached bowing low. William and Mary advanced a few steps. Halifax on the right, andPowleon the left, stood forth; and Halifax spoke. The Convention, he said, had agreed to a resolution which he prayed Their Highnesses to hear. They signified their assent; and the clerk of the House of Lords read, in a loud voice, theDe- * Duchess ofMarlborough’s Vindicalion; Review of Ihe Vindication; Burnet, i. 181. 825, and Dartmouth’s note; Evelyn's Diary, Feb, 21.168|. 442 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. X. 1688 . William and Mary proclaimed. Peculiar character of the English Revolution. claration of Right. When he had concluded, Halifax, in the name of all the Estates of the Realm, requested the Prince and Princess to accept the crown. William, in his own name and in that of his wife, answered that the crown was, in their estimation, the more valuable because it was presented to them as a token of the confidence ofthenation. “We thankfully accept,” hesaid, “what you have offered us.” Then, for himself, he assured them that the laws of England, which he had once already vindicated, should be the rules of his conduct, that it should be his study to promote the welfare of the kingdom, and that, as to the means of doing so, he should constantly recur to the advice of the Houses, and should be disposed to trust their judgment rather than his own.* These words were received with a shout of joy which was heard in the streets below, and was instantly answered by huzzas from many thousands of voices. The Lords and Commons then reverently retired from the Banqueting House and went in procession to the great gate of Whitehall, where the heralds and pursuivants were waiting in their gorgeous tabards. All the space as far as Charing Cross was one sea of heads. The kettle drums struck up; the trumpets pealed: and Garter King at arms, in a loud voice, proclaimed the Prince and Princess of Orange King and Queen of England, charged all Englishmen to pay, from that moment, faith and true allegiance to the new sovereigns, and besought God, who had already wrought so signal a deliverance for our Church and nation, to bless William and Mary with a long and happy reign.** Thus waB consummated the English Revolution. When we compare it with those revolutions which have, during the last sixty years, overthrown so many ancient governments, we cannot but be struck by its peculiar character. Why that * Lords’ and Commons’ Journals, Feb. 14. 168jj; Citters, Feb. 1|. Citters puts into William’s mouth stronger expressions of respect for the authority of Parliament than appear in the journals; but it is clear from what Powle said that the report in the journals was not strictly accurate. •* London Gazette, Feb. 14. 1683; Lords’ and Commons’ Journals, Feb. 13.; Cillers, Feb. ; Evelyn, Feb. 21. THE INTERREGNUM. 443 character was so peculiar is sufficiently obvious, and yet chap. seems not to have been always understood either by eulogists 168S . or by censors. The continental revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries took place in countries where all trace of the limited monarchy of the middle ages had long been effaced. The right of the prince to make laws and to levy money had, during many generations, been undisputed. His throne was guarded by a great regular army. His administration could not, without extreme peril, be blamed even in the mildest terms. His subjects held their personal liberty by no other tenure than his pleasure. Hot a single institution was left which had, within the memory of the oldest man, afforded efficient protection to the subject against the utmost excess of tyranny. Those great councils which had once curbed the regal power had sunk into oblivion. Their composition and their privileges were known only to antiquaries. We cannot wonder, therefore, that, when men who had been thus ruled succeeded in wresting supreme power from a government which they had long in secret hated, they should have been impatient to demolish and unable to construct, that they should have been fascinated by every specious novelty, that they should have proscribed every title, ceremony, and phrase associated with the old system, and that, turning away with disgust from their own national precedents and traditions, they should have sought for principles of government in the writings of theorists, or aped, with ignorant and ungraceful affectation, the patriots of Athens and Home. As little can we wonder that the violent action of the revolutionary spirit should have been followed by reaction equally violent, and that confusion should speedily have engendered despotism sterner than that from which it had sprung. Had we been in the same situation; had Strafford succeeded in his favourite scheme of Thorough; had he formed an army as numerous and as well disciplined as that which, a few years later, was formed by Cromwell; had a series of judicial decisions, similar to that which was pronounced by the Exchequer Chamber in the case of ship-money, trans- 444 niSXORY OF ENGLAND. chap, ferred to the crown the right of taxing the people; had the — Star Chamber and the High Commission continued to fine, mutilate, and imprison every man who dared to raise his voice against the government; had the press been as completely enslaved here as at Vienna or at Naples; had our Kings gradually drawn to themselves the whole legislative power; had six generations of Englishmen passed away without a single session of Parliament; and had we then at length risen up in some moment of wild excitement against our masters, what an outbreak would that have been! With what a crash, heard and felt to the farthest ends of the world, would the whole vast fabric of society have fallen! How many thousands of exiles, once the most prosperous and the most refined members of this great community, would have begged their bread in continental cities, or have sheltered their heads under huts of bark in the uncleared forests of America! How often should we have seen the pavement of London piled up in barricades, the houses dinted with bullets, the gutters foaming with blood! How many times should we have rushed wildly from extreme to extreme, sought refuge from anarchy in despotism, and been again driven by despotism into anarchy! How many years of blood and confusion would it have cost us to learn the very rudiments of political science! How many childish theories would have duped us! How many rude and ill poised constitutions should we have set up, only to see them tumble down! Happy would it have been for us if a sharp discipline of half a century had sufficed to educate us into a capacity of enjoying true freedom. These calamities our Revolution averted. It was a revolution strictly defensive, and had prescription and legitimacy on its side. Here, and here only, a limited monarchy of the thirteenth century had come down unimpaired to the seventeenth century. Our parliamentary institutions were in full vigour. The main principles of our government were excellent. They were not, indeed, formally and exactly set forth in a single written instrument; but they were to be found scattered over our ancient and noble statutes; and, what was of far greater moment, they had been engraven on the THE INTERREGNUM. 445 hearts of Englishmen during four hundred years. That, chap. without the consent of the representatives of the nation, no 1688i legislative act could be passed, no tax imposed, no regular soldiery kept up, that no man could be imprisoned, even for a day, by the arbitrary will of the sovereign, that no tool of power could plead the royal command as a justification for violating any right of the humblest subject, were held, both by Whigs and Tories, to be fundamental laws of the realm. A realm of which these were the fundamental laws stood in no need of a new constitution. But, though a new constitution was not needed, it was plain that changes were required. The misgovernment of the Stuarts, and the troubles which that misgovernment had produced, sufficiently proved that there was somewhere a defect in our polity; and that defect it was the duty of the Convention to discover and to supply. Some questions of great moment were still open to dispute. Our constitution had begun to exist in times when statesmen were not much accustomed to frame exact definitions. Anomalies, therefore, inconsistent with its principles and dangerous to its very existence, had sprung up almost imperceptibly, and, not having, during many years, caused any serious inconvenience, had gradually acquired the force of prescription. The remedy for these evils was to assert the rights of the people in such language as should terminate all controversy, and to declare that no precedent could justify any violation of those rights. When this had been done it would be impossible for our rulers to misunderstand the law: but, unless something more were done, it was by no means improbable that they might violate it. Unhappily the Church had long taught the nation that hereditary monarchy, alone among our institutions, was divine and inviolable; that the right of the House of Commons to a share in the legislative power was a right merely human, but that the right of the King to the obedience of his people was from above; that the Great Charter was a statute which might be repealed by those who had made it, hut that the rule which called the princes of the blood royal to the 446 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap, throne in order of succession was of celestial origin, and that —^— any Act of Parliament inconsistent with that rule was a nullity. It is evident that, in a society in which such superstitions prevail, constitutional freedom must ever be insecure. A power which is regarded merely as the ordinance of man cannot be an efficient check on a power which is regarded as the ordinance of God. It is vain to hope that laws, however excellent, will permanently restrain a King who, in his own opinion, and in that of a great part of his people, has an authority infinitely higher in kind than the authority which belongs to those laws. To deprive royalty of these mysterious attributes, and to establish the principle that Kings reigned by a right in no respect differing from the right by which freeholders chose knights of the shire, or from the right by which Judges granted writs of Habeas Corpus, was absolutely necessary to the security of our liberties. Thus the Convention had two great duties to perform. The first was to clear the fundamental laws of the realm from ambiguity. The second was to eradicate from the minds, both of the governors and of the governed, the false and pernicious notion that the royal prerogative was something more sublime and holy than those fundamental laws. The former object was attained by the solemn recital and claim with which the Declaration of Right commences; the latter by the resolution which pronounced the throne vacant, and invited William and Mary to fill it. The change seems small. Not a single flower of the crown was touched. Not a single new right was given to the people. The whole English law, substantive and adjective, was, in the judgment of all the greatest lawyers, of Holt and Treby, of Maynard and Somers, exactly the same after the Revolution as before it. Some controverted points had been decided according to the sense of the best jurists; and there had been a slight deviation from the ordinary course of succession. This was all; and this was enough. As our Revolution was a vindication of ancient rights, so it was conducted with strict attention to ancient formalities. In almost every word and act may be discerned a profound THE INTERREGNUM. 447 reverence for the past. The Estates of the Realm deliberated CII X p - in the old halls and according to the old rules. Powle was 1688 . conducted to his chair between his mover and his seconder with the accustomed forms. The Serjeant with his mace brought up the messengers of the Lords to the table of the Commons; and the three obeisances were duly made. The conference was held with all the antique ceremonial. On one side of the table, in the Painted Chamber, the managers of the Lords sate covered and robed in ermine and gold. The managers of the Commons stood bareheaded on the other side. The speeches present an almost ludicrous contrast to the revolutionary oratory of every other country. Both the English parties agreed in treating with solemn respect the ancient constitutional traditions of the state. The only question was, in what sense those traditions were to be understood. The assertors of liberty said not a word about the natural equality of men and the inalienable sovereignty of the people, about Harmodius orTimoleon, Brutus the elder or Brutus the younger. When they were told that, by the English law, the crown, at the moment of a demise, must descend to the next heir, they answered that, by the English law, a living man could have no heir. When they were told that there was no precedent for declaring the throne vacant, they produced from among the records in the Tower a roll of parchment, near three hundred years old, on which, in quaint characters and barbarous Latin, it was recorded that the Estates of the Realm had declared vacant the throne of a perfidious and tyrannical Plantagenet. When at length the dispute had been accommodated, the new sovereigns were proclaimed with the old pageantry. All the fantastic pomp of heraldry was there, Clarencieux and Norroy, Portcullis and Rouge Dragon, the trumpets, the banners, the grotesque coats embroidered with lions and lilies. The title of King of France, assumed by the conqueror of Cressy, was not omitted in the royal style. To us, who have lived in the year 1848, it may seem almost an abuse of terms to call a proceeding, conducted with so much deliberation, with so much 448 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. chap, sobriety, and with such minute attention to prescriptive eti- ie8 g"- quette, by the terrible name of Revolution. And yet this revolution, of all revolutions the least violent, has been of all revolutions the most beneficent. It finally decided the great question whether the popular element which had, ever since the age of Fitzwalter andDe Montfort, been found in the English polity, should be destroyed by the monarchical element, or should be suffered to develope itself freely, and to become dominant. The strife between the two principles had been long, fierce, and doubtful. It had lasted through four reigns. It had produced seditions, impeachments, rebellions, battles, sieges, proscriptions, judicial massacres. Sometimes liberty, sometimes royalty, had seemed to be on the point of perishing. During many years one half of the energy of England had been employed in counteracting the other half. The executive power and the legislative power had so effectually impeded each other that the state had been of no account in Europe. The King at Arms, who proclaimed William and Mary before Whitehall Gate, did in truth announce that this great struggle was over; that there was entire union between the throne and the Parliament; that England, long dependent and degraded, was again a power of the first rank; that the ancient laws by which the prerogative was bounded would thenceforth be held as sacred as the prerogative itself, and would be followed out to all their consequences; that the executive administration would be conducted in conformity with the sense of the representatives of the nation; and that no reform, which the two Houses should, after mature deliberation, propose, would be obstinately withstood by the sovereign. The Declaration of Right, though it made nothing law which had not been law before, contained the germ of the law which gave religious freedom to the Dissenter, of the law which secured the independence of the Judges, of the law which limited the duration of Parliaments, of the law which placed the liberty of the press under the protection of juries, of the law which prohibited the slave trade, of the law which abo- THE INTERREGNUM. lished the sacramental test, of the la-w which relieved the Roman Catholics from civil disabilities, of the law which reformed the representative system, of every good law which has been passed during a hundred and sixty years, of every good law which may hereafter, in the course of ages, he found necessary to promote the public weal, and to satisfy the demands of public opinion. The highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the revolution of 1688 is this, that it was our last revolution. Several generations have now passed away since any wise and patriotic Englishman has meditated resistance to the established government. In all honest and reflecting minds there is a conviction, daily strengthened by experience, that the means of effecting every improvement which the constitution requires may be found within the constitution itself. Now, if ever, we ought to be able to appreciate the whole importance of the stand which was made by our forefathers against the House of Stuart. All around us the world is convulsed by the agonies of great nations. Governments which lately seemed likely to stand during ages have been on a sudden shaken and overthrown. The proudest capitals of Western Europe have streamed with civil blood. All evil passions, the thirst of gain and the thirst of vengeance, the antipathy of class to class, the antipathy of race to race, have broken loose from the control of divine and human laws. Fear and anxiety have clouded the faces and depressed the hearts of millions. Trade has been suspended, and industry paralysed. The rich have become poor; and the poor have become poorer. Doctrines hostile to all sciences, to all arts, to all industry, to all domestic charities, doctrines which, if carried into effect, would, in thirty years, undo all that thirty centuries have done for mankind, and would make the fairest provinces of France and Germany as savage as Congo or Patagonia, have been avowed from the tribune and defended by the sword. Europe has been threatened with subjugation by barbarians, compared with whom the barbarians who marched under Attila and Alboin were enlightened and humane. The truest friends of the people ilacaulay, History. 111. 29 450 HISTORY OF ENGLAND. CHAP. _X. J6S8. T have with deep sorrow owned that interests more precious than any political privileges were in jeopardy, and that it might be necessary to sacrifice even liberty in order to save civilisation. Meanwhile in our island the regular course of government has never been for a day interrupted. The few bad men who longed for license and plunder have not had the courage to confront for one moment the strength of a loyal nation, rallied in firm array round a parental throne. And, if it be asked what has made us to differ from others, the answer is that we never lost what others are wildly and blindly seeking to regain. It is because we had a preserving revolution in the seventeenth century that we have not had a destroying revolution in the nineteenth. It is because we had freedom in the midst of servitude that we have order in the midst of anarchy. For the authority of law, for the security of property, for the peace of our streets, for the happiness of our homes, our gratitude is due, under Him who raises and pulls down nations at his pleasure, to the Long Parliament, to the Convention, and to William of Orange. THE INDEX TO THIRD VOLUME. Abingdon, James Bertie, Earl of; removed by James II. from the lord-lieutenancy of Oxfordshire, 146. Joins the Prince of Orange, 300. 301. Adda, Ferdinand, Count of; his con* secralion at St. James’s Palace, 97. His public reception, 99. His escape, 356. Ailesbury, Earl of; his offer to James II., 110. Albeville, White,Marquessof; succeeds Skelton in Holland; de- mandsBurnet’s dismissal from the Hague, 72. His despatch to James, 267. His treatment at the Hague, 393. Allibone,Richard,aRomanCatholic; appointed a judge, 101. Declares the Bishops’ petition a libel, 197. Alsop, Vincent, a Nonconformist; supports the Court party in the conflict between James and the Church, 55. His mortification at the Dissenters’ opposition to the Indulgence, 165. Anne, Princess, daughter of James II.; her intimacy with Lady Churchill, 85. Her reputed bounty to Churchill, 86. Her attachment to Protestantism, 88. Reproves Clarendon, 304. Writes to William, 317. Her flight from Whitehall to the North, 318—320. Acquiesces in the Whig plan, 430. 431, Army, standing; its discontent after the trial of the Bishops, 234. Its retreat from Salisbury, 316. Arnold, Michael, the brewer, 191. 198. Arran, Earl of, 398. Astry, Sir Samuel, 189.199. Augsburg, treaty of; the work of William of Orange, 27. Austin, Thomas; subdues Arnold’s obstinacy, 198. Avaux, Count of; French minister at the Hague, 23. His audience with the States, 257. His advice to Lewis, 260. Baptists. See Bunyan; Eiffin; Nonconformists. Barillon; his relations with James, 41. 42. Escapes an attack from the mob, 353. Ordered by William to leave England, 383. See Lewis XIV. Barnstaple, 158. Bates, 165. Bath,Earl of; attempts to carryout James’s plans, 148. 149. Places himself and troops at William’s disposal, 310. Baxter, Richard; is liberated from prison; refuses to thank James for the Declaration of Indulgence, and endeavours to promote unity between the Church and the Presbyterians, 57. His further efforts, 165. 172. 29 * 452 INDEX TO Beaufort, Henry Somerset, Duke of; kis banquet to James II., 118. His failure to carryout the King’s plans, 147. 14S. Takes Lovelace prisoner, 300. Bedford, Earl of; his distress athis son’s execution, 81. Bentinck (afterwards Earl of Portland); regard of William Orange forhim, 8.9.10.11.His mission to England to express William’s detestation of the Whig plots, 25. His remonstrance with Burnet, 433. Berwick, James Fitzjames, Duke of, illegitimate son of James II*; project of the Jesuits for setting him up as James’s heir; refusal of the gentry to obey his summons, 149. 150. Birch, John; hisearlylife,400. Parliamentary eminence, ib. Bishops; their meeting on the subject of his Declaration of Indulgence, 166. Petition of the Seven presented to the King, 168. Their interview with him, 169. Effect of their conduct on public feeling, 170. Determination of the King to prosecute them for libel, 174. Their examination before the PrivyCouncil, 175.176. Theircom- mittal to theTower, 177. They are brought before the King’s Bench, and bailed, 183. 184. Public rejoicings on the occasion, 185. 186. Their trial 188—198. The verdict, 199. Public excitement on their acquittal, 199—204. Influence of their prosecution on public feeling, 204. 206. 207. Blalkwayt; his examination on the trial of theBishops, 192. His equivocations, 193. Bonrepaux; his complicity in the schemes of the Jesuits, 130.132. 133. Bridgewater, Earl of, 146, Bristol; declares for William, 331. Buckingham corporation, 158. Bunyan, John; his early career; success as a preacher and writer, 58. 59. His imprisonment; defiance of the penal laws; resistance to the Indulgence, 60. and note. His attack on Fowler, 166. note. Burnet, Bishop; his characteristics, 13.14. Bringsabouta good understanding between the Prince and Princess of Orange, 13. 17. 28. His History of the Reformation, 15. His reception at the Hague and confidential position there, 16—18. James demands his dismissal from the Hague, and despatches persons to kidnap him, 72. Ho defies James’s malice, 73.74. Lands in England with William, 287. Preaches before William at Exeter, 294. Disturbs the congregation at Salisbury, 335. Comparison between him and Halifax,338. William forbids him to meet Halifax, 339. Comes to an understanding with Halifax, 341. His humanity to the Catholics, 387. He discloses Mary’s determination to submit to William, 429. His zeal in her behalf, 432.433. Burnet, Thomas, 117. Cambridge University; its abhorrence of Monmouth’s treason, 104. Its refusal to confer a degree upon Francis, a papist, and citation of its officers before the High CommissionCouri,l05. Proceedings of the Court against it, 107. 108. Campbell, Archibald, 264. Care, Henry, 55. Carlisle, Karl of, 434. Carstairs; confidence reposed in him by William, 264. His recommendation, 289. THE THIRD VOLUME, 453 Cartwright, Thomas; his share in theNuncio’s procession at Windsor, 99. His discourse at Chester on James’s visit, 119. His nomination on the special commission at Oxford, and oration on the occasion, 123. Refusal of Hough to comply with his demands, ib. His resentment at the opposilionser- mons, 124. His unwelcome presence at the meeting of church dignitaries, 166. His information to James, 168. Rejection of his blessing, 184.185. Castelmaine, Roger Palmer, Earl of; his unfitness for the embassy to Rome, 92. 93. His public reception by the Pope, and Christina of Sweden, 93.94.95. His audiences with Innocent, 95. 96. Charnock, Robert; aids in James’s attempts upon Magdalene College, 115.121. 123. 125. Refusal of the demies to submit to his authority, 126. Charterhouse: refusal of its trustees to admit Popham , a papist; justification of their conduct by Thomas Burnet, the master, 117. Protest of its trustees against the royal mandate, ib. Chesterfield, Earl of, 312. Cholmondley, Lord, 312. Christina of Sweden; her reception of Castelmaine, 94. 95. Church of England; James attempts to enlist the Nonconformists in a league against her, 39. 40. Her amazement at the Declaration of Indulgence, 48. Her tactics on the occasion, 48. 49. Her altercations with James, 49. Her advances to the Dissenters, 51. 52. Continuance of her efforts against Romanism, 63.64. See Bishops; Clergy. Churchill, John Baron (afterwards Duke of Marlborough)*, his conferences withDykvell; his defection from James, 82. His view of James’s policy, 83. Value of bis adherence to William of Orange; his influence over the Princess Anne; his letter to William, 250. His protestations of loyalty lo James, 304.305. His advice to James, 313. He deserts to William, 314.315. Churchill, Sarah Jennings, Lady, 84. 85. 86. 87. Citters; reaches William’s head quarters, 332. Clarendon, Henry Hyde, Earl of, Viceroy of Ireland; attends a meeting of the clergy, 166. His grief on his son’s desertion, 304. Deserts James, and joins William’s parly, 332. Attempts to influence the Princess Anne, 430. Clayton, Sir Ilobert; his character, and services in the old parliament, 408. 409. Clergy, the Anglican; their resentment at James’s expulsion of the fellows of Magdalene College, 128. Their hopes in William of Orange, 129. Their embarrassments on receipt of the second Declaration of Indulgence, 163. 164. Removal of their hesitation by the conduct of the Dissenters, 164. Meeting of the London clergy, and resolution agreed to thereat, 166. Their disobedience to the King’s orders, 171. 172. Their defiance to the High Commission Court, 232. See Bishops. Closeting; meaning of the term, 43. It is unsuccessful, ib. Colchester, Richard Savage, Lord; joins William of Orange, 300. Colepepper; his quarrel with tho Earl of Devonshire, and its consequences, 78—80. Cologne; nature of its archbishop- 454 INDEX TO ric, 246. Quarrels between Lewis and the Pope concerning it, ib . Commons. See House of Commons. Compton, Henry, Bishop of London; his neglect of the political education of the Princess Mary, 12. He engages to influence the clergy on behalf of William of Orange, 82. Joins in the invitation to William, 220. He parries James’s questions, 281. He accompanies Anne in her flight, 319. His courtesy to the dissenting ministers, 376. Convention. See House of Commons. Cornbury, Edward Viscount; deserts James, 301.302. Ilis father’s grief thereat, 304. Corporations.; failure of his regulations for securing their subserviency, 156 — 158, Scotch; abrogation of their rights. See Vol. II. p. 358. Craven, William Earl of; his character, 373. Ilis devotion to James, ib. Crewe, Nathaniel, Bishop of Durham; his share in the Nuncio’s procession, 99. He joins in the conference with the Commons, 434. Danby, Thomas Earl of; bis conferences with Dykvelt, and popularity at the Hague, 76. Contrast between him and Halifax, 77. 78. His letter to William, 87. He joins in the invitation to William, 218 . 219. His reconciliation with Devonshire, 219. His proceedings at York, 310. He seizes the garrison, 311. His plan for settling the Crown, 404. 405. His ignorance of Mary’s sentiments, 406. 425. She writes to him, 430. He alters his tactics, 435. Dartmouth, Earl of; commander of the fleet, 269. Obstacles to his progress, 283. 288. He receives orders from James concerning the Prince of Wales, 325. Refuses to obey them, 327. His orders from the Lords, 349. Is removed from his command,386. Is prevented from sailing, 282 —288.' Declaration of Right, 438. 439. Delamere, Henry Booth, Lord; joins William of Orange, 310. Is selected to carry a message to James, 371—374. Derby, Earl of, 146. Devonshire, William Cavendish, Earl of; his quarrel with Cole- pepper, and its consequences, 78—81. Joins in inviting William to England, 218. His reconciliation with Danby, 219. Raises troops for William, 311. Offends the Lords, 412. Meeting of Peers at his house, 425. 426. Discontent in England, after the fall of the Hydes, 30. Of the clergy and the army at the proceedings of the High Commission, 234—236. Dissenters. See Nonconformists. Dolben, Gilbert, 412. Dorset, Charles Sackville, Earl of; his character and tastes, 143.144. Is dismissed from office, and threatened with assassination, 145. Protects the Princess Anne, 319. Dover, Henry Jermyn, Lord; his failure to carry out James’s plans, 148. Drumlanrig, Earl of; deserts to William, 317. Drummond, James. See Perth, Earl of. John. See Melforl, Lord. THE THIRD VOLUME. 455 Dryden, John; his conversion to Romanism, 33. 34. His Table of the Hind and Panther, 35—37. Dumblane, Peregrine Osborne, Lord, 264. Dykvelt, Everard Van; his character, diplomatic skill, and mission to England, 74. His negotiations with English statesmen, 75. He returns to the Hague with letters from many eminent Englishmen, 87. 88. Sent from Holland to congratulate William, 393. 394. Exeter; its reception of William of Orange, 291. Fagel, Grand Pensionary of Holland; effect of his reply on behalf of William to Stewart’s letter, 9i. 92. He draws up William’s declaration, 265. Fairfax, Dr., 116. Fane, Sir Vere, 410. Fanshaw, Richard Viscount, 413. Farmer, Anthony, recommended by James for President of Magdalene College, 114. Fauconberg, Viscount, 146. Ferguson, Robert, 15. 264. 265. 294. Feversham, Lewis Duras, Earl of, 26. note. His report on the state of the army, 314. Is ordered by James to disband the army, 846. He obeys, 348. Effect of his conduct on William’s movements, 359.360. Is ordered to liberate James, 365. Is charged with a letter to William, 366. Is put under arrest, 367. His release, 3S7. Finch, Daniel. See Nottingham, Earl of. —, John; his subserviency to Charles I., and disgrace by the House of Commons, 76. —, SirHeneage, Solicitor General to James 1L; his legal career, integrity, and oratorical fame, 76. His improvements in equity jurisprudence, 77. His conduct on the trial of the seven bishops, 195. 202. Fletcher, Andrew, of Saltoun; joins William of Orange, 264. Fowler, Edward; effect oT his determination not to read the Declaration of Indulgence, 166. Francis, Alban, 105. See Cambridge. Gainsborough, Earl of; bis ejection from office by James II., 146. Gentry; their discontent, and refusal to obey the judges, 233.234. George, Prince of Denmark; Charles II.’s opinion of him; deserts William’s camp, 317. Germany; invaded by the French armies, 264. Giffard, bona venture; his appointment as President of Magdalene College, 127. Godolpbin, Sidney; his report of James's letter, 383. Goodenough, 15. Gordon, Duke of, a Roman Catholic, 395. Grafton, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of; his protestations of loyally, 304. 305. His reply to James's reproof, 307. He deserts to William’s quarters, 315. Grey de Ruthin, 312. Haines, Joseph; a convert to Popery, 32. Hales, Sir Edward; uselessness of the judgment, 46. His guards sympathise with the bishops, 178. The bishops refuse to pay his fees, 185. He is ejected from the lieutenancy of the Tower, 325. He assists in James’s flight, 347. 456 INDEX TO Halifax, George Savile, Marquess of; “Letter to a Dissenter” ascribed to him, 52. His “Anatomy of an Equivalent,” 71. His ascendency over Nottingham, and conferences with Dykvelt, 77. 78. His letter to William, 87. His letter on the Declaration of Indulgence, 170. His arrangements for bailing the seven bishops, 184. He declines joining in the invitation to William, 218. His reply to James’s questions, 280. 281. He refuses to join Rochester, 305. His conduct at the council of Peers, 306. He is appointed commissioner to treat with William, 324. His conditions, ib. His interview with William, 337.338. Comes to an understanding with Burnet, 338 — 341. His sentiments on discovering that James had duped him, 363. 364. He presides at a meeting of the Lords, 371.383. He carries William's message to James, 374. His deportment at James's departure, 375. He is chosen Speaker by the Lords, 411. He supports William’s claim to (he throne, 425. His arguments in the conference with the Commons, 435. He presents the crown to William and Mary, 442. Hall, Timothy; reads the Declaration of Indulgence, 171. His reception at Oxford as bishop, 233. Hamilton, theDuke of, Privy Councillor of Scotland; he attends William at Whitehall, 398. Hampden, Richard, 412. He carries the Commons* resolutions to the Lords, 416. Harley, Sir Edward, 331. Herbert, Arthur, Rear Admiral of England, and Master of the Robes to James II.; dismissed, 44. His association with Dyk- vclt, on behalf ol William of Orange, 82. Herbert, Sir Edward, Lord Chief Justice; his removal from the Bench, 101. —, Lord, of Cherbury, 330. 331. —, William; bis vehemence in Mary’s behalf, 432. High Commission Court; citation of Bishop Compton and the Fellows ofMagdaleneCollege before it (see Compton, Magdalene College), 231.232. Its dissolution, 272. Hind and Panther, the; account Of, 35. Holland; its printing presses in the 17lh century, 16. 90. Its hold upon William’s feelings, 19.20. 21. 22. Its politics; estrangement of Lewis’s parly, 241. 242. Lewis’s conduct to its settlers in France, 242.243. Sanctions William’s expedition to England, 262. Sends congratulations to William, 393. 394. Holloway, Judge, 197. His dismissal from the Bench, 229. Holt, Sir John; removed from the Recordership, 101. Hough, John; his character; election as President of Magdalene College, and annulment thereof by the High Commission, 115. Refusal of the Fellows to elect Parker in his place, 11G. Fruitless efforts of Penn to induce him to alter his course, 122. His defence before the Special Commission, 123. Refuses to deliver up his keys, and protests against the proceedings, 123.124. See Magdalene College. Hounslow Camp; its dissolution, 234. 235. House of Commons; convention called by William III., 385. Its election, 394. Its meeting, 408. THE THIRD VOLUME, 457 Character of its principal members, 408. 409. 410. Elect Powle Speaker, 410. Declares the throne vacant, 414. Letter of James to it, 428. 429. Its conference with the Lords, 433. House of Lords; its meeting after James’s abdication, 411. Its proceedings, ib. Receives the Commons’resolutions, 415. Debates Sancroft’s plan ofa regency, 416-421. Debates the question of the vacancy of the throne, 423.421. Rejects* it, 427. Its conference with the Commons, 433. And submission, 434. 435. Howe, John; returns from banishment, 57. James endeavours to secure his aid, 58. His efforts for a coalition with the clergy, 165. Hume, Sir Patrick, 264. 398. Indulgence, Declaration of; proclaimed by James II., 44. 45. Feeling of the Protestant Dissenters, and of the Church of England, in regard lo.it, 46.47.49. Hostilities of the Prince and Princess of Orange, 64. 65. —, second Declaration; proclaimed, 162. The clergy ordered to read it, 163. Innocent XI.; his presumed approval of the policy of William of Orange, and dislike of James’s proceedings, 92. His resentment at the choice of Castelmaine as English representative at his court, 93. He refuses to admit Pelre to ecclesiastical preferment, and dismisses Castelmaine from Rome, 96. Insurrection, northern, account of the, 310. 3li. Ireland; dismay of its English colonists, 2 . Irish Night, account of the, 356-362. James, II.; effect of his altered policy upon the proceedings of William, 27. He grants a pension to Dryden on his conversion to Romanism, 34. Change in bis policy towards the Puritans, 37. He grants a partial toleration in Scotland, 41. 42. His closetings with the Tories, 43. 44. He publishes the Declaration of Indulgence, 44.45. Ilis altercations with the Church on the subject of Nonconformist persecutions, 49. His subjugation by the Jesuits, and dismissal of his confessor at their suggestions, 54. His attempts upon the honesty of John Howe, 58. His interview with William Kiffin, 61. His disquiet at William’s reply to his agents, and urgent letters to William and Mary, 65. Proofs of the necessity of restraints upon his exercise of the prerogative, 68-71. His enmity toBurnet,73. Growing enmity between him and William, 89. His conduct on the occasion of tbeconsecration of theNuncio, 97. He dismisses Somerset from office,98. His dissolution of parliament, 99.101.102. His arbitrary proceedings against the universities (see Cambridge University; Magdalene College; Oxford University; Universities). Recommends Anthony Farmer for president of Magdalene College, 114. Sets out on a royal progress, 118. 119. His interview with the Fellows of Magdalene College, 120. His employment of Penn to negotiate with them, 121 . Sends ecclesiastical commissioners to Oxford, 123. His scheme for preventing thePrincess ofOrange from succeeding to the Irish crown, 132. Ilis determination to pack a parliament, 137. His plan for effecting that object, 138. 458 INDEX TO 141—150. His dismissal of public officers, 159. His new Declaration of Indulgence, 162. His interview with the bishops, 169. Effect of the disobedience of the clergy upon his plans, 113. 174. He resolves to prosecute the seven bishops for libel, 174. He interrogates and endeavours to intimidate them, 175. 176. He commits them to the Tower, 117. 178. Birth of his son, the Pretender, and popular belief in the child’s supposititiousness, 178.179. His conduct after the trial of the bishops, 228. His dismissions and promotions, 229. He receives warnings of William’s project, 255. 256. Exertions of Lewis to save him, 251. He frustrates them, 258. 259. He becomes aware of his danger, 267. 268. 269. His naval and military means, 2G8. 209. He attempts to conciliate his subjects, 270. Gives audience to the bishops, 271. His concessions ill received, 272. 273. He submits *, to the Privy Council proofs of his son’s birth, 275. His conduct on receiving William’s declaration, 280. 282. His conversation with the bishops, 295. 296. 297. He confers the archbishopric of York onJLamp- lugh, and receives tidfngs of Cornbury’s desertion, 302. His interview with Clarendon, and with his military officers, 304.305. ThePeers petition him for a parliament, 305. 306. He refuses, and reproves tbebishops,306.307. He sets out for Salisbury, 307.312. Traitors in his camp, 313—315. He retreats from Salisbury, 316. He is deserted by Prince George and Ormond, 316.317. He returns to London, 311. He summons a council of Peers, 320. He appoints commissioners to treat with William, 324. His perfidy, 324. He prepares for flight, 325- 327. He prepares to send the Queen and his son to France, and sends for Lauzun, 342. His renewed preparations for flight, 346. He departs, 347. Commotion created by his flight, 348. He is detained near Sheerness, 360-362. The Lords order him to be set at Jiberty, 365. He returns to Whitehall, 368. Calls a council, 369. Receives a message from William, ib. Sets out for Rochester, 374. His flight from Rochester, 382. 383. 384. He arrives at St. Germains, 391. 392. His letter to the Convention, 428. Jeffreys, George Lord; penalty inflicted by him on the Duke of Devonshire, 19. His insults to the deputies from Cambridge, and perversion of Scripture, 108. Ilis behaviour to the Fellows of Magdalene College, and insult to Dr. Fairfax, 116. His conduct towards the Charterhouse trustees, 117. He advises James to prosecute the bishops for libel, 174. Discovered and arrested by the mob, and sent to the Tower, 355. Jenner, Sir Thomas; his visit to Oxford on the special commission, and conduct there, 123. 124. —, Frances, Lady Tyrconnel; her youthful vagaries, 84. —, Sarah. See Churchill, Lady. Jermyn. See Dover. Jesuits; tbeirsubjugation of James, 54. Their reception of Caslel- maineinRome,95. Theirschemcs respecting the succession to the Crown, 130.131. Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 34. Johnstone; acts as agent between William and the English Opposition, 88. THE THIRD VOLUME. 459 Ken, Bishop, 12.167—169. Kiffin, William; his influence among the Baptists; his interview with the King, 60. 61. Kirke, Colonel Percy; he professes loyalty, 305. He prepares to desert, 313. Lamplugh, Bishop, 302. Langley, Sir Roger, 191.199. Lauderdale, 371. Lauzun, Antonine Count of; his vicissitudes, 342. 343. He undertakes to convey the Queen and her son to France, 344. 345. He is restored to Lewis’s favour, 390. Lestrange, Roger; he answers the “Letter to a Dissenter,” 52. Levinz, Sir Creswell; retained on behalf of the Bishops, 190.1!)2. Lewis XIV.; his subjugation of Holland and conduct to William of Orange, 20. 21 . Comparison between them, 22. 27. His offer to aidinkidnappingBurnet,73.74. His negotiations with James concerning the recall of the British troops, 90. His complicity in Tyrconnel’s schemes, 132. 133, Abandoned by his party in Holland, 242. His persecutions of Dutch settlers in France, 242-244. His quarrel with the Pope concerning the franchises, 244. Proceeding’s of his ambassador in Rome, 245. His design on the archbishopricof Cologne, 246.247. His alarm at James’s conduct, 256. His exertions to save James, 257—259. He invades Germany, 260. 261. Joy of his court at his victories, 261. His treatment of Lauzun, 342. 343. His emotions on James’s flight, 389. His preparations forreceivingtheQueen, 390. He restores Lauzun to his favour, 390.391. His liberality to the exiled pair, 392. Lexington, Lord, 434. Leyburn, John; he officiates at the consecration of the Nuncio, 97. His advice to James, 274. He is arrested, 356. Licenses; meditated withdrawal of, by James II., 159. Lillibullero, 240. 241. Lincoln, Earl of, 434. Littleton, Sir Thomas, 408. Lloyd, Bishop of Norwich, 167. —, Bishop of St. Asaph, 167—169. Lobb, Stephen; nis early career, 56. His reconciliation with the Court, and servility to his new masters, ib. London, Bishop of. See Compton. London; attack on Roman Catholic property in, 297.298. Its agitation pendingJames’s negotiations with William, 328. Circulation of forged proclamations in, 328.329. Its excitement on James’s flight, 348—358. Its corporation welcomes William, 376. It lends money to him, 386. Lords. See House of Lords. Lords, council of, held by James, 320—323. Lovelace, John Lord; sets out to join William, 299. 300. Is captured by Beaufort’s troops, 300. The people ofGloucester liberate him, 331. His triumphal entry into Oxford, ib. His conduct in the Lords, 427. 428. William expostulates with him, 428. Lucas, Lord; appointed lieutenant of the Tower, 349. Lumley, Lord; joins the party of William of Orange, 220. 221. He seizes Newcastle, 330. Macclesfield, Charles Gerard, Earl Of, 264. 291. Madrid. See Spain. Magdalene College, Oxford; founded by William of Waynflele, 111. 460 INDEX TO Anthony Farmer recommended by James for its president, 114. Election of its president, 115.116. Citation of its Fellows before the High Commission, 116. James recommends it to elect Parker, ib. Its Fellows cited before the King atOxford and reprimanded, 120. Failure of Penn’s efforts to procure theirsubmission, 121 . 122 . Special commission to adjudicate upon their contumacy; installation of Parker as its president, 124.125. Ejection of its Fellows, 126. Is turned into a Popish seminary, 127. Magistrates; questions put to them by James’s orders, 146. Their politic answers, 147. Manchester, Earl of, 312. Mansuete, Father, confessor to James II.; his dismissal faom office, 54. • Mary of Modena, wife of James II.; her pregnancy; popular disbelief in the fact, 133—135. Her danger after Anne’s flight, 320. She departs for France, 344. Her perils at Lambeth, and embarkation at Gravesend, 345. Her reception by Lewis, 3!J0. 391. Homage paid to her at the French court, 392. Mary, Princess of Orange; her marriage to William determined by political considerations, 11. Her relations to the Prince, 12.16. Removes William’s anxieties, 18. Acquiesces in William’s project, 222. 223. Her letter to Danby*, 429.430. Her arrival in England, 440. Accepts the crown jointly with William* 441. Is proclaimed, 442. Massillon; his testimony to the character of William of Orange, 23. note. Maynard Sir John; refuses to hold a brief against the Bishops, 190. His reply to William’s courtesies, * 376. His reply to Sawyer’s objection, 385. Takes part in the proceedings of the Convention, 412. 415. Protests against mob rule, 428. Melfort, John Lord, Secretary of State for Scotland; brings James’s letter to the Convention, 428. Military offences; illegally punished, 90—101. Montague, Charles, and Matthew Prior; notice of, 37. Chosen to the Convention, 409. Mordaunt, Charles Viscount; his suggestions to William of Orange, 29. 30. lie volunteers to accompany William’s expedition, 264. He listens to Wildman’s projects, 267. His duty at Exeter, 290. —, Henry. See Peterborough. Mulgrave, John Sheffield, Earl of; his character, 106. 107. Musgrave, Sir Christopher, 413. Newark, Viscount, 146. Newcastle; its inhabitants declare for William, 330. Newton, Sir Isaac; appears before the High Commission Court as deputy from his University, 107. His election to William’s Convention, 410. Newton Abbot; its memorial of William of Orange, 289. Nonconformists; early rigour of James towards them, 37. 38. His meditated league with them, 39. 40. Their feelings on the Declaration of Indulgence being proclaimed^. Determination of the Church to outbid James in his offers to them, 48. 49. Their appearance at court, 50. Their wavering between the two contending parties, 52—54. Adherence of some of them to theKing, 55. (See THE THIRD VOLUME. 461 Alsop; Care; Lobb; Penn; Rose- well.) Opposition of the majority to the court, 57. (See Baxter; Buuyan; Howe; Kiffin.) Effect of the Declaration of Indulgence upon the character of their religious services, 62. 63. Their patriotism on the publication of the Declaration of Indulgence, 164. Norfolk, Duke of; attempts to enforce James’s plans, 147. lie declares for William, 330. Northumberland,Duke of; he connives at James’s flight, 347. Ue declares for William, 348. Norwich; declares for William,330. Nottingham, Daniel Finch, Earl of, 76. Opposes James’s policy, 77. His conferences with Dyk- velt,78. He secedes from William’s party, 220. His conduct in the conference with the Common's, 434.435. Ormond, James Butler, Earl of; be supports the Charterhouse trustees, 117. Ilis death, 232. Ormond, Duke of, grandson of the above; he is elected Chancellor of Oxford University, 232. He deserts to the Prince’s camp, 317. Oxford, University of; its loyalty to James II. during Monmouth’s rebellion, 104. James’s interference with its rights, 108. 109. Arrival of the King at, 120. Elects Ormond as Chancellor, 232. Its welcome to Lovelace, 331. See Magdalene College. —, Bishops of. See Parker; Hall. yoI. II. , Corporation; its refusal to submit to James’s dictation, 160. —, Aubrey de Vere, Earl of; his ancestors and their exploits, 140. He refuses to aid in James’s projects, and is dismissed from his offices, 140. 141. He attends James’s council, 321. Parker, Samuel; refusal of the Fellows of Magdalene College to elect him as their President on James’s recommendation, 116. His installation as president, 124. His last publication, and death, 127. Papists. See Roman Catholics. Parliament; prorogation of, in 1687, 44. (See also. Vol. II.) Its dissolution, 99. Parties; state of^ on James II.’s abdication, 398. See Tories; Whigs. Pechell, John, Vicechancellor of Cambridge University; summoned before the High Commission Court, 105. 107. His ejection from his office, 108. Pemberton; retained for the Bishops, 190. His altercations with the Crown counsel, 192. 193. Pembroke, Earl of, 146. Penn, William; bis close connection with Stephen Lobb at court, 56. He endeavours to reconcile William Kiffin with James II.,61. His journey to the Hague, and exhortations to William, 64. 65. His misgiving as to James’s course, and proposal of various equivalents, 70.71. His discourse at Chester on James’s visit, 119. Failure of his attempted mediation with the Fellows of Magdalene College, 121—123. Perth, James Drummond, Earl of, Chancellor of Scotland; his position on William’s accession, 395. 396. He takes refuge at bis country seat, 396. Attempts to leave Scotland, is detected and imprisoned, 397. Peterborough, Henry Earl of; converted to Romanism, 31. Failure 462 INDEX TO of his plan to subvert Protestantism, 148. His action against Williams, 161. Petre, Edward, Viceprovincial of the Jesuits; bis suggestion of closeting to James, 43. Hi9 hatred of Father Mansuete, 54. Is sworn of the Privy Council, 139. Pollexfen, 190.191. Pope. See Innocent. Popham. Sec Charterhouse. Porlman, Sir William, 308. Powell, Sir John, 79. His conduct on the trial of the Bishops, 189. 197. His dismissal, 229. Powis, Thomas; his report of the effect of the Bishops’ acquittal, 201 . —, William Herbert, Earl of (a Catholic peer); assists in the Queen's flight, 345. Attack made on his bouse, 356. Powle, Henry; presides at a meeting of the Commoners, 385. He is chosen Speaker of the Convention, 410. He attends William on his acceptance of the crown, 441. Presbyterianism. See Nonconformists. Preston; his failure to carry out James’s plans forsubvertingProtestantism, 148. Pretender, the. See Stuart, Charles Edward. Prior, Matthew, 37. See Montague, Charles. Puritans. See Nonconformists. Quakers. See Nonconformists. Regulators, Board of; its constitution and objects, 139. Reresby, Sir John, 310. Revolution, the English. Its character, 442. et seq. Right, Declaration of, 438. Rochester, Bishop of. See Sprat. —, Lawrence Hyde, Earl of, Lord Treasurer; be attempts to enforce James's illegal plans, 148. He prepares a petition for a parliament, 306. Defends the petition, ib. Declares for William, 348. —, John Wilmot, Earl of; converted from atheism by Burnet, 15. Roman Catholics; denial to the Dissenters of immunities granted to them, 37. Toleration allowed to them in Scotland, 42. Opinion or William and Mary on the impolicy of James’s indulgences, and vindication of their opinions, 06—71. Their appointment as sheriffs, 151. Attack on their chapels and bouses in London, 352. Roman Catholic country gentlemen; their character, tastes and habits, in the 17th century, 151. 152. 153. 155. Ronquillo, Spanish ambassador; his property destroyed by the mob, 353. 354. Rosewell, Thomas, a Nonconformist; supports James in his conflict with the Church, 55. 56. Russell, Edward: his character; rupture with the Court, and position in Dykvelt’s councils, 81. 82. Proposes to the Prince of Orange a descent on England, 216. Joins him at Exeter, 300. —, William Lord, 15. Rutland, Earl of, 146. 312. Sacheverell, William, 408. Saint Victor; assists in the flight of the Queen and her son, 344. 345. Salisbury, James Cecil, Earl of; his conversion to Romanism, 31. True bill found against him, 328. Sancroft, William, Archbishop of Canterbury; meeting of the pre- 463 THE THIRD VOLUME. lates at his palace, 166. Is summoned before the Privy Council, 115.176. His pastoral letter after his acquittal, 206. Has an audience with James, 210 . His suggestions, 271. He disavows the invitation to William, 282. His conversation with James, 295. 296. Heads the Peers with a petition fora parliament, 306. Heads the Royalists, 381. His plan for a regency, 402. Specimen of his composition, 403. note. Sarsficld; his encounter with William’s troops, 313. Sawyer, Attorney General to James II.; his dismissal from office, 160. Defends the Bishops on their trial, 193. His question concerning William’s power, 385. Scarsdale, Earl of, 146. Schomberg, Frederic Count of; his character, services to Lewis XIV., and appointment as William’s lieutenant, 263. Accompanies William, 292. Avoids fighting,312. Enters London, 375. Scotland; partial toleration granted in, 41. 42. Its proceedings on James’s abdication, 395. 396. 398. Scott, Sir Walter, 34. Seal, the Great; James’s anxiety concerning it, 326. Seymour, Sir Edward; joins William, 308. Organises William’s party, 309. Sharp, John; incurs the Commons’ displeasure, 422. Sheriffs; list of, nominated by James II., 151.152. Sherlock, William; his plan of government after the flight of James, 400. 401. Shower, Sir Bartholomew; appointed Recorder of London, 101. Assists in the prosecution of the Bishops, 190. Shrewsbury, Charles, Earl of; sketch of bis ancestors, 141. His father’s tragical end, ib. He abjures Romanism, refuses to enforce James’s illegal projects, and is dismissed, 142. 143. Is threatened with assassination, 145. Joins in inviting William to England, 218. Is selected to carry William’s message, 371.375. Sidney, Henry; his character, and connection with William of Orange, 216 . 2X7. 220 . 221 . His connection with Lady Sunderland, 253. 254. Skelton, Bevil; appointed Lieutenant of the Tower, 325. Dismissed, 349. Smith, Dr. Thomas; aspires to the presidentship of Magdalene College, 113. His conduct at the election, 115. His indecision before the Special Commissioners, 123. Escapes the apologies attempted to be forced from other Fellows, 125. Nicknamed Doctor Roguery in consequence of bis conduct in the disputes, ib. His expulsion from bis fellowship, 127. Somers, John (afterwards Lord Somers); bis arguments on the trial of the Seven Bishops, 196. ' His election to the Convention, 409. His arguments in the conference with the Lords, 433. 434. Is appointed chairman of the committee on the Declaration of Right, 438. Somerset, Charles Seymour, Duke of; refuses to join in the Nuncio’s procession; his dismissal from office, 98. His expulsion from his Lord Lieutenancy, 146. Spain. See Ronquillo. Speke, Hugh; he avows a forged proclamation, 329. His share in the Irish Night f 359. 464 INDEX TO Sprat, Thomas, Bishop of Rochester; reads the Declaration of Indulgence, 172. Resigns his seat in the High Commission Court, 331. Stafford, Lord, 15. Stamford, Thomas Grey, Earl of; joins William of Orange, 312. Stewart, James; correspondence with Fagel, 91. States General. See Holland. Stillingfleet; his controversial eminence, 35. Declares against the Indulgence, 1G6. Stuart, Charles Edward; his birth, 179. Popular belief in his supposititiousness, and grounds of excuse for the belief, 179—181. Proofs of his birth submitted to the Privy Council, 275. He is sent to Portsmouth, 307. Returns to Whitehall, 342. Is confided to Lauzun, 314. And embarks for France, 344.345. Sunderland, Robert Spencer, Earl of; his lord lieutenancy of Warwickshire, 150. Ills recommendation of concessions to the King, and uneasiness at the state of public feeling, 186. 187. His public espousal of Romanism, 188. His overtures to William, 251. Ilis income, 251.252. Ilis prospects, 252. 253. His wife communicates with Holland for him, 254. His disgrace, and ejection from office, 277. 278. Temple, Sir William; his eulogy on Bentinck, 11. Tewkesbury; failure of James’s plan for subverting the independence of its corporation, 157. Thanet, Earl of, 14G. Tindal, Matthew; his conversion to Romanism, and subsequent attacks on Christianity, 32. Titus, Silas; his defection from the Nonconformists, 230. 231. Attempts to obtain an audience with William, 370. Torbay; its appearance at the landing of William, 286. Its present slate, *6. Its memorial of William, 287. Tories; their position with reference to William Prince of Orange, 18 . They acknowledge him as their head, 27. 28. Attempts of James to cajole them, 43. Change in their opinions concerning the lawfulness of resistance, 208. Their position on James’s abdication, 399—404. Their strength in the Upper House, 421. They negative the Whig motion, 427. Are beaten in the Commons, 429. Treby, Sir George; advocates the cause of the Bishops, 191. His address to William 376. His arguments in the conference with the Lords, 434. Trelawney, Bishop, 1G7.1G8. His remonstrance to James, 169. Agitation in Cornwall pending bis trial, 186. He welcomes William’s troops in Bristol, 331. —, Colonel, 305. 313. Trinder, Serjeant, 190. Turner, Bishop of Ely, 166.169. Tyrconnel, Richard Talbot, Earl of; bis unfitness for his high office, 31. His hatred of Father Mansuete, 54. Ilis return to England,andreceplionby James, 119. His project for excluding the Princess Ma&y from the Irish crown, 132. Universities: their power at its height in the 17th century; eager competition of the aristocracy for the distinctions conferred by them; regal splendour of their THE THIRD VOLUME, 465 academical celebrations, 102. Their peculiar hold upon the feelings of their scholars, 103. Their exertions and sacriliceson behalf of the Stuarts, 104. See Cambridge; Oxford. United Provinces. See Holland. Versailles. Sec Lewis XIV. Walker, Obndiah, Master of University College, Oxford; popular dislike to him exhibited, 108. toy. His sneers at the conduct o( the Fellows of Magdalene College,125. Warner, the apostate; becomes confessor to James II., 54. Wesley, Samuel; preaches on the Declaration of Indulgence, 112. Wharton, Thomas; 240. 241. Joins William of Orange, 300. Supports the Whigs in the Convention, 412. —, Philip l.ord; notice of, 384. Whigs; effect of their proceedings upon the views of William, 18-25, They acknowledge him as their chief, 27. Their plan for settling the crown on James’s abdication, 40H. 407. Their schism with Dnn- by’s lollowers, 423. Their argument, 424.425. They are defeated in the Lords, 427. The Princess Anne acquiesces in their plans, 430. They achieve a victory, 434. 435. While. See Albeville. Wildman; joins the Prince of Orange, 204. Proposes to amend William’s Declaration, 207. William Henry, Prince of Orange Nassau, afterwards William 111.; bis personal appearance, 1. His early life and education, 2.3. His theological opinions,3.4. Ilismi- litarv qualifications^.0. His love of danger; his bad health, 0. 7. Coldness of his manners, and strength of his emotions; his Macaulay, History. Ill . friendship for Bcnlinck, 8—11. Ilis relations with his wife, the Princess Mary, 11. His anxieties as to his future position in England removed by Hurnet, 12 13. His intercourse with Hurnet, 10. Relations between him and English parties, IS. 10. His feelings towards England, 19. His feelings towards Holland and France, 19— 22. His policy consistent throughout. 24.20. Ilis share in the treaty of Augsburg, 27. Becomes the head of the English Opposition, 27.28. Mordaunl proposes to him a descent upon England, 29. He rejects the advice?,29 30. Hishos- lilily to the Declaration of Indulgence, 04. 05. His views respecting the English Roman Catholics vindicated, 06—71. His protection ofRurnet against James’s animosity, 73. Growing enmity between him and James, 89.90. Russell proposes to him a descent on England, 210. Invitation to him despatched, 221. His wife acquiesces in his views, 222. 223. Difficulties of his enterprise, 224 —227. His skilful management, 247. Hts military and naval preparations, 248. 249. He receives numerous assurances of support from England, 249. 250. His anxieties at the juncture, 252. He obtains the sanction of the Stales General to Ins expedition, 202. He chooses Schomberg for his lieutenant, 203. 204. His Declaration, 205—207. He takes leave of the Slates General, 278. 279. He embarks, and is driven back by a stonn , 279. Arrival of his Declaration in England, 280. He again sets sail, 283. Ilis voyage, 283. 281. He lands at Torbay, 285. 287, 288. He enters Exeter, 289—294. He is joined by men 30 - 466 INDEX TO THE THIRD VOLUME. of rank, 298. 300. 308. Cornbury deserts to him, 301. 302. His court at Exeter, 308. 309. Northern insurrection in his favour tinder Danby and Devonshire, 310. 311. Skirmish of his troops at Wincanlon, 312. 313. Commissioners appointed by James to treat with him, 332. Dissensions in his cainp, 333, Ilis conduct on the occasion, 334. His interview at llungerford with Ihc commissioners, 337. He retires to Litllecote Hall, ib. He prevents Burnet and Halifax from meeting, 338.339. His proposition for an armistice, 339. 340. Impediments to his progress to London, 359. 300. ilis embarrassment, and scheme for its removal, 306. 367. He despatches Zulestein to James, 3G8. 369. Ilis court at Windsor,370. Ilis troops occupy Whitehall, 371. His message to James, ib. He consents to James going to Rochester, 374. His arrival at St. James’s, 375. 376. He is advised to assume tho crown by right of conquest, 377. 378. He calls together the Lords and members of the parliaments ol Charles II., 379.380. He orders Darillon to leave England, 383. The Lords vole addresses to him, 383.384. He calls a Convention; his exertions to restore order, 385. 386. His tolerant policy, 386.387. Effect of his policy on Roman Catholic powers, 388. He receives congratulations from Holland, 393. His reply, 394. His care in reference to the elections, 394.395 Scotland declares for him, 395, 396. Scotch lords and gentlemen attend him at Whitehall; he agrees to their requests, 398. He expostulates with Lovelace, 428. He avoids an audience with Clarendon, 430. He explains his views to the Peers, 431. lie declares against a regency, and against Mary’s supremacy, 431. 432. He and Mary are declared King and Queen, 435. lie makes the Declaration of Right, 43S-440. Ilis letter to Mary, 441. He accepts the crown, 441. 442. He is proclaimed, 442. Williams, Sir William; Solicitor General, 161. 162. His conduct on the trial of the Bishops, 194. 197.200. Ilis baronetcy, 229. He attempts to obtain an audience with William, 370. He supports the Whigs in the Convention, 412. Wiltshire, Charles Paulet, Earl of, 264. 410. Wincanlon; skirmish at, 312. 313. Winchester; opposition of its inhabitants to James’s arbitrary plans, 158. Wilsen, Nicholas, 394. Wright, Sir Robert; appointed Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, 101. Ilis conduct'on the special commission to Magdalene College, 123. 124. Wycherley, William; converted to Romanism, 32. and note* Yarmouth, Earl of; his returns to James’s questions to the magistrates, 148. Zulestein; his embassy to England as envoy between William and the English Protestants, 88. He is sent io congratulate James on the birth of his son, 182. He carries William’s message to James, 368. His conversation with James, 369. END OF TIIE THIRD VOLUME. PRINTED BY BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.